ceilidh_chaos

Last Chance to Advertise in Pagan Festival Program 11:59am TODAY deadline

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:52:57 GMT

Dear Friends in the Community;

The Pagan Festival, sponsored by The Pagan Alliance, is Saturday, May 9, 2009. The program/resource guide will be distributed to the general public and the media. We ask you to consider advertising your business, organization, or event. Advertising prices are the same as 2008!

This is a fantastic opportunity to increase your visibility to members of both Pagan and mainstream communities that will be in attendance. Attendees will be reminded of your wares and/or services throughout the year. Programs are often kept as souvenirs of the event.

Advertising Costs for the 2009 Pagan Parade & Festival are as follows:
Type Size Price
Quarter Page 2.75 inches wide and 4.25 inches tall $40
Half Page 5.5 inches wide and 4.25 inches tall $55
Whole Page 5.5 inches wide and 8.5 inches tall $80

http://www.thepaganalliance.org/?pageid=127

Submit art to sarah@sarahsoward.com

12:01 pm is too late. This is your last chance to get in on this opportunity!

Thanks

JoHanna White
President, Pagan Alliance

Pagan Festival 5/9/09 Need Volunteers, Spread the Word!

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:00:15 GMT

Hello Pagan Festival Friends, Former Volunteers & Community Members,

I'd like to thank you for taking the time to consider volunteering in order to put on the 8th Annual Pagan Festival & Pride Parade. Please look below and see what you would like to volunteer for and what shifts. You can volunteer for one shift or for the entire day. Blessed are the volunteers. Please email me at johanna@thepaganalliance.org

Thank you

JoHanna White
President, Pagan Alliance
Interim Volunteer Coordinator
Parade Coordinator

The available shifts are as follows:

Set-up

6am-10am

Morning

10-Noon

Parade launches @ Noon, Community Ritual @ Parade's Arrival Back at the Park

Afternoon Shifts

Noon-2:30pm
2:30-4pm
4-5:30pm

Tear-Down

5:30pm-7:30pm Tear-down @ the Park
7:30-9pm Tear-Down, Hauling & Repacking into Storage (Special Rewards See Below!)

All Volunteers are entitled to attend the after-party *****INFO INSERTED HERE*****
There will also be a Volunteer Appreciation Party this summer.

**************************************************
Volunteers Needed For:

Media Assistant (may be filled?)

Assist with distribution of media packets, give break to Communications Goddess, and assist with media personnel. Will be able to answer basic questions about the Pagan Alliance. Will be trained.

Escorts to Keeper of the Light- Will walk in the parade next to the Keeper of the Light vehicle. (Pagan Journalists are especially welcome!)

Assistant at Authors Circle-Will be responsible for providing refreshments to the authors and assist with signings and keeping activities on schedule.

Assistants to Ritualist

Assists with logistics of the ritual. Preparation of ritual space, assistance with logistics during the ritual, and clearing ritual space prior to stage performances.

Environmental Director Assistant
Responsible For-Monitoring Recycling and Trash bins, helps supervise Clean up and assists with disposal of Trash, assists with taking recycling to Berkeley Recycling Center and returning Trash and Recycling Frames to the City of Berkeley.

Arts and Crafts Pavilion
Assists with set-up and take-down of Arts and Crafts Pavilion. Help with craft making. This year the crafts are wand, hat and mask making. All materials will be provided.

Druid Storytelling Pavilion
Assists set up and TakeDown of Druid Storytelling Pavilion,

Security
Set up (not all), Take down, crowd control, secure ritual area, help with parade, surveillance of vendor area, direct people, secure back stage. All security will receive a Pagan Alliance safety shirt.

Asst Stage Manager
Assist & interact live sound crew, keep performers, speakers, MCs on schedule. Includes load in & load out of talent (supervising, not assisting), access to necessary power sources for musicians, and logistical stage needs as they arise (ie keeping the ramp clear). The Stage Manager is responsible in creating the final schedule of performers and speakers, including performance times, and load-in/out times. In addition, responsible for direction of Stage Crew Volunteers as needed.

Stage Crew
Assist Stage Manager and Assistant Manager. Check in performers. Monitor Schedule. Help performers on and off stage. Communicate with sound booth. Make sure Green Room has refreshments.

Stage decoration Set-up (4 volunteers needed)
Assists the Art Director with Set-up and Removal of stage decorations.

Vendor Coordinator Assistants (2)
Arrive on Site at 7 am. Monitor Load-in to make sure that vendors set up in correct designated location.

Info Table Assistants (8 needed)
Assist Info Table Coordinator with directing people to appropriate areas and staff, program and site map distribution, assist with the raffle, and tee-shirt sales.

Volunteer Check In
Check in volunteers and hand out instruction sheets.

Volunteer Food Table (4 needed)
Set up/Take down of table. Staff table to serve volunteers food.

Site Manager Assistants and volunteers
Assist the site manager unload/load truck, assure that site is set up by 10:00 am. Assistants are needed for both the Morning Shift (6:00 am-10 am) and the Evening Shift (5:30 pm-8:30 pm). Evening shift assistances are to help load-out at storage.

Site Set up
Arrive at 6-6:30 am. Set up canopies. Distribute tables and Chairs. Hang signs and Banners.

Go For
Make runs for Printing, Ice, supplies, food, etc… Should have own Vehicle.

Take Down
5:30 pm to 7:30 pm. Take down canopies, take down trash and recycling frames, load truck, pick up street cones, remove signs and parking meter no parking signs.
7:30-9pm helps with haul & repacking items to storage in Alameda. The volunteers who help in storage will be taken to a restaurant for dinner. One that serves alcohol. Cocktails.

More Info: http:://www.thepaganalliance.org

Mar a bha,
Mar a tha,
Mar a bhitheas
Gu brath...
Ri tràgadh,
‘S ri lionadh.
As it was,
As it is,
As it shall be
Evermore...
With the ebb,
With the flow

Lesbian gangraped in Richmond

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:29:28 GMT

RICHMOND, CA (KGO) -- Richmond Police are making a public plea for help in solving a vicious gang rape and are offering a $10,000 reward leading to their arrest. Police say a lesbian was kidnapped by four men as she was getting out of her car at 9:30 p.m. Saturday night near Visalia and 15th Streets in the city's Belding-Wood Neighborhood.

Police described the attack as life-altering, shocking and brutal.

A 28-year-old woman parked her car along a residential street in Richmond's Belding-Wood Neighborhood near the end of the BART line last Saturday night. It was 9:30 p.m. As she walked away, police say a man aggressively approached her.

Story continues below
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"He physically assaulted her with a blunt object, striking her on the head. He robbed her and disrobed her and began sexually assaulting her there on the street," said Lt. Mark Gagan, with the Richmond Police Department.

Three other suspects warned someone was coming. They forced the woman into her car and drove her seven blocks, to a dead end section of Burbeck Avenue. There police say she was repeatedly sexually assaulted, then dragged out of the car to some abandoned apartments, where the assault continued.

"The most disturbing aspect of this is during the sexual assault, the suspects were saying things about her sexual orientation, which we believe has now made this a hate crime. Our victim is a lesbian who is openly gay. On her car are stickers supporting the gay community," said Lt. Gagan.

The suspects drove off in her car. The victim, naked and seriously injured, found help and was hospitalized.

"This case seems a bit more unusual because it's very public. It was a gang rape in which the survivor chose to come forward, which is a very courageous act," said Tina D'Elia, from Community United Against Violence.

Armed with substantial physical evidence, police are looking for four suspects.

"The unique thing about this is there were three Hispanics and one black male involved in the sexual assault. That's unique. That coupled with the fact that one had the nickname 'Pato', who was a Hispanic male, and the black male's nickname was 'Blue.' We're hoping those facts will allow someone to say, 'Hey I know those guys,'" said Gagan.

The victim is now out of the hospital.

Even seasoned detectives say they are deeply disturbed as they investigate this crime. They describe it as very vicious in nature and are anxious to get to who and where those suspects are.

Richmond Police are pleading for the community to come forward and call in with any tips or information.

Anyone with information about any of the suspects is asked to call Detective Ysenia Rogers at (510) 672-1718.

Traditional Marriage Perverts Traditional Marriage (an editorial)

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:30:26 GMT

Traditional Marriage Perverts the Tradition of Marriage
A brilliant playwright (and close personal friend of mine) recently sent this editorial out regarding Prop 8. I thought I'd share.

Traditional Marriage Perverts the Tradition of Marriage
by Jeff Goode (Californian)

About a decade ago, as a young playwright, I was hired to write a script for the Renaissance Festival of Kansas City. It was a period piece about knights and jousts and intrigues of the court, building up to a lavish royal wedding between a prince and a princess, restoring peace to the troubled land.

This was one of my first professional writing assignments, so I was really excited about doing all the research and making sure that everything was historically accurate, especially the royal wedding which needed to follow all the traditions exactly.

Over a summer of research, I learned a lot of surprising facts about the history of marriage and weddings, but by far the most shocking discovery of all was that the tradition of marriage-as-we-know-it simply did not exist in those days. Almost everything we have come to associate with marriage and weddings -- the white dress, the holy vows, the fancy cake and the birdseed -- dates back a mere 50 or 100 years at the most. In many cases less.

And the handful of traditions that do go back farther than that are, frankly, horrifying. The tossing of the garter, for example, evolved from a 14th Century tradition of ripping the clothing off of the bride's body as she left the ceremony in order to "loosen her up" for the wedding night. Wedding guests fought over the choicest bits of undergarment, with the garter being the greatest prize.

Savvy brides got in the habit of carrying extra garters in their bodice to throw to the male guests in hopes of escaping the ceremony with some shred of modesty intact!

It turns out that marriage, in days of old, was a barbaric custom which was little more than a crude exchange of livestock at its most civilized, and a little less than ritualized abduction at its worst. That's why you'll find no reference to white weddings in the Bible, or the union of one man and one woman. Because up until fairly recently, there was nothing religious about it.

You will of course find plenty of biblical bigamy, practiced by even the most godly of heroes-- Noah, Abraham, David, Solomon -- because that's what marriage was in those days. Even in more enlightened New Testament times, the only wedding worth mentioning (the one at Cana) is notable only for the miraculous amount of wine consumed.

In the 21st Century, we've heard a lot about the sanctity of marriage, as if that were something that has been around forever, but in reality the phrase was invented in 2004. Google it for yourself and see if you can find a single reference to the "sanctity of marriage" before the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized same-sex unions in that state. The proverbial Sanctity of Marriage sprang into being because opponents of gay marriage needed a logical reason to overturn an established legal precedent. And the only thing that trumps the Constitution is God himself.

Unfortunately, God is still pretty new to the whole marriage game (or he might have made an honest woman out of the Virgin Mary, am I right? Try the veal!)

The truth is that marriage has always been more a secular tradition rather than a religious one. Up until the early Renaissance, in fact, couples were traditionally married on the church's front doorstep, because wedding ceremonies were considered too vulgar to be performed inside the building: After all, there was implied sex in the vows and shameless public displays of affection. No clergyman in his right mind would have allowed such an unholy abomination on the premises.

But as times changed, ideas and attitudes about marriage also changed. So when people became religious, matrimony became holy. When people became nudists, clothing became optional. And so on throughout history.

And the wonderful thing about the institution of marriage -- the reason it has remained strong and relevant through thousands of years of ever-changing times -- is its unique ability to change with those times.

Marriage is, and always has been, a constantly evolving tradition that never fails to incorporate the latest shifts in culture and climate, changing social habits, fashions and even fads. (Because, seriously, that chicken dance is not in the Bible.)

Thus, in the 1800s when the sole purpose of marriage was procreation and housekeeping, marriage between an older man and a hard-working tween girl was considered perfectly normal. Today we call it pedophilia.

For thousands of years marriage was essentially a business transaction between the parents of the bride and groom. But in the last century or so, we've finally seen the triumph of this new-fangled notion that marriage should be about a loving relationship between two consenting adults.

Followers of the Mormon faith can tell you that the traditions of their forefathers included a devout belief that polygamy was appropriate and sanctified. But modern Mormons generally don't support that vision of happiness for their daughters.

And during the Civil Rights era, when opponents of interracial marriage tried to pass laws making such couples illegal, we came to realize that they, too, were wrong in trying to redefine marriage to prevent those newfound relationships.

Always marriage has triumphed by becoming a timely celebration of our society, rather than a backlash against it. It's strange, then, to see "tradition" used as a weapon against change, when change is the source of all its greatest traditions.

Just ask the white dress: In 1840, Queen Victoria of England married Prince Albert wearing a beautiful white lace dress -- in defiance of tradition -- in order to promote the sale of English lace! The image was so powerful that practically overnight the white wedding gown became de rigueur for the well-heeled bride. And then it became de rigueur for every bride.

By the dawn of the 20th Century, the white dress had also inexplicably come to symbolize chastity. (Even though blue was traditionally the color of virginity --"something borrowed, something blue...")

And the new equation of white with virginity eventually achieved such a rigid orthodoxy that older readers may remember a time when wedding guests who happened to know that the bride was not perfectly pure would have felt a moral obligation to demand that she change into something off-white before walking down the aisle.

Fortunately, as cultural norms eased during the Sexual Revolution, a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" policy took hold where all brides were required to wear white regardless of their virtue and the less said about it the better.

In recent years, as a generation of divorcees have remarried and a generation of young people have entered wedlock with some degree of "experience", the pretense of a connection between literal virginity and the bridal gown has become entirely obsolete. A colorful journey for a custom which has always seemed iron clad, even as it was evolving over time.

And not all traditions have to do with changing sexual standards. The long-time custom of pelting the newlyweds with birdseed did not exist before the 1970s when animal-lovers realized that songbirds were bloating on dried rice that they found on the ground after the former custom.

Economic times have caused families to rethink the age-old convention of the bride's father paying for the entire ceremony -- a last vestige of the days of dowries when a young man had to be bribed to take a free-loading daughter off her parents' hands -- that well-established custom has gradually given way to a more humane approach to sharing the financial burden.

Even religious traditions of marriage have experienced constant metamorphosis over the years. As more interfaith couples have wed, we have seen the emergence of multi-disciplinary ceremonies where couples have chosen not to follow the out-dated tradition of rejecting one or both of their faiths as a prerequisite of holy matrimony.

One of the most beautiful weddings I ever attended was between a young Jewish fellow and his Catholic fiancé, whose mother was born in France. The ceremony was performed by both a rabbi and a priest with intertwining vows in English, Latin, Hebrew and French. A perfect expression of the union of their two families, yet one which would have been unthinkable just a generation before.

But, again, marriage has such a long history of changing with the ever-changing times, that the last thing we should expect from it is to stop growing and changing. We know today that marriage is not a rote ritual handed down by God to Adam & Eve and preserved verbatim for thousands of years. It is, rather, an expression of how each community, each culture, and each faith, chooses to celebrate the joining of loved ones who have decided to make a life together.

Christians do not expect Jesus to be central to a Buddhist wedding, nor do Jews refuse to acknowledge Lutheran unions because they didn't include a reading from the Torah. Marriage is what we each make of it. And that's the way it always should be.

Perhaps the greatest irony of the traditional marriage argument is that it seeks to preserve a singular tradition that has, in fact, never existed at any point in history.

Because, honestly, which traditional definition of marriage do we want our Constitution to protect?

...The one from Book of Genesis when family values meant multiple wives and concubines?
...Or the marriages of the Middle Ages when women were traded like cattle and weddings were too bawdy for church?
...Since this is America, should we preserve marriage as it existed in 1776 when arranged marriages were still commonplace?
...Or the traditions of 1850 when California became a state and marriage was customarily between one man and one woman-or-girl of age 11 and up?
...Or are we really seeking to protect a more modern vision of traditional marriage, say from the 1950s when it was illegal for whites to wed blacks or Hispanics?
...Or the traditional marriage of the late 1960s when couples were routinely excommunicated for marrying outside their faith?

No, the truth of the matter is, that we're trying to preserve traditional marriage the way it "was and always has been" during a very narrow period in the late 70s / early 80s - just before most of us found out that gays even existed: Between one man and one woman of legal age and willing consent. Regardless of race or religion (within reason). Plus the chicken dance and the birdseed. Those are okay.

But there's something profoundly disturbing about amending the Constitution to define anything about the 1970s as "the way God intended it."

posted by Archie Levine at 5:12 PM

Bumble

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:58:22 GMT

I am missing my dear friend, and so happy that I managed to see him in the hospital and give him the painting Morgan Mischief did for him. She is obsessed with Bumble Be's right now. She's been painting them, having me paint them, drawing them, making them out of playdough. When she asked yesterday where Bumble Be was and when she was going to get to see him, I didnt know what to tell her and so I said "Everywhere" She found my answer inadequate. When I told her bumble bee's were him visiting her she looked thoughtful and left the room. I wish I could have explained it better. I am thinking about the Egyspt trip he had planned for this winter and the oil of jasmine that he had told me he would bring back for me when I told him about my battle with infertility. He was a majikal faerie, a brilliant being. I wonder who has the manuscript for his book and if it's in any shape to be published at least in the faerie community. *sigh* I need to get back to work.

My stepdaughter's mom makes the news

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:44:09 GMT

She's the Ms. Lopez in the article

Vaca, Winters drug search nets 11 arrests
By Reporter Staff/
Article Launched: 10/30/2008 01:02:05 AM PDT

A drug-related arrest in Vacaville Tuesday led investigators to Winters, and ultimately yielded 11 arrests.

Police say they've been investigating 41-year-old Brent Mills of Winters for about two months in connection with drug trafficking. On Tuesday afternoon, he was seen meeting with Vacaville residents Ashley Lopez, 25, and Joseph McGraw, 28. All were later detained.

Police said four grams of methamphetamine was found in Mills' vehicle; and 1.5 grams was found on Lopez, who allegedly got it from McGraw.

Mills was arrested on suspicion of transportation and possession of methamphetamine for sale. Both Lopez and McGraw were arrested on suspicion of methamphetamine possession. Lopez also was on suspicion of possessing stolen checks and committing a crime while on bail. All were booked in the Solano County Jail.

Later, officers served a warrant on Mills' residence in the 27000 block of Buckeye Road in Winters and found methamphetamine, evidence of methamphetamine sales and use, and a loaded handgun, police said.

Michael Riley, 51, found to be the primary tenant, later was arrested on suspicion of possession of narcotic paraphernalia and maintaining a dwelling where narcotics are used, police said. His daughter, 33-year-old Chantel Riley of Winters, and 44-year-old Robert Frates, who sublet a room on the property, both were arrested on suspicion of possession of narcotic paraphernalia.

Meanwhile, Winters residents Mary Romiski, 42, and John Hameke,
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49; and Vacaville residents Alvino Gonzales, 54, and Margaret Gloria, 47, were "in the process of smoking methamphetamine when they were contacted in an outbuilding on the property," police said. All were arrested on suspicion of methamphetamine possession, while Romiski and Hameke also were arrested on outstanding warrants.

A probation search of 38-year-old Vacaville resident Staci Coleman, who was visiting at the residence, apparently revealed drugs in her possession and she was arrested on suspicion of methamphetamine possession.

Chantel Riley and Frates were released on a citation. The others were booked into Yolo County Jail.

The Vacaville Police Department has a zero tolerance policy towards illegal drug use. Anyone with information regarding illegal drug use and sales is asked to call the Police Department's Drug Tip Line at 449-5243.

No on 8 Rally in Vacaville Today

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:50:35 GMT

Monday, October 27th, 4:30 - 6 pm. Visibility in Vacaville. Join us at the intersection of E. Monte Vista & Nut Tree Road to smile and wave No on Prop 8 rally signs at passing motorists so that we can help guide Vacaville to vote on the right side of history. We need volunteers for this event. Please email jeffndave@gmail.com to sign-up and be sure to include your name, phone number and the first names of anyone you are bringing with you, so that we can get a head count and make sure there are enough rally signs on hand.

Call for Volunteers

Thu, 01 May 2008 20:37:46 GMT

Hey you know you want to spend some time helping
out your local Pagan 501c3! We put on Berkeley's
Pagan Festival, which this year will be on May
10th. And if you haven't been, it's not to be
missed! Let us know what you are passionate
about and we'll find a way for you to lend a
hand. You can help the day of or start helping
us prepare right away. We've been working since
last year!

Volunteers Needed For:

**Pre-Event**
Donation Gathering & other preparation (Like Flyering, etc)
Contact us Right away if you are interested, at www.thepaganalliance.org

**Day Of Festival**

Security and First Aid
Set up (not all), Take down, crowd control,
secure ritual area, help with parade,
surveillance of vendor area, EMT, ask questions,
direct people, secure back stage.

Stage Design and Set-up
Design Stage, Organize and Secure materials,
Secure Volunteers for Set-up and Removal of
stage decorations.

Vendor Coordinator Assistants (2)
Arrive on Site at 7 am. Monitor Load-in to make
sure that vendors set up in correct designated
location.

Green Pavilion
Set-up & Staffing

Info Table
Direct people to appropriate areas and people.
Hand out programs and site maps.

Volunteer Check In
Check in volunteers and hand out instruction
sheets.

Stage Crew
Assist Stage Manager and Assistant Manager.
Check in of performers. Monitor Schedule. Help
performers on and off stage. Communicate with
sound booth. Make sure Green Room has
refreshments.

Art and Craft Pavilion

Help set up or tear down
hang out and help people make art all day
Make sure supplies and donations are secure

Site Set up
Arrive at 6-6:30 am. Set up canopies. Distribute
tables and Chairs. Hang signs and Banners.
Assist Recycling Manager with Trash and
Recycling set-up.

Go For
Make runs for Printing, Ice, supplies, food,
etc? Should have own Vehicle.

Take Down
5:30 pm to 7 pm. Take down canopies, take down
trash and recycling frames, load truck, pick up
street cones, remove signs and parking meter no
parking signs.

Assistant to Ritualist

Assistant to Keeper of the Light

Assistant at Authors Circle

Altar Set up
Main altar set up and take down.

Assistant at Altars

Children's Craft Area Supervisors

Tee shirt sales
Help sell Pagan Alliance Tee shirts

Visit us at www.thepaganalliance.org
or call 877-467-5527

Wedding planning wow

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:25:04 GMT

I am hard @ work planning my 10/31/07 wedding. Who would've thought? I need a hand or three getting stuff ready, preparing the house, etc. and if you havent got me your mailing address you better do that.

My Cup Runneth Over

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:59:53 GMT

Yes, yes those of you who follow my blogs are used to the neverending lonely-sad-bla bla that is usually in them, but ho look out now dragonrider. My life went through a HUGE shift this midsummer and an old special someone came back into my life and another old friend but now new someone special is making this luscious 3way relationship fabulous! They both moved in with me this week and we are now preparing to take the world by storm! hehehe. Want specifics? call me.

Johanna Coash the Graduate!

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 02:04:54 GMT



"Johanna Coash the Graduate!" on Google Video
This is yon faerie princess at her illustrious graduation from New College. Laugh, Cry, and pay attention. You may want to take notes.

Watch my graduation speech online

Sun, 27 May 2007 07:18:41 GMT

yes i know you are all very proud.

Eris loves me this I know, all the chaos tells me so

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 08:20:45 GMT

I wreaked my truck in2 a tree, on way back from hotsprings & eco arts fieldtrip, totally totalled it, i am sore, and in pain, but otherwise ok. am a little doped on vicoden. whoot.

The truck died going down 29 between middletown & calistoga. very steep windy mountain road fyi. hit brakes, no stop AHHHHHH! Traffic stopped for construction & i didnt want to pulverize the man in the small Echo. So i veered off road, trying actually to go up an uphill driveway, with the hope that i would lose momentum and be able to stop safely, and hit an oak tree, narrowly missing a cliff. 3 feet over . Had I gone over that I have my doubts about whether I would not be typing this. Hardcore Reality Check I must say. Time 4 anoter pill and bed. Typing tthis hurts,

Hey I made a cover story in East Bay Express!

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 03:37:49 GMT

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/2007-03-28/news/raising-pagans

First Spiral Scouts meeting

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 05:52:01 GMT

wow. it went great. a photographer came from the east bay express and took a bunch of pics. The spiral scout troop is going to be the cover story of the express 3/28/07. look for it.

6th Annual Pagan Festival 5/12/07 Berkeley, CA

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 21:00:45 GMT

6th Annual Pagan Festival-Berkeley, California-Presented by Pagan Alliance
Saturday, May 12, 2007-10:00 am to 5:30 pm
FREE-All Are Welcome!!!

Theme: Magical Journeys
This year our festival focuses on Children and Young Adults. Our theme represents the many paths we take and the lessons we learn on the way to finding our spirituality.

Honored Keeper of the Light- Patrick Mc Collum, Statewide Wiccan Chaplain for the California Department of Corrections and Author of “A Wiccan Journey” and “Courting The Lady” and Teacher of Witchcraft, Magic, Herb Lore, Pagan history and Pagan Spirituality.

MCs- Shay Black- Irish Singer & Musician and Angelique Heddings-Magical Acts Ritual Theatre and Limerent Arts Theater Company, Artistic Director

Child Sized Procession , Interfaith Ritual by Children & Young Adults, Vendors, Performances, Speakers, Traditional Dance, Music, Altars, Children's Crafts, Druid Story Telling Pavilion, Authors Circle, Info Booths, Food
Stage Performances include:
Women and Song featuring DJ Hamouris - www.ninshibar.com
Ariellah - Goth/Tribal Fusion Belly Dance www.ariellah.com
Shay Black - www.black-brothers.com

Prizes for Best Girl's, Boy's, Woman's and Man's Costumes

Volunteers Wanted for pre Festival and Festival Day
Children and Young Adult volunteers to take an active role in the Interfaith Ritual are especially welcome

Support Your Community
Please bring non-perishable food donations for the Alameda County Community Food Bank http://www.accfb.org/ and Monetary Donations for the Parental Stress Service-A Family Support Agency http://www.familypaths.org/

WHERE:
Civic Center Park -2151 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley CA 94704
Downtown Berkeley BART - 1 ½ blocks west to Civic Center Park
Carpooling is Encouraged - Limited Handicap Parking adjacent to Park

To request communication accommodations, such as large print, Braille, or sign language interpreters, please call (877) 467-5527. At least one week's notice will ensure availability.

Info:www.paganfestival.org & www.thepaganalliance.org (510) 872-1188

Nazgul is my bunny!

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 09:03:46 GMT

So much to do

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:59:23 GMT

I have to do a million things, but I am tired and just want to sleep. IS it soooo wrong to desire rest when there is so much homework to do? Got one response paper done on homeschooling. My Homeschooling reader is almost finished. I have to get all of the independant study on homschool work done by March 9th. That way I can concentrate on my independant study on Spirituality & Education Independant Study. There's my final project: the spiral scouts troop too. That's really taking off. I have bellydance class tomorrow night and a potluck for my eco-arts class afterwards. I'll be home late again *sigh* All i really want is a vacation, a good snuggle and some passionate kisses. not necessarily in that order.

Lookeee I'm in the Newspaper

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 19:07:00 GMT

From eastbayexpress.com
Originally published by East Bay Express 2006-10-25
©2005 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.

A Spell on You
It's their New Year, and they're not curling up with books by Dr. Phil.
By Chris Ulbrich

Who / What:
Wicca

How can you tell if your neighbor is a witch? It's actually easier to tell if she's not. Just check her bookshelves. If she doesn't have anything more than a few Robert Parker mysteries, a Dr. Phil Life Strategies workbook, and a mint-condition hardback of The Bridges of Madison County — she's not.
Because witches read.

"If you were to walk into my house, you would see nineteen bookcases," says Oakland journalist and witch Victoria Slind-Flor. "We are the people of not one book; we are the people of many, many, many books."

Slind-Flor practices the nature-based religion of Wicca, whose new year falls on the day most of us know as Halloween, but which witches call Samhain (pronounced SOW-un). Its most sacred ritual, she says, is the spiral dance, which celebrates the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. "Before we do that we invoke all the ancestors to join us," she says. "It's a sense that those who are no longer with us are with us, and those who are yet to come are here already." In that spirit, Slind-Flor recommends The Pagan Book of Living and Dying (HarperSanFrancisco, $18) by Starhawk, M. Macha NightMare, and the Reclaiming Collective. "This is a book in which a lot of pagans in the Bay Area have written about their own experiences in priestessing death," she says. "It has prayers for people to say or sing when someone is dying. It even has instructions for how to do your own cremation if necessary."

For spellcrafting, Jessica Rabbit, owner of the Sacred Well in Berkeley, turns to Paul Beyerl's Compendium of Herbal Magick (Phoenix, $24.50). "It's everything you want in a witchy book," she says. "It's got an A-to-Z guide of all different plants and herbs and their lore and magical properties, and the elements that they relate to and the planets that they're governed by, and the deities that go along with them."

JoHanna Coash, acquisitions coordinator for the Pagan Alliance in Berkeley, calls Robert Moss' Dreaming True (Pocket, $17.95) an "absolutely fabulous" guide to dream analysis. "You can actually realize that something is going to happen before it happens," she says.

Coash says she's been practicing witchcraft since age eleven, but not as a Wiccan. "I personally fall in several categories," she says. "I'm a pagan. I'm also an Erisian and I'm an animist and I'm a faerie."

Erisian?

"I worship Eris, the goddess of chaos and discord," she says. "Hail Eris."

Don Frew, interfaith representative for the national pagan organization Covenant of the Goddess, is enjoying Lairs of the Hidden Gods (Kurodahan, $20/book), a shivery multivolume collection of Lovecraftian short stories by Japanese authors. But the book that has him scribbling in the margins is Sam Harris's vigorous — and in Frew's opinion blinkered — indictment of religion, The End of Faith (Norton, $13.95). "It's infuriating me," he says. "He'll make statements like, 'All religions have either moderates or extremists.' I'm going, like, 'What's an extremist Taoist?'"

Robin Dolan, a director for Magical Acts Ritual Theater, is neck deep in fairy tales — adapted versions of them comprise her latest play. But she also loves the mix of modern settings and magic in Charles de Lint's urban fantasy novels. Her favorite is Moonheart (Orb, $14.95): "Most of the people in his books are like people I would know: people that are artists or that are struggling but are still trying to find beauty and purpose in their lives."

Her Samhain plans? A small gathering with friends. "We'll probably have a quiet night thinking about our lives," she says. Then, come the first of November, it's back to the grind. After all, witches don't get their new year's day off. And even worshippers of the Goddess have to work for the Man.

THe Hunger is Fast Approaching

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 20:48:45 GMT

The Hunger, Erotic Vampire Club:
Vampire Bunny Bloodbath
http://thehunger.org

Friday, November 3rd, 2006
9:00 pm to 3:00 am

Cat Club at 1190 Folsom St.
San Francisco 94103-3927
DJ's Mitch, Glamtasm, Sparkle, Fuzz the Raven, and
Slaveboy. will spin on 2 Dance Floors.
Industrial, Goth, Darkwave, Glam, Garage Rock, 70's and 80’s
Punk, 80's Remixes, and more

"Bloody" Floor dance performances
Lord of the Fangs will be available for your Fang Creations
Tarot by Amara and Druid Animal Oracles by James Bianchi
Costume Contest
Silent Auction
Ice Play Booth, Fur Rub & Biting Booth that will
put you into erotic sensory overload
Club-wide "Bunny Hop" at Midnight.

21+ with valid ID

Dress code is Vampire, Angelic, Gothic, Fetish,
Bunny attire, or combination of Bunny and Vampire

Proceeds from ‘The Hunger’ will benefit the Pagan
Alliance (www.thepaganalliance.org), a non-profit
organization, producers of the Pagan Festival and Parade held
every May in Berkeley

Yeah, Yeah I know you wanna hear all about Venezuela, but I'm not ready to type that much. It'll be up soon tho, I promise

I got a scholarship to go to Venezuela next month

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 20:03:08 GMT

Dear Friends,

I’ve been given a $1500 scholarship to go on a ten day study tour to Venezuela in October. The topic of the study tour is women & social activism. I have to raise another $1500 in order to go. The program has given me a work study position where they will pay me $10/hour to raise money for my trip. However, I need all the help that I can get to raise more money. Small amounts are a help too! If you can’t donate a large amount, don’t feel like you can’t give at all. Donations of even ten, fifteen or twenty dollars help me out a lot if that is all that you can spare. Please respond to this email with your mailing address if you are able to help.

“In this class/tour we will be introduced to some fundamental issues, concepts, and theories that will support our analysis of gender in Venezuela. Initial readings will offer insight into capitalism, race, colonialism, class, biopolitics, and economics. We will attempt to understand the historical conditions that have made this revolution in Venezuela possible, and to what extent it has been a revolution for women and others.

We will begin with the colonization by Spain, early enclosures, construction of race and sexual identities, capitalism, and the creation of a master race for the spread of global capitalism. Examining Venezuela through its export history (cacao, oil) will help to clarify the current legacy. Many tourists, encountering the poverty and degradation of life in Latin America (in this case, Venezuela) would conclude that this is the result of cultural deficiencies, overpopulation, corruption or protectionism. But in light of the history of the country and its relation to the “first world”, underdevelopment can be understood as a process, according to Escobar.

So, we will attempt to understand such concepts as the State, social Darwinism, and Malthusianism, and how these ideas have become hegemonic. Culture and subjectivity are some ways to resist capitalism, patriarchy, and racism.

Also, we will look at the Constitution, the Women’s Bank, and other articulations of women’s struggles in this particular revolution.”

I will be sending a form for you to make a donation to my trip. Please complete the form and send it along with your check or credit card info as soon as possible. As is says on the form, checks are made out to Global Exchange. Credit card donations are easiest to process. While making the minimum pre-printed donation to my trip you will also receive a membership to Global Exchange, which has many benefits including:

• GX quarterly newsletter and action alerts
• Priority consideration on GX Reality Tours
• Discounts at GX Fair Trade Crafts Centers
• Connections to a large network of activists

If you give $50 or more, you will receive a DVD of the study tour. Please help me out however you can. I am very excited about this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Thank you,
JoHanna Coash

Big Bear Ren Faire (SoCal)

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 01:41:22 GMT

I had a lovely time and made some new friends, large & small. It was a far far drive tho and I have to say that the rim of the world highway is {during daylight at least} one of the scariest drives that I have ever been on in my life. Do try to ignore all the dings and bends in the railing. Oh only a few people have gone off the edge dont ya know dear. And there are all these crazy detours in san bernadino, which made life difficult to say the least. I went through the desert the second weekend, and have a couple captain obvious notes: 1: the desert is HOT & 2: I didnt see a single apple tree in Apple Valley. Weekend 1 was fairely uneventful, except for a very strange dream I had about 2 John White clones from the future coming to hang out with me & keep me company, courtesy of a 45 year old JFW. Kevkah came up from oceanside for weekend 2. Paintballers attacked the faery forest while we were at dinner and the signs for the faire were stolen from around the lake. the fairies stole my keys on sunday night so I'd get a good night sleep before I drove off. Heard a few songs that have been in my head ever since on the way home, one of which inspired me to make my first CD purchase in about 2 years. Happily home & this weekend the Ren Faire is in SF. ISnt that great?

Willits Ren Faire

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 22:21:27 GMT

Had a lovely time, got there very early friday and set up the booth then rested the rest of the day. Crystal Clan , a small faire merchant's hospitality guild, & Danse Macabre were both there and it was nice to have 2 guilds I'm affiliated with at the same show. Was right next to the stage and had a great time listening to the shows, Trey the Juggler was very funny & so was Myth & Magic, and there was an awesome traditional storyteller who told tales Cuhulain and Finn MacCumhal, etc. Managed to make 3 sets with the dead. Goddess bless my good and faithful booth help. "Picked her up at the Evil Minion Market, I did" hehehe. Gigged with the Queen, she came into the booth, and I gave her a pin "Dont wish your enemies misfortune, plan it" Made some new friends, saw plenty of old. Had a lot of crazy dreams while I was there. My snugglebuddy said I yelled out "NO!" quite a bit. Something to do with running away from homicidal bunnies in league with the feds. Very Lucid, I manifested a bitchin sportscar for my get-away. anyway.....

But something must be done about this lack of winsome wenches!! There's a drastic shortage.

Oh oh, I got a shiny too!

Journey into the Heart of Chaos

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 22:59:46 GMT

Journey into the Heart of Chaos

hehehe
So My journey to Duncan Mills for the Art & Wine Festival was nothing if not chaotic. The van broke down as soon as I got there. Met some random people: one wants to take me hunting boar with bow and arrow and the other took me out to dinner and dancing. And she was straight so she wasnt even expecting anything. I had a good time. The back of my booth was next to the back of the wine/beer tent, so I made friends with the boys on the other side of the plastic wall and passed them my pint glass whenever it was empty through the velcro. hehehe. Got home safe after a little bit of getting lost

Papers I received A+'s on this semester, posted by request

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 22:58:39 GMT

JoHanna Coash

Violent Youth

Assignment #2: Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge:

The Implications for Our Society

Within the book, Bully, there are a multitude of events with clear and unsettling implications for the larger middle-class society in the United States. Beyond the actual gruesome and premeditated murder of Bobby Kent, for whom I personally can find not even a drop of pity or sorrow, there is the teen-prostitution ring and its affluent clientele, the complete disregard for the lives of others that was shown throughout the trial process by both the adolescent murderers and their parents, whose only real concern was getting their kids off, not on the violent crime that they had committed, as well as the repulsive corruption and moral depravity of the police who broke up the teen prostitution ring while receiving fellatio from sixteen year-old whores. While the murder itself begs for analysis, I believe it is these other events that have darker and more disturbing consequences for our modern culture.

The most horrifying event, for me, is the teen prostitution ring, led by local Captain-with-no-boat, Tom Hildebrand. Tom Hildebrands customers didnt just want sex, {but}they knew exactly what they wanted. They wanted it very badly. Girls, Not women. Girls. The upper limit was sixteen or seventeen. Some of them asked for fourteen year olds, and one even asked for a nine-year old. And they didnt want slum girls. They wanted nice girls, pretty girls from good neighborhoods girls who could have been their own daughters (Schulze, 11). The social implications of upper-middle class men seeking girls for intercourse that resemble in style, caste and culture their own daughters, are clear indications that these men are fantasizing sexually about their daughters, their daughters young friends, and the young girls waiting at the bus stop on the corner near their homes. After this prostitution ring was busted, whom did these men turn to in order to fulfill their desires for adolescent pussy? Perhaps their own daughters, the daughters of their wives or nieces. Tom Hildebrand has a large clientele. This desire that he was supplying was not some bizarre, unusual or unheard of kink. It was frighteningly common, common enough for Tom Hildebrand to make a living off of it. Common enough that hard-working girls pulled in $3,000 a week, after Tom took his 40%. The desire for nice girls to have intercourse with speaks volumes of these mens desire to have their sexual desires fulfilled within their social class, yet still not by their social equals, women of their same age range. They wanted to be in a position of dominance, control as part of the fulfillment of their sexual appetites. What other kind of interaction can there be between a fourteen year-old prostitute, regardless of what kind of business her father owns, and a 40-year-old john? Another effect that society may face as a result of this prostitution ring is an increased disregard for sexual crimes committed upon youth, if people think youth are complacent victims, especially. It is through the mass media exposure to horror that we become desensitized to it. Within a week, the story had faded from the local news. There were no stories in the newspaper asking, How Could This Happen?This story of arrests in a teenage prostitution {ring} passed in and out of local consciousness as if it were a story about a routine drug bust or a bad accident on the freeway (Schulze, 16). Even this book treats the prostitution as a small side note, just to showcase the immorality of involved females, Ali Willis in particular, but I find it to be the more depraved part of the book. One other long-term effect of this on the local community would be that a large part of this new generation of girls who are now women, mothers who hold no value to their sexual selves, beyond what it can get them, and they will raise their daughters up to hold these values as well. Perhaps without even realizing it.

While the camera hummed in the next room, one of the girls performed fellatio on {Detective} Rupp. She stayed with it for thirty-six seconds the amount of time it took him to climax in her mouth. Then Rupp and Santalucia arrested the girls (Schulze, 15). The police detective was perfectly willing to allow a minor girl to perform fellatio on him, and if he had not been an officer of the law, then this would have been committing a lewd act upon a minor. There are a variety of long and short-term effects to this little microcosm of society as well as to the larger one. The systems allowing the police commit such vile acts and then to return to the police force with no more than a slap on the wrists, after an appeal, is, if not an endorsement, at very least an unacceptable level of tolerance of crimes I believe to be as heinous as the murder itself, if not more so. Another effect for society, exposed to this event via the book, Bully, is yet another clear example of police officers being able to flout the laws of our nation, even those that protect our children from sexual abuse, and still continue at their jobs. How can a citizen have any respect for law enforcement or a system that allows this sort of debasement, even the appearance of anger that was exhibited by the DA etc, in the end, the detectives returned to work. That they are making the streets safe for young people seems somewhat doubtful. This encouragement of lack of trust in law enforcement, in youth especially, leads to a society inclined to vigilante justice, non-reporting of crimes and an increased atmosphere of anti-authority, pro-anarchy among effected young people. This book helps spread the message that the cops are out for themselves, dont trust them. The behavior of two Florida police detectives can have wide-reaching ramifications if it is boldly displayed in media, book and theatre-bound cinema. Perhaps it is this massive exposure to the event that is actually more significant than the event itself.

The murder, the centerpiece of this book, was one of the first of its kind: perpetrated by middle-class suburban white youths with the ruthless efficiency if not the know-how of the worst of urban street gangs. It was a violent, bloody and premeditated affair that swept through the media into the national consciousness, where around the nation hundreds of thousands of teens watched Court TV or the evening news and realized that their tormentors were mortal, that they could be slain with a gun or knife and the bullying could be over forever. Columbine, school shootings in Oregon, Arkansas, Minnesota, Washington, and California, among others, are an example of what is now a growing trend in the sweet, safe communities of middle-class white suburbia. This murder created an idea that violence is an answer, even for suburban kids. It is especially true now that not only was there the murder itself and its immediate media coverage, but now there is also the rather sensationalized book and the movie starring some pretty attractive people playing the parts of some very average looking people. Here we go inundating youth even more with this glorified idea that violence is a sexy and successful way to solve an interpersonal conflict.

The parents and families of the various murder conspirators, the Connellys in particular, were much more concerned with this events impact on their child, rather than on the brutal nature of the crime that they had committed. These parents wanted the kids off. Off. They wanted the kids to walk. They didnt understand why Donnelly {DA} was being such a hard case about it. He kept hearing phrases like just kids, stupid kids, wrong place at the wrong time, running with the wrong crowd. Running with the wrong crowd? They were the wrong crowd (Schulze, 243). These parents completely dismissed the crime itself from their minds and only cared about the ramifications that it had on their children. They did not say this: My child is a murderer. I am sick with shame. When I think about what my child did to another human being, I want to die myself. No one said that. Not one person (Schulze, 304). There are clear long-term and short-term effects of these parents immorality. The long-term effects of this are that these parents are raising other children, in Lisas case, her own child is being raised by her family, a family that lacked the moral fiber to teach her that murder was wrong are going to educate more children in the same way. Im certain that these people are complaining over the dinner table of the unjust incarceration of their child. These complaints finding their way into the thoughts and hearts of the other children who hear it and think wow, killing people isnt wrong, getting arrested is. These are parents that fed into their childrens destructive behavior by giving them whatever they wanted during a tantrum to end it, instead of parenting their child and educating them about consequences. This is going to continue in the parenting of other children, grandchildren that they have. Other consequences that will be faced because of these parents complete disregard for the crime itself include that these young murderers will be released into homes that found their sentence not their crime objectionable. Their own new awareness of freedom will be built around these ideas and it is not unlikely to me that they may see the flaws in their murder as their openness to discuss it and how they went about it, rather than that murder in and of itself is wrong. The sentiments made by these parents are echoed in the mouths of the parents of school-shooters around the country, well except for the ones who were shot before the rampage. This idea of non-responsibility starts in these places and emerges into our collective consciousness as if by magic, when we watch on the evening news as Ali Willis stepfather {says}, She was a dumb kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time (Schulze, 304). It is through our actions as individuals that we influence the greater society and with mass media actively broadcasting our selfish visions of reality to millions of others, those ideas are integrated and absorbed into developing schemas in children plunked in front of the TV, everywhere.

The book, Bully, disgusts me in more ways than I can name. I can not find anything beyond revulsion, especially for an author that sexualizes and then reviles the sexualized little girls. The book is almost its own event. A sensationalized true story out to shock and horrify. Well it certainly succeeds in my case, more at its treatment of the material than anything else.

the second is not the final version:

JoHanna Coash

Violent Youth

Interpersonal Neurobiology & Violent Youth

The link between the parenting of infants and small children and later behavioral problems has always been very clear to me, but the direct link to parenting and brain development and childhood/adolescent violent behaviors has never been so clearly delineated as in the material that has been covered in this course. Neglect and traumas effects on the developing brain of a child can lead to lifelong issues. I have developed much clearer ideas about these causal factors and their heterogenous results, that are now an integral part of my personal child-rearing philosophy.

Early abuse and violence leaves a lasting impact on children. Children who {have} been the childhood victims of neglect went on to have 50 percent more arrests for violent crimes than a comparison group, while those who suffered physical abuse, the rate of violent crimes was double that of the comparison group.[i] Prior to this course I would have thought that these children were modeling the behaviors that they had seen as children, but now there is a strong link between these early abuses and the childrens early brain development; this early abuse,during crucial developmental periods, basically wires the childrens synapses to behave/react violently. We know {violent abuse such as shaking a baby} can lead to laceration of the white nerve fibers that link the prefrontal cortex to deeper brain structures like the amygdale, which are involved in the generation of aggressive impulses while the prefrontal lobes inhibit those impulses.[ii] These unfit parents, who likely had unfit parents themselves, are actually physically damaging their childrens brains at a cellular level. That this was possible had not occurred to me before. This damage is permanent and nearly irrepairable. Childrens minds are delicate and developing in their first few years of life. The experience of violence in the first three years of life profoundly alters the course of brain development. Once certain neurones (brain-cells) become oversensitized as a result of persistent or intense emotional trauma, they can more easily be reactivated by similar, but less threatening provocationsThe brain of the maltreated child has been conditioned to be hypervigilant.[iii] It is likely through this adapted hyper-vigilance that the child managed to survive in a dangerous and/or neglectful home. Hyper-vigilance, however, is exceedingly difficult for many adults to cope with, as I will discuss later.

While virtually all violent people were once abused children, only some abused children become violent. Therefore, child abuse is a necessary, but not sufficient cause for violence. Depending on the degree, extensiveness, and age of onset of child abuse, there are different outcomes. The earlier the abuse occurs, the more intense it is, and the more sustained and repeated over time, the worse the effects are and the more likelihood there is of a resulting violent pathology. When they grow up and become parents, many who were abused children repeat the abuse on their own innocent offspring.[iv] Therefore perpetuating the cycle.

I am close friends with more than a dozen victims of abuse, physical, sexual and emotional, as well as various degrees of neglect. They all seem to manifest their issues from the abuse in very different ways. Now that I can link these manifestations to their brain functions, I see some patterns that had previously gotten past me. Many abused children grow up to manifest their damage through psychosomatic illnesses, depression, self-destructive addictions, and becoming submissive, masochistic relationships with abusive partners.[v] I can not express how often I have struggled with a survivor of extreme abuse and the drug//alcohol problems that they create in order to cope with themselves and their brains. My on-again, off-again male lover has severe psychological issues: antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders as well as an intense anxiety problem. Though I always strive to be a healing and supportive influence, I never quite understood why these problems had manifested. I learned that he had been severely neglected by his mother after the divorce of his parents and was witness to extreme violence between his parents prior to the divorce. Any child exposed to chronic intrafamilial violence will develop a persisting fear responseUnfortunately the emotional emptiness resulting from neglect can only be filled by the temporary pleasure that an exogenous euphoriant (eg. heroin, cocaine {or methamphetamines}) can provide. Similarly, a young man {like my lover} may find that the only escape from persisting fear response is with alcohol.[vi] Literally, his brain has been wired to be in a constant state of stress and anxiety, which on occasion results in violence. He is atypical, however, because most of his response to his abuse is disassociation, which according to the readings tends to be a more feminine response.[vii]

All of these issues go back to the main point of brain development. The development of the brain is based on the experiences of the young child. Mental connections and schemata are created via the experiences of the child during critical developmental periods. Disruptions of experience-dependant neuro-chemical signals may lead to major abnormalities or deficits in neurodevelopment -- some of which may not be reversibleThe clear implication of the neurophysical chain of development is that, again, early life experiences have much more relative importance in organizing the mature brain. Experiences that could be tolerated by a 12-year-old child can literally destroy an infant (eg., being untouched for 2 weeks).[viii] It is via experience as a child that we create our ideas of the world. If our family is violent, destructive and unsafe, our brain wires itself to create a worldview that society is violent and unsafe, therefore we must respond to any perceived threats on our person with violence and/or fear. Neglect also can render the brain incapable of remorse or compassion. If children are not exposed to compassionate, loving care, then they have no concept of how to care about others.

The Orbitofrontal Cortex is one of the most important parts of the brain, in relation to the topic of violence among youth. It is the part of the brain that allows for the regulation of violent impulses. The orbitofrontal regions are not functional at birth, but as a result of attachment experiences this system begins to mature in the last quarter of the first year, the same time that internal working models of attachment are first measured.[ix] If there have not been healthy experiences with loving and attentive caregivers that result in a securely attached child, the orbitofrontal cortex is unable to properly regulate aggressive urges, to varying degrees. Hostile mothers create more children with insecure or disorganized attachments that likely will react in a hostile, violent or aggressive manner to threats, real or imagined. Their brains have been wired so that the orbitofrontal cortex is strained or unable to mediate the primitive {amygdala} responses of the mind. There is agreement that the enduring effects of early abuse are specifically reflected in the impaired processing of both social and bodily informationEarly trauma alters the development of the right brain, the hemisphere that is dominant for the unconscious processing of socioemotional information, the regulation of bodily states, the capacity to cope with emotional stress and the corporeal and emotional self.[x] Children who have been abused are literally broken by their abusers. It is only through the supportive care of another adult that they can manage to overcome this early wiring of the brain. It is the brain and its development that decides how children will respond to stressful stimulus.

I have to admit that I was fairly well rounded prior to this. I have taken a lot of courses on child development, so I knew about brain development, schemas, synapses and neurons. I knew that old cliché that children learn what they live. However, I did not link the development of those schemas with things like my lovers perception that all women can not be trusted, because his mother couldnt be. I did not understand that the experiences of his toddler-self define the way that his now mature brain understands and organizes his reality. His narcissistic personality, I-dont-need-anyone-else, after reading this material, was clearly his brain trying to adapt to the fact that outside sources of assistance were not reliable and that he needed to be able to take care of himself. I also have borderline narcissistic qualities, and a very ingrained fear of being taken over. My mother wanted a compliant child that fit in with her needs, as it became clear that I was not one, she liked parenting me less and less. Still, she attempts to take over my life and relive her own youth through me, on a fairly regular basis. I see that I am insecure-ambivalently attached. Through years of controlling behaviors and several experiences with being disowned, I have learned that my inconsistently available mother is not to be trusted or relied upon. I have created a world-view that authority figures in general can not be relied upon to do whats best for us, but will rather do what is best for themselves. Had I been reared in a different neighborhood, perhaps I would have responded to my disdain for the system by running drugs, carrying a gun or committing acts of violence or vandalism. Oh, wait a second, I did do several of theses things. In environments where I can calmly problem-solve, non-violent resolution is easy, but under pressure, when there is any kind of yelling involved for example, or under the influence of hard liquor, I have gotten into my share of violent interactions. Children can overcome the dysfunctional wiring of their brains to be productive and healthy adults. It takes a lot of therapy, and emotional support, however, which not all have access to.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[i] Daniel Goleman, Early Violence Leaves Its Mark on the Brain, New York Times, 3 October 1995: C1.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Robin Grille, Parenting for A Peaceful World., Zeanagh & Scheeringa (1997)

[iv] Mitch Hall, The Plague of Violence, 1st ed. (Sausalito: Checkmate Press, 2002), 10.

[v] Mitch Hall, 10-11.

[vi] Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D. Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopmental factors in the Cycle of Violence www.ChildTrauma.org The Child Trauma Academy.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Allan Schore Early Relational Trauma, Disorganized Attachment and the Predisposition to Violence Healing Trauma, 120-121

[x] Allan Schore, 113.