February 14, 2007 dear friends, the Lakota have a beautiful story behind braiding one’s hair. culturally, the hair is symbolic of a person’s spirit and that is why indians always traditionally have long hair. this is why the violent assimilation projects involved cutting an indians hair. braids are very special too. they are sacred. one…
Category Archives: Spirituality
Fairy Tales Can Come True
In typical Arian fashion, I have (and do have) loads of dream jobs whose importance will shift depending on various factors in my life. It was always a dream to work at the UN, and while I didn’t get paid for my work I had that dream job for almost three years. I always wanted…
The Fortune-Telling Rabbit and Other Turkish Delights
The Fortune-Telling Rabbit Not just any rabbit, mind you, a White Rabbit with blue eyes brimming with wisdom. The wrinkled old keeper of the Rabbit told her my name, she looked me over and chose my fortune. It was on a piece of cream colored paper and outlined the very problems I had been experiencing…
Can Writing Change the World?
Do you think that writing can change the world? Do you think that writing can lift the soul from darkness? Do you think that someone else’s words can effect a change in your own heart that helps you yourself to make the world a better place? I am not talking about the entire planet. I’m…
StrangeDays Not Like Before
Indeed the last week or so since my Bobby Kennedy experience has been intense. I have had to deal with the strangest dreams, the strangest situations both in life and online and a lot is being released. I have, of late, been using the Aztec Calendar to make decisions and get myself into balance with…
A Life Unfinished
Ever since I was a little girl I have had this thing for the Kennedy’s. My mother had these line drawings of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy hung in a special place all my life, and I remember when I was small I would stare at the photos and ask my mom about…
Food for Thought
Yesterday, I did my yearly Thanksgiving Prayer Fast in honour of the world’s indigenous peoples who still struggle under colonial rule and whose genocide continues to go mostly unnoticed. The irony of the day never escaped me. That we celebrate one day of the year to give thanks to the peoples whose lands were stolen,…
Thankfulness is…
*waking up to a new day full of possibilities, wonder, magic and joy to be found around every corner. *a beautiful family and incredible friends, feeling love flowing to and from me to all corners of the globe. *having found my true love and although there is no happily ever after in real life, I…
A Woman Who Runs with the Wolves
She called me domesticated and it stung even though I knew it was said only with admiration. Even knowing that, it was as if the wound of my wild woman self had only partially closed and her words were salt. I forced myself to ask, “Have I been domesticated?” Are all the years of feminist…
the tanked girl
so i completely tanked my english class today. or maybe it tanked me. the jury is still out on that one. i spent three hours planning my four-hour lesson yesterday and all the bad memories of forced enrollment into a TEFL course come flooding back. lesson #471: don’t let other people bully you into doing…
it's the little things
i think it must be a combination of the mercury retrograde and my budding friendship with starlight shannon, but i have been feeling very accomplished of late. the mercury retrograde for most everyone creates miscommunication and muddles, but since i was born when mercury was in retrograde motion, i always feel the best when his…
early morning missings
i had a nightmare a couple hours ago and couldn’t get back to sleep. it’s 630AM and still dark outside. they just called the prayers a little while ago. steve is snoring away. what is it about browsing through myspace that can be so comforting? looking at friends pages and their friend’s pages, finding people…
not such a long way to happy
*i used to have this thing about not adding people i don’t know in person until i met a few people online who i feel like i have always been friends with and their transition into my life has been butter smooth. i realised that we can connect with people in so many ways. in…
Mermaid Island: A Fairy Tale
Once, long ago, there were fierce Amazon women warriors who lived deep in the jungle until one day they came under attack by Spanish conquistadores. The Amazons were a chosen people, The Great Goddess bade it so, and thus to prevent their extinction she transformed the Amazons into mermaids and sent them to live in…
every thorn has its rose
technology has hindered me from posting and maybe it was for the best. september to november are rough times for me, every year since wendy died and i have been feeling a pervasive sadness coupled with the night terrors that come with recurrences of post-traumatic stress disorder. i cannot beleive that it will be 6…
a love letter to M. Night Shyamalan
Dear Mr. Shyamalan, So often I am touched by art created by another and in the immediate afterglow of the experience want to write to tell them how and how much it affected me. I never end up writing the letters and they are beginning to fill a cabinet within my heart. I don’t know…
how to spot a princess (or what happens if you piss me off)
a princess is someone, no matter how unreasonable a request, assumes that their smallest desire and off-the-cuff whim should be administered to by whomsoever they in their twisted minds think owes them. in fact, princesses think that the world owes them. that their ex-boyfriends owe them. that everyone who spends a minute with them owes…
war of the worlds
our stray cats, have been warring. Tommy, the tabby cat who is so beat up and has made his new home curled on a chair on our balcony, was attacked by Saucy (formerly known as Mama Cat) over the Territory of the Balcony. it was the crack of dawn, quite literally, when i heard Tommy…
glibness is a defense
this happened to me last year. i was writing about the UN Commission on Human Rights (which turned out to be the last one, say true) and i realised that i was being extremely glib about very serious things. i forced myself to write an apology to all my readers as my tone and presentation…
better living through chemistry is a lie
with my unending mood swings and a whole host of other horrifying symptoms i will not even begin to go into, i have just discovered that it is not only me but hundreds of other women who are taking the birth control pill YASMIN… i am beginning to feel there is no better living through…
friday, i'm in love
friday is sunday in muslim countries. it is the holy day, mosque day, but in istanbul, unlike more radical muslim countries, life goes on more or less as usual. there is just no work. it is very quiet and the workers in the lot in front are off today. how nice! fridays are such a…
i am the elephant man lost in translation
when i saw ‘the elephant man’ i felt i was him somehow. someone who never quite seems to fit in with the sea of people around him and someone who is always obvious no matter what he does to hide the fact. today after going to see a wonderful doctor who diagnosed my Middle Ear…
things that we learn the hard way
that things were not quite so bad before until we enter into an even worse situation, or go deeper into an existing one. drunk people are not wise no matter how much they think they are. they only get more glassy eyed, they slur their words and don’t remember the simple things you just spent…
finally some real movies and saying goodbye to granada
in previous blogs i have discussed a two types of travellers phenomenon (The Questing Traveler and the Runaway Traveler) along with my discontent at the cowardice demonstrated in films these days in telling the easiest parts of stories and leaving the most interesting and complicated parts alone. because i have been surrounded by Runaway Travelers…
the rose, what next?, and the brenda chenowith syndrome
‘the rose’ and the three people in the world for whom i can sing after years of wanting to see ‘the rose,’ i stayed up till almost the crack of dawn the other night and watched it. what a beautiful film, and bette midler has one of the most powerful voices in the history of…
my first myspace hate email and other news
*received my first random myspace hate mail! woo hoo! it’s been months since i’ve been out of writing so this to me is a sign that i am back to my old pot-stirring self. one is not a writer until someone cries and someone calls you an asshole. back on track once again. thank you…
moving forward
packers came today and put all of the possessions my family will keep into a container, soon to brave the wild tsunami-threatened oceans for sri lanka. moving day is always strange for me. i realised today that i have more attachment to the things that make up our home than the home itself. a carved…
dear wendy
dear wendy, i need your help, my friend. i still have days where i wished i could have come with you and i still have these thoughts that this is the easiest thing to do. i have been so sad and disappointed at the realisation of jonathan brandis’ death, in those moments i couldn’t understand…
a love letter to Perspective
written on a postcard of blue sky calm on the blank space: rage is amusing when seen in perspective where a stamp could go:thoiry, francemay 1, 2006just rereading my own words written in so much anger and disappointment.i take myself too seriously,it’s funny how angry i was about nothing really.
a love letter to Blogs
written here in the blank space: you are better than a journal,i can hit delete and you never existed inside the ‘preview and post’ button:thoiry, francemay 1, 2006i just read my angry poems from the weekend, damn.alcohol is not good for menor is my evil princess pig barbie sister, the trigger of much discontent.i think…
a love letter to Seven Children
written on a postcard that is an easyJet seat tray just below the “keep closed during take-off and landing”: you are the reason people say children are angelswhere the stamp would go:april 25, 2006somewhere in the sky above switzerlandyou sat all around me on my flightyou were so young but you made not a fuss,…
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