Author's posts
Jan 24 2008
Muse in the Morning
 Muse in the Morning |
The muses are ancient. The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them. Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward. In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.
It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse. Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets. Others have been suggested throughout the centuries. I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts. And maybe there should be many more.
Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…
Jan 23 2008
Muse in the Morning
| Muse in the Morning |
The muses are ancient. The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them. Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward. In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.
It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse. Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets. Others have been suggested throughout the centuries. I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts. And maybe there should be many more.
Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…
Jan 22 2008
Muse in the Morning
| Muse in the Morning |
The muses are ancient. The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them. Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward. In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.
It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse. Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets. Others have been suggested throughout the centuries. I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts. And maybe there should be many more.
Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…
Jan 21 2008
Revisiting the Mountaintop
I am an activist for my people. I perform my activism with my words, which is the tool I have at hand. Sometimes I am repetitive. I am a teacher. Some lessons are hard. That’s a clue to the fact that they are important. Important lessons need to be taught, time and again, using different words, approaching the issue from different points of view. That’s what I do. Some of you claim that I do it “ad nauseam”.
Many of you know me as the transsexual woman (or whatever you call me…I’m sure that it is not favorable in many instances). Some of you know me as a poet. Some of you see the teacher in me. Or the glbt activist and PFLAG parent. I am all of these. I am a human being.
I was born in a place and time. I have absorbed the life lessons presented to me since then. I am still learning.
I’ve tried to pass on what I have learned. I continue to make that effort, in whatever new venues are available, wherever I can find an opened eye or ear.
“This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
“Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring-when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children-black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics-will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
–I Have a Dream
–August 28, 1963
Jan 21 2008
Muse in the Morning
| Muse in the Morning |
The muses are ancient. The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them. Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward. In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.
It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse. Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets. Others have been suggested throughout the centuries. I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts. And maybe there should be many more.
Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…
Jan 19 2008
Challenges
Thursday was first day of classes, Day #2. School actually started on Wednesday, but of course we only met the students and teachers in our classes that meet on Wednesdays.
So I walked into my morning class…Computer Literacy at 10 am…and watched as my students slowly arrived, making myself useful by passing our syllabi.
I was not expecting anything out of the ordinary…such as, for example, all the students to show up on that first day of class. I was hoping for something bigger than 50%. In fact, ever single student registered for the class was in class and seated by 10:05.
The students helped me up from where I had fainted from surprise (no, not really). Then one of them called me over to her computer station and informed me of a problem. “I am visually impaired,” she said. “So am I,” I said. “What can I do to help?”
Jan 19 2008
Challenges
Thursday was first day of classes, Day #2. School actually started on Wednesday, but of course we only met the students and teachers in our classes that meet on Wednesdays.
So I walked into my morning class…Computer Literacy at 10 am…and watched as my students slowly arrived, making myself useful by passing our syllabi.
I was not expecting anything out of the ordinary…such as, for example, all the students to show up on that first day of class. I was hoping for something bigger than 50%. In fact, ever single student registered for the class was in class and seated by 10:05.
The students helped me up from where I had fainted from surprise (no, not really). Then one of them called me over to her computer station and informed me of a problem. “I am visually impaired,” she said. “So am I,” I said. “What can I do to help?”
Jan 19 2008
Friday Philosophy: Hopes and Expectations
Lately there have been a lot of people pissed of at Bill Clinton for one reason or another. Some think they have good reason. Some think attacking Bill Clinton is good politics. I have a hard time believing that most people really believe what they are saying. Not deep down. At least I hope not.
But people have different experiences than I have had…and many are much younger than me…and hardly anyone else here lived in Arkansas when I did…and most of those probably didn’t meet Bill and/or Hillary as many times as I did…and I’m completely certain that none of the people who did those other things began gender reassignment during the Clinton campaign in 1992.
My vision of the era is tinted by the fact that I came out to the world, beginning my transition in September of 1992, precisely because I persuaded myself that Bill Clinton was going to win the election, that Bill and Hillary were going to be in the White House and I could do so with a lessened fear of being fired from my job, thrown out of my house and/or murdered.
Of course, I lived in Arkansas so I had a different viewpoint than a lot of folks…people who were not standing in the freezing rain at the Capitol Building in Little Rock singing along to “Yesterday’s Gone” and crying in joy about newfound freedom to be oneself. I made one of my first public appearances as the new me as one of the crowd on election night.
Bill Clinton was the Barack Obama/John Edwards of that instant in time. He was hope for a better future. He was…and is…a hero to many people.
Jan 18 2008
Muse in the Morning
| Muse in the Morning |
The muses are ancient. The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them. Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward. In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.
It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse. Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets. Others have been suggested throughout the centuries. I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts. And maybe there should be many more.
Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…
Jan 17 2008
Muse in the Morning
| Muse in the Morning |
The muses are ancient. The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them. Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward. In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.
It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse. Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets. Others have been suggested throughout the centuries. I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts. And maybe there should be many more.
Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…
Jan 16 2008
Muse in the Morning
| Muse in the Morning |
The muses are ancient. The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them. Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward. In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.
It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse. Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets. Others have been suggested throughout the centuries. I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts. And maybe there should be many more.
Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…
Jan 15 2008
Muse in the Morning
| Muse in the Morning |
The muses are ancient. The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them. Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward. In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.
It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse. Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets. Others have been suggested throughout the centuries. I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts. And maybe there should be many more.
Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…