THE NATURAL STATE OF MANKIND IS...FREEDOM

Slave trade map ~ Click image to enlarge

Amistad ~ a movie which partly was shot here in Rhode Island, Newport included. My favorite scene ~
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"…The natural state of mankind is instead - and I know this is a controversial idea - is freedom. Is freedom. And the proof is the length to which a man, woman or child will go to regain it once taken. He will break loose his chains, he will decimate his enemies, he will try and try and try against all odds, against all prejudices to get home.
…who we are is who we were…give us the courage to do what is right..."

Slavery here in Newport ~

newport history

Newport, Rhode Island played a leading role during the Colonial Period in the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. By 1776, several thousand African slaves lived, work and eventually died in this New England seaport. At the peak of the Colonial Period they comprised nearly one third of the total town population with one in three Newport families owning at least one slave. Source: newport history

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Here in Newport, Rhode Island we have several physical ‘touch stones’ to remind us of the legacy left by those Africans and later African Americans who graced our city with their presence. From 1696 when the first documented slave ship, the ‘Sea Flower’, touched our shores, to the present, African Americans have worked, raised their families and prospered in the city by the sea.

The American Slave Trade and Newport share similar origins. Newport, the most prosperous of colonial American ports, saw unprecedented growth throughout the 18^th century; mostly from the export and trade of rum, spermaceti candles and slaves. By 1784, the fledgling state government abolished slavery.

Many of the slaves that came to Newport’s shore would arrive, like most goods, at the Long Wharf. These slaves would be auctioned off to the highest bidders at the Granary (market), which is today known as the Brick Market at the foot of Washington Square.

If colonial Newport was known as one of America’s most active slave ports, it was equally known as one of the new country’s most liberal communities for the pursuit of religious freedom. This unique atmosphere of religious tolerance would lead to the demise of popular support of human bondage led by two of America’s first humanitarians and abolitionists; Reverend Samuel Hopkins and Reverend Ezra Stiles of the First and Second Congregational Churches. Both men preached fiery sermons from their pulpits against the evils of slavery. Because of the dedication and vision of these two men, and the decline of Newport as a major trading port after the Revolutionary War, slavery would end in Newport by the commencement of the 19th century.

Where did these slave and free Africans live and work in early Newport? What were they like? Do any of these sites exist in Newport today? Numerous sites exist today that were built, lived in, or in some way touched by Newport’s long history with the African and African American community. Source and for more information ~ www.eyesofglory

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“…unless we all have plenty

one of us will become a thief and the ghief will make you angry

you will hurt him

this will hurt his children

they will punish you

this will hurt your children

they will punish his children

and that’s how it begins

to believe in man is to know

peace will not work if just one man alive

is unjust

if one man alive

is ignorant

or hungry

or crazy

or ashamed

FOR we have seen if only one of us

decides to pull the plug, the millions of us can kiss

the world good-bye

whether we like it or not.

From Joseph Pintauro’s little book “to believe in man”

Illustrated by Sister Corita Kent

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Click the post title for Newport history regarding slavery

A HUMAN RACE IN DISARRAY

How Can It Be?

Observing the purposefully hurtful behavior by some politicians and some media "personalities", it is sobering to know that each one of us belongs to the same human race. I find it hard to believe. But, here we are on the planet at the same time and yet at such odds with one another.

Remember
ALL thOse things
we used To blAMe oN the devil
ANd ALL tHose thi Ngs
We LeFt uP to God?
NOW iT's ALL A HUNDRed tiMes MORE COMPLicated
We MUST becOMe NeW MeN
oR
be SAtisfied AS We ARe.
...eitHer WAy We RisK tRAgedy.

WHO WERE YOU ALL ?
We spoke in short sentences with our lips and eyebrows we kept our teeth white and we smiled. We could hardly figure out why we were here, but we tried ~ to love life hoping it had reasons of its own.

Our worst ugliness was our blindness to our own beauty and our fear more than death was rejection from each other.

from To Believe in Man by Joseph Pintauro

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Uploaded by Slambovia

The new CD The Grand Slambovians of Gandalf Murphy and The Slambovian Circus of Dreams just arrived in the mail. One of my favorites from the CD is The Invisible. The band is coming to Common Fence Music at Channing on February 5, 2011. Click the post title to go to Windmills, another track from the CD.

Band's website: slambovia.com/radiofree

I ACHE BECAUSE OF ENDLESS QUESTIONS WHY, I LONG TO BE TOUCHED BY YOU

our worst ugliness

was our blindness

to our own beauty

and our fear

more than death

was rejection

from each other.

from the book to believe in man by Joseph Pintauro

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Longing to Touch

Suspended in time and in space

I yearn to feel more of something,

I know not of

I ache because of endless questions . . .whys

I long to touch

and

to be touched

by you.

By Sandra Hammel

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Truth versus Lies

I stand tall in my personal truth

Truths live in the light

Lies live in the dark

I find my integrity only when living in my truth.

And often feel my truth must be out loud.

It is my duty

to be the truths that I want to see in others.

Strength can’t be borrowed,

It can only be summoned up.

What is truth without courage?

I love standing tall.

With assurance I stand tall.

By Sandra Hammel, May 29, 2006

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To hear Daneil Day-Lewis talk about Heath the day that Heath Ledger was discovered unconscious, then pronounced dead.

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For Dad

I love you now and until forever ends

Dad and my son on Dad's self-made lake in Indiana

For my son

Destiny brought us together

Nothing will tear us apart

I carry your heart in my heart

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TAKING A TURN TOWARD BLISS

Why Be You When I Can Be Me?

It is not always

But it is many times. Thoughts arrive and compel me to remember them and write them down. But they escape me before I get a paper and pen or sit down at the word processor. Too many times I start to fulfill my list of things to do made the night before and put off the thoughts stirring around inside of me.

The thoughts are about my journey, mostly anchored in my struggling through the blockages rooted from my mother, justice or injustice in the world, my son or loves that have lost out in one way or another.

Sometimes I don’t know if I want to tell someone else my thoughts because it diminishes them by limiting them with words that box them in. Feelings, revelations and inspirational moments are deep, broad and tall. They make me feel alive. And that is the best thing about life. Being alive and feeling the sensation with renewed fullness never gets old. Even though I suppose I am entering the last season of my life, there has been a newness of feeling alive over the last few days. And I have been here before. Life ebbs and flows, that’s just the nature of it, do you agree?

I’m scared to do what I am doing. All those messages that speak to me without solicitation are like orders. And until now, I have carried those messages and voices inside me in the subconscious. The voices don’t want me to follow my bliss. The voices want me to live someone else’s idea of my life. I mentioned that I am scared. I am scared because to follow my bliss means I am not looking to make money, which I am soon going to be debilitatingly short of. But to be fully honest, I have put off my bliss for far too long and I have not used my time as wisely as I could have to get some of my bliss. But how will I ever know if what I have done isn’t just the path I was meant to be on? We don’t know. Nobody knows. Though there are many external voices saying how we should, what we should and when we should do whatever they think. In a way, when someone else says it and we follow whatever it is that they say, we are not thinking for ourselves.

Just in case it is the right thing to do, I am trying to walk a different life. The one that lets me create. Express myself in my writing, compose, sing and play the piano…and touch the rawness of seeing my personal truth and experience with my mother. In a way, I have been growing towards this my whole life. And spurred on by how life has unfolded for me, I have walked into the fire of my personal life consistently. Never being one to duck, cover and deny, getting this far and never feeling taller than I do now is really fine with me.

Raw is something I have always kept for myself. I connect with other people who daringly show their rawness. Do you know raw? Being real? The integrity of being you, putting yourself out there and being vulnerable without the guarded net of pretense? I wasn’t raised to be me. As I have increasingly found out, I was raised to pretend to be happy, fulfill some elusive list of the image required by my mother. And may I be honestly blunt and say that is no way to mother a child. Happiness isn’t something we can know unless we are as close to being our natural glorious selves. We are born to be ourselves. Not some cockemamy image.

I won’t be so honest here as to shortchange my momentary personal reservations, but maybe you don’t want to know too much. In real life, the one where we come face to face with other human beings, so often I find that people don’t want to know about what you really are feeling, thinking or doing. Those times when I sense another put up a shield of “I don’t want to know” or I sense them moving away even though they have taken no step yet to physically move. But I “feel” it, maybe it is in their mind and I have just felt what they are thinking. Maybe this is too much for you?

So much of what we really are experiencing is unknown to even ourselves or we know and are too guarded to let anyone else see or hear us speak what is really going on in our heads and souls.

I think if I wasn’t honest about how I feel about my mother for starters, I would be on antidepressant medication. I am one of those who believes what we emotionally bury is never buried. It will manifest itself in some way. Healthy or not. It is just a demand that the truest and most raw feelings make. We have no choice.

A painting hanging next to me while I type
by a VietNamese artist

I never wanted children. My own childhood gave me an adult who is full of self-doubt, unclear messages of what a good family is and love that had holes made by betrayal and the willingness to sacrifice a child for reasons that came from the parent’s unfulfilled happiness. Confusion has been the result because I was always told that I had a Christian family. A loving and caring family. Parents who have never gotten in touch with their own real selves run the risk of being found out by an adult child such as the likes of me. We are the ones who reach for the truth and are willing to live in it even if it means we have to distance ourselves from a parent.

I never wanted to bring a child into this world. I said it out loud to my mother while in sixth grade. I was eleven. The world didn’t seem a place I wanted to put a child in.

It was a huge responsibility to be the one to guide the child and prepare him or her for their destiny.

Then came a boy.

He was in second grade when I met him. Big part of my life.

There was and is Something Special here. It has been deeply painful and difficult. But life handed me Jonathan. And I accepted and received him into my life forever. But with the pain and difficulty there is also the underlying spirit connection that my now son and I have. I don’t know if he feels it. He has never told me. But on some level I believe he does feel it. We are kindred spirits. This is one of those parts of my life that has appeared without my planning, but become such an important part of this time on earth. Life unfolds and if we can look back on it and see the path of the journey, it is like someone has authored your life for you.

I can’t remember the two or three thoughts that compelled me to sit down today and write. And it felt so profound and compelling at the time. But this is what came out in its place.

I am currently doing something that I have always wanted to do. But it is the one thing that has been such a challenge because my body responds in such a way that I can’t breathe when I do it in public. I can speak in public about Darfur to hundreds of people. And I have many times. I have had lobby meetings with U.S. Senators Chafee, Reed and Whitehouse and Representative Kennedy. I have directed, composed for and produced musical presentations with hundreds of children, organized rallies, acted in college and community theatre. I drew the house plans and designed the landscaping for my current home. I won honorable mention in the very first art show that I entered a few years ago. I have traveled alone to Europe and to the southwest. Almost everything I have ever tired has been successful. I have even done this one thing as a lead in a musical years ago. But now I am daring to take this step and I have already failed in my opinion last week. And next Sunday, I am risking it again. It is singing solo in public. It doesn’t matter how much I practice or how many positive thoughts I come up with – put me in front of an audience and breathing seems impossible. I don’t know maybe, it is rooted in my childhood. Not good enough, not encouraged, seeing feelings of inferiority as a core value. They are just people looking at me, but they scare the living daylights out of me. It is not something I can pretend to overcome. Breathing and relaxing the throat muscles is my mountain to overcome. Wouldn’t it be great to actually overcome this and feel the freedom from the fear? If that day ever happens, I’ll get back to you. I would relish that I did this.

You don’t know if you don’t try.

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“Touching is wonder.
We think of it as reaching out
to know
to grow
to explore
to love
to believe.
But there is also reaching within . . .
An inside touching that comes first.

‘Satori’ is the Zen way
of acquiring a new point of view
for living
and looking.
not creating something new –
but seeing
and touching
in a different way.
it approaches religion
from the inside
letting it emerge
from man
rather than being imposed.
It finds
a revelation of the divine
within human experience,
within life itself.”

Please Touch by Edwin M. McMahon and Peter A. Campbell


“The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive” – St. Irenaeus of Lyons

“to believe in God is to know that thing you are
shall make you live
and it will never
make you do anything
less.” To Believe in God by Joseph Pintauro

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Genocide Ends When Enough of Us Stand Up Against It
JOIN US
1-800-GENOCIDE
www.savedarfur.org
www.genocideintervention.net
www.standnow.org

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One of my personal recent finds ~ I checked it out at the library . . .
Dear Frankie

A movie that is special in presentation, spirit of living and being real.

It speaks to us of a mother, father and a child.

If you see it, check out the director's commentary,
as well as deleted scenes.

BETRAYAL, TRUTH, LIES AND HOPE

It throws me when someone I gave my trust to
has hurled mean words at me.

It is such an act of clear betrayal.

I want to trust.

Especially in family.

I don't think I will ever be able to find a place
to store this ugly knowledge.

Though having the knowledge is better than denying it

When loving someone requires you to sacrifice yourself
it doesn't feel like love.

That's why I am here
while you are there

Broken family
but not broken spirit

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Clip from the movie Coach Carter
Uploaded by GiantsAwakening
I find things like this comforting.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were all meant to shine as children do.

It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone,
and as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Written by Marianne Williamson in her book Return to Love
This passage is often accredited to Nelson Mandella.

I love the little book To Believe in Man by Joseph Pintauro...

...unless we all have plenty one of us will become a thief
the thief will make you angry
you will hurt him

this will hurt his children
they will punish you
this will hurt your children
they will punish his children
and that's how it begins

to believe in man is to know
peace will not work
if just one man alive
is unjust
if one many alive
is ignorant or hungry or crazy or ashamed

for we have seen

if only one of us
decides to pull the plug,
the millions of us can kiss the world good bye
whether we like it or not.

all we ask o lord
is to be safe
from the rain
just warm
enough in winter
to watch the snow with a smile
enough to eat
so that our hunger will not
turn us to angry beasts
and sanity enough
to make a justice
that will not kill our love of life...

WHO
WERE
YOU
ALL
?

we spoke in short
sentences
with our lips and eye
brows
we kept our teeth
white and
we smiled.
We could hard-
ly figure out why
We were here
but we tried

to love life
hoping it had
reasons of its own.

our worst ugliness
was our blindness
to our own beauty

and our fear
more than death
was rejection
from each other.

Remember
all those things
we used to
blame on the devil
and all those things we left up to god?

Now, it's all a hundred times
more
complicated

WE MUST BECOME
NEW MEN
or be satisfied
as we are.

...either way
we risk tragedy.

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OBAMA - BIDEN 2008


I'm Sick of John McCain
McCain ran ads Friday at 10:00 a.m. that John won the debate
That was before he agreed to take part in the debate