i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
wich is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

– e.e. cummings

This Da’Vinci sketch goes with the last post. I tried to get this up for the last post but had technical difficulties. This is a sketch of the land around where he grew up (Vinci, Italy). This could be the setting for the dark cave he peered into.I’ve been thinking more about how that quote from the last post resonates with me. I’m on an eternal quest for truth. In the dark cave, there is truth. There is much truth that is unrevealed to me. Do I want to go in that dark cave and see what’s there?! It’s so intriguing–I must know! But I’m scared. I don’t know what waits for me in there. Will it ruin me?

“Having wandered for some distance among the overhanging rocks, I came to the mouth of a huge cavern before which for a time I remained stupefied…my back bent to an arch, my left hand clutching my knee, while with the right I shaded my eyes; and I bent first one way and then another in order to see whether I could make out anything inside, though this was almost impossible because of the intense darkness within. And after remaining there for a time, suddenly there were awakened in me two emotions, fear and desire: fear of the dark, threatening cavern, and desire to see whether there might be any marvelous thing in it.”–Leonardo Da’Vinci

I acquired this quote in high school from a really marvelous old biography of Da’Vinci. This quote was very significant to me because it so well described feelings that maybe I’d had before: Apprehension of the unknown and longing to know and experience.

 I was in a meeting. A certain woman was talking. I wanted to roll my eyes.

I found myself imagining her shoes were made of fruit roll-ups and I was eating them off her feet.

I am so happy about how President Obama is so interactive with the American people. It’s so different from the way the other presidents were (to my knowledge), but so right. From inaugural events to volunteer days, he’s been trying to get every citizen involved.

The day before he was inaugurated, he asked that we volunteer in our communities. Through his network, volunteer sites were set up. You could go on to his website and find an opportunity to volunteer. This idea of every citizen doing their part and going the extra mile is key to the success of his presidency (and success of our country). I feel like this presidency isn’t just about him. He won’t be able to accomplish much without us.

Writing of rage in my last post reminded me of my last violent outburst–breaking a broom stick–and what caused me to do it, and how that relates to my current career progress.

Last spring I was taking Spanish and a Latino studies class at a university. It felt so good to be furthering my education in a university atmosphere. My former college experience was at a tiny Bible college . One of my hopes for learning Spanish was to become a Spanish/English interpreter.

At the time I was cashiering at a casual dinning restaurant. Working at this restaurant was a detour along my career path. It was due to being burnt out, and having disabling problems with anxiety. I finally got well enough to be ready to do something more in line with my career goals and earn more money. I really didn’t know what to do though. I wanted a job where I could practice Spanish, and I wanted to work for a non-profit. I wanted someone to help me know what to do. I wanted guidance.

So, I made an appointment with a career counselor at the career center at my school.

I told the counselor that I wanted to eventually become an interpreter. He told me that to be interpreter I pretty much had to grow up being bilingual. He said some other discouraging things like when I told him I was majoring in Spanish he said that the higher level Spanish classes take the fun out of Spanish for most people because you have to dissect the language so much. He also said I probably wouldn’t like linguistics. I said, “Actually, I think I would like that.”

He sent me home with some websites to look at for finding employment.

I don’t remember how I felt immediately after the meeting, but I do remember being in my kitchen and home, and snapping. feeling so bogged down with discouragement, and so far away from what I wanted to do. I grabbed that broom, and banged the snot out of it on my back patio. Leaving it a beheaded and bent broom stick.

haha, I wonder if any of my neighbors saw.

It wasn’t too much longer, after more Spanish class, and a call center job, that I got my first job as a Spanish/English interpreter. Because a good friend encouraged me to go to a school district and talk to the person who hires interpreters, I went. She tested me and she said that I could interpret for parent-teacher conferences. I wasn’t good enough to do more serious meetings, but that didn’t get me down. I was flying, just to know that I could interpret at all!

And to think, I almost let the career counselor stop me from trying.

The two princesses pictured above (Sen and Nausicaa) are from two great movies by Hayo Miyazaki, a renown Japanese anime film maker.

I saw Princess Mononoke, a few years ago for the first time. It’s about a demon of rage that is possessing animals and people.  Ashitaka, A young warrior who rides a Gazelle, is tracking this demon and on his journey comes in contact with Sen, or Mononoke Hime, Princess of the Wolves. She lives in the forest, and lives in peace with giant wolves. A nearby village wants to kill her and her wolves because they are protecting the forest which they want to use for its resources. Ashitaka tries to make peace between the two groups. He can see that Sen and the woman who is the leader of the village are inhabited by rage as they fight each other. Sen is as wild as the wolves she rides.

Nausicaa:Valley of the Wind is set in a resourceful and peaceful village in a post-apocolyptic earth that had been ravaged a thousand years ago by fire gods. The king’s daughter, Nausica, often rides her glider into the toxic jungle, wearing a mask, to explore the land and search for resources. She is incredibly brave and risks her life to save others. In the end she gives her life for her people and is reserected. Her tactics against the enemy are peaceful. 

I look up to both of these princesses for their bravery and toughness, and harmony with nature. I enjoyed the movie, Nausica, more than Princess Mononoke. It struck me how much different Nausica was than Sen. Sen is wild and full of rage, and Nausica, only at her weakest point in the movie, tries to strike someone in anger.

It made me think about how I have changed and am changing. I have come out of stage of rage. When I saw the movie, Princess Mononoke, in college, I wanted her spirit to be in me. I wanted to look like a warrior. I wanted strike back, and show my fierceness. I developed extreme and toxic emotions and thoughts.

I made changes in my life, and worked through things, rested, and controlled my thoughts. My husband’s peaceful way of looking at things started to penetrate my spirit (like Ashitaka). I now want to be like Nausicaa. Nausicaa, who cares for the earth, plays with children, calms rage, mediates, and sacrifices for others. She is the one who I hope I can someday be like.

“At least twice a year, do not millions upon millions of us cybernetic Christians and fax machine Jews participate in a ritual, a highly stylized ceremony that takes place around a large dead bird?
And is not this animal sacrificed, as in days of yore, to catch the attention of a divine spirit, to show gratitude for blessings bestowed, and to petition for blessings coveted?
The turkey, slain, slowly cooked over our gas or electric fires, is the central figure at our holy feast. It is the totem animal that brings our tribe together.
And because it is an awkward, intractable creature, serving of it establishes and reinforces the tribal hierarchy. There are but two legs, two wings, a certain amount of white meat, a given quantity of dark. Who gets which piece; who, in fact, slices the bird and distributes its limbs and organs underscores quite emphatically the rank of each member in the gathering.
Consider that the legs of this bird are called “drumsticks,” after the ritual objects employed to extract the music from the most aboriginal and sacred of instruments. Our ancestors kept their drums in public, but the sticks, being more actively magical, usually were stored in places known only to the shaman, the medicine man, the high pries, or the Wise Old Woman. The wing of the fowl gives symbolic flight to the soul, but with the drumstick is evoked the beat of the pulse of the heart of the universe.
Few of us nowadays participate in the actual hunting and killing of the turkey, but almost all of us watch, frequently with deep emotion, the reenactment of those events. We watch it on TV sets immediately before the communal meal. For what are footballs if not metaphorical turkeys, flying up and down a meadow? And what is a tochdown if not a kill, achieved by one or the other of two opposing tribes? To our applause, great young hunters from Alabama or Notre Dame slay the bird. Then, the Wise Old Woman, in the guise of Grandma, calls us to table, where we, pretending to be no longer primitive, systematically rip the bird asunder.”

From Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins pgs. 19-20

I was excited for the first Day of the Dead procession in Portland on Alberta Street. I was hoping for a carnival atmosphere. It turned out to be pretty carnival like.It took place last night, which was also the Alberta Street Art Walk that takes place every last Thursday of the month. We had an art table set up at 23rd Street.I ran down to 14th Street where the parade was to start at 7pm. I met a woman and her daughter in white and black makeup who were making their way to the same place. They have been celebrating Day of the Dead in some manner for years.

There was no Mexican people presence that I could see, even though this holiday comes from Mexico. People on Alberta Street are mostly White, and like to be a part of different cultures. I met a woman who had on Navajo face paint. She said she practiced different Native American spiritual practices. She had no Native American ancestry. I guess I fit into this White people who are looking for a culture to belong to crowd.

I felt a little uncomfortable when people started naming the dead and then a woman asked all those names to come and be with us. There was a strong smell of incense in the air–like in an orthodox church. There were a lot of people in the parade–at least 50, I think. There were even more people at the end of the parade after others had joined. There were enough people that I was seeing new skeleton and death costumes throughout the night.

There were dancers, accordion players, people dressed in white on stilts. Photos of the beloved dead and lit candles were carried by many.

There were many onlookers–it was pleasing to see. There were onlookers who looked at us very somberly like they were trying to join with us but in a very somber way. Then there were others smiling at us and ooing and awwing.  People took pictures of me.

The parade ended behind a gallery. We went through an alleyway lined with photos of people who have died and candles, through an incense filled tent, and came out into a backyard. There was a little drink truck with pillows set out to make an outside living room. People gathered in a circle around the yard. The stilt people danced in the middle to accordion music. There was an altar for pets, and one for people. There was an contortionist boy performing. I was wondering where his parents were. I just worry about street performing kids.

I carried a picture of my great-grandparents, Stephen and Ana Duris from Slovakia (formerly a part of  Czechoslovakia). In this picture they are celebrating a wedding anniversary. Someone gave Ana a cabbage for a bouquet and gave Stephen lettuce for a boutonniere. My family said this was kind of a joke thing. I don’t know if it was a Slovakian thing. I colored the flowers in the photo yellow. I later realized that yellow marigold are a symbol of death in Mexican culture.

My great-grandpa, Stephen, held me when I was an infant, but that is the extent of my knowing them. I wish I could have know them. I haven’t lost anyone really close to me yet. I chose them as my dead to honor because I wish I knew them. They guide my life in a way because I seek my roots. I have this imaginary nostalgia about what life was like before the United States. What was it like before the Slovakian way of living and thinking was smudged out by the “American way”. I hope to go to Slovakia someday to visit the family.

I chose my clothing because it was colorful. The dress reminded me of a Mexican clown. But once I put the whole outfit together with boots and a head scarf, it looked like Slovakian traditional dress that I had seen on a doll. What a coincidence!

I got to talk to people during and after the parade. Everyone was really open and friendly. I started to leave the celebration alone but I ran into some friends! I hung out with them for the rest of my time on Alberta Street. They really made my night!

I’m the yellow arrow, and Brittany is the purplish arrow. We’re practicing.We’re on the left, roaring fiercely at the camera.