January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month. 

After watching these two videos from ABC Nightline, I hope you will see how little value the life of another human being has become in our world today.  I hope it helps you understand the level of desperation women (and children) around the globe feel when they are abandoned and cannot care for themselves.  I hope you will realize the importance of having an education to help end poverty and improve the lives of women and their children.  I hope you will see that just one American dollar can make a huge difference… both good and bad… since a child can be bought for just 50 of them :(

I hope a lot…

I hope you will also read between the lines and see that children are being bought and sold every day.  Every Day! 

The wounds on “T-sir” tell me what she’s been through but it’s the “big picture” her arms tell me what the reporter missed… An 11-year-old girl with the arm muscles bigger than some grown men… she’s had to do some heavy labor, mostly from carrying heavy containers of water multiple times every day.  It breaks my heart ~ just as I’m sure, it broke her back and her spirit.

~ “Hope is a waking dream” ~ Aristotle ~

Report: How to buy a child in 10 hours in Haiti (Part 1 of 2)

Report: How to buy a child in 10 hours in Haiti (Part 2 of 2)

Growing up, I was raised both Catholic and Mormon.  As I grew older, I realized how similar these two religions are.  As you know, I am not religious.  I was at one point in my life.  I am thankful for the “traditional values” instilled in me by the latter but I was brainwashed into that church when I was very young.  I was taught to judge people and to believe that if they were not a member of the “Latter Day Saints” (Mormon) church, they were “unclean” and going to Hell and I was not allowed to “mingle” with them.  I was taught that the Mormon church was “the only true church on the face of the Earth.”  All others were “false religions” as they called them.

At this point in my life, I can look back and defend my anti-Mormon statements and I can say that I no longer judge others or believe that Hell is only reserved for those who are not Mormon.  I honestly believe that Heaven ~ and Hell, for that matter ~ are right here on Earth.  They are what you make with every choice you make each day.  You can choose to live in a peaceful, Heaven-like daily life, or you can make it a living Hell just by the choices you do or do not make every day.

While growing up, I was also taught that consuming any alcohol, tobacco, or coffee, or having any body piercings or tattoos  (and homosexuality too!) were an immediate sin for which those who participated in them would be automatically sent to Hell.  There was no forgiveness because you were aware they were sinful acts and you did them anyway ~ “you defiled your temple” body.

I tried smoking when I was about 8 years old.  It didn’t last more than a minute because I had asthma when I was little and my lungs knew immediately they were not “up to snuff” and couldn’t take it.  I didn’t drink until I was almost 20 and to this day, cannot stand the smell of rum and coca-cola! :)  Lesson learned!  I still cannot drink very much.  More than a glass of wine, and I need an hour for it to wear off so I can drive myself home!  One kamikaze shot and I can’t dance ~ my legs turn into rubber :)  I do know my limit!  I had my ears pierced when I was 12.  I’ve never regretted it since.  I guess I was already on my way to Mormon Hell before I was 12!

Tonight, in honor of the Chinese New Year and the New Moon and 2012, I decided (a few weeks ago) that I was going to get my first tattoo.  It’s taken me four years to get to this point.  I knew what I wanted back then but somehow, it just didn’t seem right, so I’ve had to think long and hard about what I want permanently etched into my skin and more importantly, where I want it etched!

As you know, my favorite book is “The Little Prince” ~ Its message is very profound to me.  I’ve known for a long time that I wanted the elephant inside of the boa constrictor as a tattoo somewhere and I knew that I wanted the words “Merci pour le venin” but it wasn’t until recently that they all came together… and formed what is for me, the perfect tribute and inspiration…

The word “Enough” ~ It is just one simple word but it means so much… That I am enough.  That you are enough for me. That what I do in this world is enough. That there’s not enough love in this world.  That there is enough hatred in this world.  There is enough hunger for food.  That there is not enough hunger for knowledge.  That there is not enough kindness in this world.  That there is enough suffering.  It’s mostly as a reminder that I am enough and to make sure I’ve told those I love that they are enough for me.  And to ask myself “Have I done enough?” every day.

The elephant inside the boa ~ It speaks to me, as an artist.  I cannot draw because when I was younger (still in High School), I would start drawing something and never finish it.  I could draw then but never really thought I was good enough at it… so I stopped.  What I can do is paint.  The elephant inside the boa is to remind me to never give up art.  Though I no longer paint for a living, I need to still paint.  The elephant also stands for the “elephant in the room” ~ something so obvious but completely ignored.  This happens a lot in the world of environmental science.  What is so obvious to me, is not so obvious to others.  I cannot ignore it.  The elephant is also important to me as the god, Ganesha, in India.  I wanted him to be more blue than “gun metal-gray” and to me, my baby elephant is beautiful, even if he is being swallowed by a boa.

The rose ~ I found this rose which is in the original “The Little Prince” written in French.  She is beautiful to me and looks more like the snake who gave the Little Prince his passage home with its venom.  She is also the one the Little Prince finally realized he loved and cherished because she was his rose.  She had tamed him.  She was more special than all the roses in the gardens of the world.

The words “Merci pour le venin et la petite mort”~ is French, meaning “Thank you for the venom” which the Little Prince says to the snake… and “la petite mort” means “the little death” ~ we all die a little bit each time… a piece of us is given every time we love, sometimes more… but the words and the rose together paint a much bigger picture to me.

So, I have officially gone straight to Hell… but I can say that it feels like Heaven to me because it means so much more to me than anything that could ever be written on parchment paper or handed to me in a prayer book.  I would gladly take the venom and die a little death… every day!

One of my favorite books in all the world is not “The Little Mermaid”. 

It is, in fact, a book written by a French author, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and first published in 1943.  It’s called “The Little Prince” and was written as a children’s book but really has a much deeper meaning that adults can learn from…

The story begins with the author who tries, as a 6-year-old, to draw a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant…

At first, the adults he showed his drawings to thought it looked like a hat ~ until he showed them his second drawing which was the inside of the boa.  Having failed to convince the adults the drawing was scary, he stopped drawing ~ Until he met the Little Prince in the middle of the Sahara Desert, after his plane had crashed and the Little Prince had traveled to Earth from his tiny planet.  The Little Prince really lived on an astroid which had three volcanoes and a rose that he tenderly cared for every day and even kept the caterpillars from eating her.  She was the only one of her kind in all the universe.  One day he became bored and decided to leave his rose behind while he explored the universe. 

While on Earth, he not only met the author, who was a pilot, but he also met a fox who taught him that becoming tamed means to establish ties with something else.  In the process, he realized that his rose had tamed him.

After having found a whole garden full of roses, he told them “You are not at all like my rose,” he said.  “As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world. You are beautiful but you are empty,” he went on.  “One could not die for you… She is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered, sheltered, killed caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies) for, because it is she that I have listened to, because she is my rose.”

In the end, the Little Prince returns to his planet and his beloved rose with the help of a poisonous snake. 

Merci pour le venin.

Before he leaves, he tells the author that his planet will be among the stars but his planet is so small, it will be impossible for the author to tell which star is the one where the Little Prince lives.  “All men have the stars,” he answered, “but they are not the same things for different people.  For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others, they are no more than little lights in the sky…” and he tells the author, “In one of those stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night… You – only you – will have stars that can laugh! And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) [because the Little Prince has left Earth] you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend.”

If you want to read the book, you can read it online by clicking on this link for “The Little Prince” ~ Enjoy!

Rumi’s “Desire” read by Deepak Chopra and Demi Moore is beautiful and passionate.

Pablo Neruda’s “I Like For You To Be Still” by Glenn Close

…What I see?

Can You Read Upside Down?

Powerful words when put to video… Tell me if you can see what I see.

“They” by Jem

I’ve said it before ~ The smell of coffee is one of the things in life that I cherish.  It just makes me happy. 

I just discovered this song in Youtube.  I think I need to make it my life’s mission to find a man who can dance to this with me… If he did, and he was brewing a cup of fresh coffee, and was wearing a black turtleneck, I don’t think Know! I‘d would NOT be able to resist him… even if he was wearing a paperbag over his head hahahaha!

Sweet Coffee “In Love”

But if he was… WHY would I want to resist?

Rumi’s “Bittersweet” read by Madonna

 In my hallucination
I saw my beloved’s flower garden
In my vertigo, in my dizziness
In my drunken haze
Whirling and dancing like a spinning wheel

 I saw myself as the source of existence
I was there in the beginning
And I was the spirit of love
Now I am sober
There is only the hangover
And the memory of love
And only the sorrow

I yearn for happiness
I ask for help
I want mercy

And my love says
Look at me and hear me
Because I am here
Just for that

I am your moon and your moonlight too
I am your flower garden and your water too
I have come all this way, eager for you
Without shoes or shawl

I want you to laugh
To kill all your worries
To love you
To nourish you

Oh sweet bitterness
I will soothe you and heal you
I will bring you roses
I, too, have been covered with thorns

A stone I keep by my doorway in my home ~ I see it every morning when I leave and I see it when I return each night ~ A reminder to never give up!

There is almost not a day that goes by that I don’t miss the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, jr.  He represented so much Hope.  Hope that we may never have again in one man.  It breaks my heart to know that he was taken from us by a gun.  Such senseless brutality in America and our government.  There are so many whose lives have been taken from us by handguns but this is not about gun violence ~ it’s about celebrating what Dr. King stood for and Lived for.   Non-violence.  Peace.  Civil Rights.  Ironically, he was also an ENTJ.  A true teacher and leader.

He had a dream… 

…Feel Like You’re Less Than Perfect… To me

Sometimes, we all just need a reminder.

P!nk “F**kin’ Perfect”