Oddly, This (And By "This," I Mean "Everying") Appears To Be Working Out

After an adult life spent in apartments and condos, four and a half years ago I moved, deliberately, into this bungalow and screen porch with a small yard. I've spent almost five years living with the land and the trees and the plants here and editing, planning, dreaming, dancing skyclad in the rain, visioning the yard that I'd like to have. Tonight I think that I may -- may -- have finally met the landscape designer that I've been waiting for. He says that I can do everything that I want within my budget and, here's the beauty part, he told me that America is ripe for revolution and that, if it comes, he'll be in the streets, won't I??? We sat and killed a bottle of v. good wine and talked politics and investments and what it was like for us boomers to grow up burying friends during the Reagan years and what's wrong with America when it comes to sex and how Virginia is now, really, Zone 8.

I think that I'll trust him with my land, with my arisaema , my peonies, my oak trees, my beeches, my crape myrtles, my herbs, my sacred space. (And you think that you will trust her with your body and your mind.) (And, of course, it's ALL sacred space.) Miss Thing warmed to him immediately, let him pet her, didn't go, as she almost always does with new people, and hide from him. I'm going to let him take trees off my land, put new trees onto my land, change some of the most important things in my life. He wants me to grow, surprisingly, even more hellebore, wants me to keep at least one of the beeches, wants to take out the mess of shrubs in the Southwest corner, understands my need for unity and massive plantings, will find me a good space to grow herbs.

Does this ever happen to you; you meet people who you just know are; (1) right and (2) likely to be your friends forever? Somebody pinch me. It just can't be that EVERYTHING is going OK for me.

Light posting this weekend; I'm off to Eschacon, mostly to see dear friends, and back to a v. busy week starting Monday. If you're in my Women's Circle, or if your are Son or DiL, please feel free to guestblog.

~Waves Hand In Air. "Oh Ms. Pelosi! Ms. Pelosi! I Have An Idea!"

The Democrats never listen to me, but they could, at one fell swoop, eliminate the pernicious meme that they are "weak on national defense" and get rid of George Bush. Today, it's even more clear than it ever was that Bush has been criminally negligent in his management of the war into which he dragged America.

The NYT reports that the Green Zone is, to be honest, about to fall to Shia militia gunmen. That would be "our" Green Zone, the only safe place in Iraq, many years and billions of dollars after Bush declared "Mission Accomplished."

Iraq’s Prime Minister was staring into the abyss today after his operation to crush militia strongholds in Basra stalled, members of his own security forces defected and district after district of his own capital fell to Shia militia gunmen.

With the threat of a civil war looming in the south, Nouri al-Maliki’s police chief in Basra narrowly escaped assassination in the crucial port city, while in Baghdad, the spokesman for the Iraqi side of the US military surge was kidnapped by gunmen and his house burnt to the ground.

Saboteurs also blew up one of Iraq's two main oil pipelines from Basra, cutting at least a third of the exports from the city which provides 80 per cent of government revenue, a clear sign that the militias — who siphon significant sums off the oil smuggling trade — would not stop at mere insurrection.

Much of Basra's problems can be traced back to Britain’s failure to commit the necessary forces
In Baghdad, thick black smoke hung over the city centre tonight and gunfire echoed across the city.

The most secure area of the capital, Karrada, was placed under curfew amid fears the Mahdi Army of Hojetoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr could launch an assault on the residence of Abdelaziz al-Hakim, the head of a powerful rival Shia governing party.

While the Mahdi Army has not officially renounced its six-month ceasefire, which has been a key component in the recent security gains, on the ground its fighters were chasing police and soldiers from their positions across Baghdad.

Rockets from Sadr City slammed into the governmental Green Zone compound in the city centre, killing one person and wounding several more.

Losing a war ought, by itself, to be enough to get a president impeached. You take our troops to war and lose, you're out. It would make presidents think a bit before putting Americans in harm's way. But the Dems wouldn't have to push that "radical" notion. Bush didn't just lose this war; he lost it due, at least in part, to criminally negligent mismanagement. Case in point:

the NY Times reports that: Col. Abbas al-Tamimi, media officer for the 14th Iraqi Army Division operating in the city, said he expected the fighting to escalate. “The gunmen have heavier and more sophisticated weapons than we have,” he said.

As Atrios, asks, "How'd that happen?" Well, here, from the war Bush lost in Afghanistan because he was so hot to invade Iraq, is a pretty good explanation:

Since 2006, when the insurgency in Afghanistan sharply intensified, the Afghan government has been dependent on American logistics and military support in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.

Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.

Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law. The company’s president, Efraim E. Diveroli, was also secretly recorded in a conversation that suggested corruption in his company’s purchase of more than 100 million aging rounds in Albania, according to audio files of the conversation.

This week, after repeated inquiries about AEY’s performance by The Times, the Army suspended the company from any future federal contracting, citing shipments of Chinese ammunition and claiming that Mr. Diveroli misled the Army by saying the munitions were Hungarian.

Mr. Diveroli, reached by telephone, said he was unaware of the action. The Army planned to notify his company by certified mail on Thursday, according to internal correspondence provided by a military official.

But problems with the ammunition were evident last fall in places like Nawa, Afghanistan, an outpost near the Pakistani border, where an Afghan lieutenant colonel surveyed the rifle cartridges on his police station’s dirty floor. Soon after arriving there, the cardboard boxes had split open and their contents spilled out, revealing ammunition manufactured in China in 1966. More here.

I'm sorry, but it is criminally negligent for this administration to mismanage the war that way. The Constitution says: Section 4

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States,
shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason,
Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

If this administration's conduct of the war doesn't constitute Treason, and I think that it does, it certainly qualifies as a high Crime and/or Misdemeanor. The Dems ought to start impeachment proceedings tomorrow based upon Bush's mismanagement of the war and let the Republicans filibuster or argue that losing and mismanaging a war aren't impeachable offenses (now, who's weak on defense, assholes?) or argue that Bush hasn't mismanaged the war (which would lead to the introduction of so much evidence of his war profiteering, negligence, wrongheadness, etc. that no Republican, anywhere could get re-elected this Fall).

But they never listen to me.

My New Name For A Blog

What Deborah Oak Said:

Pagans fought long and hard for the basic right of a Pagan soldier to have a pentacle put on his tombstone. Soon we may be supporting the right of Pagan soldiers to claim conscientious objector status and be released from fighting.

There are many Pagans who do not consider themselves pacifists, who are not committed to non-violence. And, there are many that are. One of the things I hold dear about my spirituality is that within Paganism, there are many paths and many temples. Integral to being a practicing Pagan is respecting that there are many God/desses, and many ways of seeing the world. To me, I see no contradiction in a soldier in battle wearing a pentacle for protection and other Pagan soldiers asking to be released from battle because of their spiritual convictions. I honor both, but my spiritual affinity is with those who seek deferment.

I’ve a love/hate relationship with Reclaiming, but I am ever so grateful that this tradition I’ve been part of creating has the following within its Principles of Unity:


“Our tradition honors the wild, and calls for service to the earth and the community. We value peace and practice non-violence, in keeping with the Rede, “Harm none, and do what you will.”


I consciously and conscientiously object to war. I know that there are plenty of Pagans outside my tradition who feel the same. In the trying times ahead, some of them may be soldiers who have seen enough, whose stomachs, hearts, and minds turn against war and killing. There is also the possibility that the draft could be reinstated and conscientious objector status will once again be sought by the many who have never even considered being a soldier. If this happens, my son may be among them.

Thank you, Winter Soldiers, I give you love and I give you thanks. Your magic was in speaking out. May all of us Pagans who abhor war and practice nonviolence do the same.

I am a conscientious objector.


Are you?

Of course, Deborah's right that the Winter Soldiers do magic by speaking the truth, thereby changing (our) consciousness at will. Feminists learned long ago that the "personal is the political" and that telling our stories changes the world. As Muriel Ruckeyser told us a generation before, "The world is made of stories, not of atoms."

Sacre

Amy

Enough

Miss Thing dragged me into consciousness earlier this morning than I would have liked. I got up and fed her, tried to go back to sleep, couldn't sleep, got up and took a warm bath in the dark, which usually puts me to sleep, couldn't sleep, went back to bed, couldn't sleep, and, finally, as the many wonderful birds in my yard began to make noise, got up, made tea, and got ready for my day. I carried my steaming cup, barefoot, out into my yard to confront a huge corps de ballet of robins and cardinals and woodpeckers. I love my life. I simply love, love, love my life.

All morning, despite the lack of sleep, I had this lovely, grounded sense, even when I was trying to go to sleep and couldn't, of inhabiting my own life. Of simply being present in my own life, content, aware, not imagining perfection, but, also, not focused only on what needed work, what was lacking. For a daughter of my father, that's a large accomplishment. I went to work, disregarded the opinion (which, to be fair, I'd sought) of an "expert" and went w/ my heart, asked for and got a plum assignment (that, to be fair, is going to require a shitload of work) and, then, after monkfish and cabbage, drove around Arlington looking at yards designed by the landscaper I'm thinking of using. Came home and sat zazen at my altar.

It's enough. It's everything that I've worked for. And, it's enough.

May it be so for you.

G/Son Blogging

Just because he's gorgeous and his Nonna adores him.

Imagine That!

From the "And Water Is Believed To Quench Thirst" File:
Comprehensive sex education may help reduce teen pregnancies without increasing levels of sexual intercourse or sexually transmitted diseases.

So find U.S. researchers who reviewed data from a 2002 national survey of more than 1,700 heterosexual teens, ages 15 to 19. Whoda thunk?

Of course, the article then goes on to play the "some say" game: There is ongoing debate about whether abstinence-only education or comprehensive sex education (including instruction in birth control) is best for students. Let's be clear. There's never been ANY such debate among health educators or serious scientists. What there's been is a lot of propaganda (financed, thanks to the Bush junta with our tax dollars, because it's "faith-based") thrown around by people who hate sex, hate women, and want to create their own little version of Gilead. The sorrow and the pity is that these godbotherers have been allowed to ruin lives with their faith-based bullshit when data-based research, not to mention common fucking sense, clearly indicate that teaching teens how to prevent pregnancy will -- surprise! -- prevent teen pregnancy. (Which, one imagines, likely prevents -- surprise, again! -- abortion. Something to consider when the xianists try to convince you that they really do want to prevent abortions. When what people do and what they say don't match, I find it's best to rely upon what they do. Just saying.)

Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that teens who received comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or to get someone pregnant than those who received no sex education.

Other results -- not statistically significant, however -- suggested that comprehensive sex education, but not abstinence-based sex education, slightly reduced the likelihood of teens having vaginal intercourse. Neither approach seemed to reduce the likelihood of reported cases of sexually transmitted diseases.

The findings, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, support comprehensive sex education, Kohler concluded.

"There was no evidence to suggest that abstinence-only education decreased the likelihood of ever having sex or getting pregnant," she said in a prepared statement.

This study offers "further compelling evidence" about the value of comprehensive sex education and the "ineffectiveness" of the abstinence-only approach, said Don Operario, a sex education expert and professor at Oxford University in England.

Not that anything will ever convince the fundie whackjobs, but could the rest of us please not grant these slobbering fools any more control over our education system?

The Land Outright

The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England's, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

-- Robert Frost

Today, The 4,000th American Died In George Bush's Illegal Iraq War. That's 3,999+ Too Many. Home, Now!

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by Wm. Butler Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

Ostara Centerpiece

Forsythias all over my neighborhood are in bloom. These are from my bush in the backyard.

Colors

My madcap friend, R., was just explaining this Hindu festival to me on Wednesday at dinner, after dancing.

May whatever is holy within you respond with joy to what is holy within the world.

Namaste.

My New Name For A Blog

What Charlene Said.

People worried about those who "become too rich" shouldn't wear Prada shoes.


Razi the Nazi can bite me.

The Seven Of Pentacles By Marge Piercy

Last night, my brilliant friend E. read this poem at our Ostara ritual. I'd forgotten how much I like it. The Seven, Eight, and, especially, Nine of Pentacles cards are v. important ones for me and show up v. often in readings that I do for myself. Piercy has a great way of looking at the Seven card, one that goes beyond the traditional satisfied, at rest, giving things time vs. dissatisfied, introspective, watching the pot boil interpretations of this card.



Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

Friday Cat Blogging

Miss Thing in the afternoon sunlight.

Handfasting, Alex And Maxine Saunders

He was such an ass. She was so brave.



Stupid. But brave.

Balance. Only Two Days Out of Three Hundred Sixty Five

My circle won't be celebrating until the Full Moon tomorrow night -- insane career bitches, we're huge adherents of the "three days rule" -- but I couldn't let today pass without a post for Eostara. When I was a good Catholic girl, Easter week, and the passion leading up to the crucifixion, was the most important part of my spiritual life.

Today, excommunicate that I am, dark and light hang in the balance. Tomorrow morning, when I wake early to finish preparing my home for Eostara observances and run out early to buy a birthday cake for my brilliant friend, E, the light will, for half the year, begin to win the contest. My yard is already showing that it's Spring, filled with hellebore, crocus, daffodils, bluebells, lilacs, woad, mint, sweet woodruff, grass.

Early this evening I walked barefoot all over my yard, out to the far southwest corner to pick forsythia and over to the southeast corner to pick jonquils. Sun in Pisces, I experience the world through my feet. Through my bare feet. Through my naked, bare feet, walking upon the wet, muddy, spring ground. The muddy ground made of decomposed oak and maple leaves and acorns on top of clay.

The muddy ground upon which I would rather walk, barefoot, than upon any carpet anywhere, in the world. I am a manifestation of the Goddess. May it be so for you. Balance. It's such a lovely trick!

I Am Going To Turn Someone Into A Newt

Kali on a cucumber! There is nothing -- NOTHING -- about Hillary Clinton that the mainstream media won't criticize.

In the 11,046 pages of Hillary Clinton's White House schedules released yesterday, every minute is scripted, down to when she takes her seat on a bench, when she is presented with a gift (1:35 p.m.) and when she makes a speech accepting it (1:40 p.m.), when she is escorted to an elevator and by whom and on what floor.

But not why. Never the why.

This is the briefest outline of a life, all mechanics and no feeling. If there are any insights here into the presidential candidate's interior life, they are between the typewritten lines and the reader's imagination.

If her schedules were sloppy and vague, she'd get criticized for that. If, as appears to be the case, they're detailed, that shows that she's too scripted. But here's the real idiocy. Take a look at your own calendar. Does it tell you why you do things? Does it offer any insights into your interior life? Mine either. For today, mine says: [Agency] meeting: 10:00, Dentist: 11:00, Logistics Subgroup Call: 4:00. All mechanics. No feeling. Guess I'm unfit to be president, as well.

I guess we're supposed to be surprised that her day as First Lady is busy and full. Here's how that plays out:

What must it be like to live inside such a script? It's as close as we mortals can get to being able to predict the future. Walking into a children's hospital, Clinton (or her handlers) would have already known that she would be "escorted to rocking chair by 4 patients who will sit next to her." This is comforting or this is maddening, depending on your point of view. For Clinton, whose poise and preparation are legendary, the bubble might be a lovely place. So cushioned. So controlled.

The bubble? Knowing ahead of time what she's going to be doing and what's expected of her is living in a bubble?

But somehow, Hillary is to blame for the fact that her calendar doesn't reveal all of her feelings and emotions and show us some deep revelation about her psyche:

As a matter of fact, there's a difference between being transparent and being scrutinized. Clinton is one of the most studied figures in public life, but she's also one of the most opaque. This is why the release of these documents seems like much more of the same. Just paper. [Of course, she was an evil, secretive bitch for not having already released this document, and now that she's released it, it's her fault that the document is -- horrors -- "just paper."] We know what she did on any particular day -- we might even know where she stood -- but not what she felt. Not what she said to her husband, the president. Not what she thought about it all.

All mechanics.

That cold, unfeeling bitch! Why, it's as bad as "Dentist: 11:00." No one would know how I FELT about the dental appointment. No one would have any insight into what KIND OF PERSON I AM! All mechanics.

You know, I'm going to take a wild guess here and suggest that George Bush's schedule and Laura Bush's schedule are as detailed, tightly-scripted, and as unrevealing of their true feelings as was Hillary Clinton's. The schedule of every CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation that I've known has also been as detailed and as scripted. The details are often there as much for the benefit of their staff (who get printed copies of the daily schedule) as for them. But I guess it's ok for them to have busy, tightly-scripted schedules.

It's amazing to me that the mainstream media can't find anything actually worthwhile to discuss about Clinton's released schedule. She's claimed to have gained experience in the White House that makes her a better candidate for president than her Democratic rival, Barack Obama. Any evidence of that in her schedule? Either way, that would be something interesting and worthwhile for voters to learn about. Or maybe the "reporter" could at least report. On the day that she visited the hospital, did Clinton adhere strictly to her timetable or did she stop along the way and chat with parents concerned about their child's medical bills? If you listen to her campaign speeches, she somehow has managed to talk to a lot of people about their medical bills; did any of that happen on the trip that this article singles out? The fact that a person's calendar is different from their Dear Diary is hardly instructive. But it's sure a cute way to bash Hillary Clinton and continue to stereotype her as a cold, unfeeling, mechanical bitch, living inside a "comforting bubble."

Bah!

Oddly Unlike The Witchcraft I Know

Honestly, I don't know anyone who, as far as I know, was initiated like this. Not that there's anything wrong with this initiation (OK, the fact that it came after three months of training -- far less than the standard "year and a day", strikes me as a bit off, but maybe they were an intense three months), but watching this clip, I was just struck by how different the Dianic Wicca that I practice is from the witchcraft depicted here -- which is not all that long ago. Having recently read Maxine Saunders' biography, I found this clip, and some others that the same person has posted on YouTube, really interesting.

Blogswarm Against The War

So it's the fifth anniversary of the day that George Bush, with the acquiescence of a Republican Congress and a Fourth Estate that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican Party, took my country to war against Iraq -- a country that never did anything to my country. I've tried all day to think what I could say about this war that hasn't been said.

I could say that it is immoral, as all wars are immoral. I could say that it is illegal, as it quite clearly is, and that nothing in the shameful resolution authorizing Bush to "use force" legalized it. I could say that, like all wars, it has caused untold human suffering and that much of that suffering has been inflicted on women and children and young men who were completely innocent. I could say that, like all wars, this war has been fought by the poor and the poorly-educated and has profited the already-rich and the powerful. I could say that this war, like all wars, has caused grievous harm to the Earth, which is already harmed almost unto death. I could say that this war, like all wars, has created and will continue to create many more problems than it will "solve" -- not that there was ever even a problem for this war to "solve" anywhere outside of George Bush's Oedipally -twisted morass of a soul.

But I think that what I will say is that this war, like all wars, is a symptom of a larger problem. This war, like all wars, would be impossible to imagine in a culture that actually valued life, women, children, the Earth, consensus, negotiation, nonviolence, diversity, empathy, sustainability, and the rule of law over the power of might. In short, this war is a symptom of patriarchy, of what Riane Eisler called the Culture of the Blade, rather than the Culture of the Chalice. And I will say that, until we address the root cause, we may end this war, or run out of credit to finance it, but my children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will have to be out in the streets, marching to end future wars as I've marched to end this one.

Which is one reason why I undermine the patriarchy every chance I get. I get a lot of chances. We all do. Let's use them.

How Shall I Live My Life: On Liberating the Earth from Civilization By Derrick Jensen

Environmental author and activist Derrick Jensen has a new book, due to be released this Friday, March 28th. How Shall I Live My Life?: On Liberating the Earth from Civilization, includes interviews with David Edwards, Thomas Berry, Jan Lundberg, Steven Wise, Carolyn Raffensperger, George Draffan, Kathleen Dean Moore, David Abram, Vine Deloria, and Jesse Wolf Hardin.

The blurb at Amazon says: Derrick Jensen discusses the destructive dominant culture with ten people who have devoted their lives to undermining it in this collection of interviews.

Whether it is Carolyn Raffensperger and her radical approach to public health, or Thomas Berry on perceiving the sacred; be it Kathleen Dean Moore reminding us that our bodies are made of mountains, rivers, and sunlight; or Vine Deloria asserting that our dreams tell us more about the world than science ever can, the activists and philosophers interviewed in How Shall I Live My Life? each bravely present a few of the endless forms that resistance can and must take.

I've pre-ordered my copy and hope to post a review early next week. I'm especially delighted to see Jensen including neo-Pagan* author Jesse Wolf Hardin. Jensen's concept of the Earth and our relationship with her has long struck me as fundamentally Pagan.

Meanwhile, have you read As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial, yet? If not, why?

*I'm not a huge fan of the term "neo-Pagan." Are today's Jews "neo-Jews" or today's Catholics "neo-Catholics"? Are today's Hindu's "neo-Hindus"? Hardin's wikipedia description lists him as neo-Pagan, and I believe that's how he has described himself, so I use the term here. It's all just the Goddess pouring the Goddess into the Goddess.

Art found here.

Because Actions Have Consequences

Really? No one can figure out why the Chinook Salmon have disappeared? You've got to be kidding me. You can't dam their rivers, pollute their ocean, overfish them, and then stand around scratching your head and wonder why they've disappeared.

This weekend, I was reading G/Son one of his favorite stories, Uno's Garden by Graeme Base. In the story, Uno finds a lovely forest and moves there. Others follow, delighted by the wildlife, including the ever-present snortlepig. G/Son delighted in being able to find the shy snortlepig in every picture; this is an often-read story. Eventually, the forest disappears as people overbuild and overpopulate. A day comes when the people move away, longing to live with trees, rather than concrete. Only Uno remains, providing a safe haven for the snortlepig in his tiny garden. And then, one day, the aged Uno and the aged snortlepig die. Although Uno's children and grandchildren and great grandchildren remain, living sustainably on the land and gradually noticing the return of many of the wonderful animals from before, the snortlepig is gone for good.

Nonna: No more snortlepig.

G/Son: Why?

Nonna: The snortlepig became extinct.

G/Son: 'Tinct?

Nonna: Yes, extinct. No more snortlepigs.

G/Son: Why?

Nonna: Overdevelopment. Too many people not taking care of Mother Nature.

G/Son: Read it again.

Look, if a two-year old can get it, I think the grownups can figure it out as well.

As Derrick Jensen says (and has been saying, for some time), Why is it bad that certain species go extinct? Is it because all species have an inherent value and right to existence, or is it because they are useful to the ecosystem, and it’s their utility that we’re losing?

Well, it’s all of those. First, obviously salmon and sturgeon and smelt and migratory songbirds, they all… It’s simply WRONG to exterminate them. They are beautiful and wonderful beings on their own. The purpose of salmon is to be salmon. The purpose of forests is to be forests. That’s really critical. Second, forests suffer tremendously without the existence of salmon. Salmon provide a tremendous influx of nutrients into the forest. They put on about 95 percent of their weight in the ocean, and carry this weight into the forest and die. When the salmon come in, it’s time for a feast. In the Pacific Northwest, 66 different vertebrates eat salmon. Between industrial fishing, dams, industrial forestry, and the other ways the civilized torment and destroy salmon, and rivers in the Northwest starve: they only receive about six percent of the nutrients they did a century ago. Natural communities can only undergo so much stress. After that they collapse. . . . At some point the current system is going to crash, and there are going to be people sitting along the banks of the Columbia, which will be glowing from the radiation at Hanford, and they will be saying, “I’m starving to death because you didn’t remove the dams that were killing salmon. God damn you.”

Figure it out people, figure it out.

A Poem For Irish Heritage Day*

I Am Of Ireland by William Butler Yeats

'I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,' cried she.
'Come out of charity,
Come dance with me in Ireland.'

One man, one man alone
In that outlandish gear,
One solitary man
Of all that rambled there
Had turned his stately head.
That is a long way off,
And time runs on,' he said,
'And the night grows rough.'

'I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,' cried she.
'Come out of charity
And dance with me in Ireland.'

'The fiddlers are all thumbs,
Or the fiddle-string accursed,
The drums and the kettledrums
And the trumpets all are burst,
And the trombone,' cried he,
'The trumpet and trombone,'
And cocked a malicious eye,
'But time runs on, runs on.'

I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,' cried she.
"Come out of charity
And dance with me in Ireland.'

*St. Patrick did the Irish no favor, and much harm, introducing them to xianity. Irish Catholicism, in particular, has always been quite dour and Irish Protestantism not much better. So I'll not celebrate any day in his honor, but will gladly lift a glass for Irish heritage.

Why He Sounds Especially Incoherent

Gail Collins dispenses rather easily with George Bush's most recent speech on America's in-the-tank economy:

Watching George W. Bush address the New York financial community Friday brought back many memories. Unfortunately, they were about his speech right after Hurricane Katrina, the one when he said: “America will be a stronger place for it.”

“You’ve helped make our country really in many ways the economic envy of the world,” he told the Economic Club of New York.

You could almost see the thought-bubble forming over the audience: Not this week, kiddo.

The president squinched his face and bit his lip and seemed too antsy to stand still. As he searched for the name of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (“the king, uh, the king of Saudi”) and made guy-fun of one of the questioners (“Who picked Gigot?”), you had to wonder what the international financial community makes of a country whose president could show up to talk economics in the middle of a liquidity crisis and kind of flop around the stage as if he was emcee at the Iowa Republican Pig Roast.

We’re really past expecting anything much, but in times of crisis you would like to at least believe your leader has the capacity to pretend he’s in control. Suddenly, I recalled a day long ago when my husband worked for a struggling paper full of worried employees and the publisher walked into the newsroom wearing a gorilla suit.

The country that elected George Bush — sort of — because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance. Our credit markets are foundering, and all we’ve got is a guy who looks like he’s ready to kick back and start the weekend.

This is not the first time Bush’s attempts to calm our fears redoubled our nightmares. His first speech after 9/11 — that two-minute job on the Air Force base — was so stilted that the entire country felt like heading for the nearest fallout shelter. After Katrina, of course, it took forever to pry him out of Crawford, and then he more or less read a laundry list of Goods Being Shipped to the Flood Zone and delivered some brief assurances that things would work out.

O.K., so he’s not good at first-day response. Or second. Third can be a problem, too. But this economic crisis has been going on for months, and all the president could come up with sounded as if it had been composed for a Rotary Club and then delivered by a guy who had never read it before. “One thing is certain that Congress will do is waste some of your money,” he said. “So I’ve challenged members of Congress to cut the number of cost of earmarks in half.”

Besides being incoherent, this is a perfect sign of an utterly phony speech. Earmarks are one of those easy-to-attack Congressional weaknesses, and in a perfect world, they would not exist. But they cost approximately two cents in the grand budgetary scheme of things. Saying you’re going to fix the economy or balance the budget by cutting out earmarks is like saying you’re going to end global warming by banning bathroom nightlights.

Bush pointed out — as if the entire economic world didn’t already know — that Congress has already passed an economic incentive package that will send tax rebate checks to more than 130 million households. “A lot of them are a little skeptical about this ‘checks in the mail’ stuff,” he jibed. Jokejoke. Winkwink.

Then, after a run through of “ideas I strongly reject,” Bush finally got around to announcing that he was going to “talk about what we’re for. We’re obviously for sending out over $150 billion into the marketplace in the form of checks that will be reaching the mailboxes by the second week of May.

“We’re for that,” he added.

Once the markets had that really, really clear, Bush felt free to go on to the other things he was for, which very much resembled that laundry list for Katrina (“400 trucks containing 5.4 million Meals Ready to Eat — or M.R.E.’s ... 3.4 million pounds of ice ...”) This time the rundown included a six-month-old F.H.A. refinancing program, and an industry group called Hope Now that offers advice to people with mortgage problems.

And then, finally, the nub of the housing crisis: “Problem we have is, a lot of folks aren’t responding to over a million letters sent out to offer them assistance and mortgage counseling,” the president of the United States told the world.

But wait — more positive news! The secretary of Housing and Urban Development is proposing that lenders supply an easy-to-read summary with mortgage agreements. “You know, these mortgages can be pretty frightening to people. I mean, there’s a lot of tiny print,” the president said.

Really, if he can’t fix the economy, the least he could do is rehearse the speech.



There's a reason that Bush often sounds like a bored husband pretending to discuss his failing marriage with his angry wife while he's really watching the ballgame and playing with his new X-Box.

He didn't really want or intend to do anything for the victims of Katrina. They're poor black people who aren't in "his base" and his base enjoys hating on them and screaming about how they're lazy looters and should just hurry up and die. (His own mother made pretty clear how the Bush family really felt about the victims of Katrina.) So he gave a crappy speech that did about as good a job of convincing anyone of his concern for people in New Orleans as the bored husband's "Mmm Hmms" and "OK, I knows" do of convincing his wife that he's really interested in saving his marriage.

Similarly, he doesn't really want or intend to do anything about the causes of our economic decline. That's because, like the husband whose refusal to get a job and determination to never do any housework are the root cause of the problems in his marriage, Bush's tax policies, unfunded Iraq war, and full-fleged attack on government regulation are the root causes of our current recession/depression. He's not going to change a damn thing that he's been doing wrong and he's kinda pissed that he has to drag his attention away from the ballgame to even pretend to care.

When pushed to the wall, like many irritated husbands, he blames the victims: Problem we have is, a lot of folks aren’t responding to over a million letters sent out to offer them assistance and mortgage counseling,” the president of the United States told the world, and complains that his wife just doesn't appreciate what he does do: Bush pointed out — as if the entire economic world didn’t already know — that Congress has already passed an economic incentive package that will send tax rebate checks to more than 130 million households. “A lot of them are a little skeptical about this ‘checks in the mail’ stuff,” he jibed. Then, he insists that the problem is really her mother: “One thing is certain that Congress will do is waste some of your money,” he said. “So I’ve challenged members of Congress to cut the number of cost of earmarks in half.”

Besides being incoherent, this is a perfect sign of an utterly phony speech. Earmarks are one of those easy-to-attack Congressional weaknesses, and in a perfect world, they would not exist. But they cost approximately two cents in the grand budgetary scheme of things. Saying you’re going to fix the economy or balance the budget by cutting out earmarks is like saying you’re going to end global warming by banning bathroom nightlights.

It's long past time to throw this bum out.

Not To Keep

Not to Keep

They sent him back to her. The letter came
Saying . . . and she could have him. And before
She could be sure there was no hidden ill
Under the formal writing, he was in her sight --
Living. -- They gave him back to her alive --
How else? They are not known to send the dead --
And not disfigured visibly. His face? --
His hands? She had to look -- to ask,
"What was it, dear?" And she had given all
And still she had all -- they had -- they the lucky!
Wasn't she glad now? Everything seemed won,
And all the rest for them permissable ease.
She had to ask, "What was it, dear?"
"Enough,
Yet not enough. A bullet through and through,
High in the breast. Nothing but what good care
And medicine and rest -- and you a week,
Can cure me of to go again." The same
Grim giving to do over for them both.
She dared no more than ask him with her eyes
How was it with him for a second trial.
And with his eyes he asked her not to ask.
They had given him back to her, but not to keep.
Robert Frost

We're recycling wounded soldiers to feed George Bush's vanity And that's a hole that can never be filled.

Bush thinks war is "romantic."

Where Do I Sign Up For Another 52?

I'm 52 years old today and, in the words of Holly Near's song:" I am open, and I am willing, for to be hopeless would seem so strange. It dishonors those who've gone before us, so lift me up to the light of change."

This morning, the doves who nest in my grape vines are back. I'm going to spend the day planting some seeds and listening to Handel's Water Music and then Son, DiL, and G/Son are coming over. Tonight, I'll read my tarot for the upcoming year.

Sun in Pisces, Moon in Taurus, Gemini Ascending, Sun and Mercury in my Tenth House. You play with the cards that you're dealt!

Friday Cat Blogging

New Rules

I was driving around Bethesda today, running a bunch of errands, and, as I sat in traffic, I couldn't help but notice a number of completely bleached-out "Support the Troops" ribbon-shaped magnets on the backs of SUVs.

Here's what I think. If your war lasts longer than the dye on the cheap Chinese pieces of shit that are sold to promote it, you lose. That's it. War over. Bring the troops home.

On the way home, I stopped to get gas and buy a Diet Coke. When I paid for the Diet Coke, I noticed that, behind the cash register, for sale, were two bumper stickers. One said, "This is America. Speak American." The other said, "Society of Americans in Favor of America for Americans." So I said to the gentleman of Middle Eastern extraction behind the cash register, "Gee, those bumper stickers are offensive. I don't like them. They make this place seem racist." He says to me, in broken English, "I know. Owner. He put them up. So far, we sell not one. Many people, they are telling me the same as you."

Here's what I think. If you're going to hire immigrants at minimum wage to run the cash register at your gas and go and you're going to pretend that speaking English is a prerequisite to living in America, you have to pay to send your employees to the community college for ESOL. And pay them for their time. Otherwise, you can shove your dickwad bumperstickers up your ass.

It's amazing that I ever manage to get anything done.

A Dishonor To Those Who Go Before Us

Cherry Blossoms

I love everything that BPAL makes.

HANAMI
Sleeping under the trees on Yoshino mountain
The spring breeze wearing cherry blossom petals

In Japan, the advent of spring is heralded by a blanket of pink and white that spreads gently from the South to the North to cover the islands. Hana-mi translates to "flower watching", and it is a sport of leisure that has been enjoyed since the Heian Period.

Here, in Washington, D.C., we are blessed with hundreds of Japanese cherry blossom trees, planted around the tidal basin, adorning the Jefferson Memorial, creating magic in the city. The best time, in terms of avoiding the often crippling crowds, to see the blossoms is at dawn. Its you, a few breakfast picnickers with champagne and bagels and strawberries. But the best time to see the cherries, really, is at that moment in late afternoon when, as the sun sinks below the horizon, the temperature drops just a degree or two. That causes the cherry blossoms to give off their scent. Now, if you smelled just one, or just a hundred, cherry blossoms, you'd say that they had no scent. But when millions of them give off their scent all at once and you are blessed to be standing in the middle of them, then, you realize that cherry blossoms smell AMAZING. They smell exactly the way that early Spring smells, exactly the way that magic smells, exactly the way that dawn smells. If you can do it standing across from Thomas Jefferson with a crescent moon hanging over the monument and the water, well, then you can die happy.

Hedge Witch

Now, the purple hellebore is here, hot on the heels of the less-impressive white hellebore. And I've got my first daffodil, one of the minitures. The deep purple crocus are here, as well, just a few days after the white, gold, and light purple ones.

Downtown, I've seen the odd cherry tree and Bradford pear tree in bloom, although the cherry blossoms along the tidal basin are not expected until the last week of March. In my neighborhood, forsythia planted in sunny spots is now in bloom, although mine, deep in shade, hasn't opened at all. I may pick some this weekend to bring inside and force.

PS: Shot w/ my iPhone, not the lovely camera that 4LG gave me, so these are a bit blurry.

The Season Of The Witch

I've been thinking this week about what it means for a crone to celebrate Ostara.

Ostara, one of the eight major Wiccan holidays, is generally associated with the maiden aspect of the Goddess (when the Goddess is seen as maiden/mother/crone). It's Spring! New life! Bunnies! Lambs! Flowers! Persephone! Flora! What does that mean for a crone? (Yeah, I like the flowers and I love the returning warmth. And I can look fondly back upon the (v. confused, but v. brave) maiden that I was. That's not a Sabbat.)

But Ostara is also a holiday of balance. On the Spring Equinox, there is an equal amount of day and night. For me, the tarot cards associated with balance are Temperance, the High Priestess, the Moon, Justice, the Two of Pentacles, and, oddly, the Hanged Man. So many major arcana (hence, v. important) cards. Balance is clearly an important archetype and an element of many archetypes or it wouldn't show up so often in the tarot. And, yet, when the Hanged Man showed up recently in a v. important reading that I did for myself, it meant: the only way to succeed at this is to turn your own life upside down. To quote Rumi: "Now my loving is running toward my life shouting, What a bargain, let's buy it." Let's turn you upside down!

Balance is an important issue in the lives of so many witches. My own Moon in Taurus is always begging for balance, while my Ascendent Gemini longs to throw all caution to the winds and GO ALL OUT and my Sun in Pisces queries, "Balance? What's balance? Look at this v. exciting extremism that someone else is practicing!" When I was younger, my Sun and Ascendent signs won the battle. Now that I'm older, my Moon, often associated with the Inner Child, wins as often as not.

I keep preaching that magic is supposed to help one to live a more, not less, effective (well-balanced) life. What does that mean for members of an essentially ecstatic religion? Ecstasy, itself, is an oddly unbalanced state. And yet, those who practice balance -- eating a healthy diet, doing yoga, meditating, caring for their material needs so that they don't impinge -- those people are often the ones most able to throw themselves into ecstasy. From the greatest discipline, someone once said, comes the greatest freedom.

Tonight, my madcap friend R. gifted me with a lovely triptych of Tara. I'm drawn (that way, no wait, I'm not Jessica Rabbit!) to extreme Goddesses: Hecate, Baba Yaga, Cerridwen. Yet, those are not the Goddesses who have come to me in dreams. The Goddesses who've visited me in important dreams have been Mary, the Blessed Mother, Quan Yin, Brigid, and Green Tara, sweet, comforting, supportive goddesses (at least in my dreams) all. Balance. Balance between the dark, windswept crossroads and the warm and comfortable Irish kitchen in a downpour. Balance between the wild woman of the forest and the smiling, kind, Mother Mary, who, on my mother's kitchen plaque, offered a warm loaf of bread to the baby Jesus. Balance between the serious magician, stirring a witch's brew within which all things melt, recombine, become something unexpected and new, and the kind, black covered in green, Goddess who wants to hand out practical goodness. Balance between the champion way that I worry and the way that the kind Goddess and her consort who showed up at an important time in my life tell me: It will be ok.

For this crone, Ostara is a time to celebrate balance, to welcome balance, to dream of balance, to do divination looking for balance, to live, as a witch must live, as the Earth, right now, lives, in balance.

Nonna, What Did You Do To Stop The Iraq War?

My dear and v. creative friend, K., sent me the following information. March 19th will be, sadly, the fifth anniversary of George W. Bush's boneheaded decision to start killing a lot of people. You know, the decision in which we all, to one degree or another, acquiesced. I didn't riot in the streets, and I should have.

Fireworks

We R In Ur Religion, Turning It Pagan

According to Slavic mythology, "Maslenitsa" is a sun festival that celebrates Winter's end.

This pagan tradition has survived hundreds of years. Today it's recognized by the Orthodox church as a sort of Carnival marking the week before Lent.

The Russian Orthodox Church, waged a century-long struggle to stamp out pagan traditions in Russia. Eventually the Church capitulated and today includes many pagan rites and traditions in the Russian Orthodox calendar.

Ulyan Vasilyevich, Moscow resident, said, "For me, a Russian, it is a continuation of Russian tradition. The fact that pagan traditions survived in Russia, that the Orthodox church accepted, though with great hesitation, is a great achievement."

Ode On Some Grecian Chucks

Wow. Just wow. I want!

(Title reference: Here)

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thou express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunt about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Have We Hit Peak Suburbia?

Miniver Cheevey discusses peak suburbia.

Another problem that I'm seeing in my (close-in, suburban) neighborhood is tracts of land that were bulldozed for housing projects just as the credit crunch hit. The "developers" are now nowhere to be seen. Now, the plots, which once provided habitat for wildlife and pollinators such as bees, are denuded and the land is eroding with every strong rainstorm.

Next time around, could we please exercise a little bit of planning and caution? Maybe require a "development fee" upfront to be used to clean up these sorts of messes? If not needed, half could be returned to the "developer" and half could go for infrastructure improvements: protected bus stops with seats, greenspace, community gardens, etc. Not a bad idea for McMansions (aka any house over X sq. feet), as well, although those funds should be held for 20 years and used to upgrade the property when it gets turned into multi-family housing even though the developer didn't build enough parking, sewage, green space, etc. for that use.

Sia provides an interesting alternative.

Resacralizing The Earth

It's always true, but today Jason's Wild Hunt is even more worth reading than usual.

The term: "resacralizing the land" gives me goose bumps, makes my eyes go wide, and sends my Youger Self into a Springtime Tizzy.

Let's do it!

My New Name For A Blog

What Lambert Said

My New Name For A Blog

What Lunea Said.

Somewhere, in one of Starhawk's books, there's a several-paragraph description of the life that I imagine that I was meant to lead, a few paragraphs that changed my life and gave it purpose and named its directions, a description of a woman who makes confections going down to the docks in the afternoon to see in the boats, in a culture that honors mothers and women and the divine feminine. Lunea reminds me that that world is out there, possible, beginning to take shape.

Way down, below the ocean, where I wanna be, she may be.

I was at G/Son's b/day party today. Every one of the ethnically-diverse fathers at the party, from my amazingly gorgeous, brilliant, kind, hard-working, fantastic writer of a good Son, to a guy who works for a local sports team, to a computer guy, to the guy who lives next door to Son and DiL, every one of them was a 100% more involved and caring and great dad than any of the men with whom I grew up in the 1950s. Every one of them was changing diapers (I do not believe that my father ever, in his entire life, ever, changed the diapers of even one of his five children), running after their toddlers while their wives chatted, filling plates for their children, refereeing squabbles over sharing. They give me hope, they do, these young men. Their own sons will be -- so different.

This is my will. So mote it be.

International Women's Day in Iraq

Kathlyn Stone reminds us that conditions for women in Iraq have become much worse since the U.S. invasion.

International Women's Day, March 8, should be a global day of celebration over the economic, political and social achievements of women worldwide.
Instead I mourn what my government has done to the women of Iraq.

The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have brought an alarming increase in violence against women, including "honor killings” by religious fundamentalists. Women who do not subordinate their role to that of property of male family members have no value among the fundamentalists.

The Iraq Freedom Congress, a grassroots political movement headquartered in Baghdad, issued a statement congratulating women worldwide on International Women’s Day and asked that people everywhere stand with the women of Iraq as they face oppression from sectarian gangs.

While hundreds of women have been murdered by religious gangs, unveiled women are routinely targeted and threatened with violence if they don’t wear hajibs and follow strict Islamic law. The government has not moved to stop the violence or the threats, according to the Iraq Freedom Congress.

“Iraq Freedom Congress stands at the forefront of the struggle to expel these bandits from Iraq,” said Amjad Al-Jawhary, an IFC spokesperson.

The international protests against sexual discrimination are growing louder every year, says Al-Jawhary, and yet in Iraq, “the discrimination against women by sectarian militias linked to mullahs in Iran and groups of Al Qaeda has reached the level of sexual genocide, particularly in the cities of Basra, Baghdad, Mosul and Diyala.
These groups have committed the most heinous crimes against humanity, and women in particular.”

The U.S. military occupation has “turned a blind eye” to the work of the religious gangs, said Al-Jawhary. He suggests that both the occupation forces and the present government have surrendered Iraq and future generations to the criminals through their failure to reign in the gangs.

"We must put an end to the killing of women,” said Fryal Akbar, head of the IFC’s Women’s Bureau at a press conference in Bagdad held earlier this year to draw attention to the escalation of violence against women.

“Women today have every right to defend themselves against the religious and sectarian gangs by all means." She also warned that the IFC will not stand by watching crimes being committed without consequences. "From our experience, these gangs will not put an end to their crimes unless serious action is taken."

A year ago today, Yifat Susskind of MADRE, an international women's human rights organization headquartered in New York, wrote “Since the United States invaded, Iraqi women have endured a wave of death threats, assassinations, abductions, public beatings, targeted sexual assaults and public hangings.

Both Sunni and Shiite Islamist militias direct much of this violence. These groups mushroomed across Iraq after the United States toppled the secular Baath regime. Ironically, the Shiite militias are the armed wings of the political parties that the U.S. boosted into power. Their aim is to establish an Islamist theocracy and their social vision requires the subjugation of women.”

Suhad Salim, another member of the IFC Women’s Bureau, described a young woman’s sense of hopelessness. “The deterioration of the security situation, the intervention of the political Islamic groups into everyone’s personal life and the enforcement of the Islamic law on the street has forced women to quit both school and work to stay home seeking safety. These conditions create desperation and hopelessness in life leading many women to buy shrouds and wait for their death.

“I asked Sawsan Ali of Althawra city who is 30 years old why she quit school and stays home. She has lost her ambition and tends to think about death. Sawson answered: “There’s no hope for safety in the foreseeable future, my rights as a woman do not exist. Everything is against me as a human: family, traditions and culture. Killing and terrorizing women have become a daily show. Why should I live? I cannot go to school safely or voice my opinion. Whatever I do is opposed by others. Basically nothing is left to live for, therefore I am preparing for death.”

International Women's Day

International Women's Day in Afghanistan; women still have a long way to go.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — It's in the voices of the young that hope can be found for women in Afghanistan.

While their mothers and grandmothers wept for their past on International Women's Day, the young girls laughed and sang for the future.

More than 1,000 women gathered at two events in Kandahar on Saturday to celebrate the day devoted to women's rights around the world.

Young women know a different Afghanistan than generations past - they can go to school and find work.
But neither they nor their elders know peace yet, and many said Saturday that is the only thing holding back the full advancement of women in Afghan society.

"When security becomes good, when it becomes safe and we feel we can leave our children outside, no bomb blasts, no kidnapping, nothing, that's when things will be better for women," said Rangina Farescshta, one of the women who attended a rally organized by the provincial women's council in Kandahar.

When the Taliban descended on Afghanistan over a decade ago, the public lives of women effectively came to an end.

The world gasped in horror as thousands of Afghan women were shrouded behind the veil of the burka, losing their jobs, their schools, even their ability to go out in public alone.

Since 2001 and the fall of the Taliban, women are slowly rising back up through the ranks of Afghan society. They sit in government, run hospitals and have regained the right to an education.
"This year is better than last year and the year before last year," said Dr. Farishta Bwar, who works in the department of public health. "Every day the women's life becomes a little better."

But a chilling list of statistics enumerate the hardships still facing the estimated 11 million women in Afghanistan, about half the population.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission recorded 2,374 cases of violence against women in 2007, including 165 cases of women setting themselves on fire. But the commission concedes the number doesn't really reflect Afghan society because such violent incidents often go unreported.
According to the United Nations, one woman in Afghanistan dies every 29 minutes due to reproductive health related complications.

Their average life expectancy is 44 years, about half that of a woman in Canada.
Though more than two million girls in Afghanistan are now registered for school, there are no numbers on how many actually attend class.

"There was a girl who was going to school and she was threatened and she left school altogether," said Foozia, 14, who still attend class at her school in Kandahar city where conditions are safe.
Foozia said she was at Saturday's rally because it's important to show support for the women of Afghanistan. "We want a peaceful Afghanistan where every woman will be able to ask for her rights," she said.

It's violence that made the old women cry at Saturday's rally.
One after the other, women who'd lost their sons, husbands and brothers to the fighting in Afghanistan rose, wrapped in white scarves, to share their stories.

Sobbing, they called for peace and for women's rights.

There are an estimated one million widows in Afghanistan, many under the age of 35, who face particular difficulty in society. Without men to provide for them, they must use whatever meagre skills they have to eke out a living, but more than 85 per cent of the women in Afghanistan are illiterate. Canada funds a number of programs aimed specifically at widows in Afghanistan. It also spends millions of dollars through the Canadian International Development Agency on education, health and human rights programs aimed improving the lot of all Afghan women.

But men still have control, said Farescshta. "Husbands, fathers, sons have the power to stop women from going outside to make society beautiful and make society educated," she said.
"Husbands, they (often) don't let their wives and sisters and mothers to do work outside, to get education for their children."

The young girls outside one of Saturday's rallies said their mothers and fathers were supportive of them being in school For Sabeera, 10, it's all she wants to think about.
She and her classmates, dressed in the glittery greens and reds of Afghanistan's national costumes, shook their heads with an emphatic "no" when asked if they want to grow up into a life like their mothers.
They don't wish to marry, nor have children, Sabeera said, they want to be doctors or teachers or police officers. An impish grin broke over her face as she stood to recite a poem she'd written.
"I am going to school of my own choice," she said. "There is competition among the girls in school. I do not want to be behind them. I have to be ahead of everyone. I have to succeed."