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November 30, 2010

“Hope is itself a species of happiness, and perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.” - Samuel Johnson

Happy Tuesday!

 

Another blog with adult content and subject matter…

 

In Northern Minnesota we picked up a local newspaper and read about the “American Indian” suicide rate being the highest in Wisconsin compare to those of the national rate for overall “Native Americans”.

 

Immediately, I said an internal prayer.

I had a need to get down on my knees but I didn’t.

I wanted chill wind on my face to cool off.

 

A type of prayer that lowers the heart and pulse rate, evens out a breath and relaxes every part of your skin. I didn’t move a muscle.

 

When I was done I let go of my breath and quickened my pulse.

I began to think at the speed of light – so many emotions came to the heart.

Some were valid and some were not.

 

I felt like a child.

I wanted to throw a tantrum and blame someone else for how horrible I felt.

 

I wanted to fight something for the sake of fighting everything that we know to be unfair in the world.

 

I wanted to make a fist and wave it about in the air as I cursed my Gods, but alas it’s not proper in this Northern Tundra climate to do so. I held my breath for another moment and then I let go – as any adult does for those aspects of life that cannot be controlled.

 

I let go with my heart and surrendered to the suffering of the world.

 

I don’t know what any of it means.

I don’t even pretend to know what any of it means, because I’m flesh and bone.

Human, is what I am.

 

I do try to understand suffering with my every finer of every cell but the lessons come slow like molasses out of a jar and I understand that suffering like fear is sometimes human made in this world.

 

I’ve made many silly and stupid mistakes in my life as any human has.

At times, I’ve allowed for pride and naiveté to get in the way of my learning.

 

The only aspect of life that has kept me fully awake in this world is making the time to dream.

 

I dream for the future and for seven generations after us.

I dream for our children’s world and what that may look like in two hundred years from now.

 

I pray for the Earth; all land, all animals killed with and without honor and the need for survival. I pray for humanity and for peaceful times. My prayers may be grandiose and childish; nonetheless, I pray because I believe in humanity, now-living and past organisms and the will to co-exist.

 

I believe in life.

 

I can’t describe it nor explain it to you but everyone has a light of goodness inside them.

Every living organism knows how to co-exist amongst the land and knows how to survive it.

 

With a mouth full of words, I mean to convey that I believe above all else in L-I-F-E.

Anything that surrenders to any type of breath in any ecosystem has the right to co-exist and to live.

 

It’s taken me twenty three years to understand my native brothers and sisters of this northern climate. I don’t pretend to speak their tongues, to know how to prepare their foods or how to relate in terms of traditional values but I feel this: Suicide must be terribly scary and lonely. Everything in life is valuable. Everything in life contains humor. Everything in life is sacred. Everything has a need to survive, live, produce and die.

 

I don’t, personally believe in suicide.

 

In the same way that I don’t believe in touching nature or wildlife.

(Although, I’m learning about domesticated animals and their owners.)

 

I believe in many things but suicide is not in my value system because to take a life is to upset the natural order of balance. Who is anybody to take away any life, other than for altruistic survival?

 

I can understand many points of view on the altruistic survival because ultimately what is that? Not suicide, I’m sure that it cannot be categorized as that. I don’t mean to make any type of intellectual argument because I’m not an intellectual in any sense of the word, only of a thinking-breathing species.

 

As I prayed I thought of only one prayer that came to mind…

 

I exhaled my breath onto the world and I felt the following prayer:

 

Native brothers and sisters of this Northern Tundra, I pray for your loved ones, lost ones to you and those that have come and those that will come after you. I pray for your elders, your young, your youth and your adults. I pray to you that the liquid that was only introduced to you two hundred years ago is used for learning on the journey of your quest. I don’t mean anything by this…only, that, may – you, bestow unto the world the best of your wisdom, love and kindness.

 

We need you Native brothers and sisters. I need you to live so that my children and their seven generations will know of your face, courage and name. We need you. This land needs you to stay in this world. This United States of America needs you to stay alive and dreaming. This weather, this wind, this sun, these peoples of this earth need you. Will you not walk with us for the duration of this journey? Will you stay here and eat, look upon the stars and be one with us? For those brothers and sisters of the northern tundra who’ve past onto other worlds through will of your own – may we learn patience, forgiveness and calmness from your actions.

 

I pray to the living because that’s the only real thing I have inside this life.

 

When you think the world is not worth going on – will you not look upon your Northern Star?

 

Please do not travel towards the darkness…because to do so would be to take your Northern Star for granted.

 

I know this for sure, I was born and raised in mountains south of the equator and there in that land, Native Ones of this northern tundra; There, in that place where the weather is either hot or monsoon (two seasons) – there, we don’t have the honor nor the chance of looking upon your Northern Star of your night sky.

 

The Northern Star is a lady consequently who visits your night skies.

She does not show herself to us but she has chosen you.

 

This bright lady, has shown a safe way to many fishermen, navigators and seamen - this star is the lady of your North. She belongs to you and she is beautiful and all I can do is look upon her with beauty, grace and respect.

 

If there is reason enough and cause enough to live, then she is one.

 

She chose you and that is reason alone to choose life.

 

Much respect and consideration for our Native brothers and sisters of this Northern Tundra.

 

Gabriela

 

P.S. Phonetically spelled: “Hos-ho Nahastali” in Ojibwa - “Beauty will be Restored.”

 

Source from Wikipedia.

 

Northern pole star (North Star)

 

At the present time, the northern pole star, or North Star, is Polaris, which lies about three-quarters of a degree from the north celestial pole, at the end of the "bob" of the Little Dipper asterism in the constellation Ursa Minor. A common method of locating Polaris in the sky is to follow along the line of the so-called "pointer" stars, the two stars farthest from the "handle" of the Big Dipper.

Polaris is a moderately bright star with an apparent magnitude of 1.97 (variable) making it the brightest star in the Little Dipper. Its current declination is +89°15'50.8".

 

The North Star has historically been used for navigation, both to find the direction of north and to determine latitude. It always appears due north in the sky, and the angle it makes with respect to the horizon is equal to the latitude of the observer. The North Star is visible only in northern hemisphere skies and so cannot be used for navigation south of the equator.

 

November 29, 2010

“No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.” - Francis Bacon

How about starting out the week with adult material and subject matter…

 

I’ve said several prayers for the citizens of Powderhorn Park, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

 

Congratulations to your will and testament in seeking out justice, taking back your community and

committing to a safe neighborhood for all.

 

This is a body of citizens who are sharp, intelligent, humanitarian activists and strong.

These are adult men and women who make decisions for the betterment of all humans.

These folks are supportive, smart and emotionally connected to all that is alive and thriving in society today.

 

The Powderhorn Park citizens are a group of dedicated neighbors who continue to revitalized decade-after-decade a creative section of the city. These are working artists, professionals, graduate students, tax paying individuals who own their neighborhood and who are mature, respectful and peaceful.

 

In Northern Minnesota we picked up a local newspaper and read the sad news about the raping in Powderhorn Park which took place November, Wednesday the 24th of the year 2010.

 

Immediately, I spit fire with words. I got hot in the face, waved my arms about me and went into a verbal tirade in front of my amazing husband. He understood that I had a desire to express myself with hot words and strong sentiments.

 

A raping, any raping under any Nation is not something to be taken lightly in societal terms or any other terms.

 

My husband understood that I was struck in the heart, bewildered, angered and definitely not willing to accept this atrocity against all women in the world. An injustice somewhere is an injustice anywhere.

 

The article stated that four Native American teens the ages of 14,14, 15 and 16 raped a mother in front of her two children. Her children were a teen daughter of 13 and her child boy of age 10. The rapist and armed robbers are under custody and will be tried as Juveniles in the American Judicial Court system and not under Native Law.

 

I don’t write to create fear in the hearts of any citizen because this will not go un-punishable by law nor unnoticed by the Powderhorn Park neighbors and their neighboring neighborhoods.

 

This is a strong city with real people dealing with real hardships, realities and life. This Minneapolis is a city that is founded on something more like a boulder and understands that to live let live. Nevertheless, it is a politically active city with roots founded in racial acceptance, equality for men and women and justice and regard for all living things. This is a city that we share with our neighboring Native brothers and sisters. We may not have many sentiments or values in common much of the time but we respect the other and we treat each other with common decency and regard no matter what.

 

I was struck at the heart because our youth of America – of this land of all of our peoples; took it upon themselves to take away a woman’s dignity.

 

I was struck at the vulgarity of these youth.

 

I was struck in the very heart for the children of this beautiful woman. Her beautiful strong children who most likely watched in horror and she watched the horror on her children’s faces – that, that struck me like an arrow through the breast as it would any woman living through these contemporary times. I thought about this mother I read about and what she must’ve seen on her babies faces. Most likely she deeply understood that in that moment that all innocence had been stripped from them leaving them naked and vulnerable.

 

I was struck in the heart…for so many reasons.

 

I was bewildered at the strength of her offspring to survive such an ordeal. I could do nothing but bring my left hand to my breast and gasp with the deepest sentiment that brings forth silent tears. The whole world slowed down in that very moment and I shivered at the thought of how changed her little boy and her little girl would be forever.

 

I was bewildered because most likely nothing would ever be the same for the neighborhood, the mother, her spouse, her family, her community and the world. Time, much time would be required to heal such deep wounds. The bewilderment came deep from inside my voice and I was proud of them for surviving such an atrocity and yet truly saddened for reading about citizens being forced to live through such an injustice.

 

This family lived through this rape and they will go on to change the world because they have been changed by a type of injustice that is so painful to talk about sometimes that it becomes unspeakable because every citizen understands that elders and Nations ought to never allow any cruelty of this magnitude to occur ever much less in the hands of any youth.

 

After being struck in the heart with an arrow, after being truly bewildered and in awe of their survival, then I became raging mad. The type of anger that all you see is red behind closed eye-lids and you know that you could take severe retribution against any people or persons who’ve committed such crimes against humanity. I got mad. Yes, Sir. I did. Rightly, so.

 

I’m a citizen of Minneapolis, Minnesota and I have a great deal of invested interest in the women, men, elderly and children of my community as so do my neighbors and their neighbors’ neighbors. The Powderhorn Park citizens are not alone and neither is this family who survived this crime against them.

 

Recently, I discussed rape with one of my Finn elders and I was shocked to hear her say that men who rape ought to be castrated. She had strong sentiments about this topic and I had never really given it much thought until she mentioned it.

 

It wasn’t until I read the news that I really thought about it; why not castration? (I know why not, because we have laws in place.) Now, I’m being facetious once again; nevertheless, for the sake of intellectual argument; Why not bring back Hammurabi's Code? Aside from the goriness of an eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind. The code teaches us something like, if an individual gets caught stealing then they can have their hand chopped off and if they do it again then they can have their other hand chopped off also; well, what about castration if a man rapes a woman? What about it? Just a thought… as my elder posed such an argument.

 

Alright, so I don’t believe in Hammurabi's Code. I don’t believe in violence except in certain situations like survival and when under attack.

 

Thank my Gods I don’t make up the laws and I’m not a leader in the world because if it were up to me I’d be a beast and I mean it in every sense of the word, a beast. I made up my mind a long time ago that any woman who gets raped in the world ought to have the right; Maybe not now, or tomorrow but someday, she preserves the right to get retribution and I mean like any animal against another in the fight for survival. She is theoretically allotted an ear, an eye or several fingers for stealing her dignity. Again, I’m being facetious and almost a “devil’s advocate” in debate terms.

 

I’m taking my outlandish point of view way out there just so that any type of conversation anywhere in the world can spark the subject of rape.

 

I believe in the Judicial Court System of America. I do.

 

I’m wishing you peace, kindness, healing, respect and a sense of legal justice.

 

I will continue to say prayers for those who are forced into crimes against humanity.

 

With a heavy and hopeful heart for justice.

 

Gabriela

Hammurabi's Code: The Code of Laws

I, personally don’t believe in the Hammurabi’s Code of Laws

Source from Wikipedia:

The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code, dating to ca. 1700 BCE (short chronology).

The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone

stele and various clay tablets. The Code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting

"an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (lex talionis) as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man

 

1. If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he can not prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death.

 

2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.

 

3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death.

 

4. If he satisfy the elders to impose a fine of grain or money, he shall receive the fine that the action produces.

 

5. If a judge try a case, reach a decision, and present his judgment in writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge's bench, and never again shall he sit there to render judgment.

 

6. If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death.

 

7. If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without witnesses or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is considered a thief and shall be put to death.

 

8. If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold therefore; if they belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death.

 

9. If any one lose an article, and find it in the possession of another: if the person in whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant sold it to me, I paid for it before witnesses," and if the owner of the thing say, "I will bring witnesses who know my property," then shall the purchaser bring the merchant who sold it to him, and the witnesses before whom he bought it, and the owner shall bring witnesses who can identify his property. The judge shall examine their testimony -- both of the witnesses before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then proved to be a thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article receives his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the estate of the merchant.

 

10. If the purchaser does not bring the merchant and the witnesses before whom he bought the article, but its owner bring witnesses who identify it, then the buyer is the thief and shall be put to death, and the owner receives the lost article.

 

11. If the owner do not bring witnesses to identify the lost article, he is an evil-doer, he has traduced, and shall be put to death.

 

12. If the witnesses be not at hand, then shall the judge set a limit, at the expiration of six months. If his witnesses have not appeared within the six months, he is an evil-doer, and shall bear the fine of the pending case.

 

14. If any one steal the minor son of another, he shall be put to death.

 

15. If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to death.

 

16. If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at the public proclamation of the major domus, the master of the house shall be put to death.

 

17. If any one find runaway male or female slaves in the open country and bring them to their masters, the master of the slaves shall pay him two shekels of silver.

 

18. If the slave will not give the name of the master, the finder shall bring him to the palace; a further investigation must follow, and the slave shall be returned to his master.

 

19. If he hold the slaves in his house, and they are caught there, he shall be put to death.

 

20. If the slave that he caught run away from him, then shall he swear to the owners of the slave, and he is free of all blame.

 

21. If any one break a hole into a house (break in to steal), he shall be put to death before that hole and be buried.

 

22. If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death.

 

23. If the robber is not caught, then shall he who was robbed claim under oath the amount of his loss; then shall the community, and ... on whose ground and territory and in whose domain it was compensate him for the goods stolen.

 

24. If persons are stolen, then shall the community and ... pay one mina of silver to their relatives.

 

25. If fire break out in a house, and some one who comes to put it out cast his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take the property of the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that self-same fire.

 

26. If a chieftain or a man (common soldier), who has been ordered to go upon the king's highway for war does not go, but hires a mercenary, if he withholds the compensation, then shall this officer or man be put to death, and he who represented him shall take possession of his house.

 

27. If a chieftain or man be caught in the misfortune of the king (captured in battle), and if his fields and garden be given to another and he take possession, if he return and reaches his place, his field and garden shall be returned to him, he shall take it over again.

 

28. If a chieftain or a man be caught in the misfortune of a king, if his son is able to enter into possession, then the field and garden shall be given to him, he shall take over the fee of his father.

 

29. If his son is still young, and can not take possession, a third of the field and garden shall be given to his mother, and she shall bring him up.

 

30. If a chieftain or a man leave his house, garden, and field and hires it out, and some one else takes possession of his house, garden, and field and uses it for three years: if the first owner return and claims his house, garden, and field, it shall not be given to him, but he who has taken possession of it and used it shall continue to use it.

 

31. If he hire it out for one year and then return, the house, garden, and field shall be given back to him, and he shall take it over again.

 

32. If a chieftain or a man is captured on the "Way of the King" (in war), and a merchant buy him free, and bring him back to his place; if he have the means in his house to buy his freedom, he shall buy himself free: if he have nothing in his house with which to buy himself free, he shall be bought free by the temple of his community; if there be nothing in the temple with which to buy him free, the court shall buy his freedom. His field, garden, and house shall not be given for the purchase of his freedom.

 

33. If a ... or a ... enter himself as withdrawn from the "Way of the King," and send a mercenary as substitute, but withdraw him, then the ... or ... shall be put to death.

 

34. If a ... or a ... harm the property of a captain, injure the captain, or take away from the captain a gift presented to him by the king, then the ... or ... shall be put to death.

 

35. If any one buy the cattle or sheep which the king has given to chieftains from him, he loses his money.

 

36. The field, garden, and house of a chieftain, of a man, or of one subject to quit-rent, can not be sold.

 

37. If any one buy the field, garden, and house of a chieftain, man, or one subject to quit-rent, his contract tablet of sale shall be broken (declared invalid) and he loses his money. The field, garden, and house return to their owners.

 

38. A chieftain, man, or one subject to quit-rent can not assign his tenure of field, house, and garden to his wife or daughter, nor can he assign it for a debt.

 

39. He may, however, assign a field, garden, or house which he has bought, and holds as property, to his wife or daughter or give it for debt.

 

40. He may sell field, garden, and house to a merchant (royal agents) or to any other public official, the buyer holding field, house, and garden for its usufruct.

 

41. If any one fence in the field, garden, and house of a chieftain, man, or one subject to quit-rent, furnishing the palings therefore; if the chieftain, man, or one subject to quit-rent return to field, garden, and house, the palings which were given to him become his property.

 

42. If any one take over a field to till it, and obtain no harvest there from, it must be proved that he did no work on the field, and he must deliver grain, just as his neighbor raised, to the owner of the field.

 

43. If he do not till the field, but let it lie fallow, he shall give grain like his neighbor's to the owner of the field, and the field which he let lie fallow he must plow and sow and return to its owner.

 

44. If any one take over a waste-lying field to make it arable, but is lazy, and does not make it arable, he shall plow the fallow field in the fourth year, harrow it and till it, and give it back to its owner, and for each ten gan (a measure of area) ten gur of grain shall be paid.

 

45. If a man rent his field for tillage for a fixed rental, and receive the rent of his field, but bad weather come and destroy the harvest, the injury falls upon the tiller of the soil.

 

46. If he do not receive a fixed rental for his field, but lets it on half or third shares of the harvest, the grain on the field shall be divided proportionately between the tiller and the owner.

 

47. If the tiller, because he did not succeed in the first year, has had the soil tilled by others, the owner may raise no objection; the field has been cultivated and he receives the harvest according to agreement.

 

48. If any one owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates the grain, or the harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for lack of water; in that year he need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his debt-tablet in water and pays no rent for this year.

 

49. If any one take money from a merchant, and give the merchant a field tillable for corn or sesame and order him to plant corn or sesame in the field, and to harvest the crop; if the cultivator plant corn or sesame in the field, at the harvest the corn or sesame that is in the field shall belong to the owner of the field and he shall pay corn as rent, for the money he received from the merchant, and the livelihood of the cultivator shall he give to the merchant.

 

50. If he give a cultivated corn-field or a cultivated sesame-field, the corn or sesame in the field shall belong to the owner of the field, and he shall return the money to the merchant as rent.

 

51. If he have no money to repay, then he shall pay in corn or sesame in place of the money as rent for what he received from the merchant, according to the royal tariff.

 

52. If the cultivator do not plant corn or sesame in the field, the debtor's contract is not weakened.

 

53. If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does not so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded, then shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the money shall replace the corn which he has caused to be ruined.

 

54. If he be not able to replace the corn, then he and his possessions shall be divided among the farmers whose corn he has flooded.

 

55. If any one open his ditches to water his crop, but is careless, and the water flood the field of his neighbor, then he shall pay his neighbor corn for his loss.

 

56. If a man let in the water, and the water overflow the plantation of his neighbor, he shall pay ten gur of corn for every ten gan of land.

 

57. If a shepherd, without the permission of the owner of the field, and without the knowledge of the owner of the sheep, lets the sheep into a field to graze, then the owner of the field shall harvest his crop, and the shepherd, who had pastured his flock there without permission of the owner of the field, shall pay to the owner twenty gur of corn for every ten gan.

 

58. If after the flocks have left the pasture and been shut up in the common fold at the city gate, any shepherd let them into a field and they graze there, this shepherd shall take possession of the field which he has allowed to be grazed on, and at the harvest he must pay sixty gur of corn for every ten gan.

 

59. If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a tree in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money.

 

60. If any one give over a field to a gardener, for him to plant it as a garden, if he work at it, and care for it for four years, in the fifth year the owner and the gardener shall divide it, the owner taking his part in charge.

 

61. If the gardener has not completed the planting of the field, leaving one part unused, this shall be assigned to him as his.

 

62. If he do not plant the field that was given over to him as a garden, if it be arable land (for corn or sesame) the gardener shall pay the owner the produce of the field for the years that he let it lie fallow, according to the product of neighboring fields, put the field in arable condition and return it to its owner.

 

63. If he transform waste land into arable fields and return it to its owner, the latter shall pay him for one year ten gur for ten gan.

 

64. If any one hand over his garden to a gardener to work, the gardener shall pay to its owner two-thirds of the produce of the garden, for so long as he has it in possession, and the other third shall he keep.

 

65. If the gardener do not work in the garden and the product fall off, the gardener shall pay in proportion to other neighboring gardens. [The text for laws 66 through 99 is missing]

 

100. ... interest for the money, as much as he has received, he shall give a note therefore, and on the day, when they settle, pay to the merchant.

 

101. If there are no mercantile arrangements in the place whither he went, he shall leave the entire amount of money which he received with the broker to give to the merchant.

 

102. If a merchant entrust money to an agent (broker) for some investment, and the broker suffer a loss in the place to which he goes, he shall make good the capital to the merchant.

 

103. If, while on the journey, an enemy take away from him anything that he had, the broker shall swear by God and be free of obligation.

 

104. If a merchant give an agent corn, wool, oil, or any other goods to transport, the agent shall give a receipt for the amount, and compensate the merchant therefore. Then he shall obtain a receipt form the merchant for the money that he gives the merchant.

 

105. If the agent is careless, and does not take a receipt for the money which he gave the merchant, he cannot consider the un-receipted money as his own.

 

106. If the agent accept money from the merchant, but have a quarrel with the merchant (denying the receipt), then shall the merchant swear before God and witnesses that he has given this money to the agent, and the agent shall pay him three times the sum.

 

107. If the merchant cheat the agent, in that as the latter has returned to him all that had been given him, but the merchant denies the receipt of what had been returned to him, then shall this agent convict the merchant before God and the judges, and if he still deny receiving what the agent had given him shall pay six times the sum to the agent.

 

108. If a tavern-keeper (feminine) does not accept corn according to gross weight in payment of drink, but takes money, and the price of the drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown into the water.

 

109. If conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court, the tavern-keeper shall be put to death.

 

110. If a "sister of a god" open a tavern, or enter a tavern to drink, then shall this woman be burned to death.

 

111. If an inn-keeper furnish sixty ka of usakani-drink to ... she shall receive fifty ka of corn at the harvest.

 

112. If any one be on a journey and entrust silver, gold, precious stones, or any movable property to another, and wish to recover it from him; if the latter do not bring all of the property to the appointed place, but appropriate it to his own use, then shall this man, who did not bring the property to hand it over, be convicted, and he shall pay fivefold for all that had been entrusted to him.

 

113. If any one have consignment of corn or money, and he take from the granary or box without the knowledge of the owner, then shall he who took corn without the knowledge of the owner out of the granary or money out of the box be legally convicted, and repay the corn he has taken. And he shall lose whatever commission was paid to him, or due him.

 

114. If a man have no claim on another for corn and money, and try to demand it by force, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver in every case.

 

115. If any one have a claim for corn or money upon another and imprison him; if the prisoner die in prison a natural death, the case shall go no further.

 

116. If the prisoner die in prison from blows or maltreatment, the master of the prisoner shall convict the merchant before the judge. If he was a free-born man, the son of the merchant shall be put to death; if it was a slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina of gold, and all that the master of the prisoner gave he shall forfeit.

 

117. If any one fail to meet a claim for debt, and sell himself, his wife, his son, and daughter for money or give them away to forced labor: they shall work for three years in the house of the man who bought them, or the proprietor, and in the fourth year they shall be set free.

 

118. If he give a male or female slave away for forced labor, and the merchant sublease them, or sell them for money, no objection can be raised.

 

119. If any one fail to meet a claim for debt, and he sell the maid servant who has borne him children, for money, the money which the merchant has paid shall be repaid to him by the owner of the slave and she shall be freed.

 

120. If any one store corn for safe keeping in another person's house, and any harm happen to the corn in storage, or if the owner of the house open the granary and take some of the corn, or if especially he deny that the corn was stored in his house: then the owner of the corn shall claim his corn before God (on oath), and the owner of the house shall pay its owner for all of the corn that he took.

 

121. If any one store corn in another man's house he shall pay him storage at the rate of one gur for every five ka of corn per year.

 

122. If any one give another silver, gold, or anything else to keep, he shall show everything to some witness, draw up a contract, and then hand it over for safe keeping.

 

123. If he turn it over for safe keeping without witness or contract, and if he to whom it was given deny it, then he has no legitimate claim.

 

124. If any one deliver silver, gold, or anything else to another for safe keeping, before a witness, but he deny it, he shall be brought before a judge, and all that he has denied he shall pay in full.

 

125. If any one place his property with another for safe keeping, and there, either through thieves or robbers, his property and the property of the other man be lost, the owner of the house, through whose neglect the loss took place, shall compensate the owner for all that was given to him in charge. But the owner of the house shall try to follow up and recover his property, and take it away from the thief.

 

126. If any one who has not lost his goods state that they have been lost, and make false claims: if he claim his goods and amount of injury before God, even though he has not lost them, he shall be fully compensated for all his loss claimed. (I.e., the oath is all that is needed.)

 

127. If any one "point the finger" (slander) at a sister of a god or the wife of any one, and can not prove it, this man shall be taken before the judges and his brow shall be marked. (by cutting the skin, or perhaps hair.)

 

128. If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him.

 

129. If a man's wife be surprised (in flagrante delicto) with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves.

 

130. If a man violate the wife (betrothed or child-wife) of another man, who has never known a man, and still lives in her father's house, and sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless.

 

131. If a man bring a charge against one's wife, but she is not surprised with another man, she must take an oath and then may return to her house.

 

132. If the "finger is pointed" at a man's wife about another man, but she is not caught sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the river for her husband.

 

133. If a man is taken prisoner in war, and there is a sustenance in his house, but his wife leave house and court, and go to another house: because this wife did not keep her court, and went to another house, she shall be judicially condemned and thrown into the water.

 

134. If any one be captured in war and there is not sustenance in his house, if then his wife go to another house this woman shall be held blameless.

 

135. If a man be taken prisoner in war and there be no sustenance in his house and his wife go to another house and bear children; and if later her husband return and come to his home: then this wife shall return to her husband, but the children follow their father.

 

136. If any one leave his house, run away, and then his wife go to another house, if then he return, and wishes to take his wife back: because he fled from his home and ran away, the wife of this runaway shall not return to her husband.

 

137. If a man wish to separate from a woman who has borne him children, or from his wife who has borne him children: then he shall give that wife her dowry, and a part of the usufruct of field, garden, and property, so that she can rear her children. When she has brought up her children, a portion of all that is given to the children, equal as that of one son, shall be given to her. She may then marry the man of her heart.

 

138. If a man wishes to separate from his wife who has borne him no children, he shall give her the amount of her purchase money and the dowry which she brought from her father's house, and let her go.

 

139. If there was no purchase price he shall give her one mina of gold as a gift of release.

 

140. If he be a freed man he shall give her one-third of a mina of gold.

 

141. If a man's wife, who lives in his house, wishes to leave it, plunges into debt, tries to ruin her house, neglects her husband, and is judicially convicted: if her husband offer her release, she may go on her way, and he gives her nothing as a gift of release. If her husband does not wish to release her, and if he take another wife, she shall remain as servant in her husband's house.

 

142. If a woman quarrel with her husband, and say: "You are not congenial to me," the reasons for her prejudice must be presented. If she is guiltless, and there is no fault on her part, but he leaves and neglects her, then no guilt attaches to this woman, she shall take her dowry and go back to her father's house.

 

143. If she is not innocent, but leaves her husband, and ruins her house, neglecting her husband, this woman shall be cast into the water.

 

144. If a man take a wife and this woman give her husband a maid-servant, and she bear him children, but this man wishes to take another wife, this shall not be permitted to him; he shall not take a second wife.

 

145. If a man take a wife, and she bear him no children, and he intend to take another wife: if he take this second wife, and bring her into the house, this second wife shall not be allowed equality with his wife.

 

146. If a man take a wife and she give this man a maid-servant as wife and she bear him children, and then this maid assume equality with the wife: because she has borne him children her master shall not sell her for money, but he may keep her as a slave, reckoning her among the maid-servants.

 

147. If she have not borne him children, then her mistress may sell her for money.

 

148. If a man take a wife, and she be seized by disease, if he then desire to take a second wife he shall not put away his wife, who has been attacked by disease, but he shall keep her in the house which he has built and support her so long as she lives.

 

149. If this woman does not wish to remain in her husband's house, then he shall compensate her for the dowry that she brought with her from her father's house, and she may go.

 

150. If a man give his wife a field, garden, and house and a deed therefore, if then after the death of her husband the sons raise no claim, then the mother may bequeath all to one of her sons whom she prefers, and need leave nothing to his brothers.

 

151. If a woman who lived in a man's house made an agreement with her husband, that no creditor can arrest her, and has given a document therefore: if that man, before he married that woman, had a debt, the creditor can not hold the woman for it. But if the woman, before she entered the man's house, had contracted a debt, her creditor can not arrest her husband therefore.

 

152. If after the woman had entered the man's house, both contracted a debt, both must pay the merchant.

 

153. If the wife of one man on account of another man has their mates (her husband and the other man's wife) murdered, both of them shall be impaled.

 

154. If a man be guilty of incest with his daughter, he shall be driven from the place (exiled).

 

155. If a man betroth a girl to his son, and his son have intercourse with her, but he (the father) afterward defile her, and be surprised, then he shall be bound and cast into the water (drowned).

 

156. If a man betroth a girl to his son, but his son has not known her, and if then he defile her, he shall pay her half a gold mina, and compensate her for all that she brought out of her father's house. She may marry the man of her heart.

 

157. If any one be guilty of incest with his mother after his father, both shall be burned.

 

158. If any one be surprised after his father with his chief wife, who has borne children, he shall be driven out of his father's house.

 

159. If any one, who has brought chattels into his father-in-law's house, and has paid the purchase-money, looks for another wife, and says to his father-in-law: "I do not want your daughter," the girl's father may keep all that he had brought.

 

160. If a man bring chattels into the house of his father-in-law, and pay the "purchase price" (for his wife): if then the father of the girl say: "I will not give you my daughter," he shall give him back all that he brought with him.

 

161. If a man bring chattels into his father-in-law's house and pay the "purchase price," if then his friend slander him, and his father-in-law say to the young husband: "You shall not marry my daughter," the he shall give back to him undiminished all that he had brought with him; but his wife shall not be married to the friend.

 

162. If a man marry a woman, and she bear sons to him; if then this woman die, then shall her father have no claim on her dowry; this belongs to her sons.

 

163. If a man marry a woman and she bear him no sons; if then this woman die, if the "purchase price" which he had paid into the house of his father-in-law is repaid to him, her husband shall have no claim upon the dowry of this woman; it belongs to her father's house.

 

164. If his father-in-law do not pay back to him the amount of the "purchase price" he may subtract the amount of the "Purchase price"

from the dowry, and then pay the remainder to her father's house. 165. If a man give to one of his sons whom he prefers a field, garden, and house, and a deed therefore: if later the father die, and the brothers divide the estate, then they shall first give him the present of his father, and he shall accept it; and the rest of the paternal property shall they divide.

 

166. If a man take wives for his son, but take no wife for his minor son, and if then he die: if the sons divide the estate, they shall set aside besides his portion the money for the "purchase price" for the minor brother who had taken no wife as yet, and secure a wife for him.

 

167. If a man marry a wife and she bear him children: if this wife die and he then take another wife and she bear him children: if then the father die, the sons must not partition the estate according to the mothers, they shall divide the dowries of their mothers only in this way; the paternal estate they shall divide equally with one another.

 

168. If a man wish to put his son out of his house, and declare before the judge: "I want to put my son out,"

then the judge shall examine into his reasons. If the son be guilty of no great fault, for which he can be rightfully put out, the father shall not put him out.

 

169. If he be guilty of a grave fault, which should rightfully deprive him of the filial relationship, the father shall forgive him the first time; but if he be guilty of a grave fault a second time the father may deprive his son of all filial relation.

 

170. If his wife bear sons to a man, or his maid-servant have borne sons, and the father while still living says to the children whom his maid-servant has borne: "My sons," and he count them with the sons of his wife; if then the father die, then the sons of the wife and of the maid-servant shall divide the paternal property in common. The son of the wife is to partition and choose.

 

171. If, however, the father while still living did not say to the sons of the maid-servant: "My sons," and then the father dies, then the sons of the maid-servant shall not share with the sons of the wife, but the freedom of the maid and her sons shall be granted. The sons of the wife shall have no right to enslave the sons of the maid; the wife shall take her dowry (from her father), and the gift that her husband gave her and deeded to her (separate from dowry, or the purchase-money paid her father), and live in the home of her husband: so long as she lives she shall use it, it shall not be sold for money. Whatever she leaves shall belong to her children.

 

172. If her husband made her no gift, she shall be compensated for her gift, and she shall receive a portion from the estate of her husband,

equal to that of one child. If her sons oppress her, to force her out of the house, the judge shall examine into the matter, and if the sons are at fault the woman shall not leave her husband's house. If the woman desire to leave the house, she must leave to her sons the gift which her husband gave her, but she may take the dowry of her father's house. Then she may marry the man of her heart.

 

173. If this woman bear sons to her second husband, in the place to which she went, and then die, her earlier and later sons shall divide the dowry between them.

 

174. If she bear no sons to her second husband, the sons of her first husband shall have the dowry.

 

175. If a State slave or the slave of a freed man marry the daughter of a free man, and children are born, the master of the slave shall have no right to enslave the children of the free.

 

176. If, however, a State slave or the slave of a freed man marry a man's daughter, and after he marries her she bring a dowry from a father's house, if then they both enjoy it and found a household, and accumulate means, if then the slave die, then she who was free born may take her dowry, and all that her husband and she had earned; she shall divide them into two parts, one-half the master for the slave shall take, and the other half shall the free-born woman take for her children. If the free-born woman had no gift she shall take all that her husband and she had earned and divide it into two parts; and the master of the slave shall take one-half and she shall take the other for her children.

 

177. If a widow, whose children are not grown, wishes to enter another house (remarry), she shall not enter it without the knowledge of the judge. If she enter another house the judge shall examine the state of the house of her first husband. Then the house of her first husband shall be entrusted to the second husband and the woman herself as managers. And a record must be made thereof. She shall keep the house in order, bring up the children, and not sell the house-hold utensils. He who buys the utensils of the children of a widow shall lose his money, and the goods shall return to their owners.

 

178. If a "devoted woman" or a prostitute to whom her father has given a dowry and a deed therefore, but if in this deed it is not stated that she may bequeath it as she pleases, and has not explicitly stated that she has the right of disposal; if then her father die, then her brothers shall hold her field and garden, and give her corn, oil, and milk according to her portion, and satisfy her. If her brothers do not give her corn, oil, and milk according to her share, then her field and garden shall support her. She shall have the usufruct of field and garden and all that her father gave her so long as she lives, but she can not sell or assign it to others. Her position of inheritance belongs to her brothers.

 

179. If a "sister of a god," or a prostitute, receive a gift from her father, and a deed in which it has been explicitly stated that she may dispose of it as she pleases, and give her complete disposition thereof: if then her father die, then she may leave her property to whomsoever she pleases. Her brothers can raise no claim thereto.

 

180. If a father give a present to his daughter -- either marriageable or a prostitute (unmarriageable) -- and then die, then she is to receive a portion as a child from the paternal estate, and enjoy its usufruct so long as she lives. Her estate belongs to her brothers.

 

181. If a father devote a temple-maid or temple-virgin to God and give her no present: if then the father die, she shall receive the third of a child's portion from the inheritance of her father's house, and enjoy its usufruct so long as she lives. Her estate belongs to her brothers.

 

182. If a father devote his daughter as a wife of Mardi of Babylon (as in 181), and give her no present, nor a deed; if then her father die, then shall she receive one-third of her portion as a child of her father's house from her brothers, but Marduk may leave her estate to whomsoever she wishes.

 

183. If a man give his daughter by a concubine a dowry, and a husband, and a deed; if then her father die, she shall receive no portion from the paternal estate.

 

184. If a man do not give a dowry to his daughter by a concubine, and no husband; if then her father die, her brother shall give her a dowry according to her father's wealth and secure a husband for her.

 

185. If a man adopt a child and to his name as son, and rear him, this grown son can not be demanded back again.

 

186. If a man adopt a son, and if after he has taken him he injure his foster father and mother, then this adopted son shall return to his father's house.

 

187. The son of a paramour in the palace service, or of a prostitute, can not be demanded back.

 

188. If an artisan has undertaken to rear a child and teaches him his craft, he can not be demanded back.

 

189. If he has not taught him his craft, this adopted son may return to his father's house.

 

190. If a man does not maintain a child that he has adopted as a son and reared with his other children, then his adopted son may return to his father's house.

 

191. If a man, who had adopted a son and reared him, founded a household, and had children, wish to put this adopted son out, then this son shall not simply go his way. His adoptive father shall give him of his wealth one-third of a child's portion, and then he may go. He shall not give him of the field, garden, and house.

 

192. If a son of a paramour or a prostitute say to his adoptive father or mother: "You are not my father, or my mother," his tongue shall be cut off.

 

193. If the son of a paramour or a prostitute desire his father's house, and desert his adoptive father and adoptive mother, and goes to his father's house, then shall his eye be put out.

 

194. If a man give his child to a nurse and the child die in her hands, but the nurse unbeknown to the father and mother nurse another child, then they shall convict her of having nursed another child without the knowledge of the father and mother and her breasts shall be cut off.

 

195. If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.

 

196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.

 

197. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.

 

198. If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina.

 

199. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.

 

200. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.

 

201. If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina.

 

202. If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public.

 

203. If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man or equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina.

 

204. If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay ten shekels in money.

 

205. If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off.

 

206. If during a quarrel one man strike another and wound him, then he shall swear, "I did not injure him wittingly," and pay the physicians.

 

207. If the man die of his wound, he shall swear similarly, and if he (the deceased) was a free-born man, he shall pay half a mina in money.

 

208. If he was a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a mina.

 

209. If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.

 

210. If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.

 

211. If a woman of the free class lose her child by a blow, he shall pay five shekels in money.

 

212. If this woman die, he shall pay half a mina.

 

213. If he strike the maid-servant of a man, and she lose her child, he shall pay two shekels in money.

 

214. If this maid-servant die, he shall pay one-third of a mina.

 

215. If a physician make a large incision with an operating knife and cure it, or if he open a tumor (over the eye) with an operating knife, and saves the eye, he shall receive ten shekels in money.

 

216. If the patient be a freed man, he receives five shekels.

 

217. If he be the slave of some one, his owner shall give the physician two shekels.

 

218. If a physician make a large incision with the operating knife, and kill him, or open a tumor with the operating knife, and cut out the eye, his hands shall be cut off.

 

219. If a physician make a large incision in the slave of a freed man, and kill him, he shall replace the slave with another slave.

 

220. If he had opened a tumor with the operating knife, and put out his eye, he shall pay half his value.

 

221. If a physician heal the broken bone or diseased soft part of a man, the patient shall pay the physician five shekels in money.

 

222. If he were a freed man he shall pay three shekels.

 

223. If he were a slave his owner shall pay the physician two shekels.

 

224. If a veterinary surgeon perform a serious operation on an ass or an ox, and cure it, the owner shall pay the surgeon one-sixth of a shekelas a fee.

 

225. If he perform a serious operation on an ass or ox, and kill it, he shall pay the owner one-fourth of its value.

 

226. If a barber, without the knowledge of his master, cut the sign of a slave on a slave not to be sold, the hands of this barber shall be cut off.

 

227. If any one deceive a barber, and have him mark a slave not for sale with the sign of a slave, he shall be put to death, and buried in his house. The barber shall swear: "I did not mark him wittingly," and shall be guiltless.

 

228. If a builder build a house for some one and complete it, he shall give him a fee of two shekels in money for each sar of surface.

 

229 If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.

 

230. If it kill the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be put to death.

 

231. If it kill a slave of the owner, then he shall pay slave for slave to the owner of the house.

 

232. If it ruin goods, he shall make compensation for all that has been ruined, and inasmuch as he did not construct properly this house which he built and it fell, he shall re-erect the house from his own means.

 

233. If a builder build a house for some one, even though he has not yet completed it; if then the walls seem toppling, the builder must make the walls solid from his own means.

 

234. If a shipbuilder build a boat of sixty gur for a man, he shall pay him a fee of two shekels in money.

 

235. If a shipbuilder build a boat for some one, and do not make it tight, if during that same year that boat is sent away and suffers injury,

the shipbuilder shall take the boat apart and put it together tight at his own expense. The tight boat he shall give to the boat owner.

 

236. If a man rent his boat to a sailor, and the sailor is careless, and the boat is wrecked or goes aground, the sailor shall give the owner of the boat another boat as compensation.

 

237. If a man hire a sailor and his boat, and provide it with corn, clothing, oil and dates, and other things of the kind needed for fitting it: if the sailor is careless, the boat is wrecked, and its contents ruined, then the sailor shall compensate for the boat which was wrecked and all in it that he ruined.

 

238. If a sailor wreck any one's ship, but saves it, he shall pay the half of its value in money.

 

239. If a man hire a sailor, he shall pay him six gur of corn per year.

 

240. If a merchantman run against a ferryboat, and wreck it, the master of the ship that was wrecked shall seek justice before God; the master of the merchantman, which wrecked the ferryboat, must compensate the owner for the boat and all that he ruined.

 

241. If any one impresses an ox for forced labor, he shall pay one-third of a mina in money.

 

242. If any one hire oxen for a year, he shall pay four gur of corn for plow-oxen.

 

243. As rent of herd cattle he shall pay three gur of corn to the owner.

 

244. If any one hire an ox or an ass, and a lion kill it in the field, the loss is upon its owner.

 

245. If any one hire oxen, and kill them by bad treatment or blows, he shall compensate the owner, oxen for oxen.

 

246. If a man hire an ox, and he break its leg or cut the ligament of its neck, he shall compensate the owner with ox for ox.

 

247. If any one hire an ox, and put out its eye, he shall pay the owner one-half of its value.

 

248. If any one hire an ox, and break off a horn, or cut off its tail, or hurt its muzzle, he shall pay one-fourth of its value in money.

 

249. If any one hire an ox, and God strike it that it die, the man who hired it shall swear by God and be considered guiltless.

 

250. If while an ox is passing on the street (market) some one push it, and kill it, the owner can set up no claim in the suit (against the hirer).

 

251. If an ox be a goring ox, and it shown that he is a gorer, and he do not bind his horns, or fasten the ox up, and the ox gore a free-born man and kill him, the owner shall pay one-half a mina in money.

 

252. If he kill a man's slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina.

 

253. If any one agree with another to tend his field, give him seed, entrust a yoke of oxen to him, and bind him to cultivate the field, if he steal the corn or plants, and take them for himself, his hands shall be hewn off.

 

254. If he take the seed-corn for himself, and do not use the yoke of oxen, he shall compensate him for the amount of the seed-corn.

 

255. If he sublet the man's yoke of oxen or steal the seed-corn, planting nothing in the field, he shall be convicted, and for each one hundred gan he shall pay sixty gur of corn.

 

256. If his community will not pay for him, then he shall be placed in that field with the cattle (at work).

 

257. If any one hire a field laborer, he shall pay him eight gur of corn per year.

 

258. If any one hire an ox-driver, he shall pay him six gur of corn per year.

 

259. If any one steal a water-wheel from the field, he shall pay five shekels in money to its owner.

 

260. If any one steal a shadduf (used to draw water from the river or canal) or a plow, he shall pay three shekels in money.

 

261. If any one hire a herdsman for cattle or sheep, he shall pay him eight gur of corn per annum.

 

262. If any one, a cow or a sheep ...

 

263. If he kill the cattle or sheep that were given to him, he shall compensate the owner with cattle for cattle and sheep for sheep.

 

264. If a herdsman, to whom cattle or sheep have been entrusted for watching over, and who has received his wages as agreed upon, and is satisfied, diminish the number of the cattle or sheep, or make the increase by birth less, he shall make good the increase or profit which was lost in the terms of settlement.

 

265. If a herdsman, to whose care cattle or sheep have been entrusted, be guilty of fraud and make false returns of the natural increase, or sell them for money, then shall he be convicted and pay the owner ten times the loss.

 

266. If the animal be killed in the stable by God (an accident), or if a lion kill it, the herdsman shall declare his innocence before God, and the owner bears the accident in the stable.

 

267. If the herdsman overlook something, and an accident happen in the stable, then the herdsman is at fault for the accident which he has caused in the stable, and he must compensate the owner for the cattle or sheep.

 

268. If any one hire an ox for threshing, the amount of the hire is twenty ka of corn.

 

269. If he hire an ass for threshing, the hire is twenty ka of corn.

 

270. If he hire a young animal for threshing, the hire is ten ka of corn.

 

271. If any one hire oxen, cart and driver, he shall pay one hundred and eighty ka of corn per day.

 

272. If any one hire a cart alone, he shall pay forty ka of corn per day.

 

273. If any one hire a day laborer, he shall pay him from the New Year until the fifth month (April to August, when days are long and the work hard) six gerahs in money per day; from the sixth month to the end of the year he shall give him five gerahs per day.

 

274. If any one hire a skilled artisan, he shall pay as wages of the ... five gerahs, as wages of the potter five gerahs, of a tailor five gerahs, of … gerahs, ... of a rope-maker four gerahs, of ... gerahs, of a mason ... gerahs per day.

 

275. If any one hire a ferryboat, he shall pay three gerahs in money per day.

 

276. If he hire a freight-boat, he shall pay two and one-half gerahs per day.

 

277. If any one hire a ship of sixty gur, he shall pay one-sixth of a shekel in money as its hire per day.

 

278. If any one buy a male or female slave, and before a month has elapsed the benu-disease be developed, he shall return the slave to the seller, and receive the money which he had paid.

 

279. If any one by a male or female slave, and a third party claim it, the seller is liable for the claim.

 

280. If while in a foreign country a man buy a male or female slave belonging to another of his own country; if when he return home the owner of the male or female slave recognize it: if the male or female slave be a native of the country, he shall give them back without any money.

 

281. If they are from another country, the buyer shall declare the amount of money paid therefore to the merchant, and keep the male or female slave.

 

282. If a slave say to his master: "You are not my master," if they convict him his master shall cut off his ear.

 

November 26, 2010

 

“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.

I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.” - Groucho Marx

 

November 25, 2010

 

“The greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being.” - Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lamat

 

November 24, 2010

 

“Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.” - Leo Tolstoy

 

Happy Thanksgiving fortnight…

 

We’re so excited to be amongst loved ones, friends and more loved ones.

 

We give thanks for the food that is harvested by patient and dedicated individuals, for the adventurous journey in life and for the laughter that our friends and our many families bring forth. We’re blessed with so many kindred spirits and that is a gift in itself – that’s a gift enough to sustain us this lifetime.

 

We hope that wherever you travel to that you feel like any citizen of the world.

 

We hope that you are welcomed with decency and civility anywhere you are.

 

We wish you peace, love, sincerity and relaxation.

 

May you chill; enjoy the food before you and feel completely at home anywhere.

 

For those Americans away from home and their families this fortnight – know, that you’re never forgotten anywhere you go – you will always be amongst locals of any area and those are the citizens of the world.

 

I’m excited to see many faces from long ago and to sit peacefully around many tables.

We are blessed, we feel blessed and we’ll take those blessings with us everywhere we go.

 

I bid you an amazing fortnight of Thanksgiving 2010.

 

I enjoy the company of those I love, respect and honor.

I look forward to being in the company of so many nice and smart people.

I wish you the same…

 

We’re watching Lord of the Rings - Two Towers and it feels so good to be here chill-laxing.

An organic chocolate croissant has our name all over it. We have vegan pumpkin and apple pie ready to go for tomorrow’s dinner.

 

Sincerely,

 

Gabriela

 

P.S. I boycott with my pocket book because we still live in a Capitalist Republic and there is joy in buying something you believe in.

 

November 23, 2010

 

“Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

 

“A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it.” - George W. Bush

 

“I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well.” - George W. Bush

 

“I have written a book. This will come as quite a shock to some. They didn't think I could read, much less write.”  - George W. Bush

 

Have we finally become a Gestapo Nation?

 

The German citizens of WWI and WWII allowed for their freedoms to be taken away from them early on in the two world wars through propaganda of fear and eventually through force. The German citizens were licked to begin with because they imploded from within and not from any real outside threat rather than their own fear and inability to stand up to the Nazis. Question everything and I mean everything.

 

My great-aunt _____ through adoption lived through the Nazi’s Regime and Holocaust - she must be rolling in her grave this morning.

 

I watched the morning news and the average American citizen looked silly giving away their constitutional rights. They looked like Holocaust prisoners waiting to go through the gas chambers. It’s silly to give up our hard earned American rights in exchange for legitimate fears of being bombed mid air. The greatest threat is the bomb of propaganda in this day in age – we have our lovely former president George W. Bush and his lovely partner Dick Cheney to thank for that propaganda and not the reality and deep felt long lasting devastation of 911.

 

No threat is so great that any citizen must be forced to give up their constitutional rights in exchange for a false sense of airline security from any government, company and conglomerate even if citizens are treated like Holocaust prisoners in their own airports and choose to give up their rights in hopes that “no one will get us ever again.”

 

Constitutional rights are here to stay while governments, companies and conglomerates come and go.

 

Citizens are important not regimes.

 

Americans will live through this false sense of airport security as most Americans have lived through so many awful make-believe propagandas of their time; the baby boomers climbed underneath their desks as children in hopes of being saved from the atomic bomb (this was only fifty years ago, now). History is constantly on our coattails.

 

Imagine, believing such propaganda and the government inventing and implementing such propaganda through the educational school systems? It was the American government that taught the baby boomers to believe in false systems – early on. Think about it, if you climb underneath your desk then you won’t be burned alive to the crisp because your desk will protect you from the atomic bomb? No parent or child of that time questioned this ideology because they thought the government was right and maybe they were – but what a lie.

 

No child of mine is going to have their privates felt up by some airline guard. No way! No way! No, Sir! It doesn’t work that way! You may think you can take away my adult God-given American rights but like hell if you even so much as think that you can take away my future children’s rights. I will choose not to participate in any system that automatically will make my future children guilty before proven guilty. No way! No way! Who do you think you are? My children will not live through another mental and emotional Holocaust. I will do everything in my power to protect them from another Holocaust. I will because that is my constitutional right.

 

Like hell if anyone so much as thinks that they’re going to feel up my future children’s privates in the name of some made-up lie just like the atomic bomb screwed up the baby boomers into being gullible, trusting and unable to question the very institutions they lived by.

 

I refuse for the sake of any child and in the name of all the children who grew up under the Nazi regime and in concentration camps to have their rights taken away.

 

May all the Gods of the world be with our children now – as they face parents who volunteer away their constitutional rights especially the fourth amendment. I’m angry and I should be at all of the parents who are sheep and afraid. No child of mine will suffer the mistakes of parents who won’t fight for their children’s future rights. No way. Not in this lifetime. We’ll walk or take a sled-ride to Grandma’s if we have to. If flying is not a citizenship option by the time I have children then a mule, a camel, and a sled dog will do. We have options as citizens and as customers.

 

I choose to boycott any airline company that makes themselves experts on airline security especially when citizens are forced to have a pat down. Who do you think you are? If I were the CEO and owner of an airline company – I’d stand up for my customers. That’s right, your customers not your prisoners, but how convenient that once the customer has paid for their ticket, showed up at the airport that since you have them there then you can take away their humanity and decency by force and not to mention their constitutional rights.

 

Citizens are left with very little choices at the airport once they arrive and they have to either choose Thanksgiving with Grandma, a crotch grab or walk away simply because someone is treating you like a bully Nazi.

 

I’d walk and I mean literally walk because I’m stubborn – I’d walk because I’m idealistic and gas prices aren’t any better. Why is it that citizens get taken advantage of by conglomerates in a time of economic depression and made-up fear? Why does our media allow for such propaganda? Oh, I forget everything is owned by the same economic pool.

 

When I pray my Mayan-Indiana prayers unto the world I pray that the world’s banks relinquish the money back to the citizens of the world and may there be enough spread of wealth amongst all of the peoples of the world.

 

Childish, maybe but I believe in something much-much greater than myself, wealth or power for that matter. There is no reason for one single human to go hungry in the world, but then again when oil companies, airline companies and any other conglomerate owns most of the wealth don’t be surprised that children all over the world go hungry.

 

I know, I know - here I go again with my freedom of speech.

 

I practice it because I believe in this constitutional right and so does every other American. That’s not something they’re suckers about – that’s something that they love about America. Try taking that away. Holy cow! You want to talk about battle of Versailles. Imagine if some day these conglomerates will have to pay restitution to the American citizens for causing so much harm, fear and unnecessary unbalance in our country such as Germany (really the Nazis) had to pay restitution for starting WWI and WWII.

 

Where are our constitutional lawyers, when the citizens need them most?

 

No civil law suit is being implemented that we’ve caught wind of. Oh, I get it you probably are owned by the oil companies that owns the planes that owns the cameras, that owns the diapers that owns the poor starving children. I get it. Everybody gets it. So, why won’t you help the citizens take back their constitutional rights? Will you wait for it all to be over then you can step in after we have lost our livelihoods, families and communities?

 

Who will fight this bogus army of darkness in the name of anything good? When did the Patriot Act become the Gestapo Nation? When did we sign up to have the Nazis-like leaders run our culture? Where have our leaders gone? Will you not return to us? I beg you…please do not forget us in these times of uncertainty. Please, do not forget the American People and their hard work towards putting food on their tables and roofs over their heads. Please, do not forget us. I beg the leaders of other Nations if anything, say a prayer to your Gods for the average American citizen because our rights are being quietly taken away in the name of...

 

I’d fire the bastard who implemented all of this Gestapo system and go in search of an independent contractor because truly – there are brilliant people in this world who can come up with a much more sophisticated and human friendly system than a Nazi regime of pat downs, x-ray machines and shame. Innocent, until - otherwise.

 

Where is your class, your sophistication and your American pride I ask anyone who can’t come up with alternatives to treating their citizens like prisoners? I get it – propaganda makes money and creates jobs. I get it. It’s so transparent. We can change this anytime we want to but our dearest airlines owners in some cushy airline offices chose not to because I’m sure they haven’t even considered the alternatives to creative thinking and more human friendly approaches. Will you not be seen as leaders rather than money makers?

 

No, stranger man or woman is going to feel me up. My privates are not for any stranger to touch, I don’t care who you think you are. We have all of the same rights as before 911 and we still believe in the freedoms that our founding fathers instilled in this great America of ours. Our founding fathers got it right. So right.

 

I think about the women of the Holocaust who were made to run naked in circles for the amusement of the Gestapo guards in the middle of German winters and I think: if we don’t question ideals being implemented, now, then we are so close to a Gestapo concentration camps at anytime as my relatives in Germany were made to be a witness to, live and survive.

 

It will not do.

It cannot do.

It won’t do.

 

It’s not good enough to give up something that doesn’t have our best interest at heart as Americans and as world citizens.

 

Airline security is only an ideal of what safety is.

 

Airline security is only a mechanism of power to create a false sense of security.

 

It’s truly a false sense of hope and if we buy into it just as we have bought into paying for carry-on luggage then we’re suckers and the rest of the world should feel sorry for us as the world does for the history of the German citizens who were left alone to fend off the Gestapo. All alone with the bullies.

 

The German citizens were left all alone in the universe to fend off bullies. We may be alone in this quest as a Nation but all horrible things do come to pass just as our own history of slavery and genocide. The great will of the citizens is far greater than the will of any institution that oppresses its people. I believe in boycotting with my pocket book because we still have a voice and that will never change about Americans.

 

The world is safer today than it has ever been in history – especially for Americans. Terrorism isn’t an ideology of THEM vs. US. No, it’s an ideology of terror. I refuse to be terrorized and to give up my freedoms to an airline company simply because I’m afraid of the slight possibility of being blown up mid-air. I could cross the street and be killed by a driving drunk at any time. I refuse to live in fear because that’s what keeps civilizations from advancement in all areas of progression.

 

No, too many Holocaust prisoners were patted down, made to run naked in place in the middle of winter and searched, shaved and collected like property. I refused to be searched when so many of my adopted relatives, friends, neighbors and their communities were destroyed by the same tactics implemented by the Nazis – that, airlines and our government now seem to have a right to implement in American airports all in the name of a Patriot Act that was not written into our constitution when our founding fathers wrote that sacred piece of text.

 

No, it will not do.

It must not do.

It cannot do.

 

It’s not good enough!

 

Battle of Versailles Treaty from Wikipedia: {Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required Germany to accept sole responsibility for causing the war and, under the terms of articles 231–248 (later known as the War Guilt clauses), to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. The total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion Marks (then $31.4 billion, £6,600 million) in 1921 which is roughly equivalent to US$ 382 billion in 2010, a sum that many economists at the time deemed to be excessive because it would have taken Germany until 1988 to pay. The Treaty was undermined by subsequent events starting as early as 1932 and was widely flouted by the mid-1930s}

 

Sincerely and Truly Yours,

 

I write to you in a time of fear and neglect in this beloved America of ours.

 

Watch: now I’ll be on the do-not-fly list, but oh well. The hubby will drive us where we need to go, I like the bus, subway, trains, sled dogs, skis, rafts, skateboarding, biking, and any other non-gasoline transport, anyway.

 

Fight for your right to think for yourselves.

 

With a strong heart and many responsibilities still yet to come, today, I wish you an amazing Tuesday!

Food for thought – nothing more and nothing less.

 

Gabriela

 

November 22, 2010

 

“Being happy is something you have to learn. I often surprise myself by saying "Wow, this is it. I guess I'm happy. I got a home I love. A career that I love. I'm even feeling more and more at peace with myself." If there's something else to happiness, let me know. I'm ambitious for that, too.” - Harrison Ford

 

November 19, 2010

 

“The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”   - Benjamin Franklin

 

Wishing you, a thoughtful American-Thanksgiving Holiday.

 

I’ll think of our Native-American and Pilgrim History and hope for our future.

I’m looking forward to laughter, discussion and loved ones around any table we travel to.

 

Imagine the people who came to America in hopes of a new beginning and the new friends who welcomed them before our founding fathers created the constitution? Imagine, what that first interaction between the Native Peoples and the Pilgrims must have been like?

 

I would love to climb inside a time-machine and be a witness to that fragile and tender moment in history.

Alas.

 

May new histories be re-discovered and appreciated and a moment of silence be granted; for all those who have come before us and for all those who’ll come after we are long gone.

 

May you rediscover love, patience, sincerity and tranquility in all that you do.

May you truly love your time with your families, friends and loved one and amongst strangers.

 

I’m ready for this weekend and the weeks still yet to come.

Many responsibilities require attention, still yet - I’m pacing myself till our next winter Holidays.

 

I’ve got apple cider on the stove ready and waiting going into the evening and night.

I bought grass-fed beef this week because I knew it was the right thing to do and I switched lotion and dish soap to environmentally friendly products because I knew it was the right thing to do as well. (I still like my fried chicken and pork-rinds, though. I just do. One daily-use product at a time.)

 

I made changes for no other reason that it came down to choices and how to stay connected to all of the world issues that have issues. More on that subject later… I switched to products that I studied for over a year and decided that it will do.

 

I’m thinking quickly; Trying to get in as many little thoughts as possible, but I seem to have run out of time.

Alas.

 

Pura Vida.

Salud; we raise our glasses to your health.

 

Sincerely,

 

Gabriela

 

November 18, 2010

 

“As much as we need a prosperous economy, we also need prosperity of kindness and decency.”  - Caroline Kennedy

 

Happy Thursday!

 

I’m trying to pack, meet many responsibilities – today, alone and I’ll be going late into the night.

 

I’ll head out tomorrow and I look forward to being in Northern MN amongst many honorable, honest and an incredible community of Finns. I like hearing the stories about blood bread, chicken beheadings and canning.

 

I’ve finally hibernated this week since the snow has fallen and I have sat down and focused on my work, alone.

 

I had made the choice to be distracted for three months into my editing season and it was a wonderful distraction. Now, I have serious responsibilities and since I’m six months behind my shooting schedule… There is nothing to do but to continue at turtle pace and enjoy the deep sincere quiet that comes from creating alone in an editing suite. Many quiet and alone months still yet to come, but not lonely by any means because when an artist creates they are in relationship to their work and very little else matters. I’m looking forward to it, because the energy that is generated alone is not the same type of energy generated with others. Some creativity must be done alone and not as group effort.

 

I’m wishing you an amazing day and an amazing week going into the Holidays with your loved ones and dearest ones. Many of our family members died this year and many more are ill and aging rapidly. We so look forward to being in their company – more so now then ever especially when the word “cancer” is used in any sentence over the phone.

 

No, I’m not “blabbering” about anything private or personal. We’re adults here and we understand that thousands of people in the United States and around the world are diagnosed with cancer every day and their families deal, struggle and move forward as best as they can.

 

We have many responsibilities and we meet them head on with love, more love and even still yet more love to come. Our families are the deepest and closest source to the Gods that we have and we are very lucky people, indeed, to have such nice families. We’re blessed everyday of our lives to have our loved ones with us.

 

So much love to our loved ones and dearest ones.

 

Gabriela

 

November 17, 2010

 

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” – Voltaire

 

“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.” - Justice William O. Douglas

 

Before we fell asleep last night, the hubby told me about people refusing to go through backscatter x-ray machines at airports. Eric read some on-line news source that described people being harassed, manipulated and even made to leave the airport for refusing to utilize such a technological function.

 

I can honestly say that I can understand these airline customers and their negative sentiments towards the new technology.

 

I would have chosen another mode of transport such as a ship, a bicycle, a raft, a car even my feet if I would’ve been asked to leave for refusing to go through a backscatter x-ray machine and I would not have given my business to that particular airline ever again just as I will never buy gasoline from a particular oil conglomerate because that is my American God given right to choose not to choose.

 

I’m opinionated and I believe in social and political activism even if I’m not the most studied human. I know an injustice just as any other animal does even if we pretend that it doesn’t exist like watching pelicans and turtles covered in oil and powerless to the atrocities made by oil spills and oil companies. Talk about technological advancements, what’s happened to a world with so much technology that we still have oil spills?

 

The future of technology may be here but don’t forget that humans are flesh and bone and that certain technologies must be educationally introduced for the safety and the overall health of the public. If the public doesn’t understand a particular function of technology and its methods nor has a need for it then no matter how much force or authority and pressure might be placed on the public, if they don’t like it, then say goodbye to margin points and an increase in the stock market. The customer is not always right but they’re still right as far as their rights are concerned and that’s an American concept, damn it.

 

A few basic thoughts did come to mind as I fell asleep.

 

First of all, not to be too shallow – but talk about bad bed-side manner.

In a horrible economy, what company can afford to treat customers like horrible miserable pieces of trash?

 

Second, as far as I’m concerned I don’t remember people giving away their rights to airline companies with the Patriot act. Who is anybody to tell others that they have to and must go through x-ray machines just to see down to their under garments?

 

What happened to common decency?

 

I can only imagine how many women must feel about this x-ray technology. I don’t particularly enjoy the thought of some stranger seeing me stark-naked in public, I don’t care what the purpose may be or who says they’re the authority on this - it’s so not necessary. Again, technology is at its worst when humans weren’t even a consideration in the design aspects of this technology and it only exists for the sake of implementing a half thought.

 

People still have options, choices and the ability to say “no” to any company that takes away their rights for granted, a company that treats them horribly and thinks that they’re above human standards, professionalism and yes believe it or not genuine common decency.

 

Maybe, I’m just a woman in the world in constant search for balance, but the thing is this: An injustice somewhere is an injustice anywhere and the moment that any company treats their customers more like prisoners of war, they loose face with the rest of the world. Primarily, people do think ill of any system, company and structure that come across more like a Nazi regime then providing a service. Its simple social arithmetic – every action has a reaction. A fourth grader could tell you that.

 

Let me ask it one more time; what’s happened to common decency?

 

Why are companies, systems and structures so frightened and implementing awful technologies when the economy is so awful? People truly suffer and choosing to fly is still an option - don’t forget that. I’m not going to pretend that I can talk about this from an intellectual or even a legal point of view, but I will say this; Boycotting companies, systems and structures is still an option as well.

 

I was brought up to think and believe that people have options and they are just as powerful as any corporation, system and company. I was taught this by primarily white private institutions and so I believe because in many ways the dollar is still the bottom line and if any company, government or system thinks that people don’t have basic rights then the economy will continue to suffer because the dollar is not ultimately the bottom line but continued business is and that takes human interaction not robot interaction, at least not yet, anyway.

 

Who wants to be a part of a system that is so terrified and frightened by basic human interaction that customers are now being treated more like opponents than customers? Something has to change in this system of terror and fear.

 

Change always begins with those amazing humans who refused to go through the silliness in the implementation of systems and some such nonsense such as x-ray machines that can see down to your privates. I can’t say that I wouldn’t have been one of those people who left the airport. Americans work way too hard for their money (with very little health and lifestyle benefits) to be treated horribly when their paying for a service which leaves much to be desired.

 

The other thought that came to mind was, who really implemented this new technology? I mean who makes this type of call? I’d be embarrassed to call myself a leader in this decision making process.

 

I imagined people sitting around in glass conference rooms thinking of security technologies to implement at airports and then coming up with the one idea of some backscatter x-ray machine or some other contraption and patting each other on the back for thinking themselves brilliant. I would’ve stayed in that room and not come out until something more human proof and proficient would’ve been thought of. I can’t say I would have implemented anything at all because ideas are a dime a dozen and not difficult to come up with, but ideas worth implementing are rare and excellent ideas are rarer still yet.

 

I would think that with all of the brilliance, intelligence, and technology in the world that something more human friendly would have been used in the aesthetic approach between humans and machines. I would’ve fired the person who had come up with an x-ray machine for not taking in the one and major factor under consideration; the human element. This is the reason why I think our culture has become so archaic. I’m no expert at anything except to constructively think of ways to implement safer, kinder and necessary modes of interaction, communication and technology. I’m not brilliant by any means but if you’ve ever designed something for humans I would think that we would’ve bridged the gap between technology and humans a long time ago.

 

We can make all the machines in the world that we want, but humans are human and that is still the main and basic equation, objective and desire. I don’t ever pet myself on my back when implementing anything. Why? Because, it only manifests arrogance enough to believe that any mode of construction is above the human spirit. I don’t want to be seen naked by perfect strangers down to my essence. Talk about sexual harassment. That’s a law suit waiting to happen and I’m not saying that I would ever sue, but I can see it as a potential because how can you not when people make a stance against a silly idea such as this one.

 

Food for thought.

 

I’m wishing you an amazing Wednesday.

 

A Wednesday, in which you’re, treated more like a respectable human and not a function.

I’m wishing you respect and dignity; People are animals who deserve more than just a bread line technology, snotty attitude and they deserve the best that the human condition has to offer.

 

Peace,

 

Gabriela

 

November 16, 2010

 

“I think perfect objectivity is an unrealistic goal; fairness, however, is not.” - Michael Pollan

 

Food, propaganda, slogans, campaigns, advertising and an overall attitude about organics and natural foods are not all equal, or the same and they normally are not educationally in the best interest of the public. All advertising is not equal nor are all labels honest, direct and informative even if slogans are misleading and they read “Natural” or “Organic” on the packaging.

 

If a food product is not certified and the companies have not paid for their certification such as “Fair Trade” certification or USDA Organic certified then it doesn’t mean squat. It’s a worthless slogan like every other slogan ever is worthless even if it has pretentious, pretty or a field of flowers on an advertising picture. It doesn’t mean anything because it means that the companies have not paid their dues to be officially certified to pass all of the quotas necessary for certification. Understand?

 

Again, when I was adopted at the age of ten in 1987 I was introduced to something called a Co-Op that my parents had been members of since the 70’s (when you pay your membership fees then you not only receive a profit sharing check at the end of the fiscal year but you’re also a shareholder to the cooperative and have small benefits such as discounts.)

 

It’s not any big deal to be a member of any Co-Op, and as an adult I’m not a member of any Co-Op nor do I wish or desire to be for specific reasons of my own. Primarily, marketing and advertising are the first ones that come to mind and an attitude that is not always human friendly, so why would I want to be a part of something that shuns, snobs and has the attitude of US vs. THEM . Otherwise, it’s the same as being in high school and since I’m an adult I refuse to participate with anything of that oppressive nature.

 

US vs. THEM is a great way to create apartheid, segregation and oppression. It’s the quickest and easiest way.

 

Let me say it again, I am not a member of any Co-Op nor do I wish or desire to be for specific reasons of my own.

 

My parents met while my mom worked at their local Co-Op through college and my Dada would go in and buy food from her simply because he thought she was cute while she would set aside the best yogurt for him because she knew that he liked it.

 

My Dada still shops from the same Co-Op as he did in the 70’s. My Dada supports his local Duluth Co-Op because his hippie buddies started it and kept it running all these years later. Many sacrifices and hard work went into making his local Co-Op a forty year success.

 

I grew up with an organic produce drop off that took place out of our garage. Our friends in Wrenshall, MN have an all organic-farm and still run this operation organic food farm quite successfully. The food drop off was founded by the family and is run by local neighborhood folks such as ourselves at that time.

 

My family, were members of not only the Co-Op but also the organic farm where we went out to and picked our own vegetables. So, because we held membership at the farm our garage was used as a food drop off point for the rest of our neighborhood and our neighbors who happen to be members would come and pick up their share on their own when they had time -  the garage kept the produce cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

 

The youngest son in the family and my good friend raised organic turkeys while growing up and while we attended private school together. Our family bought one turkey at Thanksgiving each year because we knew where our food came from and we knew it had been raised with loving and caring hands.

 

So, I was raised with many intelligent and educated people who took food not only seriously but sacred, wholesome and with kindness and generosity and never once were non-members made to feel guilty, pressured or campaigned into buying only organics. The more non-members volunteered and became involved and submersed in the world of organics, never once were they preached at, sold an ideal about fashion-attitude and culture about organics in the name of organic propaganda or held it against them for possibly making different choices from those of the Co-Op.

 

These Co-Op members were not my first role models but they were my main social role models while growing up after adoption. I never once took for granted the food that was served on our table – not once and not ever. I’d spent my entire childhood clutching my sides with hunger pains in the middle of the night. Oh, no! I never take any food for granted even if it comes from a dumpster. I’m too smart not to give everything its proper significance – especially when energy is used and abused.

 

I’m not a preacher nor do I want to be one and I’m not even all that intelligent because I’m lazy minded. I have to Google and look everything up all the time. My point is this, I don’t shun, judge or make decisions for other people and their nutritional value. I know and understand that organics are very expensive and if anyone pretends otherwise then they're a poser. Families, even upper middle class families are struggling in this economical depression. I travel, see, witness and speak to many different types of people who openly and truthfully speak of the contemporary challenges and difficulties of modern culture and life. Yes, I don’t call it a recession. I call it the second depression and we’re living through it.

 

I don’t ever judge people especially when I’m sitting around their beautiful tables sharing their beautiful hard earned food. I don’t see food as a fashion, slogan or attitude. I see it as survival and if an honorable Asian family from any origins offers me non-organic chicken feet stew then I will eat it with pleasure, kindness and appreciation because I’m not above their culture, sentiments and sharing of wealth. I’m not an ass and organics are way over rated in a society that doesn’t even know how to read labels to know how to decipher propaganda slogans and advertising.

 

I just recently started reading labels because of a group of friends I’ve made in the past year. I’m grateful to them, but I was taught how to read labels long before them. It’s a full time job to read labels, decipher through information and understand what’s truly being sold to you.

 

I’ve known many cold hearted vegans, vegetarians and organics people and as an Indiana I will tell you that hardly any people from third world countries will buy into it because they have been starving for way too long and to ask them to eat food that tastes like cardboard – you might as well ask them to eat their home-made rubber tire flip flops. No parent will choose organics over their children’s medical bills, education and some truly necessary requirements to keep their household running.

 

Organics have become a fashion statement since 1987 and maybe that’s the advertising that it needs and requires to make it mainstream, but will organics become just another fascist mainstream institution like everything else out there? Will organics become mediocre and standard just like everything else with an attitude? Will it become unhinged and unconnected to those who most likely need to learn about organics but have very little educational, economical and social means? Do you get it?

 

Attitude about anything comes only from privilege and taking those privileges for granted.

 

Attitude is the first negative function of anything that thinks itself above the rest and oppresses without any cause for the sake of fear of being wiped out from the face of the Earth or considered secondary to other more significant real problems like starvation itself.

 

There are thousands of people who hate to be sold on any ideal, way of life and attitude when they’re simply trying to put food on their table, a roof over their families and a little extra for a rainy day. That’s becoming harder and harder to do in America. I don’t want to be asked if I’m a member of the Co-Op every time I go and buy something from any Co-Op. If I have a member number I’ll tell it to the teller. Otherwise, I just feel like I’m being sold something mediocre just like the rest of advertisement and selling ever is. It’s called indirect peer pressure.

 

So, what if a rural single mother doesn’t have a Co-Op in her neighborhood and she can drive to the nearest Supermarket to feed her family instead of driving 40 miles one way to go to an over priced Co-Op five townships over from hers? I say, “Let them eat cake.” I meant fast food, if that is their only means of survival then who am I to judge them for it? I’M BEING FACETIOUS. I’m being rude just to drive a point home. Who is anybody to judge another animal on their quest for survival? If people are hungry and without economical and social means to eat organics then organics will be the last thing on their mind, because it becomes a joke to them – they’re hungry, bottom line.

 

I wish I would’ve had the option and choice of a drive thru window as a starving child. I wish there would have been anything - anything at all to eat. Therefore, I'm a garbage disposal and I’ll eat anything especially if it had a face, because I don’t take that divine life for granted. I understand that death had a life, a will and a connection.

 

Whatever I eat I become it but more importantly I also get to survive. Let’s deal with the reality of survival and the needs of people not the attitude of how cool you may or may not come across because of your driven campaigns, slogans or needs to be noticed as something saintly. I grew up in a Roman Catholic orphanage for four years I know how guilt and shame are sold to the Indianos and its no different than the guilt and shame of organics.

 

I’ve sat around many tables with people from all over the world and held this conversation with people way smarter than me in every way possible except for one and that I’ll keep to myself and reserve for my closest of friends. If you have an attitude with me then allow for me to have the same freedoms in return. I will have an attitude with you. I reflect the world back, because I’m made of energy and biology.

 

I get tired of…

 

Food for thought.

Nothing more and nothing less.

I was given the gift of wordsmith from the Gods so I write to make sense of this world.

I’m not special and I know it – I’m simply a ______.

 

Ciao.

Many responsibilities still yet to come.

 

Gabriela

 

November 15, 2010

“Love is first friendship and then commitment.” - Jacques Pierre Ribault

“You know that when I hate you, it is because I love you to a point of passion that unhinges my soul.” - Julie de Lespinasse

“Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

 

Happy Birthday, Hubby.

Feliz cumpleanos, Love.

 

The love of my life is a man who is not only intelligent, well rounded and incredibly in touch with something deeper than himself, but also comfortable with his boundaries, his manliness and his tastes. I married a man whose cultural background and perspective sets him apart from most American-Caucasian men I’d ever met up to that point; I smelled my husband for the first time and the rest is history. My husband smells of honey. Honey has been my favorite food along with raw sugar cane stock for as long as I can remember taste.

 

Traditionally spelled, S-a-a-m-i, the Sami people are from Lapland – which happens to be the northern most part of Finland. The Saami people are nomads and reindeer herders with the potent and powerful disposition of those of most highly respected and regarded Indigenous of cultures. Surprisingly, dark skin is common among the Saami.

 

My husband is one hundred percent Finn and I’m one hundred percent Mayan through bloodline – I’d like to think that it was the influence and the will of our ancestors who brought us together. My husband’s “Dragon Eyes” has to do with the Mongolian and Eskimo cross bloodlines with the Native Saami. I’m proud to know this Native-American Finn in all his glory, fierce acute intelligence and self-preservation. My husband is the type of man who can survive any where in the world. My partner is a man of the world and from the world - who’s at peace with himself and is as smart as any highly I.Q. genius can be.

 

My husband is a non-smoker and rarely drinks because of this I attribute his smell to that of honey.  My husband carries a natural smell with all of the makings and complexity of a dodecahedron. I’d never smelled honey on a man’s skin and breath before except for my husband and immediately and completely the day I met him I trusted in him, anything about him and within him.

 

The smell of honey is not the highly sweet-sickening smell of people with who have diabetes. I hold nothing against that particular smell but it would make it difficult to be married to it – for no other reason that it’s the smell of sickness in someone’s bloodstream and through their skin. You love the people that you love no matter what – but with a sensitive sense of smell I made up my mind up about three things long before I ever met my husband and one of those things was that I’d know immediately the man I was meant to spend the rest of my life with once I smelled him and I did – otherwise, I was prepared to live and die alone -  the other two I’ve only shared with close friends.

 

The very first time we met I knew I could trust him with my entire soul, spirit, body and humanity for the rest of my life. My husband kept me from harm’s way the first time we met by not looking at me or paying any attention to me and by pretending that we had not noticed each other we were able to keep things sacred on a non-verbal level. The woman, who had interviewed me for a job in a broadcast engineering department of a firm, my husband tells me now – “would have held it against you, if I would’ve of paid any attention to you, so I kept to myself but I noticed you – how could I not?” I smile and blush every time I ask him to tell me the story of how we met.

 

Not by any means did my husband disappear into the wall that day, if anything I noticed him more than his co-worker who monopolized the space, conversation, time and energy. I noticed my husband for the one and only sweet reason that nothing about him screamed to be noticed.

 

The moment that someone or something rushes at me and starts screaming and barking at me – everything in me gets turned off to the bone and I don’t want to know it, interact with it nor hold a relationship to it in that moment. I liked that my husband was quiet and keen as the smartest types of animals alive normally are – they don’t have a need to be noticed nor do they have to assert their power because they’re more powerful than the assertion, ever would be through flailing actions, rants and barks.

 

I only want to be seen and noticed when I’m on fire, frightened to death or angry at any injustice created in any separation and segregation amongst humans and all living things. I want to be noticed when I’m feeling either one of those three reasons because I’m taking a stand otherwise, I want to be left alone to wander, peacefully interact and daydream and be curious about the world.

 

I love my husband not for the huge and grandiose gestures but for the small, subtle and quiet ones he knows how to communicate, show and share.

 

My husband is the love of my life.

 

My husband is smart and kind in ways that I’ve only seen in Indigenous people from around the world who know how to scratch out a living from the Earth and who know how to get away from anything that creates unbalance and harm in any way yet has the ego to think that what it does is acceptable behavior when it’s simply a false cultural presumption – that immediately you deserve to be noticed and interacted with simply because it has a bulling behavior.

 

Eric knows that I have a natural need to smell the air; First for decease, nutritional intake, sweat and ego and if you aggressively come at me and I have to take in your entire existence in that one aggressive moment of introduction then no two ways about it I’m going to be turned off and I’m going to mirror any living organism’s aggressive energy with aggression. I’m a beta female human species. What can we say? We can follow any lead of any alpha in any pack, go off on our own or run with a separate pack of alphas. There are three things a beta female human instinctively senses and decipher: 1. Harmony in a pack. 2. Who are the male and female alphas. 3. How healthy is the pack. My husband is a _____. Therefore, I run alongside him.

 

Eric knows that I’ll meet any living-breathing species in the middle of any conflict. I’ll meet anything, there, half-way, but ultimately if aggression persists then most likely they’re not going to like that I can choose to expose them down to the bare bone especially their deepest insecurities like fear of being left out, shunned or treated like any omega (normally is in any pack) with very little consideration for the survival of any pack.

 

Eric knows that I’m not afraid to express my deepest fears and I mean my deepest worst nightmares.

 

Eric can always tell the difference between my fears and the fears I’m reflecting back to an unknown entity that I automatically do not respond well to if I’m charged at. I’m a Taurus baby and we don’t charge unless we have cause or reason, otherwise we want to be left peacefully among the green pastures and the blue skies. I don’t care if it’s a lizard or a bee that I’m interacting with I still need to get my bearings through smell NOT sound, aggression or persuasion to trust in something that I can smell their sweat of insecurity, bad manners and rudeness without any real confoundedness other than attention for the sake of it and not because of it’s innate natural need to stay alive, no.

 

Eric instinctively knows when I smell another living thing being competitive, aggressive without any real survival origin and insecure with their placement in any pack – I can smell it and it knows it. Immediately, I have figured out all of their deepest insecurities which are not real amongst thinking / sharing / intelligent animals. Like, a deep fear would be from a past dangerous experience, muscle memory of deep pain and not intellectual but emotional scarring; that’s frustrating to them as it is to me to smell because fear is one thing while insecurity is quite another smell.

 

Eric knows that part of me is like a turtle – any type of natural turtle instinct. I can go deeper into my shell and then I don’t want to come out and interact when I sense ________. I’m a little turtle and that’s that but I can also snap with reason and I love that Eric gets that about me. He’s never afraid of my deepest fears because he knows that I’m the type of woman who doesn’t think nor does anything without any real good reason and I can work through any fear in time and with patience. He gets that about me and that’s why he respects everything about me as I do him.

 

My husband never looks back once he decides to leave a place, institution or group of people and I like that in him – although we’re very different but I’m learning. We’re a very different animal altogether but I can understand his reasoning for doing everything just as he can understand my reasoning for everything I live for, stand by and recognize as something worth my life.

 

This is a man who doesn’t misunderstand me and for that I give him the best of me that I have to offer, share and live jointly as two people in love ever can. I give to this man because the trust and bond between us is real. I give of myself because I know that this man has my best interest in his heart. I give myself away to him because he has never given me any reason not to trust him so I am loyal to the death because there is no other way to be (for me) except just that.

 

It took me a decade to find my husband’s smell – a smell that didn’t hold any insecurity, malice or bullying and now that we are bonded as man and woman as one animal to another ever can be – I cherish, admire, adore and love in ways I never thought it would be possible. I’m a lucky woman as any woman of any time ever could be when they have found the deepest bond of love and trust in another.

 

I’ve seen this love in many people this is not so uncommon.

Love, does take a precedence in life.

Thank the Gods and I don’t mean it religiously but environmentally.

 

Happy Monday!

The week - is still, yet, ahead of us.

 

May you not be misunderstood amongst those you run alongside.

Much respect and consideration for all and any pack trying to survive and co-exist.

 

Love,

 

Mrs. Gabriela de la Holm

 

November 12, 2010

 

“The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves” – William Penn

 

“Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it, For jealousy dislikes the world to know it” - Lord Byron

 

“To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is, a dissatisfaction with self” - Joan Didion

 

“Jealous people poison their own banquet and then eat it” - Unknown

 

Jealous women are funny and pathetic to watch... It doesn’t matter who it is – but it’s funny and tragic.

 

Funny in the way that you should point and laugh at them, except for one tiny little fore-thought; A jealous woman is normally a bully, a control freak and a little girl with snot all over her face except you can’t point it out to her because, well, she’s just that insecure.

 

The sad thing is that you know something she doesn’t; That’s she’s not a grown woman but a little girl and you cringe every time you think about it because it hasn’t even occurred to her that she’s a silly little girl along with her partner who is a silly little girl along with her (and no I don’t mean lesbians, I mean between the male and female human species – if you can call it that).

 

Watching their husbands, partners and boyfriends wiggle is even funnier – except that you don’t laugh at a man who’s missing a pair, because there’s nothing funny about that. It’s a travesty and terribly horrifying seeing a man missing his cajones. The moment you see a man without his… – you can’t help but feel deeply embarrassed for the man who once was and no longer is a man and most likely will not become one, again, anytime soon because his survival depends on having them cut off. What a shame.

 

Period. The end of a story of two people who have ruined each other but don’t have the courage to change anything about it because living in the middle of a bitter life is somehow a better trap than making it alone and happy. So, people live out these trapped lives without any purpose, reason or meaning other than to be successful, make money and be drones in the movie of their lives. These are the type of people who don’t contribute anything worth while to the world because they live in a bubble of confusion, self made harsh melodramas and a lack of spiritual connection to anything real outside of their crazy mental world.

 

Have you ever watched a pathetic and jealous woman pout in front of their husbands, boyfriends and significant others and more so embarrassingly in front of their husband’s old friends?

 

It’s as funny as watching a poor dog drag it’s ass across a floor.

 

Painful and embarrassing to watch, but funny – Nevertheless. Funny, because you’re watching a supposedly grown woman not only display their deepest insecurities all over the floor but their pride, honor and adulthood are swallowed up the moment you see her dragging ass. You watch her, and you realize everything about her in that moment and you wish you hadn’t. You realize that she’s not only shallow but that she’s lead an insignificant life and that realization that she’s created in you makes her a low-life and that’s all she’s ever been because she never could and never did create a life of her own.

 

A jealous woman will only make her entire life her husband’s and she’s afraid to let him have his own life for fear that he will actually find out the one thing he already knew about her the moment he met her – that she wasn’t and never will be the only fish in the sea but she hopes that he believes the lie that she is the ocean when she’s not even a grain of sand.

 

Immediately you know that a jealous woman is a dog and not human and that’s all she strives for because she won her consolation price and a meal ticket. She bullied her man into a lifestyle, a marriage and a place in the world that he has no way out – especially when they hate each other’s guts and it doesn’t take anything to notice that they’re bitter and crotchety.

 

What a tragedy, to live out a life with a mean, rude, pushy and insecure human for the only reason that she’s terrified that you’re going to leave her. Women like this no matter how much they set out to prove that they’re not jealous, do pay for their inhumanness, ultimately, they are alone – deeply inside themselves – they live on an isolated island, forever.

 

Otherwise, if they weren’t so deeply insecure, then their young faces wouldn’t make old crotchety bitter shriveled up looks at the world. There is nothing uglier than watching a supposedly grown woman pout. Oh, it brings a scream to the bone. It brings a great and still embarrassment to the heart. It’s one thing to be embarrassed for your own behavior but it’s quite another and far worse to be embarrassed for someone else’s behavior.

 

(It’s not the same look on any woman’s face who realizes after ninety days that not only has she been lied to, betrayed in friendship and in community but that she - on her own - realized the lie immediately the moment she looked at another woman in the face and saw the lie in the other woman’s eye – the lie that had been kept hidden from her but that she sensed all too well that it was there all along. It’s a different look from pouting – it’s the look of disgust and humiliation for every party involved. It’s the look of why is everybody so damn horny all the time? It was the look of understanding the unhappiness in any threesome – I don’t dog threesomes, nor do I partake in them but why pretend like the women don't hate each other for sharing the same penis – someone’s bound to be left out.)

 

Most jealous women are not only deeply insecure, immature and terribly annoying, but there are issues deeper than that – they want control over someone else. They want control because they’re so insanely out of control in their own lives that if they control someone else then they can have a false sense of stability but no human can live with such a big lie inside their hearts.

 

It’s not possible to live with such a lie just as it’s not possible to live with the seven sins for no other reason that you know the difference between right and wrong by the time you’re one and anything other than that just festers into a deeper lie until one morning they wake up and all they can do is hide their portraits of Dorian Gray in their attics. They’ve become that ugly and know it all along but live in hopes that no one will discover their paintings.

 

The embarrassing thing about this type of woman is that anybody and everybody with a soul already knows their deepest secrets and every deep seeded sadness about this human is transparent like a bay window, because to be in tune with yourself is to be in tune with every other living thing so it’s easy to see everything about them and I mean everything, sadly.

 

This type of human believes any lie they tell themselves like: They THINK they’re not special but the sad truth is that they don’t really know that they’re not special. It’s one thing to think one thing but it’s quite another to live with a lie. It’s quite another to have your entire existence be a lie.

 

I have a life to live and so many amazing people to see this weekend.

We’re going to our amazing friends wedding who are totally worth our time.

No drama, no mean spirited rudeness but only love.

 

I love knowing beautiful, mature, grown women.

Women worth knowing.

A jealous woman is never worth a breath of time, only as a project and I can’t begin to think of women like that – I might as well think of them as objects and because I’m a woman I can’t go there with other women.

 

Peace,

 

Gabriela

 

November 11, 2010

 

“It is only the great hearted who can be true friends. The mean and cowardly, Can never know what true friendship means.”  - Charles Kingsley

 

“Love is rarer than genius itself. And friendship is rarer than love.” - Charles Peguy

 

I made a friend at the organic community garden last summer.

 

I look up to her as any woman can look up to any other intelligent and kind woman with respect, grace and love.

 

She’s a pillar of hope, inspiration and true kindness.

 

Imagine, meeting a human without a single mean bone in their body? Do you know what that’s like? A real woman, in her forties who looks more like twenty eight and has some serious priorities beyond her face and ego. Amazing! I like my friend in all her realness and natural ability to think for herself, plus she’s got a dry and lovely sense of humor. I like watching her tilt her head back, exposing her long neck and laughing without a care in the world. She’s real, she’s human – nothing plastic or shallow about her.

 

I trust her smell, her words and her eyes. She has the prettiest deer doe eyes, with deeply set color, long eyelashes and the most beautiful almond shape to them. I love how her hair wisps in the autumn wind, a light mahogany brown that falls to the middle of her back. She’s tall, lean and lovely in her movements in every way.

 

She wears black rain boots in the spring, summer and fall. I like seeing her dressed like an onion in cold weather – she dresses in layers and knows a lot about a lot in nature. She’s a smart woman who can talk about any subject matter and who can make intelligent decisions without being persuaded into anything.

 

She’s a woman that I look forward to raising my children in her presence. I trust her as I have trusted some of my closest and dearest girlfriends going back twenty three years to Park Point. I trust her in the way that only a trustworthy woman can be trusted.

 

I can’t say that I’ll be okay raising my future children in the company of just anybody – I’ll be picky as hell and not just anybody will do – no matter how many other people may find others popular or important in any social network, if I don’t trust their smell then I don’t trust them. I don’t care who you THINK you are, how charming and squeaky clean you may package yourself, some people are just not trust worthy simply because they care too much what others make of them. Their entire existence relies on who likes them and how successful they seem to come across to others. That’s just pure shallow insecurity and that mierda you can smell from across any room – it’s in their skin and in their sweat and there’s nothing they can do about it.

 

My friend is not like this. She only sweats when she’s doing hard work in the garden or with the food share project. I’ve never smelled her sweat out of fear in the company of any other human animal; she’s too confident and true to herself.

 

Really, kind and trustworthy people with a soul are tough to find in this world so this woman is definitely someone to build a lifelong friendship with. She’s honorable and honest and I can really dig that. No drama, no made up crap or competition for male attention. She’s a grown woman with her beauty, grace and wits about her.

 

I like watching her with her husband who’s the head organic gardener. Not only are they lovely together, but they are the essence of trust, truth and joy. I like watching the interaction between the two of them. They’re two people who have very direct communication, lifestyle and friends in common. Two people who really seem to have each other’s backs. Two people who are not demanding of one another or who create power struggles. They’re truly cheerful and happy to be together and its nice seeing people living real lives who work along side one another and who created a life with many of the same moral and ethical structures.

 

My friends are people who care for the welfare of each other and there is nothing more beautiful than that. She never bullies him, or gets embarrassed by him nor makes faces nor rolls her eyes at his ideas. I find that admirable in a society where so many wives are bullies to their male counterparts. I find it a gift to watch them play and interact when so many women I’ve met in the past only care about themselves and not really about their partners – especially when their partners are sweet and considerate men.

 

The women seemed hard while their men seemed weak and frail. I’ve met women who only cared about what their partners could do for them and not the relationship – these types of women with large mouths and fake clown smiles plastered to their faces have left me with one option but to run and run like any intelligent Indian – away far-far away from them.

 

My new friend has had her share of experiences being the only woman in all male groups. She’s not a jealous type and understands that the energy of men is not like the energy of women yet there is not reason to compete for it. She understands that being with men is not any more special than being in the company of women. She understands that there is nothing special to it but that it’s simply human interaction. She understands the inclusiveness of humans, the importance of respect to herself, others and the Earth. I hate to write this because I don’t want to put any unnecessary pressure on anybody but she is the embodiment of a true teacher and role-model.

 

I’m joyful to the Gods who have brought us together. I’ve waited six long years to find a true kindred spirit in Minneapolis. All of my best female friends live on each coast or in other countries.

 

Two of my oldest and respected girlfriends from private school have moved to Minneapolis from the East Coast, along with one tall beauty from the old “skool” country. I’ve reconnected with four others from my senior year in high school in the last three years and they have started to fill a warm and safe place in my heart. I’ve reconnected with these beautiful women after seventeen years simply by chance and I’m grateful to know such gazelles, their partners and families.

 

They’re such beauties in spirit, body and soul, married and one about to be divorced yet strong and mindful about the world. I’ve become one lucky human for meeting, making and having people in my life that I would die for simply because they are fabulous and worth my loyalty without ever asking for it.

 

I’m inspired by these women.

I’m inspired by my friend.

 

Much Love,

 

Gabriela

 

November 10, 2010

 

“Human trafficking is a growing reality in the United States and the Senate's action is an important step in fighting it. This new law not only strengthens the current trafficking law, it also grants additional funds to help prosecute sex trafficking offenders and offers protection to victims of this heinous crime.” - Janice Crouse

 

Disclaimer: I’m no critic, expert of any type, medicine person, shaman, leader, role model ( I can try but I swear too much amongst my closest adult friends and want to write with vulgar passion – I’m trying to better my writing only because I have a responsibility to everyone who reads this), decision-policy maker nor do I desire for any of these things nor do I pretend to be any of them.

 

Nor do I put myself up on any pedestal ready to fall off of one or to be pushed off one...The harder the fall.

 

I’m a grown woman with a pen – nothing more and nothing less (who just happens to have enough discipline to put it to daily use). I just happen to live in these modern times and hopefully I’ll grow old, quietly die when I wander off into the woods when my time comes.

_________            _________            _________

 

I think that some people are born dirty.

 

Dirty minds.

Dirty intensions.

Dirty and pathetic.

 

(I have a point and I’ll make it.)

 

I’m talking about anybody who has freedoms, privileges and safety yet they oppress others into slavery.

 

Smell says everything about the health of an individual and their nutritional value or lack there of. Smell tells you everything you need to know about a person; if they’re close to death or if they’re walking death…

 

This may not possibly make any sense to you but if you’re connected to something greater than yourself, then you understand that you’re not important and that you’re not at the center of the universe. When I say, smell tells you everything and you don’t understand then, try.

 

Try, because there is nothing else to do but to try to understand something deeper, greater than a commercial, T.V. Show or video game, trend or film. Try to unplug your mind and to connect to something that you’re already biologically connected to but take for granted like your senses.

 

Sometimes, the best way to decipher the intentions of people is to take in a whiff of their souls.

 

Evil has a smell (in my bias of opinions – I’m challenging you to think outside a bubble) – believe it or not…

 

These types of evil-low-lives are different from the whiners, posers, preachers, manipulators, apathetic decision makers, greedy and disrespectful people (who don’t have anything better to do) and trouble makers without causes, as well as posers without any original thoughts of their own who copy what others are doing and take all the credit for coming up with something extraordinary (when they could’ve never in their lives come up with anything creative because frankly they’re the losers of the world) (what a lie / what a sham).

 

Such types of humans are a waste of a life. Yup, I said it. Why? I’m practicing my all time favorite constitutional right to freedom of speech just as much as the Somali sex-traffickers of Minneapolis practice selling women for sex.

 

I’ve met men and women who were influentially and quietly evil with personal and motivational agendas that created powerful opportunities for themselves because they didn’t have power anywhere else in their lives. So, they ate away from other people’s souls because, frankly they were starved for ____.

 

These are the type of people, who are out to destroy others simply because they can and they’re psychopaths. The type of human that takes over families, enterprises, communities and establishments when it’s not their place to be bullies much less leaders – they’re not helpers they’re politicians and every move they make is calculated because they want to be portrayed an ideal of themselves.

 

This type of human will sell you anything you want to buy because they have bought into a caricature of themselves.

 

A type of human who can sell you another human for sexual pleasure – or your soul if you let them. The type who creates leadership positions and comes in with all the answers to non-existent problems but everything about them stinks of fat body cells and poop – especially their breath and on their gums. No, not a smoker’s breath but a diarrhea internal bowel movement rotting breath. I’ve known a few people like this and I’ve run like an Indian because what else is there to do but to get to safety?

 

I’m not talking about rebels; I’m talking about those who exclude others with clever and intelligent deviance and force. I’m talking about the type who’d murder you in any room in the world just because they could and they’d take their time doing it. I’m talking about the kind of low-life that has no moral compass, ethics and compassion even if they pretend to do so.

 

Don’t ever let beauty, a good suit or dress fool you.

 

These types of people are different from you and me; they’re complete narcissists, psychopaths and con-artists. No consideration for any living organism and they truly believe that they are the best thing since their God created an Earth.

 

Not like “normal” people simply trying to put food on the table, a roof over their heads and hopefully have a little left over bacon to buy nice Holiday gifts because it means something; It means that you’ve worked hard for your little bit of Earth.

 

These are emotional vampires with a purpose to sell human bodies.

 

These aren’t even the type of losers who take you for thirty thousand a year in investor-ships, grants and marketing three years running in several lost causes for shithole productions. No, not the type who fly off to Mexico or buy a new car when they know perfectly well that you’ve been eating from the food-shelf for three years and continue starving. No, this type of low life doesn’t smell like a sex trafficking oppressor but an idiot like this does smell of garlic on their bad breath, foreign tobacco and spices mixed with cum.

 

My point is this: It’s a type of human with a particular smell that is dirty enough to sell and oppress others into sex slaves.

 

Why? To make money and to create opportunities.

 

It’s not enough of an excuse for any immigrant to hurry the system along.

 

People who’ve been here for generations are struggling as it is.

 

I read an on-line article that the Somali community blames the system for their young Somali men trafficking women and I think; “Who are you to be so important that you can’t wait your turn like any other hard-working American citizen?”

 

I’m first generation of a type of immigrant. I had to learn to write and speak English, pay taxes and learn to decipher the American culture, why can’t you? Nobody owes you anything – (now, I’m truly trying to pull an ‘Oscar the Grouch’, here). I think - why don’t you know enough about the history of other suffering immigrants? Why can’t you seem to understand the process of achieving affluence?

 

Why can’t you seem to understand that one or two generations of immigrants doesn’t mean squat in America?

 

I hate to be the most frank of all, but you have to pay your dues and a snobbish attitude will not speed up any process.

 

This is America and one word to the wise - you’re no more or less special than any other set of immigrants who’ve had to make it in America.

 

Immigration is hard work.

 

Get your Somali boys off the streets of Minneapolis and stop selling women.

 

Maybe, in other countries but not here.

Not in this Minneapolis of ours.

 

What? Your young men don’t want to work for it like every other young man of immigrant parents?

 

Please, get acquainted with this new culture and stop whining – everybody has it hard in these times.

If you haven’t noticed it seems that we live in a depression – if your young men think that sex trafficking is the answer then as an entire culture you have already failed the first entrance into acceptance and that is to contribute something worth while to your new culture.

 

What does the Somali culture really have to offer the United States as new immigrants?

Hopefully, less sex trafficking.

 

Evil isn’t shadowy and hiding in a corner.

It’s bright and shiny and attractive.

That’s true evil.

 

With respect and consideration,

 

Gabriela

 

November 9, 2010

 

"Tell me what company thou keepst, and I'll tell thee what thou art." - Miguel de Cervantes (1547 - 1616) Spanish novelist

 

"Have no friends not equal to yourself." - Confucius (551 - 497 BC) Chinese philosopher.

 

"A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

I had the best three friends in the world when we were in seventh and eighth grade together. I loved them all like brothers and they changed me forever. If I had never met them then I would have never known such happiness, trust and love. I was not like them and they were not like each other, yet we fulfilled something deeper than just hanging out together.

 

There was true safety, honor and creativity in the company of these three young gentlemen. I didn’t understand their American sarcastic humor at that time but their facial expressions were funny as hell. I had just gotten off of the banana boat three years prior to meeting them. I was adopted as I have already mentioned several times at the age of ten. When we met I had three years of stumbling English. I didn’t want to talk much in those days because I had what I thought was an ugly Latino accent and I felt awkward and different. I was insecure of my brown skin in a primarily all white privately educated student body. At that time I thought, ‘Are there no people of color in this Northern world and if so, where do they put them? Do they hide them?’

 

No one had a clue that I had starved as a child and that their world was so privileged and socially difficult at time that it was tough to keep up with their trends, popularity contests and snide remarks, so I didn’t. I shut myself off into a world of written words and reading. I figured I would count down the days until school would be over my senior year and I did. I would cross off weeks and months ahead of time and I lived by the Mayan calendar. As a child I’d been taught to keep track of the time by lunar and solar passage of time and so I did. It was my true and only consolation like the writing.

 

Here, I was in a school where almost everyone had more than enough resources yet some of the most unhappy kids I’d ever met. It seemed as though they were conditioned to believe that they were at the very center of the universe and had to succeed at all costs. The first suicide that I’d learned of one of my peers struck me in the heart so hard I could do nothing but go quiet and still. I was so sad by this and I wondered, ‘were they hungry?’ Imagine, my twelve year old mind.

 

I found any excuse every morning not to have to go to school. I dreaded it with every fiber of my soul because I let it eat away at my soul. In those days I wished I could’ve gone back to Central America where people had very little but no one held anything against anyone in socialization and everyone knew that no man or woman could survive alone. Survival depended upon everyone working cohesively, in unison and in harmony, but at my school it seemed, people were islands, lone wolves with priorities and needs as great as their pressures, responsibilities and competiveness. I felt for my peers. I could see their struggles daily and I didn’t understand it. My only point is this; Third world poverty is not American high school nor should it be compared as such; Yes, I think it’s easier to look in and see what is so different from yourself. Nothing more nothing less.

 

My three young friends had no idea that I was more often than not lost in the midst of their conversations. I followed their facial expressions half of the time and the other time their hands to know if they were happy, sad, humorous and angry. I could read far deeper emotions in all three of them, but I truly could not express my deepest felt sentiments for these three young boys at that time. I loved them as I had ever loved anyone up to that point. I loved them as I have always known my true blood, my sister and my brothers left back in Central America. I loved them because I could be myself when I let myself go. I had had so much loss in my life that to know these three young men and to be respected and included was the gift of a lifetime.

 

I followed their hands to understand the stories that unfolded and the laughter that came from the stories told. I was in heaven and I felt completely accepted for the first time. They were my first childhood friends and taught me a little bit about laughing at myself even though I’ve always had too much of a serious nature because I’d seen too much unhappiness, ugliness and violence in humanity all before the age of three. I was serious and I’m still serious but I have a tendency to understand the language better and to laugh especially when things are truly stupid. Now, I simply point and laugh and laugh hard when people are mean-spirited, egocentric and completely without any vision, purpose or kindness in general. It’s easy to see true stupidity in others and that’s why my friends laughed and laughed hard at that time. I get it now all these years later. It took a while for the English to catch up.

 

We spent two summers playing like children at the edge of adulthood. We hung out on a Duluth Avenue at one of our friend’s house. He had an older brother and two older sisters. His older sister closest in age to us would allow the permission for me to tell my parents that I was sleeping over at HER house, just so that I could play with my buddies late into the night. It was a home full of life and kids who were the nicest kids I’d ever met. Kids who were considerate of each other. We ate all of the junk food we could find in the cupboards along with the hippie co-op bulk foods.

 

We would all cram into a tiny little kitchen with two wooden benches creviced into a cove with magnificent bright morning light that would shine in and blind you in the eye. Those were heavenly Saturday mornings with cartoons and chocolate for breakfast. We had the basement to ourselves and I was fascinated by the piles of clothes, toys, books, art materials and a tornado of stuff all over the carpeted floor. It was true chaos and wonderful. I was completely beside myself at the freedom and happiness that these young people lived in. I loved them in ways that I’ve never loved others. They were magnificent humans. It was all so new and fun to me.

 

I would get excited and pack a night bag with my pajamas, toothbrush, and snacks to bring over and play. The boys were into goofy films I’d never heard of before like the “Holy Grail”, foreign Karate films and old black and white cinema and such things that most teenage girls don’t care to understand but I wanted to know yet the language barrier kept me from understanding. I liked it when my friends tried to re-enact such scenes from such goofy movies.

 

They wore flannel shirts and baggy pants and didn’t carry backpacks. One of my friends was highly artistically creative and I still have his doodles he would write to me with funny little notes about hyenas and such. Another friend tried holding my hand at a movie theatre once, but I was too young to understand the gesture. I had more or less just left a catholic orphanage where the girls and boys were kept separated so to hold a boy’s hand felt like doing something wrong and I took away my hands even though all I wanted to do was to feel his skin clutched inside my hand but I was too much of a coward and that day changed everything between us. It was never the same ever again.

 

The only reason I would get up in the mornings (throw on the first thing I saw which was always a shirt and pants) was to go to school and see my friend’s faces even though I was flunking every subject I took. I had academic immunity because I was English as a Second Language student. I never knew what anybody was ever talking about except one teacher who yelled at us to dress like onions in other words to dress in layers because you never know when the weather is going to turn so I still dress like an onion to this day because he was right.

 

One of my friends, his parents moved away at the end of eighth grade, the other got kicked out for supposedly being a culprit in stealing calculators and the other switched high schools. My freshmen year I had not a soul of a friend – sorry, writing as a discipline make most writers this honest. I sat at a table with kids who really didn’t want me around (their body language said everything for them). I was dissatisfied and went through the motions of my life. I felt a vast emptiness for my closest friends’ energy, humor and facial expressions. I felt trapped and the only thing that saved my life was a pamphlet from a family friend who I had the most unnecessary crush on in those puberty stricken years.

 

I started wearing flannels and baggy pants, skipping classes and going for hikes in the woods because my heart just wasn’t into school. I met a group of seniors from another High School and my life changed forever. I started smoking cigarettes, hanging out at cafes, going to raves (disco-tech) and I never looked back. I only knew that I was going to get out of my small city privately educated institution and that required making a change even if it killed me. I applied to a writing school and to my surprise I was accepted into their Literature program. It saved my life but I was still counting down the days until the whole bloody thing would be over. Now that-it-is over, I no longer look to the moon and sun to count down my days. Now, I only wish that time would slow down as I’m getting older because I’m finally having a blast and I’m finally beginning to learn more about that magic called happiness.

 

I’m married to a man who embodies all of the great qualities of those first real true friendships I had when I first set out on an American journey. I used to think about them daily just so that I could keep their spirits alive in my muscle memory.

 

I’ve now met three men in their late thirties and early forties who are like these three teenage boys that I once knew and they have become close and magnificent friends. I’ve been lucky to have had such friendships not only once in my lifetime but twice. I’ve been lucky in many ways. I’d like to think that I understand them and if not then I love them and I hope that’s enough. They have disappointed me and I have overcome many of their inconsideration.

 

It’s like when we were teens and we didn’t have cell phones. You could just go and find your buddies and there they would be and you would hang out for hours because they meant something more than just a warm body to hang out with – they meant true understanding and kindness without any judgment.

 

I go and find them at six o’clock at night Monday through Friday without ever calling and we sit around a fire built in a beautiful ornate woodstove. We talk or we don’t but the thing is that they’ve becoming family because we have offered each other the greatest gift in any friendship and that’s the sharing of any home-cooked meal over a fire. I love these gutter-punk Minneapolis men as I loved my first friends. I love their loyalty, awareness and kindness.

 

I never feel judged with my family. I never feel in harm’s way. And, if it came down to some serious gutter-punk bloodshed - these men have seen their share of violence, devastation and cruelty in the world as so have I – I don’t live in that reality nor do I choose it but I know it all too well – violence against citizens. These men are fighters, real true warriors. They’ve dumpster dived for their food and they’ve lived in some of the harshest conditions in America and I’m proud to call them my family. I look forward to six o’clock tonight and every night for the next few days when we get to be in each other’s company. I love them in ways that I cannot express to you or in any written language for that matter – we have yet to see if we’ll continue to honor one another.

 

Peace,

 

Gabriela

 

November 8, 2010

 

“The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.”  - Quentin Crisp

 

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.  But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” - Mark Twain, (Old Times on the Mississippi Atlantic Monthly, 1874)

 

We watched a show called “Freaks and Geeks”. Freakish how closely related to life many of the characters were portrayed of the many people we’ve encountered in our American High School experiences. I’ll never have to do High School again, thank the Gods. I’ve met many people who’ve said to me, “High School was the best time of my life.” I’ve walked away thinking, ‘No way! No way! Please check out your adult priorities.’

 

I spent my entire high school career hating my entire high school career and my four years of under graduate prison sentence. I hate those particular institutions in ways that I don’t have time to explain. Primarily, in America it’s an economical institution, rather than an educational one, anyway. The corporate machine lives inside any educational system and it seems to be more about the dollar sign than any real lifestyle choices, experiences and learning abilities.

 

I paid for my private and specialized-public institutional learning. And, with that I never so much as learned about cooking, sewing, shop, mechanics, nutrition nor any other basic functions required for running basic tools, forethought, insight and logic. I got into the working world ten years ago, exactly and I was one of the dumbest one hundred thousand dollar educated fools you could’ve ever met at that time. When I left school I could not have picked my nose even if you pointed me in the right direction. I had no common sense and felt trapped inside a bubble of intellectual academia for about five years after college.

 

So, four years later and one hundred thousand dollars wasted I knew nothing about the world and it showed. I went to work on a film set for a studio, two newsrooms and eventually corporate advertising all the while I had enough common sense to take out a business loan and start a small film company one decade ago. One year after college I still didn’t know how to run a fax machine, make copies or “punch a show” (a crazy non- computerized archaic way of running a nightly news show from muscle memory more than intelligence.)

 

I learned quickly that the world was not a difficult place to get along in, but it was a basic one and all that I had ever been taught were theories, theorems and hypothetical problem solving. In other words I was stupid. It doesn’t take a masters degree to run a newsroom. I learned quickly that high school students ran local small town newsroom and that they had more intelligence and know-how about the world than I did.

 

This was a decade ago. I can write about it now because I’m no longer that naïve or that little girl with rose colored glasses. I’m an adult and a grown woman of thirty-three who’s met and seen enough mean-spirited corporate cunning women, fools, arrogant bloody men to last me a lifetime. I’ve met people who could do a better job than me at any monkey button pushing job, but the only difference when it comes down to it, is that they can’t find solutions for some of the simplest problem solving outcomes. That’s how I know when someone did not have a proper education and by that I simply mean a post-secondary opportunity of any kind. It takes money and time to get set up with post-secondary. Don’t think I don’t know that.

 

A woman, who lied to me about going to school for journalism, once answered my question with, “I’m getting a B.E. in English.” She said to me thinking that I believed her lie.

 

She said it with all the conviction and honesty she could muster. I thought, ‘you idiot, you’re not in school and there is no such thing as a B.E. in English.’

 

Most people that I’ve met without any direction or purpose in life either say that they’re artists or students which is the lamest thing to say because if you’ve ever been to college so much as part time or been a working professional artist – you know that no one ever really wants to choose those two paths in particular for two very distinct reasons.

 

One, it’s hard as hell. Hard! I mean a hard life! Two, it’s not fun. If you’ve ever been to college then you know that it’s a full time job and your life is not your own. If you’ve ever been a professional working artist, then you know that it’s solitary work, boring and hard. So, anyone who says they’re an artist or a student with tons of gusto – they’re lying through their teeth. Especially, when they can’t even so much as properly structure a sentence. A B.E. is a non-existent degree. It’s a made up lie.

 

Chose another lie and maybe I’ll call you out on it next time or maybe I’ll simply let you believe that I believe you. It’s no different than telling me that an oyster fork is too large for the oyster when everybody who’s ever eaten oysters with an oyster fork knows that they’re tiny and productive in fishing out an oyster.

 

I know a poser from ten miles away. Why? Because I attended the best writing school in America. I attended writing classes at the Writer’s Workshop at the University and if you don’t even know that that’s the best writing school and you tell people that you’re an “Award Winning Journalist” at cocktail parties then you’re just like every other poser who’s pretended to be bigger and larger than this hard life without any work involved.

 

Seriously, the easiest place to be conned is in the arts – especially if you’re an artist and that breaks my heart for those of us who are professional artists. I’ve met people who pretended to be working tax-paying artists and have left a chill right down to my bone. People who pretended and played with fire with certain social circles and they are dangerous people who if you let them into your home and life – they may change your life and alter you forever. Don’t let them. I have to say, “No!” to that type of human. I can’t waste my life covering up for someone else. Although, I hold secrets that I will never share with anyone because I don’t break confidences. I was brought up to uphold by a code of honor and I do live by it even when the honest to God truth is blaring me in the face and I have to stand to its gusting winds, how can you not love to sail through a good storm from time to time. It challenges you to know your character that much deeper than before.

 

I don’t have anything against people having dreams, aspirations and desires but it’s taken fifteen long hard working years of my life to become a working professional artist and every time an idiot with no real talent or developed skills falls back into the arts because they have nothing else; It diminishes the hard work of those of us who actually produce something from nothing. I can only imagine that these types of low-life humans must go to bed at night hating them-selves for never taking the time, risk and sweat to develop any real skill or talent. It takes muscle work and lots-of-it to become a good student and a good professional working artist.

 

I’m down from my soapbox but it’s a topic of conversation rarely addressed because it’s the simplest lie to believe. People want to be impressed, so I tell people that I’m a dishwasher at parties even though that’s as far away from the truth as any “Award Winning Journalist with a B.E. in English.” I do it because I have a little bit of authority in the sense that I’ve been there, done that and I survived two of the most difficult institutions in America; University and the Professional Arts. I do it because I want to challenge people. Plus, how pretentious does it sound to say, “I’m a film producer.” Really. Seriously, maybe in other cities but not in Minneapolis, please. I’ll just stick to the dishwashing. Plus, people left me alone, they didn’t want to hear about dishwashing but let me tell you every person from a class distinctive background ought to have experience at least once in a kitchen. It'll change your life forever. You'll never think about food the same way you did before working in a restaurant or the culinary arts. So, I get to daydream and watch people in their penthouses come in and out of a smoking fog.

 

When I first went to work, what I didn’t know at the time that everybody else knew before me and about me was that I was a quick study and a quick learner. Although, sometimes, it takes me forever to run a machine or to do a function but once I memorize a stance, a layout and learn muscle coordination – say goodbye to your sweet job, because I can do it better than five grown men in any room and I can implement shortcuts, engineering processes, and hell I’ll get in there and fix the machine myself and I’ve had to and successfully done it.

 

Once, I learn something and get good at it I never forget it. Never. Never. Never. I can memorize stupid stuff like the layout of any blueprint, map and computer systems. I simply just have to put them to use. I can study something once and I can take a picture of it in my brain and apply it when I need it, otherwise it will not come to me unless I really need it. I’m not very good at anything per say except problem solving and that has been a great skill I’ve developed over a decade and that’s why I can crunch numbers and figure out how to make well constructed low-budget features without corporate advertisements or funding. It’s all about problem solving, priorities and hard work and laughter.

 

I met other like minded folks in my bizarre and unique educational systems. I met snot nosed kids at that time who are now people who run large corporations, small businesses, Hollywood producers, composers, technicians, bankers, lobbyist, chefs, computer manufactures, scientists, doctors, lawyers, teachers, professors, political and social activists, ambassadors, farmers, published writers – you name it: I met some of the brightest people who were ten times more magnificent and smarter than me in every way possible and I was completely enthralled by their craniums and ability to create something from nothing. These are people who are all over the world changing the world. So, the only great thing I came away with from my educational prison was the people who’ve created a structure for others to have it a little bit easier. People, who think way outside the box and implement human friendly problem solving solutions because they have developed their skills.

 

These are people with authority, intelligence and know-how. These are my peers. These are the people who are taking over the baby-boomers who only cared about their pocket books, their reputations and who were completely apathetic about The MTV Generation, The X Generation and The Y Generation along with the “Gadget” Generation (Graduating class of 2008) coming up. Four generations of forgotten folks because the baby-boomers required fulfilling so many self-centered causes. I dislike the baby-boomer generation for the choices they made – they never really contributed anything of any real great importance to the world, except whining, marijuana, free sex and love and hippie fashions plus self-interest and generating money for their causes. They were not the greatest role-models. I’ve never looked up to the baby-boomers for any real guidance. I did look up to the Greatest Generation which was my Grandparents generation. They weren’t as self-centered and selfish.

 

Move-on-over.

 

Freaks and Geeks have taken over the world.

 

The people who were arrogant and mean-spirited are the same mean and low-life idiots that they always were even if they are considered “successful” by American standards. They’re idiots because they have never and most likely never will contribute anything of real worth to the world except making money and buying the latest fashions. And that’s not enough. It never has been and it never will be enough…

 

Sad, really that they can’t prove otherwise. I love to be surprised but that’s rare with people.

 

How very little people change from eighteen to thirty-three. Even if people are powerful in their own and solitary lives, they’re as powerless to something greater than themselves for putting very little effort into understanding the misfortunes and realities of those who’ve had to carve out a living from scratch.

 

Some people get everything handed to them and they know nothing about the real suffering that goes on in the world while others lose everything and become enlightened and have a bit of compassion and empathy for those who suffer and have no options because they’ve had no real opportunities bestowed upon them and they really never will. Eat that for a thought. Count your blessings or not.

 

Ciao.

 

Many responsibilities require hard work, today.

 

Gabriela

 

November 5, 2010

“I've developed a new philosophy...only dread one day at a time.” - Charlie Brown (Animation Character)

“I might be in the basement. I'll go upstairs and check.
We adore chaos because we love to produce order.
I don't use drugs; my dreams are frightening enough.”
                                                             - M. C. Escher

Wow, it’s ten-thirty in the morning already and I wonder where has the morning gone already? I look forward to filming at the community garden this afternoon. I look forward to seeing all of the young people working and jointly putting time together into something worth their while – especially when it comes to organic gardening and farming.

 

Life is good. I do hope that everything you touch with your hands brings meaning, purpose and love to your life and those around you. I look forward to handling my camera, embracing friends, being in their company and working quietly alongside them.

 

The sun is out and I’ll bundle with a purpose for the three hours that I’ll be outside today. I look forward to packing a nice wholesome snack and wearing long-johns. I think apple cider is in order before I leave the house today.

 

We’re sitting on the couch watching a show called “Bewitched”. The hubby will head out at eleven and I’ll see him again at seven tonight. It’s Friday and I look forward to hanging out for the weekend. We don’t have anything planned and that’s nice because we have been going non-stop since April.

 

May you be respected, appreciated and understood on this last day of this week.

Imagine this day will never happen again.

It’s a gift from the Gods to live in such a time, century and space in time.

 

I consider myself lucky, understood and loved at this juncture in my life.

 

Sincerely,

 

Gabriela

 

November 4, 2010

 

“She smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish and dresses like her mother!” - Bridget Jones's Diary

 

“Mark Darcy: I realize that when I met you at the turkey curry buffet, I was unforgivably rude, and wearing a reindeer jumper.”  - Bridget Jones's Diary

 

Taking the day off to rest, read, research and lay in bed in pajamas. I’m having a complete and utter girl day. I’ve popped in “Bridget Jones’s Diary – The Edge of Reason” while I take care of other business on the laptop.

 

Hundreds of hours of video require storyboarding, digitizing, organization, cutting and mastering. Photographs require color correction, cropping and placed properly on a timeline, graphics need to be built, text needs to be built and a feature requires to be cut. E-mails to be answered and phone calls to be returned. No, not much really-happening here… You know how it is? Right? Right.

 

The fall is a quick paced time of the year for so many people. The holidays are around the corner and if it were up to me I would’ve put the plastic reusable and recyclable tree last night. I love all of the little LED lights, the candy canes and eggnog. Oh, I look forward to eggnog every year. I know…I know. I have a sweet tooth.

 

I love to decorate and gather with our closest friends and family. Nevertheless, before that happens I do have many responsibilities to fulfill. Even though – I’ve been going straight through since April and a nice rest would be delightful.

 

We’ll be attending one of our dearest friend’s wedding ceremony this weekend and I so look forward to it after seventeen years of knowing her lovely face – the first time she showed us the massive rock on her finger worth thousands of dollars and I thought: ‘Good for her – he’ll take care of her when she asks for so little in return and deserves the whole world. This lovely woman will make this man so happy and he has no idea that she’s the real gem and not the rock on her finger.’ I remember feeling a little weepy and completely overwhelmed for her happiness. HER happiness. I’d always wished her the world, secretly inside my soul.

 

The hubby has no more days off until Christmas because it’s now considered the black-out dates in the Television broadcasting season. I’m so proud of the hubby’s intelligence and know-how. I’ve worked with my husband in the past. I like that he did not talk at me, nor excessively. He was one of the quietest men with high I.Q. intelligence I’d ever met, and held a sense of humor that tugged at my heart’s sleeve. I’d laugh so hard that milk would spill out of my nose. Oh, how I adore this man for fighting for me, taking care of me and never saying “no” to any of my artistic ideas.

 

It’s once in a life time that a girl as odd and as awkward as me finds the man of her dreams. A man that she can feel completely comfortable with and smile at from across any room. A man who never judges her for her taste in foreign foods, political ideals, and understanding of others. A man who adores her no matter what she’s wearing and a man who understands her for who she really is and not what others think she ought to be.

 

I got damn lucky. I did spend a decade of my twenties more or less single and picky about who I wanted to marry. There were two other men that I was head over heels about but never had the courage to tell so I kept it to myself and lived a pathetic and fun life of late night reading, movies and dancing around the living room singing with a makeshift microphone. I love to sing when I’m home alone and no one can see me cutting loose or cutting a rug. It wasn’t pathetic. It was lovely and girly. I’ve always kept myself entertained and loved my life even when I hated it and was too poor to afford a can of soup. Oh, Walt Disney that was the beginning of his career as well. No pretenses.

 

I’ve been so lucky to have had best friends who understood me – truly understood me. Period. I’m an old fashioned girl with old fashioned ideals who did want to cook, clean and live a domestic life for one man. Also, a woman whose always had high ideals about art, politics and social activism.

 

I’m not anything special except that I take a great deal of interest in the world around me. I love El Mercado, La Carneceria, La Panederia, Co-ops, our local libraries, downtown, uptown and the south end. I’m glad I ended up here in this Minneapolis and met the man of my dreams even though when I moved here in 2004 I was only passing through and ready to go back to the East Coast to jump on a crew to make more motion pictures for a studio, but – something, in my heart told me to stay here instead and so I did.

 

I love Bridget Jones’s Diary for no other reason that young women have hard lives in the Eurocentric cultures. Young women are left to fend for themselves, as most adults are. Nevertheless, we don’t have tight-knit communities, villages and clans where young people are oriented and given opportunities to meet extraordinary people to marry. I remember doing the bar scene in my twenties but like hell if I was going to take anybody seriously enough to…

 

I wanted more guidance in this establishment but like most American things you simply just have to stumble upon romance as much as you do into anything else by chance and that concept sucks to me. I like community and my best friends and closest friends that I would never give up in a million years. I love the hippies, mavericks, artists and the old skool friends from way back in the days of the good old Park Point growing up and wishing upon stars.

 

As a young woman I wanted guidance from elders. I knew many great men in many great foreign countries but not any whose smell I felt intimately and deliberately in tune with and wanted to give my soul, body and spirit to. I was engaged in my twenties more than once but I ran away because a girl knows when life may just suck that much more married to the wrong men rather than the one or growing old as a spinster.

 

I’m watching this silly little movie and laugh at all of the absurd comedy that happens to young women in this life of Eurocentric values. How can I not laugh?

 

Wishing you a lovely afternoon.

 

Ciao.

 

Gabriela

 

 

November 3, 2010

 

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”  - Winston Churchill

“Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.”  - James Russell Lowell

“Democracy:  The state of affairs in which you consent to having your pocket picked, and elect the best man to do it.” 

- Benjamin Lichtenberg

 

American elections. Ah… I feel awkward voting. I mean to imply, that as an average English as a Second Language learner and American-Costa Rican citizen that the visual layout of the ballot is confusing to the eye. I’m sure, a truly intelligent person or group of people put the ballots together.

 

Although, my latest complaint to the hubby is the great irritation of how things as simple as a ballot’s layout are twenty years behind – so are the materials and designs in clothing. Why does everything look like it was designed in 1987 but hardly any new advanced technological materials and clothing are being designed? Why so stagnant in the creative and technological advancements of our society?

 

At our local VFW I got annoyed for the second time this fall for getting it wrong. Look, I’m a rather intelligent human and I can figure out many complex theories, ideas, layouts and designs. But it wasn’t until I voted yesterday that I understood how archaic this country really is; Please, don’t get me wrong we have running water and many great institutions instilled to make us a fast paced society but not necessarily a quality society such as many of the Scandinavian countries.

 

I won’t get into the Finn National healthcare system because it leaves ours in the dust. Seriously, we are being left behind by so many more caring cultures for their people and for the future of their children. Huge corporations, pharmaceutical conglomerates and the banks run our country not the people. Not really. I wish I was asked about national healthcare on the ballot instead of who oversees Recreational Park money.

 

Yesterday, I had circled two judges instead of one. My eyeball thought it had skipped ahead to the following sub-heading and grouping, but instead it stayed stuck on the previous column and I ended up circling two from the same category. I think it’s the shading between light gray and dark gray that doesn’t help in the visual outlook of the ballots. What a ______, something so simple, but I guess the ballots have to be kept official looking even if it doesn’t have much human friendliness behind it.

 

A young woman at the polls spoke to me like a two-year old and I got hot-red in the face and just wanted to flee as quickly as I could. I let it go, knowing perfectly well that that sub-category would not be counted. The young woman without any ability to interact and connect with a reasonable adult drove me even more nuttier. In a sing-songy voice and a patronizing body language she said to me, “Take away the yellow cover, and feed your ballot through the machine, wait a moment.”

 

She stood staring at me like a know-it all and I just wanted her to move away from me because her synthetic smell of cheap products made me want to puke slightly. She moved in on me and came an inch away from my face – that was too close for comfort from a high-pitched voice stranger who got off on others getting it wrong. She was an awful teacher in the world.

 

The machine began to beep and she took command. I was more than slightly annoyed with her because I had not asked for her help and I had not asked to be spoken like a child. English as a Second Language doesn’t mean retarded (Not politically correct terminology) – it means without a proper translation or ability to speak fluently in another language. She said goodbye to me as loud as any American volunteer on fire in hopes of being noticed and acknowledge for her good deeds. I could easily see through her transparency like rice paper. All I could do was turn my back to her and walk out as fast as I could. She had not really been intelligent nor helpful just like the ballot.

 

‘Why so much mediocrity in this society?’ I did think on my way out.

 

I hate voting as much as I hate going to the dentist, the doctor and any hospital in America. I hate it because you’re cramped in like cattle; everybody assumes that it’s obvious how to vote and how to maneuver through a foreign concept. The only reason why I get out and vote at all is because I was brought up in Costa Rica for the first ten years, otherwise I’d be a crabby and apathetic American about the whole bloody damn system. Plus, normally there’s only a lesser of two evils to choose from on the ballot.

 

“Kids Voting” was brought to the United States and instilled in the school systems due to the Costa Rican model of children who take voting very seriously and mock-vote in the presidential elections. The only thing is that in some ways the children’s votes are taken more seriously than the actual real adult votes. The children’s tally is broadcast across the country along with the adult returns.

 

I love voting in Costa Rica with a duo citizenship you can do that. I was adopted at ten and did not have the choice to leave my country so therefore, I have duo citizenship. Voting in Costa Rica is so easy and yes, adults take it very seriously and have taught me to fold the ballot with one hand as a traditional value instilled in me as a formal practice and National pride. Then, place it through a slot that falls inside a wooden box with a padlock. I like the feeling of importance as I’ve walked into a polling booth with guards on each side of each door standing there with semi-automatic weapons not letting anyone in unless you are a registered voter.

 

It’s serious business and people are serious on election day – there’s no doubt about that, but when the night comes and the sun has set around five the people know how to come together and rally as one Nation under their Spanish God. These are high energy folks who dance in the streets, burn the election flags for fun as a signifier that another election has come to pass and take to the streets greeting one another as though they were long life friends – no matter what party you voted for. How can you not love that? How can I not love that? Everybody drinks, laughs, yells political statements freely into the air and it becomes an after hours party more like the World Cup than the American elections.

 

Anyway, the hubby is going to make a graphic of my ideas of how I would love to see a ballot’s layout. Then, I’ll post it for fun. Ideas are a dime a dozen, but then why are they so hard to come by and implement when they matter most?

 

I’m wishing you an amazing day. I’m heading out to my friend’s horse farm for some scenic outdoor fotografia.

Hoping to be back into the city by six tonight. It should be glorious light out there today. I look forward to smelling like a horse at the end of the day.

 

Ciao.

 

Gabriela

 

November 2, 2010

 

“If the World Series runs until election day, the networks will run the first one-half inning and project the winner.” 

- Lindsey Nelson

 

“Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.”  - George Jean Nathan

 

“I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work.  Of course it doesn't work.  We are supposed to work it.” 

- Alexander Woollcott

 

 

Courtesy of Gabriela de la Holm

 

Presidential Costa Rican election night: I think, February 2002?

I’d have to look it up in my records – I’ve been there for several presidential elections…so exciting!

 

Anyway, Happy voting day and “Dia de los Muertos”. I’m wishing the lovely Mexicanos an amazing day in remembrance of their ancestors. May you have an extraordinary day. The hubby and I went and voted at our lovely and local VFW this morning around ten. It was empty and quiet. Unlike, other times of the day when the line is all the way out the door.

 

A few more hours of work and then I’m going to go and find my friends to sit with and chilllax, hang out - tranquilla.

 

Pura Vida.

To the good life…(As the Ticos say.)

 

Gabriela

 

November 1, 2010

 

“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.” - Catherine Ponder

 

Amazing weekend: Partying, volunteering and hanging out with amazing people from all walks of life. I didn’t do too much talking because people require so much energy (so I let them talk and I tried to listen), especially amongst strangers. I liked being in the middle of the activity and feeling all of the high energy and emotion from all types of humans and their trials and tribulations.

 

I woke up thinking of a friend who deserves an apology from me from two weeks back. I haven’t made the time to meet with him sooner…because well, apologies are so difficult and essential. I don’t feel like a stupid little girl now, after the fact. Nevertheless, I most certainly did in that moment when I made my mistake of crossing a boundary by asking a silly-stupid question. Everything changed and nothing may ever be the same again between us even though I hope that that’s not the case. I hope that my friend is human enough to understand that about others as well as in him.

 

Oh, I felt so small and insecure I wanted to crawl underneath the carpet and disappear forever. When I’ve thought about it on and off for the last two weeks, my insides simply churn with embarrassment. How can you have so much love for someone and feel utterly defeated by that same love? How can you know that you will be unconditionally understood unless you unconditionally understand. How can you want to make a wrong, right – but not have the courage to utter those tiny little words; I’m sorry I was a complete and utter dumbass. What’s a girl to do? Feel completely stupid? Then, move on and grow up – get over insecurities.

 

I’ve been in friendships in the past where there is no forgiveness and messing up is out of the question. I have been shunned and persecuted for making mistakes and being human, so if my friend answers my text and is willing to meet with me for an hour face to face like a man and a woman, then I will simply apologize and we will either continue in friendship or he will hate me forever for being stupid at times, especially when sleep deprived.

 

His friendship has come to mean many things to me, but I’m not completely stupid to him. He works like a Puritan, preaches like a Catholic priest and makes grandiose assumptions about the world around him. He almost got me killed this summer and even though I don’t hold it against him, I’m angry at him for not keeping me from harm’s way. It was his project, his responsibility and ultimately his knowledge to know how to keep a project from landing and crashing to the ground. I barely made it out from underneath a steel beam held up by another beam about a foot off the ground. I crawled out from underneath metal and wood and held my tears in front of him. I didn’t want him to see me cry so I instantly in that moment became hard and untrusting of him. He had stood there staring at me in amazement while I thought I was almost ready to puke. I put on my bravest face and said, “Aye, just a scratch just a scratch.”

 

When I got home that night I soaked my limbs in the bath and cried staring down at my legs deeply bruised to the bone – It took three weeks for the deep bruising to subside and even now the bruises were so deep that I still have their marks on me two months later.  You want to talk about apologies? Some mistakes are of the ego while others are more fragile, especially when it comes to human flesh and bone.

 

In the tub I shed silent tears because I realized that this friend was a man who I could not trust with my body. I was afraid that if I did that he’d get me killed and I need this body so that I may continue to produce well crafted low-budget feature docos. I need my body to do the kind of work that I do. What my friend doesn’t understand and tends to take for granted is the fragility of the human body - especially a woman’s.

 

My stomach turns at the thought of having to face him hopefully sometime today. My stomach turns, because my relationship to him is important and even though I’ve heard many horrible and awful rumors about my friend I have stuck by his side and I have stuck up for him in a room full of people with venom on their lips.

 

My friend has made some costly mistakes with other people’s lives and he has been forgiven by others. I only hope that he can search his heart and find it in him to seek the same kind of compassion that his other friends have shown him. The reason as to why I am so insecure, uncomfortable and shy to see him face to face is because it will be telling of so many things. I fear the worse, that he hates my guts for being a silly little girl at times.

 

I find that people, treat me with a great deal of respect at this juncture in my life. Even if they hate my guts they still respect me as I do them. I owe people that much, because after all of the personal disasters, losses, burials, divorces, miscarriages, freak accidents and friends who’ve moved across the world; After it is all said and done, well there is nothing left but flesh, bone and friendship love.

 

I’m made of that substance and that’s all that I know to be true, humanness. I hate that I’m flawed as a human. Sometimes, I wish all elements of nature were aligned and in full synchronicity and that I was light and water combined. I know, very well why I don’t get to do this life again. It’s been awkward, weird and fragile. I love my friend and that’s why I’m so insecure today.

 

Wishing you an amazing week ahead.

 

I have many responsibilities to fulfill today and in the many months to come.

 

I have thought of making an hour for myself this afternoon and heading out to a museum and visit the Egyptian mummies. It frightens me to the bone. I get scared just walking through that section, but I do enjoy the layout and the history, plus the admission ticket is priceless in that it’s tax-paying free. Time is flying by – It’s been a year since I’ve been to that museum. I think that it’s one of my favorite places in Minneapolis. I have to make it a point to go there more often. It’s only four miles from my house, but why is it that it seems like four long thousand miles away? I need to support more places in my neighborhood. I have to check out a MN Twins schedule and museum hours.

 

It’s a dark and cloudy November morning and it makes for great museum, gallery and exhibit window looking.

 

I’m wishing you a melting heart and forgiveness for others stupidities…”Aye, aye just a scratch. Just a scratch.”

 

With respect,

 

Gabriela

 

 

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