Under Pressure...

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

... tick tock... tick tock... tick tock...

Who Needs The Oligarchy...

...when we have each other???

Seriously... who the hell needs the damned oligarchy?   

We'll all get along just fine without them...

Flowers Are Red...

I'm a Kiwi... and this is what I'm fighting for... for my child and for all children...

This video makes me sob - for my young child, for my grown children, for all the children subjected to factory-model schooling...

If it doesn't elicit a similar response in you, then you don't "get" it; you're still stuck in the matrix, and you don't see children and are not motivated as a parent or teacher or education policy wheeler/dealer by loving/putting children first...

 

We do need education change, but NOT the oligarchs' education 'deform'  currently sweeping through the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

We need something that honours each unique child...

 

 

How To Recognise Propaganda...

If you're feeling a bit confused and don't know what to believe in the media these days, use this handy propaganda tactic identifier to sort fact from fiction...

 

Propaganda Techniques:

Appeals to fear and seeking to build support by instilling anxieties and panic in the general population.

 Bandwagon and "inevitable-victory" appeals attempt to persuade the target audience to join in and take the course of action that "everyone else is taking".

  

The black and white fallacy presents only two choices, with the product or idea being propagated as the better choice.

The "plain folks" or "common man" approach attempts to convince the audience that the propagandist's positions reflect the common sense of the people.

Making individuals from the opposing nation, from a different ethnic group, or those who support the opposing viewpoint appear to be subhuman.

An attempt to influence public perception by disseminating negative and dubious/false information designed to undermine the credibility of their beliefs.

An attempt to justify an action on the grounds that doing so will make one more patriotic, or in some way benefit a country, group or idea the targeted audience supports.

Glittering generalities are emotionally appealing words that are applied to a product or idea, but present no concrete argument or analysis.    This technique has also been referred to as the PT Barnum effect.

Propagandists use the name-calling technique to start fears and arouse prejudices in their hearers in the intent that the bad names will cause hearers to construct a negative opinion about a group or set of beliefs or ideas that the propagandist wants hearers to denounce.

Generalities are deliberately vague so that the audience may supply its own interpretations.    The intention is to move the audience by use of undefined phrases, without analysing their validity or attempting to determine their reasonableness or application.

Favourable generalities are used to provide simple answers to complex social, political, economic, or military problems.

Assigning blame to an individual or group, thus alleviating feelings of guilt from responsible parties and/or distracting attention from the need to fix the problem for which blame is being assigned.

This technique attempts to arouse prejudices in an audience by labelling the object of the propaganda campaign as something the target audience fears, hates, loathes, or finds undesirable.

Putting forward a straw man argument, which is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.
 

Usage of words in the value system of the target audience that produce a positive image when attached to a person or issue.

 

How Do You Give A Frog CPR? UPDATE - R.I.P, Funeral...

... Two frogs stationary on the bottom of their bowl for more than 24 hours probably means they've died and gone to amphibian heaven, right?

Guess we have to plan and conduct a funeral and wake...  

As a friend pointed out yesterday: "This is the Cosmos tapping you rudely on the shoulder telling you to pause and take note of your immediate things that deserve care and love and good vibes, and that the macro-world cannot, will not, be changed by any one individual and that actions on it, CAN wait so that you can take care of your micro-world...."

I replied: "I kinda figured that out a couple of days ago, and am in the process of implementing... thanks for being the cosmic echo to confirm I am on track!"

***************************************************** 

If I hurry, I might be able to save the frog that's lying upside down on the bottom of the bowl....

How much good Karma do you lose because you've neglected to clean out the frog bowl in the past week, and the frogs are now showing signs of asphyxiation because there's not enough oxygen in the water any more?

 

Well, frog bowl cleaned... weed not at all a healthy shade of green, but it will come back... snail shells empty... can't tell for sure if the frogs are playing dead, or have really gone to the great lily pad in the sky... Internet frog care websites say these frogs do sometimes lie around upside down... we shall see...

Not sure what to tell the boy when he wakes up...

I'm trying to reassure myself the frogs have survived the odds for much longer than was sensible; we got them as a house-warming present to ourselves two moves ago.   

They were a Hallmark product - two Dwarf African frogs, sold in a tiny hexagonal container with a tiny clipping of weed... The instructions said they were OK to live in small spaces and to only feed them once a week. (I'm guessing that was to stunt their growth!).   Another family we know had the same frogs and said they'd been living in the original container for more than a year...  

When my guilt about their cramped living quarters finally got the better of me and I transferred them to a big bowl, the frogs sat on the bottom for a couple of days, hardly able to move.   I realised that their swimming muscles had atrophied from lack of use; a week or so later and they were doing the froggy/breast-stroke thing really well and they seemed happy...

Oh dear... here's hoping we don't have to have a froggy funeral later this weekend... I'm a minister - never had to make up a funeral service for frogs before... and would we have a separate funeral or a joint one?   What songs would we sing?   Would they get buried or flushed?   And what does one wear to a frog funeral, anyway?

UPDATE 2, 8 SEPTEMBER 2011...

So, the frogs, whose names were Rocky and Diver by the way, lay around in the bottom of the cleaned bowl for a couple of day... and no, they did not come miraculously back to life!

So, I thought that we should do the appropriate thing and bury them today...

Son was most upset - I hadn't realised how attached he was to them (but we have had them for a year, so I don't know why I am surprised)...

I wrapped the frogs in paper towels, with the weed from their bowl and some lavender for blessing and beauty...

Son and I dug a hole in the dirt at the back of the garden, lay the frogs in the hole, I offered "prayers" for their safe journey back to the Life Force, thanks for their time in our lives, and apologies for neglecting them...

Son wanted to cover them up; when I returned to the house, he spent time decorating the grave, with a rock to represent Rocky, a stick to represent Diver and some grass (anchored under another rock) to represent Life...

Then he cried and cried... and cried some more when he looked at the empty space where the frog bowl had been...

Truly, I was surprised... I hadn't thought he was so attached to them - he wouldn't even feed them or help clean out the bowl any more...

But this was the first time he had encountered death up close and personal; his paternal grandmother and uncle both died in the past five years, but his father kept all of that very low key, there were no remembrance ceremonies and son was not really conscious of the process...

It turns out son thinks about his paternal grandmother (Grandma Opal) quite often and he misses her.   And he has wondered about my mother, his Oma, who died in 1994.

So, it's been quite an afternoon, talking about death and where the energy goes and my role in the frogs' demise - I had to explain why I kept putting off cleaning out the bowl/water.

And that's another blog post altogether, to do with overwhelm in the face of more change and doing the best one can with what one has, though I regret that the frogs were at the negative effect of that...

Son is talking about wanting more frogs, or a turtle - he didn't want to wait a few weeks to grieve the recently deceased... 

We're on the move again in a couple of weeks, so we shall see...

If It's Broke, Don't Fix It... Post Script Added...

Buckminster Fuller said it was a waste of time trying to fix a broken system; he recommended we build a new system that runs parallel to the obsolete one and gradually replaces it... 

The title of the Facebook page I co-administer says it all, really - MISEDUCATION NATION... 

I think I'm kinda done with the "save public education" bit...

It's not enough to 'save" public education if all it does is continue to programme our children and perpetuate our oligarchical state...

For me, "how" we educate our children and "what" we educate them about has to change... 

Today I've come to the conclusion (many months in the gestating) that my focus now, has to be on working with others to provide more really 'alternative' education models within the public system beginning with some of the premises of unschooling etc...

It's time for learning in the real world, within the community, instead of our children being sequestered away in artificial environments, being treated like widgets in a manufacturing process...

It's time for all our children to be given the resources and opportunities to develop their own unique talents and interests... 

It's time for them to be given the space, time, resources and support to learn what they want to learn, at whatever pace and to whatever depth they choose...

A week or so ago, I came up with a new mantra for raising/educating our most precious resource - our children:

OUR KIDS - HAPPY, HEALTHY AND (W)HOLE

NOW IT'S TIME TO MAKE THAT REAL

PS:  do you really think we are doing a good thing by our children/students, programming them just to be more cogs in the machine?

It's a complicated world and it's changing every day.   "Mastering" skills in isolation is like learning to sail a boat without going out on the water.

Can you stretch your mind and beliefs just a little, and imagine what a completely personalised, child-centred education might look like? 

What if we cut the military budget by half and gave each child an Individual Education Plan, based on their strengths and interests?    Children with special needs get them; aren't all children unique and special, so shouldn't all children have an IEP?

What if we down-scaled education so that there would no longer be 'classes'?   Instead, there would be a vertical curriculum of hundreds of 'subjects' that each child could choose from, could take as long or as short a time to progress through and could go as deep or as shallow as he/she wanted?

What if we "de-normed" education and just gave each child recognition for skills/mastery developed?

What if we took a leaf out of nature's book and brought our children back into the wilds of the world and our society, instead of sequestering/corralling them away in isolated compounds, away from how the world really is/works?

What if they worked in interest groups or individually; what if they were mentored/apprenticed to teachers/members of the community or older students, while they themselves mentored their juniors?

What if we allowed them to "play" their way through their childhoods and into adulthood? 

What if we introduced them to all sorts of different aspects of being human/life, rather than just what the corporations think will make them good workers and consumers?

What if we "taught" the academic basics through art and music and drama - do you know how much math is in art and music, for example?

What if we taught pattern instead of specifics?

What if we left them outdoors for weeks on end, learning biology etc through exploration, observation and interaction with the natural world (or what's left of it)?

What if we told them they had all their lives to learn and they didnt have to reach a certain artificial "standard" by a certain age?

What if we brought the elders back into our communities and they taught our children - just by their interaction - how to live a healthy, loving, full life?

My child is not here to serve the system - the system is here to serve him.

It's time education (and all of our world really) was turned around to fit that reality...

If I Wasn't A Feminist...

...I'd say (today) that "Life's A Bitch"!

and that's because, while it's Friday and I usually love Fridays, I've got a bad case of the blues...

Maybe it's perimenopause clashing with pre-menstrual tension over the past few days, with a period finally starting today (three months since the last one - too much information???!)... 

Maybe it's the state of the world as it presents itself to me through the lens of the web...

Maybe it's overwhelm at having to adjust to more change, yet again...

Maybe it's fear that I don't yet know how this next change is going to unfold...

Maybe it's because I have conflicting feelings about what I want and where I want to be, and I haven't figured out how to resolve that - no clear path has presented itself yet that would allow the maximum amount of happiness, with the minimum amount of effort, for us all...

Maybe it's the internal critic that's mad at me for creating some of my own problems, and then being so slow to implement solutions that are, in themselves, not difficult...

Maybe it's because I want to forgive my son's father and let go of the past AND I'm still angry and blaming him...

Maybe it's because I'd love to go back to bed with a good book and pretend I have no responsibilities and that life will take care of itself and my child while I read and sleep...

Maybe it's because I'm stuck in a psychological Catch-22 - mad at myself that I won't give myself permission to go back to bed with a book, because that would mean wasting more time, with the mess getting bigger... And at the same time, knowing pretty much for certain that I won't deal with much of what needs dealing with today anyway!

Maybe it's because there's not enough sweetness in my life, and I ate the last bit of chocolate yesterday!

Maybe it's because I don't know if my friends' baby boy has arrived safely in the world - no word since yesterday afternoon...

Maybe it's because the frogs' bowl needs cleaning out...

Maybe it's because our temporary laundry-bedroom is filled with mess and storage boxes that are waiting for me to deal with the "junk in the trunk" of my van... paperwork that needs sorting, filing, shredding... an energy drain that I would rather just dump because most of it has absolutely no relevance for me any more, to the NOW... and all I want to do is live in the NOW... but the 'system', 'society' says we can't just live in the NOW... that the past and future are important... but the past and future DON'T EXIST...

Maybe it's because every day here now, I can feel that our being here is an issue for one member of the household, and the sooner we leave the sooner that person's peace of mind will be restored... so there's pressure to leave, conflicting with internal resistance at yet another change, and the pressure of not feeling 'ready'...

Maybe it's because I'm feeling pressure to get rid of all of our stuff in storage - in some ways, more "junk in the trunk" and an energy and financial drain... and yet I am hanging on to it...

Maybe it's because it's a week or so until school starts, and I don't yet know if or what school I shall send my son to, or whether I can/will follow through with the idea of unschooling him...

Maybe it's because if I do send him to school, he'll need a ridiculously large amount of "school supplies" that will take time, energy and money to acquire, most of which won't really help him "learn" anyway...

Maybe it's the weight of worrying about whether I'm putting in enough time and energy and attention into raising/being present with my child... maybe I should spend the energy I put into social change activities and helping other people into our own/his life...

Maybe it's a combination of happiness, jealousy and envy that one of my friends has just divested herself of most of her belongings and flown off into the sunset for a new adventure;   maybe it's worry for her that when I did the same 7.5 years ago, the adventure proved to be the most difficult journey of my life, to date...

Maybe it's because I feel I need a haircut, but am torn between getting it cut or persevering with growing it longer, and with going back to colour it despite the time, effort and money that would go into keeping that up... GREY is sexy - LIFE is GREY, after all, not black or white, or blue, or brown, or red, or yellow, or green!

Maybe it's because a 5-year old yesterday asked me why I was fat; I told him people come in all shapes and sizes, and I am short and round... He said it was OK, not to worry because I was only medium fat - that a whale was fatter than me!

Maybe, maybe, maybe it's none of these and/also/or a myriad of other things...

Maybe it just is...

PS: and in this very moment of now, my son and I are warm, dry, fed, clothed, clean, housed and in the company of loving human beings... LIFE IS GOOD...

PPS: 11 April 2012... Peri-menopause still sucks!

It's a Wednesday, not a Friday, AND I'm in the same space pretty much as in this post... 

same scenario, different geographic location...

the baby arrived safe and sound...

friend had her adventure in the sun (minus a happy ending) and is on her way back to Seattle...

van still full...

boy not in school...

waiting for judge's decision as to whether I can take boy back to Australia...

AND we are never in the same space...

we are journeying up a spiral...

I am not the same person I was when I wrote this post...

I again have the chance, this time around, to look all about me, up and down, and gain new, deeper, more profound insights...

Solace...

Sending out prayers and intentions that solace and help will find its way to all those people around the world - known and unknown - doing it tough right now...

And there are billions of us...

 

Dear Universe...

... you brought me all I asked for (except the things I didn't provide specifics on!) last time I sent out my intentions as to what would be the most beneficial situation for us...

It's been fun - THANK YOU - and I'm sad that experience is ending...

Now it's time for more new experiences and my/our desires include:

to live right on the ocean, in a warm climate, in a simple, comfortable eco-abode (perhaps in community)

to be surrounded by love, with family/friends near

with the cats

with abundant resources to live well, in balance and harmony with Gaia... 

(Oh, and there's a lot of good I could do with all that gold I recovered and the $83Million lottery prize I won in my dreams a couple of weeks ago!)

(( and yes, I know the dreams were a metaphor... but... ))

with unschooling/sudbury/summerhill/steiner options

and plentiful opportunities to use my skills, talents and experience to make a meaningful contribution to a life-affirming world

for an open-ended period of time (the four moves in 12 months thingy is getting a bit old!)

Right now I can visualise how different parts of this dream would manifest in two or more geographic locations...

BUT... since in this reality I cannot yet exist in two places at once, I'm turning over to you the task of bringing it all together in one place!   How you do that is up to you... 

 

For our highest good, and the highest good of all...

Thanking you in advance...

Namaste

Sahila

PS.... sent the following out the other night (dark of the moon)... resending in case you didn't get it!

Dark Moon Goddess.... 

On this night of planting the seeds of wishes and intentions and dreams and desires, you know what's in my Sacred heart and soul better than my poor human brain and mouth can articulate... 

I send my hopes into your mysterious darkness, in love, trust and faith...

Knowing that in all things, let Thy Will, not my will be done, for the highest good of all...

And so it is...

Blessings Be...

Oh, and one final thing - you do remember that there's something of a definite time-frame applying to these circumstances, don't you?

In this human realm, school starts in about a week and I have to choose whether to send Connor to school or to keep him home;   

I know one house-mate would like us to leave ASAP, definitely by the end of September at the latest; 

It's going to take at least 12 weeks to get a move to Australia organised, IF the courts let me take Connor; 

It's going into summer in Australia - IF we go, I'd like Connor to have the summer there to adjust before we begin thinking about school;

I'd prefer that this next move be semi-permanent;  I'd rather we all (us and the cats) go from this house to our next stable situation, not have another interim, temporary stay somewhere...

OK... think that's it... will leave it in your capable hands!

Bye...