Debra Leigh Says

You know who you are.  Those of us who begin to feel a deep kind of sadness surface as Father's Day approaches, who realize that the sadness is always there, deep within, every day of our lives.  He can be alive somewhere, or he can be gone, but he was never really there.  At least not for you.  You were invisible.  Or disappointing.  Or simply too unimportant.  He's the reason, the therapists tell you, that your relationships with men are largely and often completely fucked.  Why you chase the unavailable man, or the man who judges and shames you, the one who disregards you, and tells you it's all your fault.  He's the reason you find it hard to trust anyone, or believe in yourself.  He's the reason you are too easily swayed by external judgments about your beauty, your intellect, your worthiness.  He's the reason you have Superwoman syndrome and a drive to be perfect, coupled with the crippling fear of your own deep and abiding imperfection.  There are million

My life provides me the opportunity to do many things.  I write.  I direct.  I sing.  I run an arts organization, Hidden River Arts , which I founded.  And I teach.  Often, I teach undergraduates; and in a few of my classes, there are discussions, readings, videos and film viewing about the consumerism and out of control capitalism of our culture.  I show them videos about Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud's nephew, who used his uncle's theories of the human unconscious to manipulate and control mass behavior in two particular areas - shifting America from a needs-based to a wants-based society, and maintaining a level of fear in Americans about the ever-growing external threat - from communists, from terrorists, every age has its own boogey-man --  that creates consent for the kinds of extensive war-mongering our military is now addicted to.  We discuss the possibility of a no-money culture.  We discuss conscious and controlled buying habits.  We discuss the dangerous situation

Last night was Twelfth Night, the beginning of the celebration that marks the ending of the Christmas season, or the end of the Yule/Solstice celebrations.  Some traditions say that for each of the "12 days of Christmas" there is an omen, and that each day's omen offers a message for the 12 coming months of the new year.  By the time we reach Twelfth Night, those omens have been received, we tuck them away for reflection as the months pass, and we prepare for the work of this new year that will unfold before us.   In Pre-Christian ceremony, Twelfth Night, or Wassail, is the night when we re-dedicate ourselves to our calling.  We all know what that calling is -- even those of us who proclaim to be clueless.  We know, at our most quiet and internal moments, what voice calls to us, what dream beckons.  Twelfth Night is the night to declare your dedication to that calling.   There is feasting involved -- Fish, and greens and potatoes and apples and King's Cake