#I believe in children of the corn supremacy

[confusedhomicidalrage]

[medea10]

Medea Rambles...It’s Reality

I would really love to put up a review today. Really, I would. And I would love to talk about the latest Pokemon episode, really I would...But, I'm not in the mood. Because of certain events, I'm not in any mood for my usual Sunday shenanigans.

Whenever I pick up my phone and see that damned CNN Alert message, I think one of three things has happened.

1. Trump said or did something incredibly stupid, illegal, or dickheadishly stupid.

2. A celebrity from my childhood died.

3. A massacre has occurred and was caused by gun violence.

And in the past seven days, that third option has come up more often than not. Now, by no means am I fully against guns. It's not my thing, if you like hunting, by all means. If you feel you need it for protection, I don't give a flying fig. However, there are certain guns that really shouldn't be in the hands of anyone. Period! And each time I hear about what a gunman uses, it's usually an AK or an AR-15 or some other monstrosity that really shouldn't be in the hands of (what it seems like) very unstable men. And in a lot of these massacres including the last three prominent tragedies, these very unstable men are under the age of 25.

That is fucking frightening.

Why would anyone want to go to an open place like a school, a Walmart, a gay nightclub, a concert on the Vegas strip, a church, a mosque, a synagogue, a local pub, a college campus, or a garlic festival to shoot up innocent people?

Oh yeah, all of these places have been shot up in the last couple of years. And again I need to say, THREE OF THESE HAPPENED JUST THIS WEEK ALONE!

I remember being in middle school when the Columbine shooting happened and in shock over what I was witnessing. Now it’s by no means the first gun massacre in our country and sure as fuck wasn’t the last. But the mere fact that this was a high school and these were students being slaughtered raised a lot of eyebrows. Now not much action was taken at the time, but there were plenty of back-and-forths over who was to blame for this. Being in middle school, they pretty much blamed all the things I liked including video games, South Park, and Marilyn Manson. Seriously, just because Dylan and Eric listened to Manson, all Manson listeners were going to go on a killing rampage? Fuck you then and fuck you now!

Then I remember 12 years ago with Virginia Tech and freaking out because, hey, I’m a college student. Who’s to say UNM wouldn’t end up on the national news one day because of a tragedy involving gun violence? Then again, I’m just a paranoid, autistic person and I worry over everything.

But then it wouldn’t just be at a school...it would be in places you wouldn’t expect. A strip mall in Arizona. A theater in Aurora, Colorado. And even an elementary school in Connecticut.

Yes, I have to talk about Sandy Hook! Twenty 1st graders and their educators were gunned down. That should have been the final straw in taking some freakin’ action! These were six and seven year olds going to school. AND RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS FOR CORN SAKE! Because of this, my cousin has a quiet room in his home where his daughter used to play and sleep.

Yeah, not-so fun fact about Medea. I have a relation to one of the victims in Sandy Hook.

So imagine my disgust with pukes like Alex Jones attacking these families, calling them out for faking their children deaths. Alex Jones can just drop from the face of the earth and I’ll sleep like a baby at night. But like with Columbine, not much action was done. Even though President Obama tried, he couldn’t get Congress and Senate to pass any kind of gun regulation laws.

I would like to blame it on the fact that both the house and senate were Republican-led at the time and whatever the black president wanted to happen, they told him to sit and spin because fuck your needs! Yeah, I want to say that they’re all a bunch of racist crackers, but most of them are still kinda lobbyed by the NRA. And when I say kinda, I mean, these guys are willing to lick boots for the NRA and screw the safety of the people.

So, no gun regulations happen and more tragedies continue happening. It wasn’t really until the San Bernadino tragedy that lawmakers wanted to do something. But not about gun regulation! No, because in that particular tragedy, the people causing the mayhem were part of ISIS (or so they claim). If the shooter is someone from a different place other than the U.S., they hate us for our freedom and this is terrorism. But if a white guy from Ohio does it, it’s just a sad day in America.

Now there are many of factors to these killers. Mental health is a big factor played in many of these tragedies. Yes, that is a biggie in general. Because people suffering from mental illness are statistically more likely to be a victim of gun violence than to commit one. People only bring up mental illness if the shooter is a white, American-born boy and soon enough, they’ll drop the subject of helping folks with this problem. How about we talk about gun regulation?! Have weapons of war off the streets and out of our homes! No one needs guns that can turn a body into swiss cheese in a matter of seconds given to a regular joe. Oh and once again, nothing happens. Even after we get some of the worst shootings after Sandy Hook! Because while 20 1st graders being gunned down in a classroom was pretty fucked up, we ended up with more obscene tragedies.

Just to name a few, the Pulse Night Club shooting in Orlando, FL where 49 people lost their lives (during Pride Month no less), an outdoor concert on the Las Vegas strip where 58 people died, and another high school shooting in Parkland, FL where 17 students lost their lives. At least with the last shooting I mentioned, the surviving students had ENOUGH and demanded action. In some ways, change did happen. We have a new generation ask the questions my generation didn’t and the generations before ignored it all.

With the swearing-in of a new Congress in January (the first time it was Democratic majority since 2010), the first issue they took up was on gun regulation. And it passed the house! The only problem is that the leader of the senate has refused to let ANY of these bills pass. He just let’s it die. And then you have that same sonuvabitch send out thoughts and prayers? The Congress is trying to do something so we wouldn’t have to go through these horrible tragedies time and time again! Fuck you Mitch! No seriously, fuck you and shove those thoughts and prayers up your ass because we know what you’re all about! We saw you during the days of Sandy Hook!

And so we continue with this wave of gun tragedies! Only now, a lot of these recent shootings seem to have a certain, controversial thing in common. All of them either liked Donald Trump or praised his rhetoric. I know I shouldn’t tie any tragedy to any serving president. I didn’t blame Clinton for Columbine. I didn’t blame Bush for Virginia Tech. And I never blamed Obama for Aurora, Phoenix, or Sandy Hook. But Donald Trump is a whole ‘nother level of blame.

It’s safe to say we’ve NEVER had a president quite like this. Someone who would rile up his supporters in some frightening ways. I don’t want to repeat ANYTHING of what this fool says. He carefully words his statements to his base and watch these fringey people go off the deep-end. When you have a president blaming Mexicans, banning Muslims, and criticizing African-Americans, there’s a lot of toxicity to absorb. And I am sick of it!

A lot tragedies in the past two years have had the essence of Trump lingering around it. The man who sent bombs to Trump’s enemies last fall was a staunch Trump supporter. The man who shot up a Jewish synagogue last year, also believed in Trump’s words. As did the Parkland shooter! Oh, let’s not forget the man who shot up the mosque in New Zealand earlier this year, he believed in Trump too. And same with the two of the three shootings that has happened in the last 7 days. People trying to enjoy themselves as they eat garlic-flavored foodstuffs in Gilroy and families buying things they need for the upcoming school year in a Walmart in El Paso...all of them taken out by white supremacists guided by words of a lunatic leader who believes black and brown people are the enemy.

His words are not helping. His words are damaging.

I know gun violence has been a major issue way before Donald Trump became president. But this recent onslaught of violence is too much to bear. If he was a decent person, he would put an end to his disturbing rhetoric. No more of these “Go back to where you came from” tweets. That means calling out white supremacy when you see it! And cut the shit about good guys on both sides! When you have one side marching and shouting, “Jews Will Not Replace Us” and the other side finding offense to those words, this shouldn’t be a fucking debate!

This country needs to fucking change and change now. Whether it’s through legislation, replacing political representatives with people willing to give a damn, or overthrowing a dictator. Do it and do it now!

Sorry for this rant, but...I’m just tired of this happening over and over again. I’m almost to the point of being numb by these tragedies. And that shouldn’t happen.

[krisiunicornio]

Influential yoga teachers denounce the conspiracy theory, which has infiltrated spiritual communities, and offer advice on how to identify and stop the spread of misinformation

QAnon, the viral pro-Trump conspiracy theory alleging that a band of satan-worshipping pedophiles, is gaining steam in the yoga and wellness community.

On social media, some teachers and influencers are posting QAnon-related messaging—although it doesn't always explicitly mention QAnon by name. On pastel backgrounds and in pretty fonts they call COVID-19 a hoax, encourage gun ownership, warn about human trafficking, and celebrate Donald Trump as a “light worker” in his quest to “save the children.”

Yoga teachers including Hala Khouri and Seane Corn—cofounders of the yoga and social justice organization Off the Mat, Into the World—started seeing posts like these in their feeds near the beginning of the Coronavirus lockdown this spring. Khouri has said she believes the debunked viral documentary Plandemic, which spread misinformation about COVID-19, was an entry point to QAnon for many in the wellness community. (The documentary was removed by both Facebook and YouTube in May.)

In March, celebrity OB/GYN Christiane Northrup, MD, started sharing QAnon-related "save the children" messaging, along with videos and memes that disparage vaccines and mask-wearing and encourage distrust of mainstream media. Northrup also shared Plandemic with her more than 750,000 followers on social media.

In an interview with Jezebel, Khouri discussed how she was “slammed” by many members of her Facebook community when she questioned the veracity of the documentary. Soon after, an explosion of posts pushing back on mask-wearing and a proliferation of memes warning of a government-led holocaust via vaccine flooded her feeds.

see also Do Politics Belong in Yoga?

Yoga Teachers and Wellness Leaders Respond to QAnon

Khouri, Corn, and other high-profile members of the wellness community like Jeff Krasno, the creator of the yoga festival Wanderlust and now the director of Commune—a wellness video and podcasting platform—were so disturbed by QAnon’s allegations that they were moved to publicly denounce it.

On September 13, Corn posted this statement, created by a concerned group of yoga and wellness leaders, to her 108,000 followers on Instagram:

View the original article to see embedded media.

Corn told Yoga Journal that she believes QAnon messaging is manipulative and exploitative—designed to incite chaos and division in the lead-up to the upcoming presidential election. “I just wanted to alert people that QAnon is a cult and it’s dangerous and it’s got its roots in white supremacy culture,” says Corn. “People should be aware of misinformation that is being targeted directly at the wellness community.”

By the end of September, Corn’s post had around 10,000 likes. After accruing thousands of comments, many from QAnon supporters spreading disinformation, Corn decided to disable comments on September 24. “As much as I may have helped people to gain awareness, I may have also introduced people to QAnon theories and beliefs,” she said.

see also 8 Steps Yogis Can Take to Turn Political Anxiety Into Mindful Activism

The Roots of QAnon

According to believers of QAnon, the leaders of the cabal consist of top democrats and liberal entertainers; dark forces who threaten humanity. “Q” is the name of a supposed high-clearance intelligence officer who drops cryptic messages about the cabal on various websites.

According to The New York Times, Q has “dropped” almost 5,000 messages so far, many repeating warnings about satanic rituals that have previously made their way into mainstream culture: If you lived through the 80s, you might remember evening news stories claiming Satanists were infiltrating daycares and schools to abuse children. Another QAnon claim, that cabal members kill and eat children to gain special powers from their blood, is a recycled Blood Libel conspiracy theory rooted in anti-semitism from the turn of the Twentieth Century, which helped to fuel Nazism across the world.

Conspirituality

Why are some members of the spiritual community putting stock in this conspiracy theory?

Two of the issues QAnon distorts—child abuse and human trafficking—are legitimate concerns, and many in the wellness community, including Corn, feel passionately about stopping them. (Corn has been working to fight human trafficking for decades. She recommends a few organizations that she’s personally cooperated with in both the United States and India: Children of the Night and Apne App.)

More generally, spiritual seekers are attracted to the idea of hidden and secret knowledge, and the existence of a grand cosmic plan, according to British writer and philosopher Jules Evans, who’s written extensively about the intersection of mysticism and conspiracy theories. “People prone to spiritual experiences may also be prone to unusual beliefs like conspiracy theories, which could be described as a paranoid version of a mystical experience,” Evans says.

“Conspirituality” is a term that was used by academic Charlotte Ward in 2011 in the Journal of Contemporary Religion. It is described as a “a rapidly growing web movement expressing an ideology fueled by political disillusionment and the popularity of alternative worldviews.”

Conspirituality is also a podcast, hosted by Derek Beres, Julian Walker, and Matthew Remski, that explores the cult-like behavior of QAnon and its theories.

see also 11 Yoga Practices for Working Through Stress and Anxiety

How to Spot QAnon, Protect Yourself from Disinformation, and Respond

In an interview with cult survivor and researcher Remski on the Conspirituality Podcast, Corn warned of the dangers of “Pastel QAnon” and their pleas to “protect children.” If you look closely, you might see QAnon hashtags attached to the posts, mixed in with other hashtags used by anti-trafficking campaigns: #savethechildren, #endsextrafficking, #eyeswideopen, #thegreatawakening, #dotheresearch, #followthewhiterabbit. (See a list of QAnon terminology here, compiled by the Conspirituality Podcast.)

According to Evans, “We need to learn how to balance our intuition with critical thinking, otherwise we can fall prey to ideas which are bad for us and our networks.”

If you see QAnon-related posts in your social feeds and want to start a conversation with the person who posted, Krasno recommends avoiding posting in their comments, as that can give the post more weight and help it spread further. He also recommends avoiding using words like ‘conspiracy’ or ‘conspirituality.’ “[These words] immediately cast any sort of skepticism in a negative light, and many conspiracies have been proven through hard-nosed journalism, including theories about Jeffrey Epstein, Watergate, and child sex trafficking,” he says. The word conspiracy can put people on the defensive and erode the common ground you are trying to create in an effort to bridge your worldview with others’, he explains. “You also have to be sensitive to the fact that some folks who support QAnon are survivors of sex trafficking and abuse,” says Krasno. “And now they feel heard, and have agency and community.”

see also A Sequence for Building Resilience in This Political Climate

When Krasno does engage with members of his community posting QAnon messages, he tries to frame his responses around discernment and media literacy, asking them if they know the source of the information they are sharing and whether it is reliable—whether it meets journalistic standards, has come from multiple expert sources, and was fact-checked. 

“I remind myself that we are all susceptible to being imperceptibly influenced by misinformation, and then I ask others to be aware of that as well,” Krasno says. If your own opinions have changed over the last several months, he suggests asking yourself why. “One of the hardest things in the world now is to differentiate fact from fiction,” he says, especially when misinformation is prolific online.

“I also challenge people to get off of social media for a day, or even a week, to see how they feel,” Krasno adds. “The goal of QAnon and other similar movements is to propagate chaos by constantly agitating people, tapping into sympathetic nervous system responses that inspire you to fight. When people get off of social media for a while, they usually feel better, more relaxed, and happier.” 

see also A Yoga Sequence to Train Your Brain to Relax

[lalobalives]

*An essay a week in 2017*

My mind is all over the place today.

I’m thinking about my family, immigrants who came to this country seeking opportunity.

I’m thinking of the kind of poverty my mother described to me in Honduras. The kind of hunger that eats at the walls of your stomach.

I am thinking of the children I saw when I went to Honduras for the first time in the summer of 1985 when I was nine. Kids who lived in huts made of cardboard and aluminum siding along the edge of the Rio Cangrejal. Kids who didn’t have access to clean water for drinking. Who used the bathroom in the river next to their homes. Who didn’t own shoes and whose clothes were tattered rags. I remember feeling ashamed. That was my first confrontation with my own privilege. No, we weren’t rich but compared to these people we were. I had new clothes on my body and shiny shoes. I used an indoor toilet. I had access to food and education. My biggest issues with poverty was not being able to have the latest sneakers and trends, and maybe that’s why they don’t matter to me now as an adult. We may have lived in a hood that was riddled with crime and drugs, our apartments may have been falling apart and the living conditions we lived in weren’t healthy or ideal, but we had food. I can never say I suffered hunger. Ever. Even if it was Spam or canned corned beef, a fried over a bed of white rice; we ate every day, a few times a day.

My mother once told me the story of a classmate who died when she was just a girl. They would lay the body out for a day or so to pray over it and do rituals. Lombrices (parasite worms) started pouring out of the girl’s nose. There was squirming in her mouth. Things were poking at the insides of her cheeks causing them to puff out. An adult went over and opened the girl’s mouth. Lombrices slithered out.

My mother learned the normalcy of death early on.

My grandmother, my mother’s mother, left Honduras after losing yet another child to the horrors of poverty–childhood diseases that are easily cured with a shot or week long dose of medicine. Medicines that weren’t accessible to them then and still aren’t in so many parts of the world. She left months after her infant daughter died in her own home. The baby had fever that wouldn’t break for days. Then one day the baby had a seizure. “Su cuerpo le brincaba,” my mother said, showing me with her hands how the baby’s body jumped as she seized. My mother was just nine or ten years old. Her mother would leave to Puerto Rico a few months later with the Turkish family she worked for as a maid. She left to seek a better life. A life where her children wouldn’t die. Where she could feed them and care for them, and she could send money back home to her family.

I once asked my grandmother if she’d ever return to Honduras to live. She’s an old woman now. “There’s nothing for me there.” And I imagine what it must be like for her, this woman who I admittedly resent for countless reasons that I still struggle with and don’t care to divulge now. She’s old and fragile, but still so strong in so many ways.

I thought of her and of my mother as I watched the crowds of people on the trains on my way to teach yesterday, and on my ride back home. There were signs that read: “My body. My choice.” and “Not my president.” I thought of the women in my family who have traversed the world seeking safety for themselves and their families. I thought about what this new administration means for them, for me, for us.

***

I didn’t go to any of the marches yesterday. My form of protest entailed facilitating a workshop for twelve women of color. I led them through various exercises to help them write their stories.

I left hopeful but still wondering: Am I doing enough? Where do we go from here? How does my work affect the world and help make this world a safer place for all of us? How can I carry this work forward? How can I contribute to the growth of this nation and this world?

These lines from Chris Abani’s TED Talk “On Humanity” have been in my mind on loop for the past few days: “what I’ve come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion, everyday acts of compassion.”

Some days I believe this to be true. Some days I worry that it’s not enough. Yesterday, in that room with those women, I believed this to be true–that it’s through the work that we do every day work that we change the world.

As I scrolled through my FB and saw the pictures of the marches across the world (which were glorious and inspiring), I wondered if I should have been among those women. Should I have been there with my twelve year old daughter, holding signs and shouting and showing our resistance?

I came home to a message from a fellow writer of color. She wrote:

Hi love, I’m not sure where you are right now or if you remember me from VONA but I just wanted to send you deep love and gratitude today for the 52 essay writing challenge. It is giving me the much-needed courage and commitment to words that need to be written, about love, race, white supremacy and more. Slowly but surely I feel like I’m finally going to begin writing the pieces I need to write. You are a force, inspiring and BRILLIANT. 

This writer served to remind me that, yes, this work is important and my work is having a ripple effect that is necessary and appreciated. The thing is, I am the type of person who always wants do serve and do more, all while being starkly aware of the fact that I am only one person.

So I wonder, how many people are carrying these protests forward? How can we continue to protest and be involved in our daily lives?

I think about the day after the election where what so many of us feared actually happened. I walked into my Fiction class in East Harlem, into a roomful of students of color who live in NYC in marginalized neighborhoods, who are told again and again, via the media and the results of this election and so many spaces, that they don’t matter and their stories don’t matter and they are less than… I threw out my lesson that day. Instead, I tried to get them talking about what the election results means to and for them. They sat, quiet and sullen. At first they didn’t want to talk about the election, but soon, after I shared my own dismay, they were talking and sharing. Two of my kids told me that they experienced racism for the first time that day. One student confessed that her mother is undocumented and she’s terrified for her. When the end of class came, a few of them lingered. They hugged me. They thanked me. They needed to be seen. I gave them what I could, my heart and my ears and my shoulder. I came home exhausted. The sweet exhaustion of this soul work.

They are the reason I wonder. My daughter is the reason I wonder: Am I doing enough? Is this work enough? Then I get these messages from writers, dozens of them over the past few weeks, who say thank you and tell me this #52essays2017 challenge has them writing and producing in a way they haven’t in so long. And I poll my students and they say they want me to continue the fiction class in the spring semester and they say they love the readings I’ve provided–all writers of color, all writers who look like them and come from places they come from and/or they can identify with. Writings by Junot Diaz and Judith Ortiz Cofer and Glendaliz Camacho and ZZ Packer and so many more. And so as I sit to create the syllabus for the spring, I think of what else to share–a story from Roxane Gay’s “Dangerous Women” and an excerpt from the graphic adaptation of Octavia Butler’s “Kindred.” And on Thursday I learned that a record number of students have registered for my Fiction class, and the class is now vying for first place with Robotics for the number of students trying to get into the class. This has never happened before. Wow. 

I know that hunger for stories that represent me. I am reminded that representation matters, and so I’m also reminded that this challenge I created with the push of my brujermana Lizz Huerta (#52essays2017) is an effort to get more stories like ours out in the world. I think of how this will influence the literary landscape in the next five to ten to twenty years. And, yes, sometimes the weight of it overwhelms me. Sometimes I am scared by what it is I’ve taken on and what was and continues to be the driving force behind Writing Our Lives–that our stories matter and only we can write them and I’m here to help people do this, especially writers of color. Us. You and me.

***

My daughter went out with her friends today. She woke up early to finish her homework and study for an upcoming exam and help clean the house. She swept the house. She cleaned the bathroom. She did three pages of the Kaplan test book I got for her. She showed me what she’d done and promised to do a few pages more when she gets home around 6.

She’s twelve and wanting to be with her friends. She wants to see the world like I did. She wants to experience life. I worry about the world I’ve brought her into. See, I get the many who say that they don’t want to bring kids into this world. And I also know that I couldn’t imagine a world without my little girl. This girl who isn’t so little anymore. Who is taller than her mama. Who has a 97 average and when she finishes her work early in class, spends the rest of her time helping her classmates. This girl who doesn’t come to me to help her with her schoolwork anymore. Who says, “I got it, mom” when I offer to help.

There was a time when I was her best friend. I didn’t think about when I would stop being cool and everything that she aspires to be. I wonder if I’m doing enough. If my hands off approach and “I won’t hover or helicopter mom you” style of parenting is enough. I don’t know, just like I don’t know if the work I do teaching and facilitating writing workshops is enough. But the evidence is there, isn’t it? It’s in the writers who before walking out of the class yesterday told me that they have the beginnings of two short stories and possibly more. It’s in the messages they send about how my work inspires them and pushes them to write. It’s in the eyes of the student who told me recently “I usually hate reading, miss, but I really like what you bring in for us to read.” It’s in the conversation I overheard my daughter having with a friend where she said, “My mom can be a pain sometimes, because, you know, moms, but she has my back. I know I can talk to her and I know she won’t let anyone mess with me.” The evidence is there when I walk into her room at night to turn off the light and she’s fallen asleep with a book on her chest.

All this inspires me to keep revisiting and reinventing ways I can show up for my students, young and old, emerging writers and established. And it keeps reminding me to keep mothering my daughter in resistance to how I was raised and how the world tells me I should mother her–conflicting messages that do nothing to affirm the role of mother. We all have our way of showing up and loving. There is no one way and no one road. The point is to keep striving and giving and serving and working to be your best self. The point is to contribute positively.

***

Two days ago a video came across my feed. It’s a speech (which felt like a prayer) by Valarie Kaur, Sikh activist and interfaith leader who centers her work on storytelling for social change. In her prayer, she talks of her grandfather’s immigration story, how he was imprisoned upon arrival for months until a white lawyer filed a habeas corpus and got him freed. Ms. Kaur connected her work as a lawyer and humanitarian to her grandfather’s experience. I choked up as I listened. The tears came when she said: “”Yes Rabbi, the future is dark, on this watch night, I close my eyes and I see the darkness of my grandfather’s cell. And I can feel the spirit of ever rising optimism (in the Sikh tradition ‘Chardi Kala’) within him. So the mother in me asks, ‘What if? What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?…. What is this is our country’s great transition?”

  Ms. Kaur wrote on her blog:

What if our America is not dead but a country still waiting to be born? What if the story of America is one long labor?

What if all the mothers who came before us, who survived genocide and occupation, slavery and Jim Crow, racism and xenophobia and Islamophobia, political oppression and sexual assault, are standing behind us now, whispering in our ear: You are brave? What if this is our Great Contraction before we birth a new future?

Remember the wisdom of the midwife: “Breathe,” she says. Then: “Push.”

Now it is time to breathe. But soon it will be time to push; soon it will be time to fight — for those we love — Muslim father, Sikh son, trans daughter, indigenous brother, immigrant sister, white worker, the poor and forgotten, and the ones who cast their vote out of resentment and fear.

I like to think that my relentless hope is my superpower. I’ve written about how my faith has waned during these times and how that scares me. Ms. Kaur’s speech reminded me that this kind of hope is necessary, because it makes us push, it makes us fight, for ourselves, for our ancestors, for our children and our students and those we call brother and sister and friend and family and brujermanas and brujermanos. And, yes, for those ancestors that came here, who survived so much pain and hunger and disillusionment, who kept trying and fighting and didn’t give up. Who knew they couldn’t give up, not on themselves or the generations to come.

I remember those labor pains when I had my daughter. I remember when I first saw her. I remember when I decided not to return to corporate America because I was so miserable there. I learned firsthand what misery can do to a child. I didn’t want to bring my daughter up in that. So I wrote my first book and didn’t look back. And in the journey of writing the book, I faced what I feared and started moving toward it: becoming a single mother and pursuing this writing life while doing it. That was more than twelve years ago. That was my new beginning. It hasn’t been an easy road but it’s been a beautiful, fulfilling one and I’m still here. Still doing this work and the dream evolves as I do. I continue to push. I hope you will too. Word. 

Relentless Files — Week 56 (#52essays2017 Week 3) *An essay a week in 2017* My mind is all over the place today. I’m thinking about my family, immigrants who came to this country seeking opportunity.

[curdinway-blog]

Princess Mononoke

“What exactly are you here for?” Prince Ashitaka is asked at one point in Princess Mononoke.  He replies, “To see with eyes unclouded by hate.”  It is a noble pursuit, but easier said than done.  In both our world and the movie, there seems to exist a fundamental lack of understanding.  This failure to connect seeds conflict; in Princess Mononoke, it has bred war between nature and man.

Princess Mononoke is often considered a superior clone of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. To call it such is to do both films a tremendous disservice.  While both contain similar elements of subject and plot, occasionally even identical elements, the films are dramatically different tonally and in what they are attempting to convey.  If Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is a fire-and-brimstone sermon told by an equally fiery preacher, Princess Mononoke is more like a carefully researched and concerned dissertation.  Part of the reason for this was that environmentalism was less a fringe topic by 1997 and more universally important than it was in 1984.  Miyazaki himself doubtlessly changed as well.  Age tends to temper passions and bring new, complicating perspectives.  For a modern era and beyond, Miyazaki helmed the project, intending it as his last and most definitive.  

A fundamental change between Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke is the perceived supremacy of nature.  In Nausicaä, the war between man and nature is decidedly one-sided in earth’s favor.  All efforts by men to affect it are futile and self-destructive.  In Princess Mononoke, interestingly, the arrow of dominance has been flipped. This time, man is clearly the domineering force, and nature is in full-blown retreat.  This, I surmise, is much more accurate of the world as we know it. Human beings absolutely possess the ability to override the earth.  This was already true in 1997, even 1984 and beyond, let alone 2017.  We have razed prairies and replaced them with square plots for growing food, knocked down trees to build dens for ourselves, reduced biodiversity to swell the populations of species we find desirable.  If there is indeed a war raging between man and nature, then nature is royally getting its ass kicked.

Of course, the problem with war against nature is that victory is truly pyrrhic.  The domination of humans is only good for us so long as the earth’s infrastructure remains intact; damage it irrevocably and there is hell to pay.  In Princess Mononoke, the moment of nature’s apparent demise leads to a symbolic cloud of death, choking off everyone and everything it comes in contact with.  We are still reliant on this planet, and only this planet, for most of our basic requirements of life; air, water, food, and shelter.  Understanding our tremendous power to shape the world means understanding we have the freedom to end ourselves in the process.  

Another huge change between Princess Mononoke and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is in their respective considerations of the human element.  In Nausicaä, we are placed firmly on the side of nature. Nature is considered neutral, or even benevolent, until it is provoked; humans are the aggressors.  For the most part, human characters are portrayed as fearful, vain, selfish, and violent.  Their actions provoke global catastrophe in the first place; their continued action means nature strikes them down to preserve balance.  Princess Mononoke has a far different and more sympathetic opinion of man. Humanity is still presented as deeply flawed, with elements of selfishness and pride clearly at play. But we are also, Miyazaki surmises, locked in our own desperate struggle for survival; impossibly unique, sensitive, and altruistic creatures, we are also deeply vulnerable to the cold tidal whims of the universe.  If we have drastically changed the world, then that is because life is harsh. Skyscrapers in place of trees bring us a level of insulation and protection we would not enjoy otherwise; a level of personal comfort we now view as necessary.  In Princess Mononoke, Lady Eboshi at first would appear to be the clear-cut villain in the story; some sort of haughty madwoman bent on natural destruction. Ashikaga’s anger at her reflects our own.  But then, we are introduced to the kingdom of Irontown, and a far different portrait of Eboshi emerges.  She provides lepers, formerly discarded and unwanted souls, a place to call home and a valued purpose; basic human dignity.  Former prostitutes run the bellows for mineral smelting.  Irontown is a shelter for all of the rejects and disvalued of the kingdom; yet despite the relative level of comfort provided, life is still hard and tentative for all its subjects.  Irontown is seen as being under assault nearly the entire course of the movie.  The city is utterly remote, so nature must be suppressed to provide resources and prevent the wilderness from swallowing civilization.  It is remote because that is where valuable and untapped resources are, and Eboshi correctly calculates that the trade value of those resources will afford the encampment value and security from the underlying kingdom.  At the same time, locating the city on the outskirts of the kingdom serves to protect it from opportunistic seizure by the kingdom’s forces.  Lady Eboshi may be vain; there can be little doubt that she enjoys being seen as a leader and savior of her people.  But rarely, if ever, does she seem self-serving; and she is certainly not evil, as much as she is simply pragmatic.  The gray areas encompassed by Princess Mononoke are one of its greatest strengths, and an important topic of discussion in our actual lives.  How does one compare the value of a human life against the beauty of a thousand sunsets? Or the diversity of a rainforest against a chorus of hunger pains?  Currently, DDT, yes, that DDT, is used prevalently in certain regions of Africa. The effects of DDT on bird species and overall ecosystems is well-documented; and yet, thousands of people on the continent die each year from malaria.  In the same way, certain GMO’s such as BT corn have been decried for the toxins they produce and can impart other species to produce; but there are already too many people to feed.  What will happen as we continue to add millions more?  Shouldn’t GMO’s be at least part of that discussion?  When it comes to such difficult underlying issues, there are no easy answers.  Each of us must come to our own appropriations of what merits value.

The greatest difference between Princess Mononoke and its cousin lies in what they seek to address.  Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind seeks to bring our attentions to the issue of ecological destruction.  Princess Mononoke seeks to provide an appropriate solution.  The overall message of the film is tied neatly into the arc of its two main characters. Prince Ashitaga is a village leader who is deeply invested in human welfare; throughout the course of the movie, his experiences with nature cause him to care for and protect it with nearly equal regard.  San, aka Princess Mononoke, is a savage girl who was raised among wolves.  Her initial hatred of men softens when she meets Ashitaga, and hidden human elements and feelings emerge.  Her transformation is more reluctant and incomplete than that of Ashitaga; yet by the end of the movie, she has become an undeniably more tolerant and peaceful character.  The means of solving conflicts is in growing mutual respect, cooperation, and even appreciation.  Unfortunately, in our current society, conflicts over the environment have been marked by an obsession with winning, a phenomenon probably tied into an equally destructive obsession in politics.  Economic success has been planted firmly against natural protection; middle ground has ceased to exist.  Dialogue and legislations are increasingly being made for the wrong reasons; often times, to hurt the opposing side solely for the sake of perceived victory of the other, even when no actual benefit exists.  Understanding is a concept seen as weak or wishy-washy. In fact, it is in the best interest of every person on the planet.  Since when did budget health or environmentalism become singular goals? Aren’t both a mutual interest of everyone?  Nobody wants to breathe air chock-full of suffocating carbon dioxide, or turn half of the world into uninhabitable wasteland.  If someone smirks at you and says they would be fine with it, they are lying.  Or they are refusing to acknowledge what they know, at the back of their minds, is inherently true.

If there is a lesson to be learned from Princess Mononoke, it is that in conflicts, environmental or otherwise, compromise and balance are key.  Environment and human interests are not mutually exclusive goals; they can be accomplished concurrently.  All that is required is a little open-mindedness and human ingenuity.  In cases where concurrent benefit isn’t an option, mediation should be able to produce partial benefits for each side. We are conditioned to believe working together is frustrating or impossible; instead, it is a challenge we should cherish, an engaging and beneficial puzzle.  And it starts with mutual respect; an appreciation for utilities that are less tangible, and equally precious.

There is a moment in Princess Mononoke, following the cloud of death, where a villager gazes awestruck upon a field of blooming blue flowers.  “Huh…I didn’t know the Forest Spirit made the flowers grow,” he murmurs. How carefully will we tend to our own flowers?  Our children will want to see them too.