family

Take a close look at this picture. Double click the picture and look carefully on the left side.
Do you remember the piece i posted about the century plant?
How i thought it was speaking to me with the curves. How i searched all over the island for something similar but couldn't find any other plant coming even remotely close.
How i consulted with plant people and they were all baffled as well and still are.

Recently my next door neighbor was going to pull the whole plant out. i don't actually own the plant but i am responsible for it being where it is located which is not exactly on my property, it is at the bottom of my driveway across the street. The neighbor thought it had become an eyesore and would just become a brown ugly mess when it completely died off. He thought he was sparing all of us from some horrible view when it kicked the bucket.

Luckily he was caught in the act and stopped. It was revealed to him that i had become obsessed with it and was photographing it regularly. It absolutely could not be pulled out especially since it was budding with all these flowers and the curves were back. Double click the photo and look carefully at the left hand side of the picture. You will see its curves. Look back at the old posts of the century plant and you will see it is re-creating itself. The letter "C" is now thick and buried safely inside the plants structure. The "S" curves around it and keeps it safe.

i have been working on a piece concerning the word "family" and realized that this plant is a perfect example of the tenacity of the "family of man."

There has been a lot of talk lately concerning the thorny issue's of marriage and family. Rather than focus on the term "marriage" i thought it might be more interesting to explore the term "family."

Family can be viewed from three perspectives;

1. The nuclear family consisting of one man, one woman and their biological children,
2. Extended families consisting of one man, one woman their biological children and blood relations such as grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, and
3. Complex families consisting of structures larger than any two adults and the conscious associations connected by a recognizable theme.

As our world has become more mobile complex families play a greater role in bringing together people who in the past may never have thought of themselves as part of any family structure outside their blood relationships. This subset of "family" sometimes goes unrecognized even when the progression of society as a whole is directly impacted by its existence. When "family" is the topic and they are reviewed in public forums complex families are too often left out of the equation as far as having major impacts on a person's development.

Family...one man, one woman and their biological children is being challenged as the definitive description for that word. It is no longer the sum total of family. It cannot be the only thing considered as sufficient to create a world wide community that can produce individuals capable of moving society forward. Is "family" the only composition of humans that can produce individuals who can be trusted to pass on "societies moral code?" The term "family" without add-ons......"extended" and "complex" is being resisted.

Just recently i was driving a friend, who had been staying with us for 10 days, to the airport. During the drive over the conversation turned to the usual thank you for your hospitality etc., except this time it had a twist. The friend had decided to tell me about a conversation they had had with the other guest who had left the day before. Apparently the two of them had come to the conclusion that vacationing in our home was unlike vacationing with other friends of theirs. They had decided that they both felt like family when staying with us. They liked feeling like family and they wanted us to know this because they wished it was more of the norm than not.

i was thrilled because i view friends as part of our "complex" family and if they felt like family then we were all in the same boat. i then started examining the idea of "complex" families as a vehicle to expand our understanding of the complexities of mankind in general. The whole focus on one man, one woman and biological children leaves too many in the "family of man" out of the discussion.

The plant made me focus this week on the "complex" issue of the "family of man" and the need to expand the definition of the term "family." Since it is a work in progress as part of humanity squared i thought i'd end this piece with another picture.

Double click on the view of the "whole plant." It has many parts that interact as one unit(family) and yet they remain "different." It is beautiful and ugly, it has thorns and soft spots, flowers and long strong shoots with graceful curves all at the same time. It resembles the "family of man" in all his positive and negative aspects and still manages to work together.

POWER!

Hurray! Yippee! The power is finally back on! NEWS FLASH! At 5:40pm October 24, 2008 one of us was standing outside and noticed the porch light was on. Since that light was not connected to the generator we knew we had finally been reattached to the island wide power grid. After a relatively fast 9 days without power we were once again living in the glare of modern technology. All of us were at once happy to have power and nostalgic for the romantic tones of the kerosene lanterns. Practically every light, fan, recharger etc. was put to use at once. All were tested to see if they still worked and by 5:45pm the place was aglow. The following day more work was undertaken and the washer and dryer were put into heavy use that is still happening today. At 12:03 yesterday afternoon a WAPA(Water and Power Authority) representative called to see if our power had been restored. i said yes it had but it had gone off again just 5 minutes before she called. "WHAT!" she says, "Hold on" and i was left listening to all the ways one can save money on their power bill. You can save $18 a month if you turn off lights when you leave a room, you can save $28.50 a month if you only run your ceiling fans when you are in the room, you can save even more if you unplug the hot water heater when you are not using it and even more if you replace the incandescent lighting with CFL's. When the recording started repeating itself i found myself getting impatient.

Finally she comes back on the line and says, "Yes, you don't have power." i guess she thought i didn't already know that. "The line crew has turned off the power and is clearing the trees away your power will be restored later today." After the other hurricanes that hit here WAPA never contacted you so hearing from a rep was a huge improvement. Even the governor had sent out a robocall when the storm was approaching encouraging all residents to finish their preparations. These two calls, before and after the storm were greatly appreciated even if i started wondering if we should pull out the electrical cords we had put away and wondering if power would be restored before the food we had bought would start to melt in the tropical heat. Luckily the outage was short and now we have had uninterrupted power for 24 hrs. Oh happy day when one can walk into a room, flip the switch and the light comes on.

Looking into alternative generating sources has moved up on our list of things to investigate.

One other thing I might add is the sense of community that always happens after a damaging storm. Someday I hope that after we have finished the clean up work we don't all just go back to our respective corners. We do know how to work together to benefit our community, if only that drive could be bottled and sold everywhere we could do wonders.

Hurricane Omar

October started out as a fine month beautiful balmy weather
lots of rain greening up the island and flowers popping out everywhere. We had started letting our guard down thinking we had made it through the worst month with no hurricanes and nothing really out there looking threatening.
Little did we know that Omar had some winds in store for us.

Omar started to build in the Caribbean instead of the Atlantic the second week of October. He slowly started sucking in all the moisture he could accumulate from the warm seas, and warm they were the water temperature had been hovering between 82 and 84 degrees for quite some time and Omar decided to grow over the shallower waters.

We watched Omar build, listening to the weather reports, checking the satellite photos, tracking him on our own. When he reached hurricane strength and looked like he was making a bee line for St. Croix we started getting ready.
Even though the weather reports made him appear to be a low grade hurricane we knew he could build over the warm shallow waters so we prepared for the worst.

All day Wednesday we prepped, putting up storm shutters hauling in potted plants, patio furniture and pool toys. We secured everything we thought could become a dangerous projectile hauling away things we had been procrastinating over but now needed to be gotten rid of. The trees well we would have liked to have already trimmed them but we hadn't....again that complacency had set in when no storms had even come near us by October. By the end of the day we were beat and settled in to wait for Omar in our storm protected home.
The power went out around 8:30 and rather than start up the generator we decided to go to bed. The wind had kicked up and it had been raining all day but we had been so busy all day all we wanted was to get a little rest. Luckily we did get a little. At 11:00pm everyone woke up to howling winds. I lay there for a while thinking this is no Category 1 storm these winds have got to be over 100mph and if this keeps up we are in big trouble. We got up and found the hand crank radio and turned it on. Sure enough the 11:00pm NOAA report had Omar a Category 3 and passing by right then to our east. It was moving fast but howling especially up here on top of the hill. We went back to bed and listened in the dark to the clanging and clattering hoping the roof would hold through yet another hurricane. Fortunately for the whole island Omar was a quickie. The worst of it was over by 12:30am and by 2:00am we had fallen back to sleep.
This was our first view, one of us had already been out collecting the avocados that had been stripped from the tree, while the rest of us slept.
The following pics detail how incredibly lucky we were.



After two days of intense clean up we were treated to a beautiful rainbow and sunset. Visitors who had planned their trips 6 months before had no idea what they were walking in to.But as you can see one found that even without power this is still a great place to take a vacation. We are still cleaning up and we don't know when we will get power. i called today and we still aren't on the list. Thank goodness for generators and fast moving storms that trim our trees but don't devastate the whole place.

gift from a friend

The pictures i've posted were all taken this month you can double click them for more detail. The one at the top is a duck pond i go to, a surfer eating it, next up is a passion fruit flower from the passion fruit flower plant in back of the house that has just started blooming. Then is the storm called Omar that is moving in on us, sun hitting vines on the hike to the Caledonia falls we did on Sunday(with friends), two sunsets, and the century plant that still hasn't given up and is now starting to flower.

Unexpected gifts from friends can really make one's day. i'm a birder(someone who spends an inordinate amount of time observing birds). i love watching, identifying and listening to birds in the wild. It is just one more way that i connect with nature. Well a friend that i spend a lot of time with, out of the blue gave me a biography book about one of our famous bird illustrators. Then last night this same friend gave me a "thumb thing" to use while i read the book.

i went home, took the "thumb thing" out of the package and put it next to the bed ready for use. When i finally went to bed and took the "thumb thing" out to use it i thought how lucky i was to have such a thoughtful friend. The "thumb thing" is a great invention....all readers should have at least one for it really does take a load off your thumb when your reading.

The package says right on it "thumb thing" and it reminded me of tongue twisters ive heard over the years so i went searching for one. Chuckle,chuckle,chuckle!

Q. How do you catch a unique bird?
A. Unique up on it.
Q. How do you catch a tame bird.
A. Tame way -- unique up on it.

"thumb thing" twists and rolls your tongue, it reminds me of my friend who is a great one for jokes.

Accepting a gift when one isn't expecting it is probably the best thing going. It just isn't the same as a birthday, c'mas, anniversary etc. When a gift comes completely out of the blue you know that someone really thought about you.

Thank you.

a grasshopper

The use of the term propagandist describes a teacher appealing to emotion as opposed to intellect. This instructor can influence opinions and beliefs on various topics be they religion, politics or ethics. Using emotion to disseminate one-sided information has worked in all realms of society but particularly in politics and religion. It is a form of persuasion that is highly useful in coordinating large groups of individuals to act in a prescribed manner.

"Propagandists use the name-calling technique to incite fears and arouse prejudices in their hearers with 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 would wish hearers to denounce. The method is intended to provoke conclusions about a matter apart from impartial examinations of facts. Name-calling is thus a substitute for rational, fact-based arguments against an idea or belief on its own merits." says Wikipedia

Dredging up the term communist can make the target audience shut down and never understand the underlying issue because they have already discounted it once the word "communist" is used in any context even if used falsely.

Sometimes just suggesting that a policy is looked upon favorably by a group you have been manipulated to hate(communists) is enough to make you act against your own best interests.

So how do you recognize when you have been manipulated?

Independent thinkers are an anathema to propagandists.

The independent thinker usually asks himself if he or she is being persuaded about an issue or informed about an issue, do they have enough truthful information, should they question that "truthful information" and is there more to the story than is being reported? That thinker waits or goes off to locate the opposite side of the issue before forming an opinion. They don't "buy in" to the argument immediately and may even go against their peers in pursuit of a more complete story.

Independent thinkers don't automatically disavow something just because someone on the opposite side has a convincing set of facts. They check it out on their own.

Some propagandists use terms that lodge in the subjects mind in such a way that any attempt to shovel it out fails. In fact there have been studies that show that the more you are presented factual information to refute the side you adhere to the less inclined you are to internalize anything that may demolish your belief(communists are evil, communists are socialists, socialists are evil)could socialists ever be OK?

This technique has been referred to as a thought-terminating cliche'. When you can internalize a phrase, such as "Freedom is not free", you have terminated further discussion concerning aspects of "Freedom" and the phrase becomes part and parcel of your verbal arsenal in the same way that "Communists are evil" has.



Effective propaganda can cause citizens to react negatively. Propagandists can create anxiety when calm is what is necessary. Propagandists can cause stable crowds to riot. Some religions create anxiety amongst their followers by making them believe Hell is waiting if they don't accept the dogma or if they are not "born again" they will never be saved.

You can live an exemplary life, never lie, cheat, steal, you can be someone who does good works but if you haven't accepted the dogma you are still wrong and are not yet saved. You are not part of the crowd. Only a belief in God or Jesus, the propagandists tell you can make you whole, Hell awaits you until you turn yourself over to the dogma.

Well this person ,me, writing this, this person who has been inspired by the AllOne says a belief in the AllOne will never make you adhere to any kind of dogma ever.

Shared conviction and walking daily with the AllOne is important in moving humanity forward but it is not a requirement that you have to follow. No one requires you to do anything unless you choose to. The AllOne makes no rules that you have to follow, no dogmas to make you feel spiritually in touch.

You will know without anyone having to inform you that you are spiritually in touch with the AllOne. There is no propaganda involved in making you adhere to fixed requirements to experience a connection to the AllOne, to believe a particular way, or to follow a particular faith. You make your own choices, you decide on your own how to live your life and how to impact those around you.

Knowing the "AllOne is not a religion just a fact. We, as human beings and everything around us, all of nature and the Universe and everything we haven't yet discovered is part of the AllOne whether it is alive or dead.

You have to use your intellect to determine if you are being manipulated by propagandists, you have come to your opinions on your own, you do the research, you make the decisions.

We are ringed with unity. Each human being is a kernel of that unity and you are part of the AllOne. You may call that propaganda but i just call it a fact.