My mind is blown

I am not the type to read self-help books.  I never read any books on child-rearing…and I’m not saying that is a good thing!  I just have this stubborn, arrogant personality and I guess I think I really can just dive in and figure it out.  A lot of times I can.  I think I had most of the tools for parenting handed down from my mother, who was great.  But I could have really used some basic skills in organization and scheduling… Anyway, I’m rambling.  I decided that I was going to homeschool.  I knew why it was important to me, I knew that it had certain advantages for my children but I just sort of threw myself into headlong without a clear idea of how I was going to do it or what my goals were.  I am not a trained teacher, but I know what I want my kids to learn and I know I didn’t learn the things I wish I did in school… so basically I’ve spent a good chunk of money on books and work-books and kits with a little bit of success.  But until this morning, early at 2am I didn’t REALLY know what I was doing.  Now I have a map!

I started reading The Well Trained Mind, finally.  Plenty of people have told me to read it.  But I’m such an idiot that I rarely read things people tell me to read, just because I figure if something was that important I’d find it on my own.  I have issues.  Anyway, this book absolutely blew my mind.  It is exactly what I was looking for.  I learned that I was doing a bunch of things right.  But I also learned that I’ve been doing a lot of things wrong.  Most importantly, it told me exactly which books to buy and how much time to spend each day, and the order of importance each concept is to get my children to learn exactly what I want them to know.  Grammer.  There is a reason they used to call it Grammer school.  It used to be the place where people got the building blocks of all learning.  I highly reccomend reading this book, its absolutely brilliant.

The Well-Trained Mind (A Guide to Classical Education at Home) by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer.

Medusa

So, I’m a little obsessed with ancient Greek myths at the moment.  I don’t know what about it excites me so much.  I remember thinking how boring the Illiad was in high school, maybe it just takes some perspective to really understand it.  I think I’m there, right now.  The point of perspective.  And I’m tired.

I am so tired of the psychotic predictability of women.  I’m tired of bearing the brunt of female volatility.  Its bizarre the way we love to tear each other down, to play the game or whatever it is we’re doing.  Even with good intentions, you can’t escape the ugliness.  So right now I’m really digging Medusa.  She’s not unlike my favorite Hindu diety, Kali.  They are very similar actually.  They are represented with the same powerful mien.  Flashing angry eyes, mouth wide open, sometimes with the tonge lolling all the way out.

I have a lot of sympathy for Medusa actually.  She’s a monster that was created and distorted, and I think very misunderstood.  I know she’s not a real person.  I’m just embracing the ideas here.  Medusa was a young, beautiful maid whose crowning feature was her beautiful flowing blond hair.  As she worshiped in the temple of Athena, she was raped by Poseidon, the God of the sea.  Athena was so offended that her temple was defiled, that she turned Medusa’s beautiful hair into a mass of serpents and distorted her face so that the sight of it would turn anyone to stone.

I don’t know if we are supposed to feel sympathy for Medusa or not, but I see Athena’s punishment of her as an ancient reflection of the way women work.  As a woman, its much easier to take down a woman than a man.  We know where we’re vulnerable.  We know how to subtly get in for the kill.  We know what is important to each other.  And we can’t stand to see (another woman) have something, learn something or accomplish something that we haven’t.  That is a pretty jaded thing to say and think.  But I think it holds true for the most part.  There will always be a few golden treasures, true friends.  And I am privileged to have a few of those.  But I am so tired of the way women usually tear each other down.  Its subtle, and always with “the best of intentions”.

I see the tragedy of Medusa, that she was horribly disfigured, and that that disfigurement continued to be a weapon after she was killed as indication of the potency of women’s powers for ill.

The repercussions of this are further reaching than we can imagine.

Medusa

Promethius’ Chains

A glut of consuming fire has engulfed all of us.
Instead of producing, we consume and consume
Until the blistering rivulets of engorged excess
have strangled and burned our insides.

So pinched and perplexed are we
That there could ever be a consequence to holding a flame.

The fantasy ends abrupt.
The chains are malignant with peculiar force.
The dreamworld is cracked wide open
and a fury of ugliness rushes in.

Wings peeled, eyes ignited
It tears our flesh, ripping lacy networks,
devouring our thick shining internal parts
Leaving us empty until they regenerate anew.
Over and over again.

How systematically our pride is dashed,
Pulverized into a million shiny bits.

We take shameful comfort watching the eagles’
wings beat down on top of strangers.
Strange comfort in destruction.
Humiliation
Emptiness.

It takes our minds off of the agony of immortality.

Bloodless Troy (Menelaus drops his sword)

Bereft of travail, I dripped out so gelid, so winged.
Naked.
I entered you through your cold hollow gaps
Your cold soul, so empty.

In palaestra, I stood, shoulders glistening
I fought you.
Achilles straining, you succumbed.
Alongside my brothers, I hunted.

I fell in and out of love, like a child.
I slipped in and out of life, like a dream.
And so did you.

Sword raised and fierce, in livid elation
your crippled lily gaze beseeched me.
My robe slipped from my shoulder and you knew…
You were no match for me.
With a metallic thud, you dropped your sword.

Was it love?
Was it injury?
How could we ever know?

I was never yours.

Cancer

Your veins sing so softly
a whisper your lips deny
cradled in your bones,
deep down to the marrow,
you know.

All the secrets you keep there
are furious with the need
to be spoken.

Slowly, carefully, they stealthily plot against you
One rogue cell divides,
and divides again.

Happily, a cancer grows
drawing blood and food
to feed itself.

Eventually it finds the surface
as your equal.
Your mortal enemy.
Before you are ready, its a duel.

A fight to the death.

Winner
takes
all.

Idling

I hate the gaudy smell of perfection
It stares me right in the face
knowing I won’t make eye contact
the thought makes me itch and fret.

I’ve gone down, chased down that path
grasping, coming so close to the mirage.
Failure is like a bruise,
an injury that can’t reach the surface.
It just settles there under the skin
Swollen, sore and ugly.

I hate the gaudy smell of perfection
I make myself worthless in its shadow…
muddling around in passionate shame.
If I could just exist here, where would I go,
what would I be?

I hate the brooding illusiveness of my intentions.
The picture is always clearer in my mind.
It loses potency in my hands, in my mouth,
in my eyes.
I’m abandoned and torn by my intentions.
The thick and fertile turns to dust.

Summer is ending

Summer is almost over.  The end to lazy days is near.  I’ve had blogshame for weeks, but I just couldn’t muster the energy to write anything.  Here is a run-down of the happenings of late:

Hannah is a bit of a nudist.  She keeps taking off her diaper whenever she gets tired of it.  I thought this was a sign that she wanted to potty train.  It went well the first week.  But then I realized that I’m the one who is potty trained.  I have to ask her every few minutes if she needs to go.  When the mood strikes her she will.  Its not actually more convenient to have a <2 year old “potty trained”.

Asher has joined the ranks of cub scouts.  He is adorable in his little cub scout uniform.  Last week we went to the firehouse and the firefighters let the cubs climb their ladder truck.  Asher did not want to do it.  He waited until the last minute and then changed his mind.  I was so proud of him.  The next day I was bragging to BJay that Asher overcame his fear and climbed the ladder.  Asher then informed me that he did it because one of the other cub scouts called him a scaredy cat.  Great.

Hila is getting very tall.  And very insightful.  She is also the peacemaker of the family.  Asher got in trouble the other evening and lost his brownie privileges.  I later found out that Hila halved hers and gave it to Asher in secret.  She also helped Gabe get his room cleaned so that he would be able to go to the store with me.  Is she a peacemaker or an underminer?  I should call her little-mommy because she sort of deals out her own justice anyway…

Gabe is exceedingly cute.  I do my best not to let his adorable-ness affect me but its impossible.  As a result, I think he is learning to set boundries.  He is constantly telling me, “Mom, I love you but I don’t want to hug you right now.”  or “Mom, I love you, but I don’t have time to clean my room.”  Who can argue with that?

BJay has decided that he really wants to teach school.  And I have finally seen the wisdom in supporting this decision.  I made him apply for a job in Danville, VA that would have been perfect for him.  A Physics teacher in a great magnet HS.  He would have taught Physics, Aerodynamics, and coached the robotics club.  When he got the job I had to convince him not to take it.  It was really hard, but the logistics didn’t work out.  For one thing, Danville wasn’t as great as I had made it out to be in my head.  It was downright depressing actually.  Very depressed area.  And the other limiting factor was owning our house.  BJay would have to commute.  It just didn’t add up, in the end.  We couldn’t make it work.  But, I feel confident that he will have no problem finding a job teaching science.

I am getting ready to home school the kids this year.  I’m really excited about it and I have lots of fun things planned already.  I hope they cooperate.

Ceremony of innocence

For no particular reason, I just felt like my (late) 4th of July post should include William Butler Yeats Poem, The Second Coming:

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

It is easy to understand why this is one of the most anthologized poems in the English Language.  I just revisited this after reading a short story that quoted the line “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned”  I don’t know that I ever really appreciated the power of that phrase.  I don’t mean to harp on Iran, but I have never seen something like a revolution unfold.  And its facinating to me how social networking tools on the internet have brought the revolution to my family room.  I watched a clip of the moment a woman died.  It didn’t show the fatal injury happening, just the woman lying on the street and you saw the moment her eyes went from living to dead.  Dying is one of the most sacred moments, so out of respect I don’t want to link that video.  But I felt so privilaged to see that, and I understood I think more after seeing it the trauma in the words of Yeats in the aftermath of WWI, how it could easily feel that a blood-dimmed tide was drowning the ceremony of innocence.  I love writing that gets me to feel emotions, even if they are dark ones.  Especially if those dark emotions give me a glimpse of what it is to be caught up in the historical momentum of the “widening gyre” of freedom, peace, apathy, war, freedom.  Why doesn’t the center ever hold?  And why is it that war is always so awful, we assume it must be signaling the second coming?

I remember so many years ago when the first Iraq war broke out hearing people talk about the inevitability of the Second Coming.  And look what else has happened since then.  Men have shot at innocent women and children trying to get food.  People flew airplanes full of innocent men women and children into the world trade center.  A war is being conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan that doesn’t seem to have an end in sight.  The financial structure of this country is co lapsing on itself.  Things can get a lot worse.  There are many more ways for the ceremony of innocence to drown…

So I guess the point of bringing all this up is that… its been almost 100 years since Yeats wrote that poem.  I probably don’t understand it, but it feels like someone in shock from a horror to me.  But I think that innocence is reborn every day.  It has not been one long show of bloodshed and dispair for 100 years.  And yet, I think every era in-between can relate to this poem.  So I guess the beauty of it is that we can come back from the horror of seeing death come over innocense.  We can come out every July 4th and watch the wonder in our children’s eyes as they watch the colorful lights flash in the firework displays.  There is something that makes this all worth it.  There is something that makes us all keep going.  And there must be something that makes a soldier keep on fighting.  People keep signing up for it every day.  Not just the military, but parenthood.  Marriage.  Building famlies.  All these things that push humanity forward.  When I think about th 4th of July, I think about the contrast of overcoming horror and the beauty of rebirth.  The idea that things could get a lot worse does not thrill me.  But I’m not going to allow myself to be horrified either.  Every night brings the dawn.  If things get worse, than at some point the rising of the Son will be all the brighter.

Happy Belated July 4th, to everyone who appreciates freedom.

I believe that the freedom is a gift from the Almighty

In the third presidential debate with John Kerry, President Bush said the words “I believe that freedom is a gift from the Almighty” and I got chills.  I think it was one of the most powerful things President Bush ever said.  And he said it with authority.  Lately all things political annoy me too much to try to care about.  I’m just keeping my head down because I thought maybe it doesn’t really matter in the end.  But then I started reading about the protests in Iran and I remembered why it matters.  Freedom is a gift from the Almighty.  And people have always recognized that.  People have always fought for freedom and died for freedom.  Why is that?  What makes freedom so important to people across all religious and political lines?

In case you are hiding under a rock, the jist of the Iranian conflict is: An election was held and last Friday President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected, a lot of Iranians are crying fowl.  From the Los Angeles Times

Days after Khamenei blessed the election of Ahmadinejad and urged Iranians to rally behind the president, the spokesman of the Guardian Council urged Mousavi’s supporters to wait for the “final results” of Friday’s election until after the fraud investigation, which will begin today.

For some reason the people of Iran have lost faith in the political process, for some reason, a lot of Iranians do not believe that a rigged election can be fixed through any kind of “fraud investigation”.  Hmm.  So, despite being threatened with beatings or worse a million people took to the streets (from the same article)

Monday’s crowd — estimates of which ranged to more than 1 million — defied Interior Ministry warnings broadcast on state television and radio that anyone showing up would be beaten or worse, and even ignored Mousavi’s last-minute call to cancel the event.

The protesters found out about the rally despite a media clampdown that brought the shuttering of numerous opposition websites, including those linked to Mousavi, the jamming of satellite news channels and the shutdown of text messaging systems.

In an attempt to help keep information flowing, a Twitter co-founder wrote in a blog Monday that the company had delayed an important maintenance operation.

Yeah, seems to me that if a government is threatening violence to its own people for speaking out–they probably aren’t going to take a fraud investigation very seriously.  So all kinds of people came out.  They came out to Azadi [Freedom] Square.  To quote some of the folks quoted in the LAT article,

“I am fed up with the rigging of votes,” said Nargess Hassanpour, a 24-year-old architect. “I had never voted until last Friday. I am here and I march toward Azadi [Freedom] Square as far as I can reach, and let come what may.”

and

“If I died today it would be perfect,” said Hossein, a 60-year-old retired schoolteacher in the crowd who didn’t want to be further identified. “The nation of Iran has woken up.”

and (this is a chant, not a direct quote, but still)

As night fell, people ascended to their rooftops and chanted “God is Great!” in what is becoming a nightly ritual of protest against Ahmadinejad’s reelection.

And this is what it looks like:

I don’t know why freedom and blood go hand in hand.  I guess it is because our blood is the most precious commodity we have.  Exchanging blood for the concept of freedom, of a free election, of personal freedom is the most powerful way to say that freedom is indeed a gift from God.  And anyone who tries to come between that gift and people who recongize its worth will eventually be defeated.  I believe that.  There is a lot of evil in this world.  And for the purpose of this article I’m defining evil as any power that seeks to take away liberty.  It happens all over the world in many different ways.  I have no doubt that eventually freedom will prevail.  Until then I will always be inspired by those who stand up and give everything they have to make it happen.