stanselen~ (to sparkle + & spark)

Just put the toddlers down for a wee midday nap, and thought I’d share some of our morning as it has been so lovely. We have had a busy time just staying at home and playing outside.

To kick things off I took a big blanket out onto the grass first thing and Briar and Sacha took turns choosing stories to read, we read about 8 books, and sung a few songs, Briar really gets into the music when we are singing clapping her hands and shaking her head.

Then they played around me while I was hanging out the nappies, Sacha is nearly out of naps, though still wears them at bed time, so far as been pretty good at never wanting to use the toilet or potty, so we just have accidents and talk about perhaps he might one day like to try toiletting like a big boy. Summer is the perfect time to learn this kind of stuff though cos he can run around pants free at home and not be too cold.

Next we had our morning tea of pea’s in the pod, gooseberries and blackcurrants all from our garden(which are nearly all cleaned up, thanks to Briar) . Read more

Whilst doing some fairly heavy browsing found a funny little quiz..what kind of anarchist r u? and another great resource site spunkpress who u may have already heard of but me not!

Also another blogger Grant (of the formerly known ART Christchurch Anarchist Collective) has posted a rather long and somewhat harsh perspective on some of Christchurches most recent organising.. I personally agree with some of this but feel other parts are some what unnecessary (particularly the personal attacks on Torrance - it just ain’t funny) and other parts of it aren’t all together factual, but I think Grant just tends to blow things up sometimes (I can be guilty of this meself too occasionally)

Still kind of an interesting read, hopefully will be able to get some necessary dialogue happening around and about the issues he raises, as we all would very much would like to see the common space that has been made available work and be a worthwhile space for activists and the like in Christchurch. And also for Katipo Co-operative to develop as well.
You can find his rant here..grantsblog

Well today something strange happened that relates to another strange thing that happened awhile ago

u may or may not know i haven’t ever had a drivers licence, don’t really want one either though used to often get a lot of flack about this because i have always had a car and driven about the place, though quite prefer biking or walking. Anyways as of our trip coming back from Nelson/Motueka/Riwaka I have been “banned ‘ from driving until I get a licence (all of which means that if I get pulled over driving again the car will be impounded for 28 days and I would have to go to court, so I’m choosing NOT to drive)

Anyways, as it happened when I gave the cop (surprisingly nice enough bloke for a cop) all my details at the time, date of birth, full name, address,  he said “so you’ve never had a licence then?”,

“thats right, never” I said

and he then says “well it shows up that you’ve got a licence, it’s just expired”

“no, I haven’t ever got one,” I say..

“hmm,” he says “I’ll check it when I get back, you sure?”

“yeah, weird..” i say.

So today, as the bill remains unpaid, a reminder arrives in the post with my drivers licence number on it. Hmm what to do? A free drivers licence too easy me thinks, but wait if the licence is expired it must be one of the old paper ones so there won’t be a photo id on it.. could be mine.

Though i’m fairly sure I never did ever have a drivers licence maybe i have , maybe it was all so stressful that I completely blanked it out and there it is just sitting there waiting for me.

Worth a phone call anyways A!

kids can teach u about …

• patience
• taking turns
• making mistakes is okay, we are all just learning anyway
• everyday is a new day
• how to be really really silly
• how to laugh at yourself
• with enough sticky tape you can fix anything
• clothes are for wearing out, not just wearing
• magic is in everything
• crying is healthy
• forgiveness is easy
• everyone is special

Worth checking out a post about the inclusion of kids in activist circles and a lively discussion at bloggreenanarchobreeding .Bloggreen has also started a blogroll on radical parenting which is well worth a look, I also added one of the links to my own blogroll.. piratepapa is a really choice site, with lots of interesting stuff and a link to one of the most gorgeous homes I’ve ever seen woodland house Me is in love, am now moving to Wales to live with the hippies in the forest. (sorry I don’t mean hippies in a negative way, I mean beautiful fairie peoples.)
Sod the revolution! I’ll take the lifestyle anyday!

All this summer hasn’t been completely miserable, there’s been a few nice days!

We even got to the beach twice last week!

Heres some pics of our little groovers enjoying an afternoon at Rapaki beach last Friday …

Sacha(2.5yrs), Briar(1.4yrs) and me(32yrs!) laxin on da beach

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Are u afraid of those little ones, running around, making loud shrieking noices and having outbursts of wild and uncontrolled laughter ? perhaps u are suffering from pedophobia or fear of children… sounds like a post-modern disease of the brain, can turn into full blown AGEISM if not treated with small and regular doses of kid exposure to build up your immunity.
Pedophobia

I want to write something about the exclusion of men from radical feminist groups.. mainly because up until recently I believed it best not to have men included in fem groups or to have them involved in organising and now I’m not so sure.. if what we are aiming for is equality btw the sexes then wouldn’t it make sense to have supportive men involved in this struggle too?..

I still think that there are times, because of the nature of our present culture to have ‘women only’ spaces and solidarity groups though that when it comes to organising activism/actions we need to build our solidarity with men as well. They too need to be apart of the revolutionary change, if this is what we really want to achieve.

Women in feminist groups need to reach across the borders of Race and Class, to find solidarity, to find our commonly held goals and beliefs. So far feminism has been dominated by a white bourgeois class of women. I am not one of these women, by choice, I have spent much of my adult life as a single parent who chose not to put myself first, as I was told to as a modern women, to ’seek a career and/or work’ but I have spent as much of my time putting my energy into the up-bringing of my child. And subsequent children.

This hasn’t made me ignorant or apathetic to world issues, or bored and discontented but it has made me aware of the large gaps between ‘educated career orientated’ feminists and women(feminists also) who choose a different lifestyle, but are almost immediately looked down upon or disregarded as not having anything worth hearing by other ladder climbing women. It seems that in the struggle for equality, ‘intellectual’ liberal and radical feminists have not even bothered to examine the ideas of class and racism as they stand today as being the real enemies of the feminist movement. Instead their energies have been focused simply on excluding men, regardless of race or class.
Feminists may have infiltrated the Patriarchal system that dominates our world, yet what good will this do if we can’t transform it, in a radical way into a system based on true equality, regardless of gender, race and class. The class system needs to be abolished, racism needs to end, we need gender equality. This will not be achievable if we can’t look at how intertwined the three oppressions are and start networking and co-operating together.

Radical Feminists, I feel, need to include men into their organising, to work alongside them as comrades. Exclusion, I have read, is one of the main forms of female bullying, it is a control tactic used to isolate and make the other feel invisible, and is usually used by women. Do women want to adopt the same conditions over men as male supremacy has positioned itself over us? Do we want the same capitalist system of exploitation and domination OR do we want complete change and how can we have this when excluding men from learning and being apart of our struggle?

i think we need to seriously look at this, are our Anarcha-feminist groups simply token gestures or do we want to be something more than this, do we want to be part of a larger struggle for equality? For what purpose do we exist?

I have some more to post on this but it’ll do for now…

Emptying itself

an overfilled cup releases.

Don’t hold back,

theres nothing to hold onto -

Lose the plot (if you must)

and find yourself

a fresh path,

a clean stream flows

where you never thought to look.

Just thought I’d share a poem, its from a book of poems I self published a few years ago, hopefully I’ll get a few more printed off soon. Haven’t been inspired to write much poetry lately, though, it’s one of those things that has come and gone through out my life so far. This poem describes the feeling I had about my summer as ‘Jesus’ (My struggle with Mental illness comment on Anarchia site.) I guess one of the things that I can say I took with me from my ‘mad’ experience is that Love is the highest Law in this universe. I gained a belief that, no matter what, if u can be guided by the principle of “harm none” and this includes accepting and loving yourself for who you are and where your at, whatever life throws at you, you can continue to grow and stay strong, even when it’s feels like there is no escape. Having a good cry is healthy and healing too. Never feel ‘bad’ about crying.

Something of interest on the news (Radio NZ) this morning, ANOTHER story about ‘Trademe’, funny how now Trademe is owned by Fairfax there are featured ‘news’ stories on it nearly every bloody night. Not so strange I suppose, just more blindingly obvious free advertising.

Anyways… The story this morning was about how the chainsaw that was used to chop down the Pine tree on One Tree Hill in Auckland, had been removed from Trade me auctions. This was a political act by a Maori activist called Mike Smith who took a chainsaw to the Pine tree in 1994, believing it to be a symbol of colonial oppression.
Compare this to.. not so long along (May 2005) when Ross Meurant auctioned the Red squad police baton nicknamed ‘the Minto Bar’ that was used against protestors during the Springbok tours, and was allowed sale for $10,000. The Red Squad, coincidentally, were the most vicious and brutal of all the ‘policeforce’. A real nasty bunch of  thugs.

Wow.. Trademe double standard stinks.

Esther came over yesterday with a big tray of plums for us all from her garden.(yum, yum) She is back from her holiday camping in Wanaka, she also brought over a photo of birds wings (ones she found with out the body attached), for the Anarcha-fem zine. We have still abit of work to do on this, so must get busy, will have to organise a meeting for next week one day.

Also my niece, Holly arrived to stay one night on her travels back to Dunedin (she is an adventurous and independent world-wise 17year old) She is going to be studying in Christchurch again this year.. hooray more drama! and my eldest child, Dane aged 12, left for Scotland. He’s gone for 2 whole months with his dad. Sacha (his 2year old brother, they have different dads) kept asking about it all day “Where Dane?” , “Dane flying in a big plane?” I was awee bit emotional about it yesterday, though still can’t really comprehend that I won’t c him for 2 months, he’ll probably come back a completely new person.. still lots of friends and family over that way so they will be well looked after.

The last thing I gave him for the journey was rescue remedy, hopefully that will help to keep him relaxed! Must say I needed it myself too.

This morning has been really relaxing so far, just listening to happy music (70’s disco style) and enjoying the sunny day outside, might take the toddlers for a bike ride to the beach later, Kerry bought a bike trailer just recently and they really love it, got to go now though c ya lata.

…back later, didn’t actually end up going to beach, maybe tomorrow.. Kerry left his bike lock key at home, so we had to go and sort that out, locked bike in town etc. Instead we popped ova to Edith n Alistars.. they are the core of Food not Bombs in Christchurch/Otautahi. They have been offered a wicked space in town for FREE (yes thats right , big FREE space) in town thats in town! to use for activist and community project type things. We have a whole lotta screen printing gear, photocopier, and other useful things that need a decent home, as they aren’t getting enough use in our over-crowded garage. Is going to be great to have a space for us all in Otautahi, we need it, and as my mum always use to say, “if u need something, just ask the universe, put it out there, and it’ll find u” All good. Mum was never much into shopping, that’s probably where i get it from. Why shop, when u can just speak to the universe instead A.

anyways c ya lata again xo