Occupy Your Home

      Day three without Princess Little Tree. She's gone to see her parents in Tehran (which under the current circumstances is another story entirely). But I am not worried for her safety. I was unable to accompany her on this trip. It came at the last minute, a feeling we both had after speaking with her father most recently, and in a breath's notice we decided it was best if she went there at once. Unfortunately it came at one of the busiest times of our current life. I couldn't imagine working harder to be honest. And thus the trip was out of the question for me. Though for her we felt it was quite necessary. And despite the nation of Israel's constant threats of violence and "attacks of prevention not retaliation", though they make our hearts sad and heavy, the situation does not frighten me for her safety. Princess Little Tree is an angel of some sort, born with a subtly glowing halo just above her head, both beautifying and protective. 

        And besides, it is in her blood, and I would dare say now through our heavenly bond mine as well. I will never forget something I was told once regarding this subject. Sitting in the hot office of the Minister of Defense in the city of Tehran several years ago, sucking on one sugar cube after another while sipping on the most authentic Persian tea I have ever had the pleasure of tasting, one of our colleagues asked the gentleman if he or the other Ministers in the Iranian government "feared the West", in light of what the United States and Great Britain were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time (and still are, only they've now added Yemen and Pakistan to that list). His response portrayed the long running Persian strength of will as much as it did their even more admirable strength of wit. "As a people, we have been here, in this land, the same land and the same people, under the same name and speaking the same language longer than any other nation of people on earth. We are surrounded by no less than eleven foreign countries and our history is one of constant defending ourselves from foreign invaders and occupiers from all sides. So no my friend, no matter what you may hear on the news in your own country, I do not believe that our people are very concerned with what America says on any given day about us. We have a good life here and we intend to keep it as we always have." I will never forget his sly and quiet smile, almost a chuckle. The man he was responding to was no less than the editor of a big-time American news magazine. That quieted him up quite nicely. At least for that meeting.

        I already miss her so... Her smile. Her laugh. Her smell. Her presence. But we are busy. More than busy. We are overwhelmed with busy. And that is a very very good thing. When we are young and growing up, this is what we dream about. This kind of busy-ness and business. So no complaints from me. But I still miss PLT terribly. I feel slightly depressed when we are not together. My life has changed so much since we got together this last time and finally decided to make it official... I have structured my life in a way now where being without her for even a day is unacceptable to me. I never thought I was that kind of person to be honest. I guess we don't really know who we are completely until we meet the ONE and then we understand why others are that way as well. 

        Almost done with this newest city street art installation. Nothing big. Just a small token of an action to feel worthy of breathing. Talk about boring and tedious. So much just sitting there filling in each letter of each word with a marker... But necessary. It's one thing to make a little sign that says ""Occupy" something"". But I just couldn't and can't take it anymore. There's just too much negativity bombarding us from all sides. The presidential campaigns are absolutely nauseating in how low they are willing to go in their lust to "win". The problem is that regardless of who wins, they will destroy each other so much, and denigrate themselves to the core of their very nature, that being "president" will mean next to nothing. As it pretty much doesn't now. The way people speak about our current president. Times have changed. I have never seen a presidency so disrespected and dishonored as we have over the last three years. And the one before it wasn't much better. The worst part is that they are doing it to themselves. I don't know what is worse, Romney's attack ads against Obama, or Obama's attack ads against Romney. Either way, neither of the two men come out looking admirable honorable or respectable unfortunately. And the media plays right along with it, in fact making it all the more negative. It gives one a sick feeling inside. Not exactly inspiring at all.

        Any way we can take an action to tip the scales in the direction of positivity in our world is a good thing. But the problem with "Occupy" for example is that if it's nothing more than a little sign you're holding and posting to Facebook, then it's not really saying or doing much; because to many people that doesn't even mean anything. I feel like we need to give meaning to the word. More meaning one should say at least. And not to ourselves, those of us who know and understand what the movement is about, but to the world outside the small confines of the movement.

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        And this is the same problem many of us have been having with the protest aspect of the movement lately too. Just like it's Tea Party counterpart, many of them can come off very negative. There's a lot of anger out there, justifiably so, and many of the participants who show up to these events are there just to express their anger. Nothing wrong with that. Except for the fact that most people do not respond well to anger, nor do they respect it, nor do they take people seriously when they are absorbed in anger; besides the fact that it just adds more negativity to an already negative pool of emotion. If our tool against all the negative things in the world that we want to change is anger, which is negative itself, then we are just adding more of that same negativity to the mix, maybe just shifting it from "greed" to "anger" for a few minutes in the attention of consciousness. But it's still perpetuating the negative. 

        Such were my thoughts last week when I came upon this idea. I decided that this idea I heard a friend of mine promote a few months back -- Occupy Your Home, or Occupy Yourself, or Your World, etc. -- could actually be tangibly facilitated, as opposed to just being a slogan... not just by taping a little handmade sign to your forehead that says that and snapping a picture, but in a real tangible and visible way. An "any way you can" kind of way, using your actual home. In our case we have 13 windows that face out onto a major highway/avenue in New York City. You get the idea. As I said, nothing fancy. Hence 13 posterboards that just happen to be perfectly cut to to the size to fill our windows. Anyone and everyone can do it. Imagine a world where instead of expressing our anger and dissatisfaction with the problems of the world, we instead promoted the ideals we desire most. Through any means available to us at the time. Even if it's as simple as hanging up a few posters...

        When contemplating what the message was, that was easy. We all know what the problems are, what we don't like, what we are trying to change so to speak... So why even bring those things up at all? STOP GREED just promotes greed. NO MORE WAR just promotes war. Well what's the opposite of greed? Fairness. Justice. Equality. And the opposite of war? Peace. Love. Joy Cooperation. And on and on. Messages of hope and elation. For we all know too well what the problems are. And there are enough of us now working on the solutions. Tomorrow they go up. Of course by covering every window in the apartment, these posters will almost entirely block out the sun and leave me walking around in the dark for weeks, but with this current heat wave, that could be a good thing. ;->  

More later. 

Love and Peace, Fishy