CommUNITY

This image is of an Artist Trading Card that I made for a series in the Mayworks ATC card show in 2006. Three of my 9 cards went travelling somewhere (Ontario, Canada, I think) and then got traded for me, somewhere in the world. The theme of my cards was "Women's Work".

I think that women more successfully embrace both joy and tears. It's kinda sad for men that they are not taught to embrace and express all emotions freely. And it's kinda sad for women that when they express some emotions like anger or upset, that they are called hysterical.

In Thich Nhat Hanh's poem he says "please call me by my true names, so I can see my joy and my pain are one". We are not defined by our emotions. Our scope is much bigger, and our reach much broader. We are everyone. Can we love everyone? Is that what community is about? There is a lovable part in everyone, and everyone does the best they can with what they have to work with (and if they haven't got much then they haven't).This is the way I did the backs of the cards in this series. I used a rubber rooster stamp and pressed it's image into some kind of weird silvery material/plastic (??) with my industrial iron. The rooster crows when it's time to wake up!

From: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh

"After a long meditation, I wrote this poem. In it, there are three people: the twelve-year-old girl, the pirate, and me. Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each other? The title of the poem is "Please Call Me by My True Names," because I have so many names. When I hear one of the of these names, I have to say, "Yes."

Call Me by My True
Names

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow because even today I
still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second to be a bud on a spring branch,

to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,

learning to sing in my new nest,

to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,

to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,

in order to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that are
alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,

and I am the bird which, when spring comes,

arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,

and I am also the grass-snake who,

approaching in silence, feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,

my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,

and I am the arms merchant,

selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,

refugee on a small boat,

who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,

and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing
and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,

with plenty of power in my hands,

and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to,

my people,dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in
all walks of life.

My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four
oceans.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,

so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can wake up,

and so the door of my heart can be left open,

the door of compassion."

I recently joined a gospel choir, and started taking master classes in singing, with Brian Tate. This is a dream of mine decades long awaited. Why wait so long for things... because that is when the time is right. Perfectly right.

I am thoroughly enjoying the singing! I am reaching a goal that touches my soul deeply. It is very satisfying. The last part " please call me by my true names, please call me by my true names, so I can wake up, wake up, and the door to my heart can be left open, the door of compassion, the door of compassion" is a chant that I heard on one of Thich's videos. I sang it for my master class. It really spoke to my heart. It means a lot to me. It has many meanings, and it forces me to look at things from another angle. To be honest, clear, and true to my heart and intuition.