Eros in the Real: Boycott hearts and roses!

I've just discovered the writing of Michael Ventura. Read his book, Letters At 3am (Essays on Endarkenment). Don't begin it, as I did, at 10pm on a weekday, because you may find, as I did, that you can't stop until 3am, and then you can't sleep until 6am, because your brain is shocked alive by the brilliant hard truths he lays out in language so succulent and precise it makes your body sing. You can find his columns on the web as well. Here's a taster, written during the Gulf War:

"Patton had the depth to admit he loved war. Schwarzkopf pretends to hate it, but no one becomes so superbly skilled at, or devotes such a long and passionate life to, something he hates. Clearly he relishes what he's doing. This sense of profound fulfillment is the source of the presence he exudes – for no one who has seen him in these past weeks will forget him, or no matter how much one disagrees, will fail to be impressed. And yet there is this one evasion, this one fundamental corruption: he cannot, will not, now or ever, admit how thankful he is for this war, how profound and total is his fun."
From "Burner Of Eden" in Letters At 3am by Michael Ventura

Find the REAL eros this month; take your Valentine to the streets, the readings, the sites and the shows that remind us what it is to feel and think from our core.

Stay strong and joyful in the weeks ahead. Keep dreaming. Here's another Ventura quote:

"We know now that our dreams are not going to come true. Are never going to come true. We have learned that our dreams are important not because they come true, but because they take you places you would never have otherwise gone, and teach you what you never guessed was there to learn."

In community,
Shailja

REGIME CHANGE IN KENYA!!

Happy New Year! And despite the psychotic developments in US domestic and foreign policy, despite the clouds of destruction gathering like hungry muggers over the planet, I really mean it. I am FILLED with jubilation today – it's pouring out of my ears, dripping off my fingertips, shooting sparks out of my toes. Here's why.

Kenya's election results are rolling in. Mwai Kibaki, the presidential candidate fielded by the rainbow coalition of opposition parties, has so far won 65% of the vote. Titans of former single party rule have lost their seats. An unprecedented eleven women have been elected to parliament. The era of Daniel Arap Moi, and the ruling party KANU, who have plundered Kenya at will for 24 years, is over. And it's happening peacefully. My father's voice exults over the static on the long-distance phone: There was a time you didn't dare speak the words. Moi. Is. Going. The whole country has risen.

Without riots. Without military violence. Without coercion, terror, threats or intimidation. For Kenyans, this is the Berlin Wall coming down. This is a Florida recount where the truth prevails. This is a dream I never believed would materialize in my lifetime. All over the globe we are screaming, dancing, singing and embracing in front of our monitors, radios and TVs. We are sitting up all night watching results come in, tears of hope and renewed pride rolling down our faces; we are thanking all the gods, ancestors and spirits that sustain us.

For today, I am shedding my Cassandra cloak, and daring again to believe in possibilities. That change can happen. That people can unite to dismantle mighty forces of greed and corruption. That our joy and our faith will feed the work that needs to be done. In America, in Kenya, across the world. May it be so. Please may it be so.

In community,
Shailja