Monday, June 26, 2017

Haiti Emergency Relief Fund reading Friday June 30

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Poetry for Peace and Justice
a benefit for 
Haiti Emergency Relief Fund

Friday, June 30, 2017 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church 

2727 College Ave. 

Berkeley, California

7:00 -9:00 p.m.

--------readings by: 

Susan Griffin

Rafael Jesús González

Dennis Bernstein
 

Shanga Labossiere

followed by open mic 


Suggested donation $10 - $30

No one turned away for lack of funds. 


wheelchair accessible 



Haiti Emergency Relief Fund gives 
concrete aid to Haiti’s democratic 
movement and grassroots community 
groups organizing to meet Haitians’ 
needs directly. 
See:   http://haitiemergencyrelief.org/

for more information visit www.epicalc.org  
or call 510-990-0374; Co-sponsored by Haiti 
Action Committee, Ecumenical Peace 
Institute & St. John’s Presbyterian 
Church - Mission & Justice Commission

Directions: St John’s Presbyterian is at 2727 College Ave.
between Garber St. and Forest Ave., three blocks north 

of Ashby. Wheelchair ramp on Garber. Underground 
parking with elevator, enter from Garber.
AC Transit: 51B bus runs on College between Rockridge 
BART and downtown Berkeley.
Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALC • PO Box 9334, Berkeley, 
CA 94709 510-990-0374 • www.epicalc.org 



Thursday, June 22, 2017

Summer of Love 1967-2017

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Fifty years ago this summer there came to San Francisco Bay hordes of young people from across the nation to celebrate what was called a Summer of Love. A saccharine popular song of the time exhorted them to come wearing flowers in their hair, and thus many of them came, the flower children. It was a pilgrimage of sorts of the "hippie movement", or more accurately, the Counter-Culture, to the mecca in California where social boundaries and strictures had long been tested, transgressed, blurred.

It was in fact the Hippie Revolution against the dominant puritanical culture of the U.S.A. that idealizes work and distrusts pure pleasure and joy, equates happiness with wealth, and values the Earth only as a resource to be exploited, as it does the worker who makes the raw resources useable. Racism colors its vision and taints its institutions.

The Counter-Culture put to the test the dominant culture's premises and prejudices. Gender boundaries were blurred: men wore their hair long. Eschewing to wear nooses, silk or otherwise, around their necks, choking the throat chakra, they wore strings of beads and jewel necklaces instead. They wore sensuous materials, velvets, suede, and such, worn denims patched colorfully with scraps of embroidered cloth, vividly tie-dyed T-shirts, sandals on their feet. The women cast away their bras and girdles, wore mini-skirts or long flowing dresses, and thought little of baring their breasts as the spirit moved them.

Many of these youth embraced free love, exploring sexual expression: open relationships, polyamory, and experimenting with sexual and gender variance.

Consciousness and joy was paramount and they experimented with hallucinogens and psychotropic substances (cannabis, LSD, 'ecstasy', and at times more dangerous drugs) to open alternative doors to perception more often than not in spiritual quest. And they gathered to dance with abandon to the Dionysian music of bands with such names as Jefferson Airplane, The Mamas & The Papas, The Who, The Doors, The Grateful Dead.

Where they ventured, the arts flourished, in all media, fine art and crafts of every sort, colorful, joyous, widespread, and mind-bending: music, dance, painting, sculpture, ceramics, weaving, embroidery, costume.

They knew that the love and joy, the freedom they sought were inseparable from social justice, inclusiveness, and a whole Earth. They organized and attended benefit concerts for civil and workers' rights, swelled the crowds in the streets to protest the cruel, unjust and unjustifiable war on Viet-Nam and took direct actions of civil disobedience blocking the entrances of military recruiting offices, and of the administration offices of universities demanding that ethnic and women studies be offered. They were eager for political and social change.

They meshed the sacred and the profane; religion and politics dove-tailed in a theology of liberation. Language changed and little would be the same again.

That Summer of Love reverberated throughout the entire culture and scandalized and riled up what Pres. Nixon would call the "silent majority," the main-stream conservative populace which found its voice in California's Republican governor Ronald Reagan, "The Great Communicator," who two years after the Summer of Love, to quell student protests, would militarily occupy the City of Berkeley, tear-gassing and beating its citizens, blinding one, and killing another.

The silent majority, no longer silent, later made Reagan president of the nation bringing about an increasingly fascistic government until now, fifty years after the Summer of Love, we live a summer of cruelty and hate under a pathological liar, an abysmally ignorant president known for, among other much less endearing things, his orange face, his yellow hair, and his ruddy neck. He is backed by a Senate led by the grim-lipped and a House led by the zombie-eyed, while the Supreme Court has ruled that money (because it talks) is a form of speech.

But the Counter Culture did not fade away; it just went underground. In the last presidential elections it resurfaced, more matured and greatly increased by a new generation, and surged under the leadership of one of our own, Senator Bernie Sanders who has throughout been steadfast in the pursuit of justice and peace and wellbeing of the Earth.

The history of the U.S. of empire, its economics, and its relationship to the Earth and its peoples has so compromised the wellbeing of the Earth that we risk our own extinction if we allow things to continue as such. Nothing short of a revolution is called for, a revolution of consciousness, a revolution of love, a fierce love, a revolution undertaken with joy. Our resistance to the fascism that looms over us grows, and not content with just one summer, we will not rest until we bring in a millennium of healing and love and joy. A little bird told us so.

© Rafael Jesús González 2017

Berkeley, California




http://markhensonart.com/posters/summer-of-love-poster-2007 

(image by Mark Henson modified by R.J.G.)


Hace cincuenta años este verano vinieron a la Bahía de San Francisco una multitud de jóvenes de todo el país para celebrar lo que se le llamó el Verano de amor. Una canción popular sacarina les exhortaba que vinieran con flores en el cabello y muchos de ellos así llegaron, los nin@s de las flores. Fue un tipo de peregrinaje del "movimiento jipi" o mejor dicho la Contracultura a la meca en California donde las fronteras sociales ya hacía tiempo se habían puesto a prueba, infringido, borrado.

Era de hecho la Revolución jipi contra la cultura dominante puritana de los EE.UU. que idealiza el trabajo y desconfía del puro placer y goce, considera equivalentes la dicha y la riqueza y valoriza la Tierra sólo como recurso para ser explotado como lo hace con el trabajador(a) que hace usable los recursos crudos. El racismo colorea su visión y contamina sus instituciones.

La Contracultura ponía a prueba toda premisa y prejuicio de la cultura dominante. Se borraban los límites del género: los hombres llevaban el pelo largo. Evitando nudos, de seda o no, en el pescuezo estrangulando el chakra de la garganta, llevaban collares de cuentas y joyas en vez. Llevaban materiales sensuales, terciopelo, gamuza y tales, mezclillas gastadas con parches coloridos de trapos bordados, playeras teñidas de colores, sandalias en los pies. Las mujeres se quitaban los brasieres y fajas, llevaban mini-faldas o vestidos largos ondulantes y poco pensaban en descubrirse los senos cuando ganas les daba.

Much@s de est@s jóvenes abrazaban el amor libre explorando la expresión sexual: relaciones abiertas, poliamor, y experimentaban con variantes de sexo y género.

La Consciencia y el júbilo eran supremos y experimentaban con alucinógenos y sustancias psicotrópicas (marihuana, LSD, 'éxtasis' y a veces drogas más peligrosas) para abrir puertas alternativas a la percepción más a menudo que no en búsqueda espiritual. Y se juntaban a bailar con abandono a la música dionisiaca de grupos con nombres tales como Jefferson Airplane, The Mamas & The Papas, The Who, The Doors, The Grateful Dead.

Donde iban florecían las artes en todo medio, arte fino y artesanía de todo tipo, colorido, alegre, extenso e increíble: música, baile, escultura, cerámica, tejido, bordado, atuendo.

Sabían que el amor y goce, la libertad que buscaban eran inseparables de la justicia social, de la inclusión y de una Tierra sana. Organizaban y asistían a conciertos en beneficio de los derechos civiles y del trabajador, hacían crecer las muchedumbres en las calles en protesta de la guerra cruel, injusta e injustificable en Viet-Nam y tomaban acción directa de desobediencia civil bloqueando las entradas de las oficinas de reclutamiento militar y de las oficinas de la administración de las universidades exigiendo que se instituyeran estudios étnicos y femeninos. Anhelaban cambio político y social.

Mezclaban lo sagrado y lo profano; la religión y la política se encajaban en una teología de liberación. Cambió el lenguaje y poco sería lo mismo jamás.

Ese Verano de amor retumbó por la cultura entera y escandalizó y encabronó lo que el Presidente Nixon llamaría "la mayoría silenciosa," la población conservadora prevaleciente que encontró voz en el gobernador de California republicano Ronald Reagan, "el Gran Comunicador," que dos años después del Verano de amor para reprimir las protestas de los estudiantes ocupó militarmente la Ciudad de Berkeley regando de gas lacrimógeno y apaleando sus ciudadanos, cegando a uno y matando a otro.

La mayoría silenciosa ya no silenciosa más tarde hizo a Reagan presidente del país produciendo un gobierno cada vez más fascista hasta que ahora, cincuenta años después del Verano de amor, vivimos un verano de crueldad y odio bajo un presidente embustero patológico y abismalmente ignorante conocido, entre otras cosas mucho menos entrañables, por su cara anaranjada, su pelo amarillo y su pescuezo rojizo. Lo respaldan un Senado encabezado por los de labios disformes y una Cámara de diputados encabezada por los de ojos de zombi, mientras que la Corte Suprema ha decidido que el dinero (porque habla) es una forma de expresión.  

Pero la Contracultura no se desvaneció; solamente se fue bajo tierra. En las última elecciones presidenciales volvió a emerger más madura y mucho aumentada por una nueva generación y surgió bajo el liderazgo de uno de los nuestros, el Senador Bernie Sanders que ha por todo sido fiel en busca de la justicia y la paz y el bienestar de la Tierra.

La historia el los EE.UU. de imperio, su economía y su relación a la Tierra y sus gentes ha tanto comprometido el bienestar de la Tierra que arriesgamos nuestra propia extinción si permitimos que sigan así las cosas. Nada menos que una revolución se requiere, una revolución de consciencia, una revolución de amor, un amor feroz, una revolución emprendida con alegría.

Nuestra resistencia al fascismo que nos amenaza crece y no contentos con solamente un verano no descansaremos hasta que hagamos entrar un milenio de sanación y amor y goce. Nos lo dijo un pajarito.


© Rafael Jesús González 2017

Berkeley, California







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Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Summer Solstice & Cancer


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Summer Solstice & Cancer




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--

---------
Cáncer


 

El cangrejo anhela,
después del largo día,
arrancar del cielo
esa moneda de plata fría
que es la luna.
---Sus ojos son cuentas de rubí
---y en las entrañas
---guarda un perla sensitiva
que anhela llevar muy hondo,
---------------------muy hondo
al punto cardinal del agua,
---al fondo primordial del mar.




--------------© Rafael Jesús González 2017




-----------Cancer



The crab longs,
after the long day,
to tear from the sky
that coin of cold silver
that is the moon.
-----Its eyes are ruby beads
-----& in its entrails
-----it keeps a sensitive pearl
which it longs to carry very deep,
----------------------------very deep
to the cardinal point of the waters,
---the primordial depths of the sea.




----------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2017

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Friday, June 16, 2017

riverbabble 31 Summer 2017

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Brown Eyed Girl by Michell Toews


riverbabble 31

Bloomsday Issue




Poetry


Lin Nelson Benedek:
          Dear River Merchant's Wife
         Crossing the River at Prairie du Chien

Dennis J. Bernstein:
           Crossing That Final River
           Peace Treaties

Rafael Jesús González:
          La luna alumbra pero no calienta / The Moon Lights but Does Not Warm
          Para sacerdotes de Xochipilli difuntos / For Deceased Priests of Xochipilli

Matthew Harrison:
           A child in Oporto
           Wanchai Post Office

Deborah Dashow Ruth:
           Fire Blight
           The Hard Day

John Oliver Simon:
           Mayflies
           If What

Anne Whitehouse:
          Reprise
          The Last Swim of Summer

Dee Allen.:    Skeletal Black 2

Mikki Aronoff:    Through the Window, Birds

Felice Aull:    At the Frick Museum

Wendy Bourke:    a pebble on the riverbed

Andrew R. Crow:    Marilyn, alone

Juan Domingo:    Having a Smoke with Quetzalcoatl in the Garden

Roberta Gould:    My Chinese Teacher

Majel Haugh:    Neighbor

Ed Higgins:    Under the Eaves

Glenn Ingersoll:    Six Haiku

Maureen Brady Johnson:    Rescuing Beauty

Babo Kamel    To get to her

Blake Kilgore:    Dead Decades

Megan Merchant:    Disappearing in Three Acts

David P. Miller:    Before Anything

James B. Nicola:    When the Pebbles Moved

Marjorie Power:    Potholes

Ruth Sabath Rosenthal:    I Too, Am One Acquainted with the Night

Karen Shepherd:    Unrequited

John Swain:    Before the Flame

Larry D. Thacker:    I worry a little

Phibby Venable:    Samuel

Fiction

Lester L. Weil:
          ROF-LTAO
          Dead Man's Clothes

Robin Wyatt Dunn:    The secret to smoking

M. A. Istvan, Jr.:    Fear and Indolence in 2006

John Laneri:    A Walk Through the Forest

Larry Lefkowitz:    A Minyan of One and a Third

Ken Poyner:    Between Seasons

Mitchell Toews:    The Margin of the River

Flash Fiction

Leah Holbrook Sackett:
          Chess Match
          The Bridge to Gratitude

Roy Dorman:    The Valued Customer

Tania Moore:    Fairway

Anthony Rubino:    R. McTodd, Poet

Essay

Edward Mycue:    Turtle All the Way Down

Jim Ross:    The Constipated Mathematician

Cover

Brown Eyed Girl by Mitchell Toews 


Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into his pocket he turned into Eccles street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his vein chilling his blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, I am here now. Yes, I am here now. Morning mouth bad images. Got up wrong side of the bed. Must begin again those Sandow's exercises. On the hands down. Blotchy brown brick houses. Number eighty still unlet. Why is that? Valuation is only twenty-eight. Towers, Battersby, North, MacArthur: parlour windows plastered with bills. Plasters on a sore eye. To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume of the pan, sizzling butter. Be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes.

                                                        JAMES JOYCE, Ulysses, Calypso, 2734-2743.




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or from
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_________________________________

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riverbabble
http://iceflow.com/riverbabble/Welcome.html---
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Friday, June 9, 2017

full moon: Listen to the Moon


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Escucha a luna


Sal de tu puerta
y ve la luna, escucha
y trata de entender
lo que te diga;
no dependas de mí;
no soy seguro
de mi traducción.



-----© Rafael Jesús González 2017





                   



Listen to the Moon


Go out your door
& see the moon, listen
& try to understand
what she tells you;
do not depend on me;
I am unsure
of my translation.



-----© Rafael Jesús González 2017



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