Sophia Serve

Rings of Synchronicities

The author Daniel Pinchback (a Mayan calendar expert) said on public radio the other day that as we near 2012 we will all be experiencing more and more synchronicities. You know, those things that happen that shouldn’t happen because they have nothing to do with cause and effect.

My son Joel and I wrote about them in Hubab Ku in connection with archetypal symbols and the Mayan’s belief in harmonic resonance. Many people have told me that when they open Hunab Ku or Divine Sparks for some sort of inspiration, they are often amazed at how “right” for them at that very moment the page they "accidentally" turned to seems to be.  

And Speaking of Love-mongering

Take Body Art to a whole new (old) level by giving yourself a creative treat. Or just search on You Tube for The Omo People. They're perhaps from the Mursi or Suri tribes, who live near the Omo River in Ethiopia's Great Rift Valley. I can't share any of these pictures with you. As my harpist friend Margaret told me yesterday, "I can't tell you about this. You HAVE to experience it."

She is absolutely right.Thank you, Margaret.

The photographer is Hans Sylvester who spent six years photographing these beautiful, beautiful people. Their bodies are their canvases. Their media, earth pigments, fruit, flowers. The "pea pod" hat especially intrigues this "Mad Hatter!"

The Omo People never forgot what children once knew. They know bricolage...how to play with what's at hand. And they show us how to be true. As Ursula LeGuin said, " Truth in art is not imitation, but reincarnation."

Today's Wagon-back Press

  During Elizabethan days, illegal publishing endeavors were called Wagon-back presses because, as their name implies, any author’s work could be quickly packaged up and paper and press moved in the dead of night, if need be, to another location.

Today we call it the Internet.

For instance, we can now circulate “urban myths faster than you can hit your send button.

Some are sideslappingly funny. But most are quite sad because they play on our fears.  Since I’m of the firm conviction “fear” (not “hate”) is the opposite of "love" I try to be tuned in to what “fearmongers” are putting out there. (Rachel Maddow on MSNBC helps a lot)  As a result of my antennae being up, I also take note of the “lovemongers.” Did you notice, for instance, how Rachel single-handedly got the entire under-budgeted Iraqi baseball team fitted out?

If your spam protector is set on low, you’ll find these bits of non-wisdom floating into your computer as regularly as those letters from Nigeria informing you how you can become a millionaire…or your body parts can function "better." Many are recirculated from the 90’s, but  9/11 brought a whole new rash. And then, of course, there was the election.

We are cautioned to not eat this or that food—it’s poison, or in the case of baby carrots, made from chlorine; don’t flick your car lights at night at a car without lights on—it’s an initiation gang signal and they’ll kill you; don’t let sparks from clothing get near your gas tank, you'll blow up.

And that doesn’t even get into all the folklore such as Coca Cola is an effective contraceptive but don’t leave your teeth in it because they’ll dissolve over night; After 9/11 the new Pepsi can (or was it Coke or Dr. Pepper?) omits “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Of course that phrase never was in the Pledge until Eisenhower put it in for Flag Day, June 14, 1954. And it was amended several times before that. It first appeared as a 22 word recitation for school children in Boston to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus Day and was published in a school newspaper.  When I put my hand to my  heart, I take note, even if the secession nuts don't, of the words: to the United States of America, indivisible. And I really hit the word "justice" and "all" as in "justice for ALL" in case the person standing next to me happens to be mumbling.

Here are some of my other favorites:

The ACLU is seeking to have all the crosses removed from tombstones; and of course the perennial NRA favorite: the government will take away all your guns.

And now, horror of horrors,we learn that healthcare reform will take away Seniors’ care and, of course people will die because of long waits or being denied certain procedures. Check out the number of people who die right now from not having health coverage or from being dropped from insurance companies for pre-existing conditions! You’ll be very surprised. We don't have to wait for Congress to act for the bodies to drop.

And of course the BIGGIE (also recirculated from several years back): Our president, Barak Obama was not born in the U.S. Hawaii is apparently not one of those "indivisible" things. He was born in Kenya. He’s not legal. Therefore, he’s not our real president. The unspoken (or spoken) directive to whackos who are told to believe this, is too horrible to contemplate. Birthers/Deathers. Close. Too close for comfort.

One “proof” they like to use: How could he have traveled to Pakistan in 1981 with a US passport? Must have been Kenyan. Or Indonesian! But people did travel there back then with US passports. Check it out.

  In fact, check everything out.  Quick!  Before the wagon-back press moves on.

Poetry: What Do We Make of It?

         Thanks to Garrison Keillor and The Writer’s Almanac, some of us public radio people get tiny doses of poetry daily. Like Purell, a squirt of poetry keeps the germs of boredom and ennui away. And like any waterless hand sanitizer, poetry can’t be applied just once for the job to be done.  

Mad as a Hatter

I’ve become a hatter in my spare time. A Green Hatter. A Sophia-Hatter. Not really a Mad Hatter since I don’t use mercury in any of my hats as they did in 19th century hat making. People who wear my hats don’t suffer from mercury poisoning and wide mood swings as they did back then. At least, not that I know of. 

    

Like quilters who make quilts from bits  and pieces, I’m a hatter who does the same thing. All of my hand-stitched hats are made from recycled wool (which I wash in really really hot water hoping to “felt” it up.)  Most are “blinged up” with beads or buttons for women, some for children and a few for men. I love hearing friends say, "Oh, that's my sweater!"

In Velvet Shoes

 For weeks Lori’s friends have been at her bedside. Some read to her. Bits and pieces of short stories, poetry, Psalms, Celtic prayers,of course, one of her favorites: Jane Austen.

Her brain was assaulted a few months ago by one of those nasty crabby growths that reached in and plucked out her left lobe’s ability to say what she so wanted to say. Her word center has been deleted. Ironic, this turn of the screw, as her whole life has been one of word-reveling. Instead she’s reduced to “salad speech” originating somewhere deep within a morphine haze. She was a master English teacher and brought words to her students in ways many of them must still be reeling.