I want to see if I can post this to Desire2Learn.
Timoteo
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Zeitgeist, The Movie - Remastered / Final Edition -
ZEITGEIST, The Movie - Remastered / Final Edition - Full Production. What does Christianity, 911 and The Federal Reserve all have in common?
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
History Powerpoint-Vaudeville
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
History Powerpoint-Vaudeville
View more presentations from MrG.
CDPHE Latino MSM community gathering questionnaire
On March 11, 2009 I received an email message from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. It was requesting "input" from me about organizing a community event, that looks something like a focus group for HIV prevention in the Latino gay community. Below is my response.
Good morning:
I appreciate you sharing this questionnaire with me and requesting my ideas about Latino HIV prevention here in Colorado.
I have been in contact with folks in the community so I know there continues to be difficulty with El Futuro program. I assume this questionnaire is about the restructuring process. I am happy to hear that finally CDPHE is willing to move beyond the few gate keepers, who have a personal financial interest in the funding but serve as a barrier to providing quality services to Latino men who are at high risk of HIV transmission.
If I can be honest, I'm very concerned about a process that taps the community for information and fails to give voice to a broader experience of oppression that we as Latino men experience, which is only compounded by stigmatized sexuality and other high risk behaviors. While I appreciate all that CDPHE has done in the way of providing funding and technical assistance, if I can be so bold, the implementation has been one failure after another. I can recall, from the first day the doors opened at El Futuro there has been escalating schism within our community. It has been my observation that how CDPHE directs the process has been a big part of the problem. I don't know what the plan is with this community gathering and what objectives you hope to achieve but all too often I see reactive behaviors on the part of "community leaders" and CDPHE that results in hurt feelings, confusion and lost energy in what I see as a very important project.
Based on the questionnaire I'm concerned that we are going to see more of the same given the approach repeats a flawed methodology. It is my informed opinion that who you will have come to the table are those who are already educated about the issues and who anoint themselves as "community leaders;" CDPHE then directs the work based on a few influential voices. The problem is that you only tap a specific social network at the cost of those who are most in need of HIV prevention services; those who do not have a fully developed identity based around sexuality. Unlike the white gay community, we as Latinos find ourselves caught at the intersection of various stigmatized identities that ultimately results in a devalued sense of self, which then plays out in high risk behaviors. We don't hear from those who have been silent or are invisible to both the Latino and Gay community. If we are ever going to raise the quality of HIV prevention in Colorado we need to move beyond the current model and begin a process that creates something new. Before that can happen there needs to be systemic changes which include:
• A contract monitor within CDPHE who "gets it." By that I mean, knows the Latino and GLBT community based on personal experience and current social research. Someone who knows something about nonprofit business models, which includes the operation side (policy, procedures, budgets, marketing, etc.) and equally important, the program development side of an agency. He should have a good understanding of both qualitative and quantitative methodology in particular Participatory Action Research. Someone who knows Latinos across the state as opposed to a few vocal voices here in the Denver metropolitan area. Someone who has a firm understanding of how the federal and state system works (both treatment and prevention) and is effective in disseminating that information in meaningful ways that is helpful for those implementing the work. Most important, someone with a thick skin who can withstand harsh criticism – many in my community do not know how to play nice.
• It is vital that we have a representative advisory council made up of talented men who are able to begin the process of organizing the community as well as the process of establishing a 501(c)3 agency. Until these men can be self-governing and autonomous from an umbrella agency, we will continue to see problems we had with ECCOS/El Centro Esperenza. The representatives should come from across the state and from various experiences to adequately represent community needs. I would hope this group could then develop into a functioning board of directors.
• As I see it, the most important component is to gather updated information directly from Latino men living in Colorado from various communities across the state. We need a comprehensive needs assessment that implements natural observation, focus groups, in-depth individual interviews that allows for a better understanding of what it is to live here now. For that, you need someone who can be trusted and that will not just happen because someone knows how to write a good proposal. Once we have this information, it needs to be disseminated to Latinos in a way that brings the community together and provides alternative social networks. Social marketing can then be used but at this point, it's putting the cart before the horse because we are ignorant of the lived experience of Chicanos, new immigrants, transsexuals, bisexuals, and others who are at risk of HIV transmission.
In a nutshell, this is what I see that needs to happen if we are going to do something different, otherwise you can expect the same outcomes. I have over 20 years of personal experience in Latino HIV prevention and 10 years of academic research that qualifies me to know what I'm speaking about. I have and always will be willing to help. As I have shared with key informants, I'm not willing to volunteer my time and give away my knowledge and talents. It's a difficult economic market out here and so I am willing to participate providing there is a role that compensates me financially, but more important, a contract that allows me the authority to implement the work.
If you continue to be interested in my ideas and you're willing to enter a negotiation that establishes a quality working relationship, I welcome the chance to speak with you and your team about the future of Latino HIV prevention in Colorado. Otherwise, go with god and you have my continued prayers for success.
Respectfully,
D. Timoteo Barajas
Reviving Timoteo’s Thinking!
I have neglected this blog for some time but recently I've had a number of ideas that I'd like to capture. Most of these ideas are related to courses I'm teaching at the Community College of Denver. I'm teaching a number of psychology courses including: General Psychology; Human Growth & Development; Child Development; Human Sexuality; Psychology of Gender; Psychology of Prejudice & Discrimination. Some of this builds on the work as a PhD student with the University of Denver, Graduate School of Social Work.
It is my hope that by publishing this material, others will take a look and offer feedback about what it is I have to share. In the end, this is an exercise in developing my personal and academic voice. While I may not be as articulate as many, I do believe I have valuable ideas to share.
Timoteo
Friday, June 15, 2007
Monday, January 01, 2007
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Learning from Experience: Minority Identities, Multicultural Struggles by Paula M. L. Moya "
Book Description In Learning from Experience, Paula Moya offers an alternative to some influential philosophical assumptions about identity and experience in contemporary literary theory. Arguing that the texts and lived experiences of subordinated people are rich sources of insight about our society, Moya presents a nuanced universalist justification for identity-based work in ethnic studies.
This strikingly original book provides eloquent analyses of such postmodernist feminists as Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, Norma Alarcón, and Chela Sandoval, and counters the assimilationist proposals of minority neoconservatives such as Shelby Steele and Richard Rodriguez. It advances realist proposals for multicultural education and offers an understanding of the interpretive power of Chicana feminists including CherrÃe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Helena MarÃa Viramontes. Learning from Experience enlarges our concept of identity and offers new ways to situate aspects of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation in discursive and sociopolitical contexts.
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DISCUSSION
I find it difficult to write about Learning from Experience, especially given the expertise and eloquence Moya commands of the English language. I am humbled by her argument and recognize that I may never have the words to express as succinctly the experience of what it means to me being Chicano/a.
I recall in class this past week the difficult I had in expressing my understanding of Moya’s writing about experience shaping identity. In her introduction she writes about Joan Scott’s position that experience prevents, rather then allows “critical analyses of the constitutive working of the discursive system through identities (and experiences) are produced” (p. 6). I have not been exposed to Scott's work so I plan to visit the library and see what she has to say about Experience but it sounds like she discounts it. Moya states “thus, in her efforts to establish the correct causal (and historical) relationship between discourse, experience, subjectivity, and identity, Scott, effectively delegitimizes experience as an authroitave source for knowledge. Supposedly, this position reinforces postmodernism that would have us believe it’s all about the power of langue and systems of discourse that create a relative experience of reality. It follows then that actions, accountability and responsibility become meaningless. This was illustrated in a footnote about Butler’s analysis of the New Bedford rape case at the end of “Contingent Foundations. In her deconstruction of a question of the defense attorneys asked of the rape victim, Butler concludes that the real culprit of the crime is the ‘category of sex.’ She writes: ‘Here sex is a category, but not merely a representation; it is a principle of production, intelligibility, and regulation which enforces a violence and rationales it after the fact. The very term by which the violation is explained enact the violation, and concede that the violation was under way before it take the empirical form of a criminal act…As a category that effectively produced the political meaning of what it describes, ‘sex’ here works its silent ‘violence’ in regulating what is and is not designatable (19).” Moya counters by exposing two problems “the first is that by focusing on the relationship between the rape and discourse (‘the very terms by which the violation is explained enact the violation…’), Butler misrepresents the causal nature of the crime. She presumes, but never shows, that the categories she exocoriates (sex and identity) determine that such violations will inevitably occur. It is the unsupported presumption that underlies her claim that ‘the violation was under way, before it take the empirical form of a criminal act.” Meanwhile, the agency (not to mention responsibility) of the men is erased; she represents them as mere ‘effects’ of discourse, as subjects mobilized thorough the grammar of the discourse that has ‘produced’ them.’ The second problem is that by focusing on the words spoken by the defense attorney, Butler unwittingly silences the victim and ignores her experience of the rape.
After reading Chapter 1, I feel I’m better able to express my point. While reading this chapter, I understood Moya on many different levels and was grateful for helping me to finally understand the writing of Moraga and Anzaldúa. Like my colleague, I always wondered what the point of their stories and metaphors and how that related to me. The theory in the flesh has captured my experience in a way I was never able to articulate before. I am a Chicano/a - I know some would ask why I’m putting the “a” at the end of Chicano (which indicates a male gender) those who truly know me, know that as a child I thought of myself as a girl. As such, I was beaten, raped, humiliated and shared in the right of passage that many young girls in our culture experience. I’ve always said, I know what it is to be raped in more ways then physical. Talk about embodied knowledge. It is this experience that has made me acutely aware of the social dynamics that include use of language, social roles, and expectations of normal and deviance. Even as a young child, I observed the agreed upon reality where perpetrator was able to define reality, creating an illusion that we all get along, while simultaneously being aware that an alternative reality was taking place, unseen to most of the people in the social situation. I learned at an early age not to speak of these incidents, silenced, because they revealed a dark world of human oppression. It has been my life long journey to understand this by studying theory of social life and how to give voice to this silenced experience in order to create a better world. Like Moraga’s interview, I know (1) the family as the primary instrument of socialization (2) the need for theory to be grounded in emotional investment (3) the link between social location and experience (4) the body as a source of knowledge and (5) the cerntrality of struggle to the formation of her political consciousness. (p. 49)
Multiliteracies for a Digital Age by Stuart A. Selber
Book Description Multiliteracies for a Digital Age serves as a guide for composition teachers to develop effective, full-scale computer literacy programs that are also professionally responsible by emphasizing different kinds of literacies. Stuart A. Selber also proposes methods for helping students move among these literacies in strategic ways.
Defining computer literacy as a domain of writing and communication, Selber addresses the questions that few authors of other computer literacy texts consider: What should a computer literate student be able to do? What is required of literacy teachers to educate such a student? How can functional computer literacy fit within the values of teaching writing and communication as a profession? Reimagining functional literacy in ways that speak to teachers of writing and communication, he builds a framework for computer literacy instruction that blends functional, critical, and rhetorical concerns in the interest of social action and change.
Multiliteracies for a Digital Age reviews the extensive literature on computer literacy and critiques it from a humanistic perspective. This approach, which will remain useful as new versions of computer hardware and software inevitably replace old versions, helps to usher students into an understanding of the biases, belief systems, and politics inherent in technological contexts. Selber redefines rhetoric at the nexus of technology and literacy and argues that students should be prepared as authors of twenty-first-century texts that defy the established purview of English departments. The result is a rich portrait of the ideal multiliterate student in a digital age and a social approach to computer literacy envisioned with the requirements for systemic change in mind.
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DISCUSSION
I just finished reading Selber: 1/Reimagining Computer Literacy. Rather then wait to come together in class and discuss this issue, I thought I’d use a little technology to generate discussion about the reading now that it’s fresh in my mind. J
Initially, I was going to save this reading for last but as I started looking over the chapter I became intrigued with Selber’s ideas about technology literacy and practice, the next thing I know I was finished with the chapter. As I recall, we were not reading beyond chapter 1 this week, which Ann will be facilitating in the discussion on Thursday.
What I found most interesting about the first chapter was his discussion about myths of technology. Just because we invest in our technology infrastructure dose not necessary mean that students or instructors will be able to use it use the technology in a meaningful way. Just this week, I had an adjunct professor tell me that one of her students was unable to cut and paste in MS Word. I found it surprising that a master’s level student did not have basic computer skills. In my own class, I have seen a number of students wrestle with posting assignments on blackboard via the digital box. I’m also in the process of grading papers on the “Who am I?” assignment and feel irritated at the superficial level that most students answer the questions (and this is an advance standing class). In some cases, there is poor sentence and paragraph structure and most use terms without connecting them to meaning. So they will throw in the word “culture” a few times as if that answers the question, but don’t provide a definition or other information that indicates they understand the concept. For that reason, this chapter was particularly interesting.
As I read the chapter, I also found myself thinking back about my work at MetLife as a teleservice representative in their pensions department. Each morning, we arrived at 7:45 (to accommodate EST) and become a Borg. I would put in my ear phone and mike to take phone calls. I would boot my computer and bring up the required programs as well as enter secured databases with my appropriate passwords. At precisely 7:45 the calls were released to a pool of 15 representatives and each of would average 120 calls per day. In our department meetings, I recall conversations about average time per call, how long clients were on hold, number of key stroke made by the representative and time away from our cubes. As we walked through the building, we would enter codes to access copy machines or send faxes, some doors were secured so we had to swipe them with our id badges, not to mention the video cameras that monitored the floor and the supervisor who walked around trouble shooting and making sure we were available. At the time, I had just finished reading 1984 by George Orwell and could not help but feel that I was under constant surveillance. I developed a deep resentment toward the technology and shared the opinion that “computers are evil, tools of the devil” (p. 11) at the same time, I was reading Kaczynski’s (a.k.a. Unabomber) manifesto Industrial Society and Its Future, about the consequences of technology on the human race. I became aware that I needed use technology so that technology is not always using me. So I worked hard to understand new technological advances (I believe I would score pretty high on the computer literacy student evaluations as described in the book) but I still hold deep resentment for the intrusiveness of technology. By the way, I left MetLife because I could not tolerate Snoopy always breathing down my back. Corporations align themselves with a warm fuzzy mascot to camouflage their corporate fascism.
While at Boston College, I had the honor of studying policy with John McNutt who has done a great deal of writing about Social Work and technology. As a profession he claimed that we lagged in our ability to effectively use technology to assist in our work (e.g. PDA, Laptops, Nonprofit infrastructures, access to current research, etc). Consequently, we lack the ability to organize and engage in community practice. He would discuss the demonstrations against the G-7 meetings in Seattle and Washington and how the internet and other forms of technology helped to organize those activities and how Social Work was noticeably absent. We as a profession also suffer from being on the wrong side of the digital divide, like people of color, the poor, and other marginalized groups, feeling that we do not need to incorporate technology in practice. But as Selber discusses, we need to be “users of technology’ as well as “questioners of technology” as well as “producers of technology” which is part of reflective praxis.
I was particularly impressed with the way he structured his argument with principals of critical realism. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book.
I started thinking about the use Borg, a Star Trek reference of organic beings that are also made up of technological mechanisms that create a collective consciousness, where individuality is obsolete and assimilation into the collective is the comfort of belonging to the group. I recall Walter suggesting we do some quick research on Cyborgs, and so I came back and found this link to a chapter by Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century, which offers a nice introduction to these ideas. I just finished reading it and recall an early class in SW Theory where I was told that I had commited blasphemy. I suppose I am a cyborg…so I think I’ll need to do more reading on this so I can find a way to resist and become more fully human.
I also thought of Maureen, with some of your comments about feminism and animal rights. It will be interesting to hear what you have to say about this artile. ;)
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
TWELVE STROKES OF MIDNIGHT by Timoteo
Once upon a time, on the longest night of the year, Zayanya stepped out from the woods. She is one of the few creatures to survive the isolation of death. All that can be seen is her black hooded cape as she makes her way through the darkness, careful to avoid the light of the full moon. Her time of existence is only the twelve beats of midnight, measured in the silence of a clock that no longer works. The silence she walks in is deafening; not even the leaves she steps on give off any sound. Crossing the meadow, she is a soft wind blowing through the wild grass. The old castle she approaches is under the blue blanket of an aerie mist. Looking across the dry moat, she sees a closed draw bridge offering false security for a treasure long spent. On a dark wind she passes through the planks of defiance, like liquid shadow she regains her form. Zayanya casually walks past empty armor and rusted swords, a sarcastic grin across lips a shade lighter then congealed blood. Reaching the palace steps she looks up at her destination. A chill of animated memory forces her to cross her arms; she closes her cape to her breast. The 1st stroke of midnight has passed.
Halfway up the palace steps Zayanya utters her first words of the night, “Cinderella you pathetic bitch.” With that she releases a demoniac cackle that shatters the granite step in half. “Let this drama begin!” she commands, and with that she throws up her cape into the heavy wind. Her cape takes flight as it mutates into a raven; with a screeched, “Ach! Ach!” and a flash of lightning, he soars up to the highest tower. Zayanya looks down at the step; her memories flooded with the images of a palace ball where she was not welcomed. It was an enchanted evening, a night when fairies, godmothers, and the undead where allowed to make use of a few spells. Zayanya decided that it would be charming to dance among the unliving. She rode up in a coach the dark purple color of rapunzul. When she walked into the ballroom, solitude her date, commanded the room to fall silent. As she approached the royal family, she heard each whisper as if spoken into her ear. The hateful words filled the room with an odor of pungent fear. As she curtsied before the prince, she could not help think what a delicious bedtime morsel he would be. When the prince kissed the black pearl ring on her right hand, he sealed his doom. “But No.” Zayanya though out loud, “Cinderella had to show up and ruined everything.” Her head filled with the idea she spit out; “I hate innocence!” Like acid the words fell and began to eat their way through the ballroom floor. (In her heart, a delicate web of lies, resting on them a contented spider). She recalled the music of silence as the Prince danced with Cinderella. She focused her powers on their heart; still the illusion was greater. When they shared whispers of love under the moon, she was listening from the shadows. Strange that she should be such a part of their love, absorbed in each other they are unaware of the hunger that lurked in their mist. Zayanya recalled being on the palace steps that night, after all, on the last stroke of midnight her spell ended too. Who should come running down the steps with gown in hand? Cinderella. “It wasn’t that she denied me the taste of blue blood. It’s not even that she filled the castle with the stomach-turning stench of innocence. No, I stuck out my cane and tripped her because of the noise she made as she ran across the floor. How was I to know that she would lose one of those dammed glass slippers and live happily ever after?” she thought as she looked back into the ballroom. With a taint of regret, she added, “I didn’t anticipate that I’d always be referred to as ‘pitch on the palace steps.”
“Enough of this idle thought, I’m here with purpose” with that, Zayanya allowed her dark purple gown to slither down to the floor. Her naked body stepped out from the coiled serpent, and began to make her way to the queens secret chamber. Entering the library, she looked over thousands of books too delicate to be touched. Near the cold dead fireplace, she found what she was seeking. She pulled on Faust, Vol. I, releasing the door to a hidden chamber. She made her way up a spiral staircase, passing through cobwebs and over rat droppings, not disturbing a speck of dust. At the end of the 3rd silent chime Zayanya pushed open the queen’s bedroom door.
The queen’s chambers are round; on the marble floor is a huge extravagant pentagram, on the ceiling: a detailed mural of Lord Satanas sitting in final judgment. There are no windows; only a large balcony used to call on the stars. (In the day, the heavy drapes shield out the most hopeful ray). Zayanya walked over to the drapes and with little effort she pulls down the moth eaten remains. The blue light of the moon stop’s at the threshold, creating shadows where there was perfect nothing. Zayanya steps into the center of the pentagram, lifting her arms above her head the room begins to move around her, in a language that no man could understand, she calls out:
“Mirror, Mirror on the wall
Who is the biggest hypocrite of all?
I say you,
You say me,
either way we disagree.”
From the wall a brilliant light does away with all shadows in the room except for the umbra Zayanya’s presence holds. In the silver light Zayanya’s opaque skin is engaged in a dance of ecstasy. With a shrieking triumphant laugh Zayanya demands the light back into the mirror. She crosses the room and walks up three steps where the full length mirror hangs on the tower wall. Where the mirror stands, he reflects the balcony directly across the room. He is the almond-shape of a mandorla. His frame is made of rich mahogany; the color of sun-dried blood. The wood is shaped into a thorn bush; at the top, an eagle struggling to break free.
Zayanya looking into the black mirror, says, “A thousand eternity’s have passed since the last time we spoke.”
The mirror looking out into the empty room replies. “I’m okay with that.” The 7th stroke of midnight has passed.
After pressing her cold lips to the cool surface of the mirror, she replies, “I’ve missed you too.” “Tell me,” she continues, "how much do you miss your queen?"
"I only reflected her beauty, I cannot miss what was never mine.” he replied.
Did you love her? She asked, already knowing his defense.
The mirror spoke, “I told her all that she wanted to hear, my queen was the fairest in the land.”
Digging her palms with the thorn frame, she licked the surface of the mirror, then whispered, “Then why did you take her life?”
Sensing the flesh eating stench left across his reflection he replied, “Snow White.”
Covering the giggle with the tips of her fingers, she then responds, “So you destroyed them both.”
Looking past her, he answered, “How was I to know that some prince would dislodge the poison from her throat and that she would live happily ever after .”
With a howl of laughter she twirls around and shouts.
Mirror, Mirror on the wall
Tell me dear,
Whose essence is most putrid of all?
Don’t say me -- because it’s plain to see
That you hide in semblance filled with fear.
“Go away Zayanya, leave me to suffer my existence.”
Mirror, if you could see me it would be clear, I love you!”
Love Zayanya? What do you think you know of love? It’s true I do not see you, how can I reflect what is dead?
“Your truth of death is a lie. You have spent way to may years reflecting the unliving, your ability to perceive is just a bit twisted. I pity that you can’t see the beauty that stands before you. Your limitations will not allow you to see me cup my breast, or tast from my nipple the sweet drop of nectar.”
“You self-satisfied leach, what you call nectar, would kill a thousand armies. Even if I could reflect your image, I wouldn’t want to.” Those words brought in the 9th chime.
Zayanya walks over to the mirror, horrible rage piercing from her eyes; she slashes into the mirror like talons into flesh. The mirror hangs there giving off a perfect refection of the room, unaffected by her outburst.
“Damn your apathy, you cold and shallow creature,” she spits.
“You continue to torture yourself Zayanya, go away and let me be.”
It’s not that easy; for you are something that I need. Allow yourself to see, and together we can welcome the morning sun. Break this spell of time, I beg you! Please say that you will be mine.
At the beginning of the 12th stroke, the Mirror answered, “I will not.”
With a pain filled scream and to the core of her hate, Zayanya utters her last words of the morning. You fool; you have damned us both. I have no more time to play with your stubbornness. If you will not break this spell, then I curse you to be the door to my next dominion. As the last reverberations of the 12th chime echo, Zayanya jumps head first into the black mirror. After crossing over, the mirror explodes out into thousands of pieces spread across the marble floor. The room is absorbed by the silence of night. A new day has been born. In the black immature hours of the morning, the mirror continues to float down from the air and creates a fine dust across the penatagram.
The morning gives way to the dawn. Over the mountains, that surround the woods, the first rays of illuminating light cross over the highest peak. As if directed, it shines into the queens' chambers. The light is reflected from each grain of the mirror, and it illuminates the mural above; revealing a cracked and faded illusion. A winged shadow disrupts the light as the Raven flies into the room. He circles three times before landing in the center of the pentagram. “Ach!” “Ach!” He brings a message from Zayanya, “Take pleasure in your brooding, I will not bother you again. Know that where I exist, I will remain dead happily ever after.
VATO & ONAGO by Timoteo
Once upon a time on Okinawa island there lived a hermit. In the western region, deep in the enchanted forest of Kadina, Onago lived alone. He was not an old recluse running from the world; instead he was a youth seeking the knowledge of the Absolute. Onago was like a lotus flower born in a world of chaos and mire he grew powerful and spirited. Once he was able to care for himself he left the comfort of family and friends to find his place in the cosmos. Solitude was his strength.
In the nearby village of Kinblu lived a simple young man who was as handsome as a golden ray of sun. Vato was impetuous, audacious and always in trouble. When others tried to control his behavior, he would flash a smile and say, "Let me enjoy for I may not pass this way again!" Then off he would run to find his next adventure.
Vato stood out side the Kadina forest, he knew this was taboo territory, that would make exploring even more delightful. Many warned him not to enter the forest, some men did not return, those who did say they saw fairies, dragons and other queer things. All these warnings were like a Siren's call, seducing him closer to his doom. "What the hell," he thought, "I may never pass this way again," as he ran through a welcome mat of wild grass.
Near the end of the Summer day, he thought, that this place is not so strange. He sat on a cliff watching the orange sun moving downward into the sea. Looking to the beach below he saw the first sign of life that was not a plant or tree. It was Onago on his evening walk. Vato stood up, waving his arms over his head, and shouted "Hello!" Onago was to far away to hear. Vato ran to find a way down the cliff to the beach. His heart raced with determination to meet the stranger. By the time he finally arrived on the sand the sun had set and it was too dark to see. He called out to the night and looked around, but he knew he was alone.
Vato was going to sleep on the sand, when a flame on a distant hillside caught his attention. He resumed the search for the stranger, going toward the flame like a moth. Vato stood behind a tree outside a small cave, when he peaked in he thought the man was part of the flame but quickly realized that he was only sitting close to the fire. With his most charming smile, Vato stepped into the light and said; "Hello friend can I warm myself by your fire?" Onago looked up as if he was expecting a visitor and said, "An answer to a prayer." They talked and shared stories through out the night, they where drawn to each other as yin to yang. Vato asked Onago "Can I stay and share this life with you?" Onago replied, "Stay as long as you know this is where you want to be, but not a moment longer." For Onago and Vato years had passed like days, and each day was lived like it was a life time -- it was paradise.
Every paradise has its serpent, and Kadina was no exception. There was a creature who roamed the forest; he fed on the dead and decay. Dada was an evil creature his putrid heart had no place in it for mercy, joy or forgiveness. One day while Dada fed on the dead carcass of a unicorn he herd the sounds of laughter and rapture coming from the beach below. When he stood and looked down the bluff he saw Vato and Onago loving each other on the hot white sand. Dada's icicle heart cracked when he saw the beauty and strength of Vato, and this made him loathe the sight of Onago. Then and there he determined, Vato would be his next meal.
Onago had sensed a change in his companion. Vato was sullen and uneasy; nothing seemed to bring him serenity. Some nights he could hear Vato screaming at the moon. Finally, Onago asked, "My love, is it time for you to go?" "No!" "Maybe -- I don't know?" "When I sleep my dreams are filled with whispers that seduce me to the dark, but when I'm awake, I see you, and the world is right." What Vato did not say was that more and more he felt the need to destroy what he loved the most. In his dreams he saw himself scraping his nails into his lover's chest, then cracking it open he devoured Onago's heart. He could taste the copper blood go down his throat, his face and chest stained with blood, and the glow of the fire burned in his lunatic eyes -- he would wake screaming. He was torn between two choices, to stay would be the destruction of paradise, to leave would be to enter death's cold embrace.
Dada's stomach ached with hunger for Vato; he would not wait a moment longer. He went through the forest picking mushrooms, pulling decaying roots and gathering maggot filled hearts. With these ingredients he concocted a brew that would end the life of Onago. He placed the poison on a rock and again visited Vato while he slept. "Go to the black rock, take the vile and give it to Onago -- do this if you want to be free!" Vato did as he was ordered. He put the poison in Onago's herb tea. With dark eyes and clinched fists he watched as Onago drank the last drop. Onago looked into Vato's' eyes and said, "My prayer is answered," then he fell to the ground. Onago was not dead for his life force was too strong. Instead a silk like cocoon formed around his sleeping body.
Vato walked out without looking back, what is done is done, and he knew he would never pass this way again. In the forest Dada was a tight empty stomach waiting with open arms. Vato waked into Dada's virulent embrace and allowed him to satisfy his ferocious appetite. Dada ate Vato, then he puked him up, and ate him again. He did this until there was nothing to left to puke and Vato was completely digested. It was the best meal Dada had ever eaten he enjoy Vato very, very much.
The cocoon that protected Onago began to open and from it came a mystic butterfly with black wings filed with colors of electric blue, passion red and emerald green. Onago crawled out from the cocoon, and the dark cave, to the warmth of the sun. He stretched and allowed the wind to dry his new wings. Soon he found they were strong enough to lift him from the ground, higher and higher he arose. As he looked back at the home where he was so happy he promised that he would never forget Vato. Now he was living a new life, his prayer was answered, he was free to be one with the absolute. Onago lived happily every after.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Quote from - Tom Stoppard
"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered."
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
The oppressed suffer from the duality which has established itself in their innermost being. They discover that without freedom they cannot exist authentically. Yet, although they desire authentic existence, they fear it. They are at one and the same time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalized. The conflict lies in the choice between being wholly themselves or being divided; between ejecting the oppressor within or not ejecting them; between human solidarity or alienation; between following prescriptions or having choices; between being spectators or actors; between acting or having the illusion of acting through the action of the oppressors; between speaking out or being silent, castrated in their power to create and re-create, in their power to transform the world. This is the tragic dilemma of the oppressed which their education must take into account. (Freire, 1921)
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