Perception Of A Childs Eyes

A confused 12 years old not quite feeling right within the body I found myself looking through old eyes at the passing squatter camps. I looked upon the shanty towns, tin shacks, the smell of the morning fires tickling my nose and the flames going up into the dawn air. As I watched it pass sitting in the car on the hour long journey to school after yet another weekend with mothers boyfriend in a far off town. I found myself enveloped in wealth of sadness as tears ran down my cheeks.

What the hell is going on in the world? Why do so many seem to think only of themselves?

Don’t people realise that there are people, kids, humans starving? Don’t people realise that people are homeless, without shelter or blankets? What the hell is going on in this world?

Disease! Wars! Terror! Death!

Don’t people see how much the world needs help? Love? Hope? Doesn’t anyone else feel saddened by what I've seen? Don’t they suffer like I do knowing that there are so many without what I have?

It wasn’t the first time the tears ran down my 12 year old cheeks and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. I could not fathom why people just didn’t seem to care and as I sat there day in and day out I came up with different ways to help the people living in those tin shacks, the people who use open fires to cook their porridge for breakfast, walk miles to just get some cooking water never mind a bath, they don’t know what baths are. I swore to myself that one day I was going to help the people in the world, that I would do all I can and not just sit by like everyone else seemed to.

During the week when we were home I would walk the 5km home with my younger brother in tow and pass homeless children and adults. Each time we passed them I felt the sadness fill my soul once more, I wanted to start helping them but I was scared, what if I did it wrong? What if the bigger people got angry with me?

After a few weeks walking past them I couldn’t take it anymore, I stopped and stood in front of a little girl. I looked at her, she was so tiny, her clothes torn, the sadness within her young eyes broke my courage free. As I bent down to take off my socks the smell of the streets permeated my whole being, she was hungry and cold. Socks in my hand I passed them to her and showed her how to put them on her feet. I will never forget her smile for as long as I live, she seemed to lighten. My used socks were the first gift she had ever received.

My socks made a difference and I decided right then and there that I would carry a pair of clean ones where ever I went from then on. I also decided that I would take some of mothers money and buy chocolates and crisps for the people I passed.

There were times that people passing by such scenes, well dressed and warm, fed and plump. They would tell me to leave the people alone, that I must go home and not worry about them, that it was their choice, that they should just get up and get work. I would look at them with silence, finish what I was doing and only once the people who had stopped had left would I continue home. I was not going to let them win, deep in my heart and soul I knew that they were wrong and it broke my heart.

I learnt a hard lesson every time someone tried to make me stop. I learnt that humans don’t see the world as I do, they don’t understand, they don’t care or try to do something even if its only small. I decided that I was going to continue as I did, that I wasn’t going to stop doing something that felt a part of me. I accepted that people were different and that some were just too busy in their own warm fully fed lives to see, that people felt guilt if they opened their eyes.

I felt strange and odd, I felt a misfit, an alien in the world. People always looking at me funny, telling me that I was different and not normal. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t stop the intense tight knot of sadness in my stomach. I couldn’t stop the tears that flowed down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop wanting to make a difference but I was going to do it quietly and without witnesses because the others as I now called them put other meanings to what I did.

Many years have passed since that time and the sadness still sits in my stomach like a big volcano. It simmers and bubbles away, overflowing when I watch the news, read a newspaper, see someone in pain or experiencing hard times.

The now is no different than the then except with one huge exception. The me in the present now knows of others that feel and do as I do, of people who cry tears for the world and use their souls to cast light upon the world. There are many of them and I have been blessed to be shown that they exist, better yet these people are my friends whom I hold dear within the walls of my heart.

No act of kindness is too small

No act of love too great

Together we might not be able to solve all the worlds problems, we might not be able to feed every starving soul or clothe them, put them in a warm house or teach them to read.

What stops us?

Poverty Breeding Weakness? DUH!

Sometimes I just have to close my eyes and shake my head at the “research” that is carried out. Honestly at times it makes me just wonder who the bright spark was who came up with the idea of the study?

So, they have just unveiled this new study which shows that children who are poverty stricken, who are surrounded by toxic environments, abuse, poor hygiene and diet suffer developmentally. WOW. I mean honestly! What a break through! You guys deserve a medal! Great thinking! As far as I am to understand it, this type of research on this subject has been known since hmmm cavemen time? The better nourished, the stronger the person. The more loved, the happier and more well adjusted. The more successful hunters back in the cavemen times even knew this. Everyone had an “order” to eat just like in the animal kingdom. The weakest of the group get the scraps as their worth to the society is lessened, therefore they don’t ever develop into anything more than they are. Sometimes, they themselves are killed out of need for the rest of the society.

So tell me oh genius ones who do these studies, what was the point here? Was it to study the neuro-development of these children to prevent disease later in life? Or is this it? You are going to leave us with this wonderful, no one ever thought of it piece of documented “evidence” and call it a day? I want to know exactly how much money was spent on this wonder? I bet it was a load.

Understanding medicine, our bodies is indeed a nobel task for those who research tirelessly. But it is hardly newsworthy when the studies are reported like this. I mean we all do understand this one pretty much down the line do we not? Is it the intricacies here that the study was trying to establish of exactly how it affects function? I read the study, and that was well… unclear.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-12-07-childrens-brains_N.htm?csp=34

Warmth In Cold

I don’t know about you, but I suffer from the Winterassgrowth disease, yip you know the one where you get all cosy, eat more, less exercise and just be, that one. Much like a squirrel storing its supplies for hibernation our bodies tend to hit this mode, anything we eat it keeps some back in “supplies” to keep our bodies warm.

So if you are like me then ten to one you don’t tend to work out or exercise as hard during winter as you would in summer. First hint of summer and we go “oh bleep” and start a mad rush to get in shape so that we can fit back into our summer clothes. Pure incredible madness.

In emotions it is much the same. During the winter, sad, depressing, rough times in our lives we tend to bury ourselves much like that squirrel in hope of sunshine. We build our defences, erect our walls, turn people away and run from our problems in hope that they would just disappear in our melancholy. We spend our time coping, surviving and keeping warm, not working out our emotional muscles, learning from the experience and breathing. We stop breathing.

Both you and I know our problems never just go away, if we don’t deal with our pasts, our issues or learn the lessons that need to be learnt they come back to bite us on our asses. We both know that they bite hard when they do and ten to one it's during a glorious summer. Because we never faced what we needed to, because we ran away instead of facing everything head on our summer days are shortened and tarnished with winter rains.

What if while going through a really rough time we hold on tight, we hang in there, we face the things that come our way and we breathe…

Foot Over Mouth

The noose of those in our lives that strangle the very life force from both your soul and your bones. In life you get the drainers or if you will chokers, they are the ones that want to control you, break your spirit down until it is mere shards lying scattered upon the ground. They take pleasure tightening the noose around your neck, inch by inch, sometimes slowly, sometimes with a huge jerk and pull, your oxygen dissipates.

I’ve had a noose around my head for as long as I’ve been able to take a breath of air and at times it was so tight that I could barely move let alone walk. People tend to throw guilt trips around like mothers would throw candy. At times it was just there, hanging loosely, waiting for the next tug, the next moment of strangulation.

The driving force behind these peoples actions, for them putting the noose around our necks, is many but in my case it is the need. Pure need. The need to have control over something uncontrollable, the need for love, understanding, insecurity and the need to ward off loneliness, to feel worth while and happy. They put the onus on you for all things for which they can not find within themselves, they depend on you to the extent that if you set a toe over the border to your wants and your needs they try to reign you in.

It’s a constant battle of push-pull and what makes it worse is when the relationship with the noose is such that it makes it not so easy to just cut the rope from their hands and set yourself free.

The only way I can get rid of this noose is to don some high heels. High heels in life are those that lift you up, strengthen your spirit without draining your life force. Instead these people energize you and help you reach new heights.

Problem though is that once you start taking the noose off, cutting those ties, a tug of war ensues pulling you off balance (try walking in high heels for the first time and you will know what I talk of). The noose suddenly feels the slack in the rope and quickly grabs it with all force and tries their damndest to gain control once more. If you learn how to walk in those heels quick enough, strengthen your leg muscles and breathe it is possible to regain the balance. Difficult as it may seem, it is possible to learn how to walk.

Over the last year I’ve gained a few pairs of these high heels and they have helped stave off the power of the noose around my neck. I’ve had to relearn how to walk without the weight of the rope pulling my airways through. I’ve had to learn how to breathe again and to exercise my vocal and spiritual lungs. The noose didn’t like this much, not at all.

_{A thank-you to my friends}

Dust Of The Earth

" With a passion for ideas, a mind for philosophy, and a heart for the aesthetics of truth, it wasn’t long before Rebecca found her niche in the art of documentary. She discovered that film making is a process of transformation and that it is important not only to affect the audience, but the people involved in the production of the film itself. Rebecca hopes to create films that inspire people to be better than they are, to consider things that don't normally enter into their cognitive sphere, and to approach life as an open debate full of ideas, controversy and respect. " - indiepixfilms.com

Blinkx Video: Rebecca Rose - Dust Of The Earth

Just a bit of even older work.. 2005... Comment away.

November Bray

late november
still no snow

mr winter is waiting
on the subway
like everyone else
for a second there
you almost had me fooled

I belong to nobody
and nobody is always around me
playing with my laughter
making me smile
because it’s all so silly

life is too easy
let’s complicate it
to make it smaller
the secret is out
but you are not listening

my warm sweater
matches my heart
and my blood red nails polish
brings colors to life

it’s been a crazy year

winter waits for nobody
it’s all around me

Certainty For The Passing Skies

You know, even if I don't write in a public journal, I always write. For no reason at all I'm debating on posting them, atleast some of them. Most who read my journal get the impression I leave my inner most thoughts here . . .

_{I really wish that were the case.}

- Update

It's Nov 30th and I've gotten midway through June... Tedious tasks tend to take me forever. Forgive me.