Social & Political

Mourning

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I have come to realize that “pro-life” is a misnomer. The people who espouse it, who embrace it, who shout it from the rooftops, don’t actually know what it means. When I hear the phrase “pro-life” I’m supposed to think that the person shouting it believes in life. But they don’t believe in life when the life is gay, when the life is Black, when the life is an immigrant or someone who’s accented, when the life is poor or homeless or addicted to drugs. They don’t believe in life when they allow three people, three human beings, a mother and her two small children drown while watching, and actively stop help from getting to them. They don’t believe in life if they are killed by guns, which are more sacred to them than the life it takes. They claim to care about the life of people who aren’t people yet, still unborn, still getting their life from their host woman, but if that woman dies because she can’t receive a lifesaving abortion, well, that’s life. But it’s not pro-life.

They lie about the services at Planned Parenthood.

They lie about the activities inside “crisis pregnancy centers.”

They lie about women’s* bodies or they simply don’t understand how women’s bodies work, which should be the first clue that they shouldn’t be legislating on women’s bodies.

I’ve seen legislators who don’t understand the basics of puberty or menstruation or how babies are conceived, thinking that the only party is the woman who holds the responsibility for her actions and the future of three people.

They sound pathetic and stupid, and it’s embarrassing.

On this anniversary of the now reversed Roe v. Wade, I’m in mourning. I’m in mourning for what pro-life people did to Roe, the person: manipulating, gaslighting, and abandoning. I’m in mourning for my daughter. I’m in mourning for her friends. I mourn for the residents of Texas and Florida especially.

The only pro-life option is safe and legal abortions for anyone who needs one.

Why is there upset and indignation when the “pro-life” set is called pro-birth or forced birth, but what else are they if not that? No one comes to pray outside of social services or the WIC offices for the children once they are born. No one prays outside of counseling centers, real counseling centers for victims of sexual assault and incest. The only prayers are for doctor’s offices and clinics that offer full service reproductive health services. Why is that?

How can you be anti-abortion and pro-death penalty?

How can you be pro-war?

Things to think about because your hypocrisy is showing, and it has been for a very long time. With the Dobbs ruling, women are dying, women are being prosecuted and persecuted for having miscarriages, women are being denied life-saving care, women are left to die of sepsis, are left to infertility, and families are just left.

*When I say women, read: all child-bearing people.

Election Connection: The Fight Starts Now

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We have 301 days until Election Day.

This seems like a long time but judging by last week’s Meet the Press where Hide-in-Plain-Sight Insurrectionist Barbie from NY’s 21st spouted lies and didn’t answer direct questions, we have a lot of work cut out for us. For one thing, anyone calling the January 6th defendants “hostages” is not a serious person and should be viewed as an accessory after the fact. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson having prayer sessions on the House floor is inappropriate and unacceptable. And these two examples are minor things compared to threats against our representatives and democracy as well as recent swatting terror acts.

Start by speaking out. When your representative does something right, call their office and let them know. If they question how a vote should go, call and email. Offer your opinion on what the right thing to do is.

Know your sources.

I have left Twitter for Threads, but there are bad actors there also. Before reposting misinformation, do some due diligence. There has been so much misinformation about the Israel-Hamas War that by the time the truth comes out, no one remembers. Hamas is a terrorist organization that uses the Palestinian people as shields and cannon fodder while their leaders live like billionaires in other Arab countries. Defeat Hamas; then rebuild. This is a war that Hamas started (during a ceasefire by the way).

We also cannot ignore the onslaught against women’s rights and bodily autonomy. Women are not second-class citizens. We are half the population, and we should be treated with the respect that is due to us. We should not be relegated to incubators who are left to die because men in power don’t understand biology and doctors care more about legal ramification than their oaths to heal.

Women are dying, partly due to misogynistic laws being passed by ignorant men in power, and a religious fascism that thinks their way is the only way. We are a multi-cultural, multi-faith society where everyone’s beliefs should be accepted. Laws should not be made on one religion, especially when it violates others’ freedom of religious expression.

Pay attention to the small things because the small things are not so small.

Check your voter registration and make sure the information is correct.

Sign up for updates from Vote Save America. They need all our help.

Sign up for Democracy Docket. Attorney Marc Elias is on the forefront of litigating election cases and has been for years.

This upcoming election is one that no one can afford to sit out.

Election Connection will appear as needed and when things arise that need to be addressed. Next month, I will provide other recs of people who are fighting for all of us and are reliable with the information they offer.

Do you ever ask yourself why after Republicans spend and offer huge giveaways to the rich it is up to the Democrats to fix things? Then they do, and Republicans come back and destroy it again. Why do we let that continue to cycle? Teachers can’t deduct a pack of crayons, but the wealthy can deduct the gas from a private jet. Where is the justice? Where is the fairness?

One more reminder: Voting third party or not voting is a vote AGAINST democracy. President Biden is the only candidate that can guarantee the continuation of free and fair elections.

The only poll that matters is November 5, 2024.

There is much to be done before that day.

Election Day is November 5, 2024.

Inspire. December. Chanukah.

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I’ve been searching for the write inspiration for December, and this first night of Chanukah brought things into perspective. A little bit of perspective. While the internet and the news are filled with antisemitism and protests from people intent on gaslighting the Jewish experience and deny Jewish people the indigeneity of their homeland, I have been on a quest to celebrate Chanukah publicly. I’m a little wary about it. I live in a nice neighborhood, but I don’t put my head in the sand and think that it couldn’t happen here. I know it can.

Still….

I went out and bought blue and white lights for outside, something I’ve never done. I have an interactive menorah hanging on my front door, again, something I’ve never done. In fact, since I’ve been on my own (and with my own family) I have not put Chanukah lights in the window. That unfortunately will continue because I know that if I put candles on my windowsill, my mother would come back from the grave and blow them out with a raucous, and loud message of fire safety.

Most people don’t know the story of Chanukah; perhaps some teachers wanting to bring multiculturalism to their classrooms, and now the story of the Maccabees is being co-opted to match the narrative, anything to turn the words of Jews and their history against them. The Festival of Lights isn’t about war. It isn’t about victory. It is about faith. The miracle isn’t that the Maccabees won against their most recent oppressor. The miracle is the lights themselves. When we retook the temple, amid the destruction, they went to light the candelabra to rededicate the temple, the menorah – not the nine-branch one that most are familiar with, but the regular, ordinary menorah that is always lit in the temple. There was only enough oil to keep it lit for one night. There was no other oil. So, what did they do? They lit it anyway.

And it remained lit, not one night, not two, not three or four, not even five or six or seven, but it remained lit for eight days. One day’s oil lasted for eight days. That is the miracle. And that is why we light eight candles on a new type of menorah used just for this holiday: a hanukkiah.

Tonight, I will say the prayers (that I don’t normally say). I will fry the latkes in oil. I will fry the chicken in oil. I will light the first candle on the same menorah that I lit as a child; the one that I grew up watching the candles burn down on the dining room table that was my grandmother’s. It will be placed on that same dining room table in my own house. My kids will see the lights on the same menorah, the same table, and they will be able to see through my eyes, even amidst the clutter that seems to grow multi-generationally on this dining room table.

This year, however, this old menorah has a special, additional meaning. I saw this menorah in Toronto at the Royal Ontario Museum in their Judaica exhibit, in the Chanukah window. A copy/replica of MY Chanukah menorah sits in the largest museum in Canada. The exhibit label states that it is from Gdansk, Poland, brass, from the early 1900s.

Happy Chanukah.

My family menorah.
(c)2023
Royal Ontario Museum Judaica Exhibit.
Hanukkah menorah, “Danzig” type,
Gdansk, Poland, early 1900s.
(c)2023
Ready for sundown.
You can view it lit later tonight on Instagram (link in sidebar).
(c)2023

עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי

Happy Thanksgiving.

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With my ongoing research into St. Kateri’s life, I thought instead of a retelling of the first Thanksgiving today, I would set my table with the First People in mind, sharing with my family the Three Sisters as the Mohawk call these three plants that grow side by side: corn, beans, and squash.

My table setting.
(c)2023
Sign about the Three Sisters at the St. Kateri Shrine in Fonda, NY.
(c)2023
The Three Sisters.
St. Kateri Shrine, Fonda, NY.
(c)2023
The cake plate I used was a wedding gift from a friend who worked at the Jewish Museum in NYC. I like to blend our cultures in our interfaith family, and this was one way to join two ancient peoples and their symbols.
(c)2023

Transgender Day of Remembrance

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I wanted to observe this day of remembrance for the transgender people who have been assaulted and murdered in the last year. I wanted to do this especially this year when transphobic rhetoric has been at an all time high, at least in my experience. This day reminds me of those people lost, and it reminds me how I can continue to speak out and make the world safer for trans people. That is what makes me an ally. Wearing a t-shirt or a pin doesn’t make me one. Speaking out with general information, corrections to misconceptions and misinformation, and calling out transphobia when I see/hear it is what makes me an ally.

I thought about this a lot this weekend. I was on retreat and without getting into private details, I was in the presence of two mothers of transgender sons. One was accepting and one was not. The one who was accepting walked her road, steady over the potholes, and came to understand and accept her son’s new place in her life, never once wavering in her love for them. The second mother was not accepting. She detailed some medical experiences her child had, she shared their new name, but in that, she was not accepting of that name, and would continue to call her child by their birth name. I had a choice to speak out and possibly offend someone; or speak out and educate or really take a stand on that child’s side. I chose to speak out. I think I did it tactfully. The point of speaking out wasn’t to make the mother feel bad or guilty or angry; the point was to make her think, to consider what she’s saying versus the reality of her situation with her child. Silently, I felt that if she continued with this way of thinking, she will lose this child, and I don’t think that’s what she wanted.

Last week, I had a similar opportunity with someone else. He said something that I considered transphobic. It was a small thing, and it wasn’t to a trans person or about anyone, and really it wasn’t that bad in the great, big world of transphobia, but I called it out anyway. It caused an argument with the other person saying that I was being overly sensitive – it was not transphobic. The only response that I could make was that trans people will let you know what’s transphobic.  My point here was that it is the small stuff that tells a trans person they’re not welcome or safe with you. You don’t have to murder a trans person to make them feel unsafe with you. I did let it go. People need to hear what’s said and then be given time to think about it, coming to the realization in their own time.

However, knowing that today was coming so soon after these conversations, I knew that I needed to acknowledge this day and these conversations. Those of us who are not transgender do need to have conversations that encourage our questions, that enable us to move beyond our internal biases, that allow us to change our hearts and become un-transphobic. It is not easy for any of us who love people that change before our eyes, but when we look deeper, I think we’ll see that they changed very little. They were always who they were, and it is not up to us to accept them; it is up to us to continue to love them.

I think that when we look at trans folks, the biggest change that we may or may not see is that they are comfortable. They are happy. They are lighter than they used to be now that they are who they are supposed to be, who they’ve always been, hidden away. This is who they’ve always been, except now they’re smiling.

Today is to honor the dead, but it is also to save the living through our acceptance and love. Please consider my words with the intention they were meant, and for everyone, but especially trans people, to have a peaceful day in contemplation and commemoration. I will prayerfully be considering those who lost their lives this past year, but also those who are journeying their own paths and that they remain safe on their journeys.

Native American Heritage Month – Beginnings & Endings

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The photo below represents both the start and the end of the day.

Beginning with the end, I have slept with a Dream Catcher for most of my life. I notice a change in my sleep when I don’t sleep with one. It creates a calm and peaceful rest as it catches the bad and lets the good continue through. This particular dream catcher is one I got in Niagara Falls, Canada. I was drawn to the colors of the beads that represent the four directions as well as the uniqueness of the center stone.

The booklet is something that I was more recently introduced to through Mohawk Elder Tom Porter of the Kanatsiohareke Community in New York. Since then, I’ve seen it in other Haudenosaunee writings and readings. It is called the Thanksgiving Address, but it has nothing to do with the Thanksgiving holiday, but in giving thanks for all that is around us in the natural world, all that we have, all that we see. It is said at the beginning of all important gatherings, ceremonial and/or governmental. The Haudenosaunee call them the Words Before All Else.

I recently used a form of this address for a meditation that I was tasked to share, and it was very well received. I read mine, but most are recited and because of that they are often never the same twice since the words change with the speaker and the timing of the gathering.

As I said at my own (non-Native) gathering, as a shared meditation, I acknowledged the land we were standing on (Mohawk), and reaffirmed that I am a non-Mohawk, non-Native, sharing their wise words.

The Royal Ontario Museum and Sitting Bull

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When we visited the Royal Ontario Museum this past August, I knew that I could not visit every nook and cranny as much as I might have liked to. I also knew that with five of us having different interests that we were going to get very frustrated very quickly if we stuck together. Upon entering and deciding who wanted to pay extra for the special dinosaur exhibit, I announced the three places that I wanted to focus on and whoever came with would be welcome, but if they wanted to explore on their own and meet back through texts, that would be great.

As an aside, I do miss my little ones, but I really appreciate going on vacation with teenagers and older kids because of this freedom for all of us. I didn’t want to see the dinosaurs; more to the point, I didn’t want to PAY to see them, so I didn’t. My daughter was not a fan of medieval arms and armor and so she veered away from that. The technology of texting let us know where the others were when we were engrossed in our little worlds. It was fantastic! And I think we all benefited from the freedom to explore our interests and the freedom from each other for an hour or so.

My three focuses were in the areas of First Nations, Medieval History and Arms & Armor, and Judaica.

Continue reading

Native American Heritage Month

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Dream Catcher
(c)2023

A few days ago, the honoring of Native American Heritage Month began. Like Indigenous Peoples Day, I think this is timed for us to remember that there were both sides to Columbus’ landing in the New World and how we perceive the Thanksgiving story. The Thanksgiving story in and of itself isn’t as problematic to my mind as other European centered celebrations. We know and should acknowledge that the English settlers could not have survived their first (and to be honest, many subsequent) year in a new land without the help of the Native Peoples they met and who helped them immensely. I have always been a history buff and drawn especially to people of my own heritage and Jewish ancestry as well as people I feel somewhat paralleled that history including African- and Native- Americans. One of my favorite books as a child is The Magic Tunnel by Caroline Emerson. It had everything a young me could want in a book: time travel, the NYC subway system, NY history, American Indians. The perspective is of about a fourth-grade child’s view of history, but it’s a fun adventure for the elementary school age and a great jumping off point to discovering what’s true in their depictions and what is not.

As I’ve grown and became more of an in-depth reader, I’ve been exposed to more and more books about Native history both by Native and non-Native scholars. Living in New York state my whole life, we have a rich history of the Iroquois, and every place I’ve lived has had several towns still using names found from and in the variety of Native American languages found in the state. Some examples include: Shinnecock, Massapequa, Copiague, Hauppauge, Schenectady, Oneonta, Oneida, the Mohawk Valley, Chautauqua, Ontario, Otsego, Tioga, Cheektowaga, Ticonderoga, and of course, Niagara and Manhattan.

Over the next few weeks and through the end of November, I hope to offer you some resources to expand your knowledge of Native American history and culture as well as books, movies, and photos that you can enjoy in your explorations.

About a week ago, I was asked to give a meditation for what’s called an Ultreya, a gathering of Catholic Cursillistas for community and fellowship. I elected to read a Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. It is called Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen, which are the Words Before All Else. This is recited before any gathering or ceremony. At the beginning, prior to starting the reading, I explained to them that this is often different each time it’s told as it depends on the speaker to choose their own words. I explained that I, however, would be reading it. Two important things I stated before I began were who the Haudenosaunee were; we knew them as the Iroquois, which is the French word assigned to them by Canadian and French missionaries, and that we were currently on their traditional lands, the lands of the Mohawk. I also stated that I am not Mohawk, nor am I of First Nations descent. I have included a statement on my FAQ page.

I think it’s important to acknowledge whose land we’re on, and if we’re speaking authoritatively or in entertainment or spiritually, that we acknowledge when we are not Native and/or Indigenous People. I will also use Native American, American Indian, Native Peoples, Indigenous Peoples, and First Nations interchangeably unless asked specifically not to.

As we celebrate what we view as the first thanksgiving, it’s important to remember that the English settlers didn’t “give this tradition” to the Native Wampanoag people they met. The Native people across the continent had harvest festivals and days of giving thanks for their harvests towards the end of the fall and the coming of winter. This is what they shared with the settlers.

For my own Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my family and spending time with them, but I also think back to the historical first thanksgiving and look back on what could have been and look towards that future.

In this opening for me of Native American Heritage Month, I give you a few places to visit and learn from:

Native American Heritage Month

National Museum of the American Indian

Killers of the Flower Moon – the movie is in theatres now, and it was wonderful. Don’t be scared off by its length; I barely noticed and easily sat through the whole thing. I also read the book about a year ago. I highly recommend both:  Book

And Grandma Said…Iroquois Teachings & Traditions by Tom Porter

Project 562 by Malika Wilbur

First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament

RainSong: The Music of Terry & Darlene Wildman