fashionRIP: talent show

Sunday, June 12, 2011

talent show

Korea but not the sewing machine photo, hope to find it.

Fishin' in the backyard

"Brilliance in the Backyard" is a tribute to my mother.

When I was a kid, my mom organized big backyard summer carnivals with all the neighborhood kids on the southend of Beacon Hill. We gathered together and made the prizes in living room craft sessions, stringing beads, making pom pom dolls, more. It was a glorious mess of paper, markers, crayons, glue, fabric, wires, pipe cleaners and kids of all ages.

Goerge's Store (local Mom and Pop) chipped in for prizes a few times. The money we made went to The Children's Orthopedic Hospital and orphanages in Viet Nam and Korea. One year we received a thank you card from Korea. Tucked inside was a group photo around a sewing machine they had bought with the money. That is when I realized a little about giving. Up until then I thought keeping the money made more sense. Like my allowance was paltry.

I was 15 at the last one. My guitar playing boyfriend painted a sign for me (and he used a lot of green glitter) because that summer i was the fortune teller. I had a really cool book on palm reading as my guide. According to feedback, i aced it a few times.

The carnival went up in our front and back yards. We had a fishing pond game, spin games and bean bag tosses. We put on little skits and other performance things, sold Kool-aide and cookies, it was good times.

Much later I realized that all kids were not so lucky. At the time, it was just something we did, not that special. Now I recognize how it has added to my feelings about the world.

Thanks mom.

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Why it Matters

What's the matter with more and more fashion choices?

It sounds good; we love to be able to pick the perfect outfit. You wear it once or twice and then ....what was the real cost here?

Your time to shop and the money spent, not so much ....go a little deeper and consider the fiber source, the dyes and chemicals used, the health toll on the workers, the energy to run the machines, the transporting carbons...and now it just takes up closet space. But so what? It's been going on for-almost-ever and you didn't make the rules.

In fact we are told this is what a "healthy" economy looks like.

You will recycle it after all, give it to charity or your sister. This is more transportation and more release of those greenhouse gases. We are using a lot of our personal energy and the resources of this planet to make, use and dump "trash" Some rags, remnants and tawdry bits will molder for eons in landfills, as nature's microbial actions are hampered by our normalized, everyday toxic lifestyles.

This goes beyond dumps as the breakdown cycle that nourishes the life of this planet has been sorely challenged by GMO crops, fertilizers, pesticides, antimicrobials..RIGHT!!. All the "living better through chemistry" propaganda after WWI and II- AKA how to sell your "garbage," is our legacy. Well no more, not on my (our) watch, we are seeing things quite differently.

As we now carry 298 toxins in our bods that weren't there in the 1930s the toxic residues of normal are haunting us more and more. Ironic, no? Advanced is merely a word.

Go to the So Whats the Point blog in February for the numbers.

fashionRIP posts are copr at time of posting thank you

Extinctions ...So What?

Life evolves, some species survive some don't. We like to allude to Darwin's "natural selection" or Herbert Spencer's "survival of the fittest" because we are so good at reproducing and taking over this planet and justifying that side of our natures. The fact that we are wiping out the food chain by destroying habitat, fouling air and water and generally behaving like arrogant, tinkering idiots, is called business as usual. .....Well I and others are no longer buying that "sell."

We are wising up to the idea that we too, are dependent on these resources. We too, are physically an organic species and we really don't know what little extinction will be the start of the chain reaction that collapses the structure that we too, are dependent on.

Is this the price we are willing to pay for a pair of plastic shoes?

I say no, that despite the focus on the physical, we are more. We are heart and soul, mind, body, spirit. We are born of stars and we can and will leap over this world view based in old, untrue beliefs led by a science of isolation and religions of patriarchal, hierarchical constructs (your basic dominating Dad- with self reflective rights to rule). It is time to come together and heal. To transition into our fuller expectations and open the new possibilities. We are born with genius...let us help each other get to where we all can shine.