| Golden Leaves and Dreams

sabato 13 ottobre 2012

"Volevo che tu imparassi una cosa: volevo che tu vedessi che cosa è il vero coraggio, tu che credi che sia rappresentato da un uomo con il fucile in mano. Aver coraggio significa sapere di essere sconfitti prima ancora di cominciare, e cominciare egualmente e arrivare fino in fondo, qualsiasi cosa succeda. E' raro vincere, in questi casi, ma qualche volta si vince."

-Harper Lee (Il Buio Oltre La Siepe)

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Amo i libri, l'autunno e gli animali. Laureata in traduzione e interpretariato, parlo italiano, inglese, spagnolo e giapponese. Felicemente vegana e pagana eclettica. Ho un debole per la mitologia, i musicals, la spoken poetry, il Giappone, l'Irlanda, le fanfictions ben scritte e svariate serie tv. I miei hobbies principali sono la scrittura e il disegno.

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say, God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words get it wrong. We say bread and it means according to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can.

— Jack Gilbert

Una lengua es toda una visión del mundo, y hasta cuando una lengua adopta una palabra ajena suele teñirla de otro modo, con cierta traición imperceptible. Una lengua, además, vale tanto por lo que dice como por lo que calla, y es dable interpretar sus silencios.

— Alfonso Reyes

Les mots sont indépendants, comme les chats, et ils ne font pas ce que vous voulez. Vous avez beau les aimer, les flatter, leur parler doucement, il s'échappent et partent à l'aventure.

— Jacques Poulin

話す全ての新しい言語が、新しい人生を生む。一つの言語しか知らなければ、人生は一つしかない。

— Tabei Junko

❤ ❤ ❤

I am not well-versed in theory, but in my view, the cow deserves her life. As does the ram. As does the ladybug. As does the elephant. As do the fish, and the dog and the bee; as do other sentient beings. I will always be in favor of veganism as a minimum because I believe that sentient beings have a right not to be used as someone else's property. They ask us to be brave for them, to be clear for them, and I see no other acceptable choice but to advocate veganism. If these statements make me a fundamentalist, then I will sew a scarlet F on my jacket so that all may know I'm fundamentally in favor of nonviolence; may they bury me in it so that all will know where I stood.

Vincent Guihan

>

Anyone who has witnessed the butchering of a pig in the countryside will never be able to eat his meat again: those cries so much like those of a child, that anguish in the face of imminent execution, those useless attempts of his to resist by planting his hooves on the ground, they have penetrated consciousness in exactly the same way as images of wars, bombings and electric chairs have. Those who love and respect life, love, respect and mourn it at every point and at every level, in the pig as in the man. We all belong to the same fragile world, let's not smear it with the blood of the innocents and with merciless indifference, let's take advantage of this scandal to promise once and for all infinite friendship to our animal brothers. Might whoever holds the knife, find the courage to put it down forever.

Marco Lodoli

Thanksgiving dinner's sad and thankless
Christmas dinner's dark and blue
When you stop and try to see it
From the turkey's point of view.
Sunday dinner isn't sunny
Easter feasts are just bad luck
When you see it from the viewpoint
Of a chicken or a duck.
Oh how I once loved tuna salad
Pork and lobsters, lamb chops too
'Til I stopped and looked at dinner
From the dinner's point of view.

Shel Silverstein

The Most Important Speech You Will Ever Hear

l Q&A l

In the midst of our high-tech, ostentatious, hedonistic lifestyle, among the dazzling monuments to history, art, religion, and commerce, there are the 'black boxes.' These are the biomedical research laboratories, factory farms, and slaughterhouses—faceless compounds where society conducts its dirty business of abusing and killing innocent, sentient beings. These are our Dachaus, our Buchenwalds, our Birkenaus. Like the good Germans, we have a fair idea of what goes on there, but we don't want any reality checks.

Alex Hershaft (Nazist Holocaust Survivor)

Earthlings(sottotitolato)

WHY Society Still Needs FEMINISM?
*•.¸♥¸.•*
Because there are people who define feminists as “women who hate men”. We want equality, not superiority. We fight patriarchy, not men. Our fight for a better world is ultimately for both sexes and men who are aware of this fight alongside us. You don't have to be a woman to be a feminist.

Because feminism is portrayed as exclusive to middle-class white women who go around burning bras and crucifying housewives, strippers, Muslims, and trans women. No. Have you chosen to dedicate your life to family? Have you chosen to work using your sensuality? Have you chosen to cover your head in respect of your creed? Have you chosen to have a body that finally matches the internal vision you have of yourself? Perfect, feminism defends your right to make a choice and to live it away from any form of oppression. Our liberation is inter.sectional, intergenerational and inclusive of queer&transpeople.

Because the use of the female body in the media is vilifying and disheartening.
Because it is a widespread belief that if you are gallant with a girl, she owes you at least one sexual favour — therefore, if she doesn't want to go through with it, she is a tease who has unfairly stuck you in the “friend zone”. Sorry, women are not vending machines you put kindness coins into until sex falls out.

Because the law on voluntary termination of pregnancy is still one of the most debated. Affirming that women do not have the right to decide for themselves what to do with their bodies and their lives is part of a constant offensive which, through the retreat of public consultories, leaves women completely at the mercy of the Church with its prejudices and of paid doctors and political propaganda.
Because street harassment (much like online harassment) is real, it's a problem and it happens every day and everywhere.

Because there are still men who tell women that if they want to prevent violence, it is necessary that they don't wear certain clothes, don't go to certain places and don't behave in a certain way. Not realizing that this absurd mindset assumes that men are totally incapable of control. That they are so violent and uncivilized that it takes an extraordinary effort for them to actually walk down the street without raping anyone. This reasoning assumes that a man's natural state is that of a rapist. Also let me tell you, if your advice to a woman to avoid an assault is to be the most modestly dressed, most restrained, and first home, you might as well straight up say "so the assailant he will choose someone else”.
Why women who have frequent sex are generally described as "sluts with no self respect" by both men and other women, while men who have frequent sex are "playboys" and are just "following their nature". Please let's evolve. This double standard is unacceptable. Let's stop “slut-shaming”.

Because of the 7 billion people who populate the planet, more than 1 billion women will be raped or beaten in their lifetime. Women and girls suffer genital mutilation, are disfigured by acid or killed by their own companions who consider them their property. A real war on gender, which is consumed every second of every day. In every corner of the earth.

Because if I have children one day, I want my son to be able to express his emotions and I want him to never come to consider the feminine as something inferior and completely foreign; I want my daughter to climb trees and care more about what's inside her head than what's on it. Because I don't want her to be forced to hold keys between her fingers walking home at night, in order to defend herself.

Because feminism is for everyone and this is your official invitation.

Human Sexuality is Complicated

It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.
It felt like a puzzle, mostly put together but with a piece missing, waiting to be filled. There were plenty of pieces to fill it- gay, straight, bisexual- but none fit quite right. Sometimes I thought I could make one fit if I pressed hard enough, but it would never lie flat.
The word asexual took the puzzle piece and turned it, letting it click into place where before it'd been better to just leave the space empty. I wasn't broken. I wasn't empty.
Just a little differently shaped.

Amanda DeWitt

Maybe we can stop trying so hard to understand the gorgeous mystery of sexuality. Instead, we can just listen to ourselves and each other with curiosity and love, and without fear. We can just let people be who they are and we can believe that the freer each person is, the better we all are.

Glennon Doyle

Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.

Brené Brown

I am pagan. I celebrate Mother Earth, the changing of the seasons, the white moon shining in the sky, love and passion, the first blond harvest, fruiting, the darkening of the leaves and the whitening of the twigs, death and rebirth in the eternal cycle. Trees and animals are my brothers, in them is the divine spark that guides my spirit. I am pagan. I learned to love. I taught myself harmony, searching for it in my heart and in the world. I learned that what I give will one day become received. I learned that Sin does not exist, there is only the choice not to cause unnecessary pain. I've learned to make mistakes and get back up and that every drop of my blood screams a hymn to life
PAGAN 101
🌿 Introduction to Paganism

Whatever you touch will touch you back. The simplest way that I can try to explain it is that when you spend time touching the core of the earth, soaking in the stars, communing with the moon, aligning with the elements, working with the gods and spirits—it changes a person.

JMat Auryn

You are just living with cycles, like the rest of nature. The magic is yours, a witch unto yourself. You are beholden to no one but connected to many as you stand at the forest’s edge. May the strong ones guard you May the old ones guide you May enchantment surround you This day and all the days of your life.

Christine Grace

When they ask to see your gods
your book of prayersShow them lines
drawn delicately with veins
on the underside of a bird's wing
Tell them you believe
in giant sycamores mottled
and stark against a winter skyAnd in nights so frozen
stars crack open spilling streams
of molten ice to earth
And tell them how you drank
the holy wine of honeysuckle
on a warm spring dayAnd of the softness
of your mother
who never taught you
death was life's reward
But who believed in the earth
and the sunand a million, million light years
of being.

J.L. Stanley

We are at a critical turning point in the history of the planet, at a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future holds both great dangers and great opportunities. To move forward, we must recognize that amidst such a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms, we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must come together to build a sustainable global society, founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice and a culture of peace. To this end it is imperative that we, the peoples of the Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the great community of life, and to future generations.

Humanity is part of a great evolving universe. The Earth, our home, is alive and home to a unique living community. The forces of nature make existence a demanding and uncertain adventure, but the Earth has provided the essential conditions for the evolution of life. The resistance of the community of living beings and the well-being of humanity depend on the preservation of the health of the biosphere, with all its ecological systems, a rich variety of plants and animals, the fertility of the soil, the purity of the air and water. The global environment, with its finite resources, is a common concern of all peoples. Safeguarding the Earth's vitality, diversity and beauty is a sacred commitment.

The dominant systems of production and consumption are causing environmental devastation, the depletion of resources and a massive extinction of living species. Whole communities are destroyed. The benefits of development are not equally distributed and the gap between rich and poor is widening. Injustice, poverty, ignorance and violent conflicts are widespread and cause great suffering. The unprecedented increase in human population has overloaded ecological and social systems. The very foundations of global security are under threat. These trends are dangerous, but not inevitable.

The choice is up to us: either we create a global alliance to protect the Earth and care for each other, or we risk destruction, our own and that of the diversity of life. We need radical changes in our values, institutions and lifestyles. We must realize that, once basic needs have been met, human development consists first of all in being more, not in having more. We have the knowledge and technology to provide for all, and to reduce our impact on the environment. The emergence of a global civil society is creating new opportunities for building a humane and democratic world. Our environmental, economic, political, social and spiritual challenges are interconnected, and together we can forge solutions that encompass them all.

To realize these aspirations we must decide to live with a sense of universal responsibility, identifying ourselves with the whole Earth community, as well as with our local communities. We are, at the same time, citizens of different nations and of a single world, in which the local and global dimensions are linked. Each bears his share of responsibility for the present and future welfare of the human family and the wider world of living beings. The spirit of human solidarity and kinship with all life is strengthened when we live with profound respect for the mystery of being, with gratitude for the gift of life, and with humility regarding the place human beings occupy in nature . We urgently need a shared vision of core values that provide an ethical foundation for the emerging global community.

Carta della Terra

White Privilege, Racism, White Denial & The Cost of Inequality

The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that. Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites at other people’s expense, whether whites know/like it or not. Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person who likes black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you. Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on. So while I agree with people who say no one is born racist, it remains a powerful system that we’re immediately born into. It’s like being born into air: you take it in as soon as you breathe. It’s not a cold that you can get over. There is no anti-racist certification class. It’s a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it. I know it’s hard work, but it’s the price you pay for owning everything.

Scott Woods

Though many non-Native Americans have learned very little about us, over time we have had to learn everything about them. We watch their films, read their literature, worship in their churches, and attend their schools. Every third-grade student in the United States is presented with the concept of Europeans discovering America as a "New World" with fertile soil, abundant gifts of nature, and glorious mountains and rivers. Only the most enlightened teachers will explain that this world certainly wasn't new to the millions of indigenous people who already lived here when Columbus arrived.

Wilma Mankiller

A History Of Broken Treaties

Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pokanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun. Will we let ourselves be destroyed in our turn without a struggle, give up our homes, our country bequeathed to us by the Great Spirit, the graves of our dead and everything that is dear and sacred to us? I know you will cry with me, 'Never! Never!'

Tecumseh

I Compagni di un giorno o partiti o venduti, sembra si giri attorno a pochi sopravvissuti... Proprio per questo ora io vorrei ascoltare una voce che ancora incominci a cantare: In un giorno d'ottobre, in terra boliviana, con cento colpi è morto Ernesto "Che" Guevara... Il terzo mondo piange, ognuno adesso sa che "Che" Guevara è morto, forse non tornerà, ma voi reazionari tremate, non sono finite le rivoluzioni e voi, a decine, che usate parole diverse, le stesse prigioni, da qualche parte un giorno, dove non si saprà, dove non l'aspettate, il "Che" ritornerà.

Francesco Guccini

Oggi la nuova resistenza in che cosa consiste. Ecco l'appello ai giovani: di difendere queste posizioni che noi abbiamo conquistato; di difendere la Repubblica e la democrazia. E cioè, oggi ci vuole due qualità a mio avviso cari amici: l'onestà e il coraggio. L'onestà... l'onestà... l'onestà. E quindi l'appello che io faccio ai giovani è questo: di cercare di essere onesti, prima di tutto: la politica deve essere fatta con le mani pulite. Se c'è qualche scandalo. Se c'è qualcuno che da' scandalo; se c'è qualche uomo politico che approfitta della politica per fare i suoi sporchi interessi, deve essere denunciato!

Sandro Pertini

Il comunismo è ancora un ideale di uguaglianza, fratellanza e comunione universale, che non è mai stato veramente realizzato. Il suo fallimento nell’applicazione pratica, dove c’è stata, è dovuto al fatto che l’uguaglianza si è dimostrata un’utopia, perché gli uomini non vogliono essere tutti uguali (un altro che aveva lo stesso ideale, qualche anno prima, l’hanno messo in croce); l’applicazione pratica della filosofia marxista si è scontrata col fatto nudo e crudo che chiunque avesse un minimo di potere si sentiva autorizzato ad essere “più uguale degli altri”, ad avere maggiori privilegi e ad opporsi con violenza a chiunque cercasse di impedirgli di farne uso. La filosofia era buona e RESTA buona: anzi, resta l’unica filosofia accettabile per chi pensa che tutti gli esseri umani debbano avere gli stessi diritti e le stesse chanches.

Senza contare, poi, che un ipotetico comunismo moderno somiglierebbe a quello di Stalin o di Mao come il cattolicesimo di oggi somiglia alla Santa Inquisizione. Neppure a quello di Marx, potrebbe somigliare, visto che sono passati centocinquant’ anni e che il quadro storico, politico ed economico è completamente diverso da quello di allora. Un ipotetico comunismo di oggi, però, manterrebbe la propria ideologia di base: gli uomini sono tutti uguali, gli uomini vanno liberati dalla schiavitù del lavoro salariato, il profitto non può e non deve essere dei pochi a discapito dei molti. Sono comunista e me ne vanto, perché penso che il comunismo sia ancora un ideale “vero” e che si possa lavorare per ottenere qualcosa di MOLTO diverso da ciò che è stato messo in pratica con il nome di “socialismo reale” (e che avrebbe dovuto chiamarsi “socialismo fasullo e spesso aberrante”), ma soprattutto qualcosa di molto diverso da ciò che ha ottenuto fino ad oggi il capitalismo, tanto “liberale” quanto assassino.

Valeria Rossi

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sabato 13 ottobre 2012

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