Look Up

Troy and I enjoyed an unseasonably warm Solstice, going for a walk in the woods next to the Kennebec River. I was delighted to see a clearing in a circle of enormous trees in this beautiful place. The ground was perfectly flat and covered only with a layer of golden brown leaves rustling below our feet. An azure sky over our heads was framed with the bare branches and cut in half by a thin white chemtrail. As we walked we saw natures humor at work, one of the huge trees was sporting a perfectly formed single breast, complete with an erect nipple.
Long vines twisted around each other and hung for what seemed like miles from the tops of the canopy. One ancient wooden resident, as big around as a Volkswagen Beetle had been equipped with an ominous sign that warned “keep away” and another cautioned “look up”. Indeed, large branches as big as telephone polls were caught up in the limbs precariously, having fallen to their suspension from old age and heavy ice and snow. To have been hit on the head with one of these would have surely meant a trip to the hospital or even death! The water rushed next to us in the river, I was enjoying the unusual magical quality of the surroundings, it was a beautiful holiday.

But on a serious note, the activism seems more important than ever. So many people are struggling with finances these days. The report that many Sears and Kmart stores are closing is a canary in a coal mine. Several friends have told of nervousness about getting laid off or having phones shut off. I’m sure everyone has heard of the homeless shelters filled to capacity and over flowing with families that used to be sitting around the tree, exchanging gifts just a few years ago. If you still have a job, be extremely thankful and think, really think before you make comments about people who are out of work being lazy or irresponsible. People who never thought they would be in this position are now finding themselves looking for a job, sending out applications and resumes by the dozen and getting surprisingly .....no response for even an interview. It is really easy to make those at the loosing end the scape goat and complaining about welfare mothers needing to comply with drug testing. After having participated in the Occupy movement at 4 different locations and talking with many many people about their opinions, in addition to looking into Occupy’s origins as one of George Soros’s projects, I have come to the conclusion that many Americans are waking up to the enormous deceptions that we have fallen prey to. It is good to see so many young people participating in activism and getting out to try to do something not only for themselves, but for everyone. Whether everyone involved is genuine in their motives is still a question in my mind. Why was this planned for the end of the year, putting thousands at risk for frostbite? Its proximity to the primary election seems more than coincidence. Now, just when the guy that everyone said didn’t have a chance in hell of winning the GOP nomination, is rising in the polls, the Iowa GOP caucus has been moved to a secret location, using the threat of Occupy protesters as an excuse! I am confused because one of the things that Occupy should be looking for is an end to ...yes I’m going to say it again, the Federal Reserve! As a person who used to get my information on who to vote for from the mainstream media, I have to admit that I have learned things I never imagined could be true in our country at this point in time. But the old saying “those who forget history are condemned to repeat it” has never been more true. I’m sure that the indigenous people who were here never dreamed they were going to be massacred, then portrayed as evil savages on a thing called a television a couple of hundred years after they all but vanished from the landscape. The scenes of hundreds of people rioting ........to get a pair of sneakers this past week was surreal. Who is behind the mayhem here? How people can be manipulated into such a grand scheme of chaos, all the while thinking “ this can never happen to us” is puzzling to me.

Not to throw a metaphore in your face, but the beautiful walk in the magical forest made me think about how easily we can all be distracted by the serene, the erotic, the complacent scenes in our everyday life, all the while forgetting to “look up” at what danger can be lurking right over our unsuspecting heads. The rotten branches that were once part of a vital living tree can, in an instant, come crashing down. Voting is a right that my great great grandmother might have wished for and too many people forget that life was very different for average people just a few generations ago. I was appalled to view a youtube clip of US representatives reaching to cast votes for those not in attendance during a 2008 Texas Legislature session right in plain view. This is an important upcoming election. To move the Iowa caucus to a secret location because of protesters seems a bit overblown. Don’t protesters show up at these things as a matter of history, as a matter of free speech? My wish for the coming year is that the population of this country can step up to the plate and demand that elections at any level be conducted in an open accountable atmosphere. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much deception going on in our government that we all need to wake up, look up and be aware of what is possibly going to fall from the sky onto our heads.