Terra Mater

C’mere, you big beautiful planet!!

I had a thought this morning when I couldn’t get back to sleep after waking too early – about Mother Nature’s intentions for our home, planet earth. I think she’s programmed us all to “be fruitful and multiply”, i.e. for everything that grows, flora as well as fauna, to KEEP growing and REPRODUCE for the continuation of Life. I see this every morning in my backyard; the lemon tree enjoys monsoon rains, greening up more and more every day, while the mourning doves cuddle together in their nest, and spiders spin webs, geckos race across the side of the house… Mother Nature DIGS monsoon-time in a big way!

Fair enough.

And perhaps our patriarchal society conspires to compel that by attempting to control women and FORCE them to be mothers or at least baby incubators. I think this is the belief behind the recent SCOTUS decision to rescind Roe V. Wade and criminalize/outlaw choice. 

Whether this is rationalized as “a divine mandate from God” or anything else, the bottom line is that Mother Nature is calling the shots. She decrees: Human beings are supposed to make babies, period. Everything else is nonsense and poppycock.

In grammar school I’d learned how the parasitic embryo took whatever it needed from the mother’s body; calcium from her bones and teeth, every other nutrient from her glands, muscle, blood… basically laying waste to the “host” for its own survival. I knew very young that I didn’t want any part of that! That was just yucky. Yet, in younger years, in spite of my conscious desire to remain barren, my hormones kept telling me to have sex, to get pregnant. I knew from an early age that giving birth was not something I ever wanted to do. Aside from the financial and emotional considerations, abortion was illegal so I chose to take every precaution to avoid popping out any “Mini Me”s.

Viewed in a certain light, using birth control appears to be an affront to Mother Nature’s insistent edict, and getting a tubal ligation or vasectomy is the ultimate insult; the biggest, loudest way to say “NO!” that exists. Both procedures involve surgery – cutting into the body, which is pretty drastic.

It might be different if society actually liked women. If collectively we supported and honored mothers truly – not just paying lip service on Mother’s Day, but holding them consistently in high regard. If women were genuinely accepted as essential to humanity. If women weren’t treated as 2nd-class, but true equals, with their own unquestioned autonomy universally respected and cherished.

It might be different if we treated Mother Earth with respect, instead of laying waste to her ecology, drilling for oil and mining for minerals; despoiling the landscape and the air and the water; polluting the food chain, creating toxic chemicals, climate changes… for what? So a few rich folks can get richer?

42 years ago I staged my own little “sit-in” with my lady parts. I’m still chewing on this, aware that I’m at odds with Mother Nature and disjunct in a way inside my own body = disembodied by my choice. The way I see it now is the same as how I saw it then; it was my only chance at survival.

Rabbis, Gurus & Mentors, Oh My!

Papa liked to play the ponies!

In the late 1980s my dad had a friend he called “the rabbi” – a man at the track who provided counsel on which horse to bet on and why. And Maharishi Mahesh Yogi inspired a generation to embrace Transcendental Meditation when the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and many others joined him in India 20 years earlier. While John Lennon later claimed that the Giggling Guru was a fraud, the impulse to Follow The Leader seems to be hardwired into human beings.

Giggling Guru & The Beatles

Anyone who visits my website meets my mentor Hale Smith; I could say that “he made me who I am today”, and while that’s not entirely accurate, he certainly had a profound influence for which I’m eternally grateful. 12-Step groups tell newcomers, “find someone who has what you want and ask how they got it” – and when I saw the career Hale had built for himself, I was in his face, demanding as much of his time and attention as I could get! Fortunately he had boundaries (and plenty of other students!), but I could see that Hale was the best, so being “like Mike” was my top priority!

I invested a lot in my relationship with Hale, but I didn’t feel entitled to his help and I never held him responsible when there were disappointments. I also didn’t go so far as to take up his habit of cigar smoking!

Which brings me to today’s subject: whose job is it to ensure employees are fulfilled in their jobs? When I read this article in today’s news, I started to wonder!?!

Former White House staff: Symone Sanders, Ashley Etienne, Tina Flournoy, Peter Velz, Jen Psaki, Cedric Richmond, Vincent Evans

As a rule, I’m not a fan of essentially-one-chord songs, so I didn’t pay much attention to THIS one when it first came out. But it came to mind when learning of staff leaving the White House in droves because “we’re doing a lot of work but we’re not decision-makers and there’s no real path towards becoming decision-makers”. Ummm…. excuse my ignorance, but since when did it become management’s job to provide advancement?

The Declaration of Independence promises “the pursuit of Happiness” – but no guarantees! In truth, none of us are actually entitled to much of anything and the sooner we learn that, the better. Like so much else in life, career progress is self-propelled. It has to be a priority to the extent that one keeps working at getting around, over, under and through every obstacle. In my experience this takes energy, focus and steely determination.

To paraphrase John Houseman’s iconic ad for Smith Barney, “Happiness doesn’t grow on trees or march up and bite you on the behind… you have to EARN it!”

The April Of Dimes

As a Baby Boomer kid, I remember The March Of Dimes https://www.marchofdimes.org as my first exposure to charities. I was handed a collection card at school, and expected to fill it by begging dimes from my parents and their friends, or even (gasp!) contributing my own meager allowance! Even during the Great Depression, every “buddy” was expected to at least have a DIME to spare, right? https://youtu.be/nLZTdhY1GVE

The thing is, I’ve always had a thing about money. While I didn’t think our family was “poor”, I knew that we didn’t have a lot of “extra” – certainly not enough to go splashing money willy-nilly into other people’s hands. And by the late 1950s, most kids my age had been vaccinated and polio was no longer the scourge it had been when the March Of Dimes charity was started by FDR in 1938. Ella Fitzgerald, Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe and even Elvis still made appearances in support, but they had a LOT more dimes than I did! – and besides, I had better things to do with MY dimes, like saving for a piano! https://marilyn801.wordpress.com/2019/05/30/i-love-a-piano/

I don’t like to think of myself as stingy. I’ve donated blood. I donate books to the library and assorted items to Goodwill. I volunteer my time and energy to worthy causes. However, my reticence to make hard cold cash contributions has persisted my entire life, and even increased in recent years; for one thing, I’ve noticed malfeasance on the part of some charities and seen various “Matildas” take-the-money-and-run-Venezuela. For another, I’ve become aware of ulterior motives creeping into and polluting original causes; internet scams, email entreaties, GoFund Me campaigns and even mainstream media reporting on the horrors of war all muddy the waters of what constitutes giving. When gifts-in-kind aren’t accepted, but only MONEY welcomed… well, that raises a red flag for me about the nature of the actual charity.

easy for YOU to say, my billionaire buddy!

And I abhor being shamed. That just doesn’t work for me. I think being bullied into making a contribution is appalling and the opposite of sincere generosity.

So what exactly IS our responsibility? I like the idea that charity is kindness and compassion – both qualities that have a lot more to do with maintaining a state of heart and mind than making financial donations. My responsibility comes down to owning my own actions – or inactions. There are so many ways to delude and blame others for our lives – so many ways to be distracted and irresponsible. Being honest with myself and the world is the most charitable thing I can do.

and what I need for and from myself