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These are thoughts I often have. Upon hearing two people discuss a tree that shouldn’t be purchased due to its lack of beauty, I felt the desire to reiterate.
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I am accepting, and more often now embracing, the thought that chaos breeds more creativity, brings singular beauty. As this maybe so, without a doubt the perfectionist still lives in my “closing in on six decades alive” mind. Yet I do see perfection differently. I see it as encompassing more, even all, if you look at something as it exists alone. If you look at its purpose, all things, entities, have a beauty born from the purpose of their existence. Perfection and beauty are intrinsic in all, if you look clearly and without preconceived notions.
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Take the fallen apple, like those that fell in my backyard as a child. At first glance the pock marked, darkening, softening fruit deters one from taking more notice. It is more repulsive than beautiful. Not so to the curious two year old; he sees it with great interest. Outside influences have not taken hold. Regain the wonder. Look more closely. The decay of fruit fallen from the tree breaks down, to nutrients that nourish the soil on which it rests. Therein lies perfection, as its purpose is fulfilled. The decay amongst the chaos is then seen as a thing of beauty.
~ mjgoodman
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Do any of us ever expose our entirety, to one person? Are we capable of such?
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To the soulmate, to use the cliche term, we may believe we do. At first heartfelt response, I personally believe I do. I want to believe I do.
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Why is this at all important, worthy of any discussion? To bring health to relationships, this is why it is worthy. To be fully, emotionally entwined with another is the importance. To me honesty, and being forthcoming, with all known feelings and thoughts, is paramount to trust and full all-encompassing love. Secrets cannot reside in what one holds as a true relationship. In this regard, not my usual stance on a vast majority of issues, I am firmly black and white.
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There is an operative word I wrote above this paragraph…known. Known feelings. This implies that there exist unrecognized emotions. There one is off the hook so to speak. One may feel but not recognize. These are not expressed to the soulmate, unless he/she can read between the lines. Once the owner recognizes the emotion, honesty is the rule; this is my guideline. It may not be your way of thinking and acting. This is your belief and is accepted as such. Differences keep the human species safe and evolving.
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In my mind, all thought about said relationship should be relinquished to the loved one. Relinquishing is equivalent to complete loving.
It is as the flower blooms and gives itself fully to sunlight. It is as the water moves downstream and gives itself completely to the cut rock and falls.
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Again, you may not feel these thoughts are an accurate take; and again, if true, these are what bring evolution to our sameness.
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These are simply my evening thoughts.
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The vitriol and hatred seem even worse this day than in the previous of this election cycle. I am trying to find a place where each can find peace, no matter their respective views. I am a simplistic thinker, I believe, but I am trying to find civility and hope for all who would be angered or fearful, and for all who might think their work is done. ~
Where We Stand
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Where we stand, be it on issues together or separately, we make a statement of faith in our combined uniqueness and goodness. We do possess grand goodness and compassion. These United States of America hold a form of government peoples throughout the world would emulate, attempt to emulate.
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We, as citizens, share a country which is continuously evolving, moving in directions to address the pertinent issues of our days. This is a positive built into our system. We are not staid. We try. We may not succeed in every attempt to create a stronger, healthier, more compassionate, and fair country, but we try. By virtue of what our founders created, we can reverse mistakes and build on successes.
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For those despondent as a result of our election decisions, and for those satisfied with the count which surprised many, this is a chance for both to see from a point far from the seat near the lectern. View with perspective the photographs hanging on our common wall. Ours is a process, a series of actions. Actions can be reviewed, challenged, reversed, or strengthened. The photographs can be edited. They should be edited, to bring change to mistakes and more emphasis to the impressive areas on the work of record and of art.
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Peaceful transition and balance of power keep us, through the years, headed on the right path. We hit tree roots and stumble, but the path we continue to follow, as it leads to what is right and good. It feeds off balance. It is a balanced composition, either an overtly symmetrical or an asymmetrical composition. Balance reigns. This method of government, this path my family and I are grateful to traverse, is like no other form of government. It is one for which we should always hold pride regardless of election outcomes. Keep moving. Continue fighting. Right wrongs and praise the positive. Balance reigns. Balance will continue to lift us after each stumble. Keep the faith.
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Where we stand is together as citizens of America. We share a freedom that did not come easily to us. Celebrate that freedom and the evolution of betterment.
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~ Mary Jane Goodman-Giddens
The Day After the 2016 Presidential Election
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Connecting through shared experience is an unselfish, truthful avenue leading to small, yet meaningful, comfort for the fearful, the hurt. ~ mj goodman
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Raspberry’s Natural Food Store in Charleston, SC
has a spot in my heart. Tiny, but it does exist with the amalgamation of many places carrying warmth from my heart to my mind. About two miles off the peninsula taking the bend on 61 to the left, Ashley River Road in West Ashley, you were there.
Raspberry’s was an unassuming building, a former home I believe and it looked. As one would expect it did have notices covering the outside and inside of the door and the walls in close proximity, many overlapping another and corners rough with age. Homes for rent, bicycles for sale, and seems to me sometimes classes on yoga were advertised. A small counter at the rear of the store held the cash register, business cards and from it more notices hung.
After entering and on my right, organic produce sat in a lonely used grocery store stand, white with several shelves. Not much was available, but in the eighties this wasn’t surprising. As well, on the opposite side of this one large room, books on herbs, paperbacks warning of the health risks of consuming white flour, those advising organic pest control were for sale. My memory is far from stellar, a fact that saddens me as I used to own a good sense of it, but there were multitudes of books condoning a chemical free, natural lifestyle.
A trip to Raspberry’s was a special trip for me. I had thrown myself full force into the raising of my little ones and to feed them in this manner seemed the only way to see them grow. Again, not much was available, and it was more expensive. My trips there were few and far between as we were a young family living on a very tight budget. I longed to go weekly, and more.
The staff at Raspberry’s was quite pleasant, not intrusive; yet they were able to answer a myriad of questions. I had many and often was too embarrassed to ask them. By doing so I would reveal my lack of knowledge about tinctures to help with minor aches and pains, teas and the like, herbal remedies, and substitutes for poisonous (to humans and needed creatures) pest control.
It is spectacular to see how things have altered. My 25 year old self never expected to see the availability of organic food stuffs we enjoy now 30 years later. Full markets built around organic healthy foods were not something I thought I would ever know. Grateful I am for the changes, but I do miss climbing the front steps to the door of the first natural/organic food store I tried to frequent. I do wish I could find a photograph of its front door facing Hwy. 61 in Charleston. Does anyone have a photo?
Wave ~
A wave in the ocean only briefly displaces the water that moves with it. Each molecule of water returns swiftly to its position, the position it held before the energy of the wave struck.
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I saw you, sitting. I saw you sitting on a low chair under a dorm room lofted bed, next to a reel to reel. Strangers, soon to be friends, laughed and flirted; each reminisced of the fun that had enveloped their months. Still my attention returned to you, the quiet man with a flirtatious one sided grin. Your wave hit me, but I did not respond as water, nor as the medium of air to sound waves. I was forever moved. Returning to my former position was in no way possible. Physics has no discernible place in my heart.
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I once believed life was a constant, vast space, not a continuum of sequential ordered events. The immediacy of a childhood day was not seen through the lens of time. Events were occurrences, filling the immense space I occupied, seemingly not related to the clock.
As children we understood.
Lost was this truthful magic in the midst of our aging; we grew a need for order over chaos. Calendars and clocks took hold of our thoughts.
As children we were wise and brilliant, immediate people. We flourished in the present. I need to unlearn the notion of order; live in the chaos.
I once believed life was a spatial constant, not a continuum of moments. That belief need return.
~ With what we fill the space takes precedence over the time we have to fill it. ~
~ Mary Jane Goodman
Silence has swallowed sound.
Blinders have shadowed sight.
We strain to find any noise,
to see any light.
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We live in an era varied from our country’s past. A call for musket owning by our citizenry was answered. Those in 1791, ratified that which was proper for the time, simply and without knowledge of our future. Our founding fathers would be the first to seek appropriate change for the society in which we now find ourselves. They were believers in change for safer, more fair lives for all. To live amongst those who have been under investigation by the FBI, yet still carry assault rifles, is neither safe nor fair.
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For family and household protection, a gun without large capacity magazines will still maim an intruder, or kill if a life is truthfully threatened. Guns meant for military use, guns made for war are not necessary in the home. To a related point, hunters will hunt. Some will for the food on their tables, some for sport. Though I do not condone the latter, in either situation, never is an assault rifle a necessary piece of equipment to put down a deer or a duck.
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To further this argument assault weapons shouldn’t be available for the general public to purchase. My belief firm and simple is this. Retroactively, they should be surrendered by the general public. If some want the thrill of shooting an assault rifle, they should be available for them at shooting ranges and used only there. Hobbyists can satisfy this desire in an enclosed place where the general public isn’t and doesn’t feel threatened, nor live in fear.
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It is grotesque that background checks for all aren’t the norm, and are not detailed and somewhat lengthy. A hunter or a parent wanting household protection should have no problem with this. If they cannot wait that is grounds for a modicum of concern on the part of the seller. The police can provide protection in the interim, if an urgent situation makes itself evident. It takes months, years, to be fully licensed to get behind the wheel of a machine that kills many each week. Can owning a gun take at least as long to process? Those asking for stiffer background checks are not even asking for the same as drivers’ licenses.
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In light of recent global massacres, we find more evidence of the radicalization of citizens in many countries is an entity that needs to be addressed. Though I do agree with the current president’s stand on gun sense, whole heartedly, I feel he has blinders on when acting to fully protect the United States’ citizenry. I did write ‘fully,’ meaning as well to say ‘all encompassing.’~Yes. All crimes of this magnitude involve hatred, whether based on religion, race, sexual, identity, or what is perceived as a decadent lifestyle unacceptable to another section of our world’s population. Those that seek to maim and kill Americans, for any reason, those that seek to eradicate our lifestyle of freedom and love for all, need to be called out for the reasons they take the actions they do. To refer to the Orlando Massacre as a hate crime is correct. To refer to this heinous crime as radicalization and extreme perversion of a religion is correct ~ radical Islam. This latest horror on our land is both and needs to be handle in that fashion. All have to except it is not either or, and make decisions accordingly. With the degree of hatred and many zealous perversions of thought we live with in this society in the 21st century, we must strip the potential perpetrators of some of their weapons. True Americans can see the sense in this if they clear love the country in which they reside, and love the people with all their differences and make our home what it is.
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Silence has swallowed sound.
Blinders have shadowed sight.
We strain to find any noise,
to see any light.
~ Mary Jane Goodman
Mary Jane's Shoes 