"wild and precious life"

These days I feel so alive. As Thelma says, in my favorite movie Thelma and Louise, "I feel awake! I don't remember ever feelin' this awake!"

I can't even explain the feeling... it's emotional, physiological, spiritual... both ecstatic and agonizing. I feel both raw and energized... I feel unstoppable. And there's a sense of serenity that comes with all of this as well; it's a sense of assurance that this is genuine, this is life.

The final two lines of the poem are perhaps the wisest words I've heard strung together, and I want to ask myself this question every morning and most moments of everyday!

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The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html

_________________________________________________________

Until next time, I remain the amorphous fuchsia dye that's waiting to stain skin between your fingers

News about the News

I want to share some links to stories in recent news that are related to one another. Whether these stories involve censorship, limitation of press coverage, or violence towards journalists it seems to me that--WORLDWIDE--the freedom of press is under target. And while I take issue with the quality and integrity of many news sources in the United States, I still think that unfiltered access to individuals, events, and operations worldwide is essential for us, as global citizens and as siblings, to hold each other accountable for our actions.

Headline: "Sudan's 'brutal' war on dissent"
The Sudanese government has been accused by human rights campaigners of running a brutal campaign of torture and intimidation against dissenting voices in the country.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/07/201071913112863816.html










Headline: "Photographer Harassed by BP Security, Detained by Police While on Assignment at BP Texas Refinery"
We speak with Lance Rosenfield, a freelance photographer who was hired by ProPublica to take pictures of BP’s Texas City refinery that had spewed thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the skies. While on assignment Rosenfield was followed by BP Security and then detained by local police.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/9/photographer_harassed_by_bp_security_detained

Headline: "Journalist gunned down in Athens"
A Greek journalist has been shot dead outside his home in Athens, the first murder of a reporter in the country in more than 20 years.


http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/07/2010719142238331789.html

Headline: "Scientist Working With Government Says BP Restricting Access to Study Gushing Oil Well"
As the BP oil disaster enters its 77th Day we speak to a scientist leading a team of researchers trying to get access to the well to better study what is happening at the site. Dr. Ira Leifer, who’s on the federally appointed Flow Rate Technical Group, says BP is restricting his access to study the gushing oil well.


http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/6/scientist_working_with_government_says_bp




If you have time to read these articles, I highly suggest it. If not, just please keep your eye out for corporate or legal entanglement with the sources we heavily rely on for truthful portrayal of happenings worldwide.

Until next time I remain a clamoring mammal gnawing on the gristle of injustice