I Love Being Non-Essential!

Snow day! Snow day! It's been sleeting for several hours and the snow is supposed to kick in at any time. With the weather being so bad, pretty much everything in Oklahoma City has shut down, including my office. Woo hoo! Being a State Employee, the Governor has to declare if our offices can shut so last night & this morning we were all watching the news to see. Sure enough, "non-essential employees" were allowed to stay home. Ha ha ha. I absolutely don't mind being non-essential if it means I get to stay home in 20degree weather with sleet and snow. I have the gas fireplace cranked up, a nice warm blanket, and my cat. What could be better?

musical poetry

i spent a good portion of this evening listening to music. i bought a couple of cd's over the summer that i never really listened to and now i'm addicted to them. Tonight it was Martin Sexton, his album entitled Black Sheep. SOOO good. It's a bluegrass/blues/folk mix and powerful. I'm jealous of those who can write music and make it work. I've always been a musician but performance only. i can't create it, write it, envision it, or kick start its soul. i think that's where the true talent lies. ah well, i was destined to be ordinary i suppose. can i be satisfied with that?

Native American Perspective on Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!
The Native Amercian PerspectiveFirst Thanksgiving? NOT!
The Pilgrims are said to have had the "first" thanksgiving feast in the New World in the autumn of 1621. Isn't that what you were taught in school? Nothing could be further from the truth!
People have given thanks for the bountiful harvests for thousands of years all over the earth. Historical records exist of the ancient Egyptians giving thanks to their gods for the Nile River floods that provided needed irrigation for their crops. The Chinese gave thanks to their gods and honored their ancestors. The Romans and Greeks celebrated with feasts, pageants, and revelry. Across Europe, India, Africa, North America and South America, and the rest of the earth over the millenia, there have been commemorations and feasts of thanksgiving.
The inhabitants of the North American continent were no different than other cultures. They worshipped the Earth Mother who provided the great herds for hunting, the aquatic creatures for fishing, and for bountiful crops of corn and other provisions. While the ceremonies differed from tribe to tribe across the continent, depending on their geographical location and their circumstances, a common thread weaves all mankind together. There is a common belief that some superior being(s) exist that are responsible for satisfying the need for sustenance and the perpetuation of the cyclical order of nature.
Prior to the Pilgrims' arrival in 1620, the Native Americans in the eastern shore of the North American continent had encountered other English and Spanish explorers. European visitors inadvertantly introduced smallpox to the Native American population in 1617. The subsequent plague decimated the population, with nearly half of the Native Americans succumbing to the virulent disease.
One hundred and two Pilgrim emigrants departed England on the Mayflower. During the voyage, one person was lost overboard and a child was born onboard. Of the 102 people who arrived at Plymouth Rock in December of 1620, only 50 survived the first winter in the New World. Cold and starvation killed many. Without the generosity of the Indians who provided food, many more would probably have died. The Pilgrims had much for which to be thankful.
According to the first newspaper published in America, Publick Occurrences, published on 25 September 1690 by Benjamin Harris, a group of Christianized Indians selected the date and place for the celebration of the first thanksgiving with the Pilgrims.
In the Fall of 1621, the thanksgiving commemoration took place. We know that it lasted for three days and included a period of fasting, prayer, religious services, and finally a shared meal. There were 90 Indians involved in this affair. While this celebration was never repeated, it has become the model for what most U.S. citizens celebrate today as Thanksgiving. This "first thanksgiving" marked a tranquil moment in time before tensions escalated and tempers flared.
The Pilgrims viewed the Indians as savages requiring the salvation of Christianity. They failed to recognize the deeply spiritual nature of the Native American people and their bond with the gods of nature. The Pilgrims aggressively tried to recruit the "savages." Those who accepted Christianity found themselves ostracized by their tribes and accepted by the Pilgrims as mere disciples. The Pilgrims' tampering with the beliefs of the Indians greatly offended the tribal leaders.
The Pilgrims were not adept at farming in their new homeland. Whereas the Indians were experts at growing maize, the Pilgrims were slow to learn. Their harvests of 1621 and 1622 were meager, and the Indians offered to exchange some of their harvest for beads and other materials. The Pilgrims eagerly responded but, in time, demonstrated bad faith by failing to fulfill their side of the bargain. The Indian leaders, proud men of their word, were insulted by the rude way in which they were treated. Tempers flared and, in time, open hostilities broke out.
History chonicles the subsequent colonialization, the infringement of colonists on Indian lands, the violation of the Indians' sacred beliefs and burial sites, and the forcing of the Indians farther and farther west. Treaties, massacres, seizure of lands, relocations, formation of reservations -- all of these represent a poor return for the Native Americans' investment of generosity.
Nevertheless, the commemoration of the "First Thanksgiving" that most U.S. citizens know is really not a celebration of bounties of the land. It should, instead, be a time to consider what might have been -- an honorable, mutually beneficial collaboration between two disparate peoples from different parts of the world.
In the meantime, remember that the celebration of thankfulness for the bounties of the land, the oceans, the streams, and of those things that make life wonderful did not begin with the Pilgrims. The Native Americans were commemorating these bounties long before the Pilgrims arrived. The customs still survive, more beautiful and meaningful today because of their fragile and spiritual nature. Author: GFS Morgan

Mazel Tov!!

In a beautiful ceremony, my friend Jessica married her soul-mate Brian tonight. I've known Jessica through work (she's a great therapist for my clients) and lots of our work community attended her wedding. It's wonderful to see people come together to celebrate life's blessings. Congrats Jessica and Brian and many wishes for your life together.

rightwasright.us (very funny)

Now that the election is behind us, and the Democrats control both houses of Congress, there's no reason not to admit it: the Right was right about us all along. Here is our 25-point manifesto for the new Congress:

1. Mandatory homosexuality
2. Drug-filled condoms in schools
3. Introduce the new Destruction of Marriage Act
4. Border fence replaced with free shuttle buses
5. Osama Bin Laden to be Secretary of State
6. Withdraw from Iraq, apologize, reinstate Hussein
7. English language banned from all Federal buildings
8. Math classes replaced by encounter groups
9. All taxes to be tripled
10. All fortunes over $250,000 to be confiscated
11. On-demand welfare
12. Tofurkey to be named official Thanksgiving dish
13. Freeways to be removed, replaced with light rail systems
14. Pledge of Allegiance in schools replaced with morning flag-burning
15. Stem cells allowed to be harvested from any child under the age of 8
16. Comatose people to be ground up and fed to poor
17. Quarterly mandatory abortion lottery
18. God to be mocked roundly
19. Dissolve Executive Branch: reassign responsibilities to UN
20. Jane Fonda to be appointed Secretary of Appeasement
21. Outlaw all firearms: previous owners assigned to anger management therapy
22. Texas returned to Mexico
23. Ban Christmas: replace with Celebrate our Monkey Ancestors Day
24. Carter added to Mount Rushmore
25. Modify USA's motto to "Land of the French and the home of the brave"

Must I even say it?

Tomorrow is election day 2006. Vote. It's your right. It's your obligation. Vote. If you are not pleased with the governmental decisions being made then say so. Nothing irks me more than people who grumble and complain and say that politics is useless. It's the system we have and though it's not perfect it does work. Vote.

pull a bag over my face

So, I've had this cold for a couple of days. I stayed home from work on Wednesday because I felt really terrible. Today, Thursday, I went in for a few hours b/c there was some work I needed to wrap up. My co-worker Gaila came into my office to see how I was doing. The dialogue went like this...Gaila: "Hey, how are you?" Rachel: "Better thanks. I slept a lot yesterday." Gaila: "Whoa, you are really pale." Rachel: "Uh, yeah. I have no make up on." Gaila: "Oh. (pause) Glad you're better." I thought the whole thing was hilarious. Then again, it doesn't take much to amuse me.

for all the saints

today, nov 1, is all saints day in my christian world. i was too sick to get out and participate in a service, so i decided to do some remembering here at home. my experience of all saints day is to honor and remember those who have died in the last year. but, my friend shane pointed out that saints in day to day life also deserve a little shout out.
first...those who have died this year. Shelly, a family friend and true angel. MJ, my mom's long time assistant. Don, a very special client of mine. Nathan, a troubled soul. I know there are others, but these 4 stick out in my brain.

Saints in my life....it wouldn't be fair to try and name them. i guess each person in my life is there for a reason and i don't always know/recognize what that reason is. i think that i often forget to love people as they are, not as i think they should be.

if none of this post makes sense it's because i'm on major drugs for a cold. :-)

"For all the saints, who from their labors rest,Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.Alleluia, Alleluia!"