I think I've been in training all of my life to be in the field of human rights .
I always considered myself a Jill of all Trades, getting excited about so many of life's offerings, it's been hard to narrow it down. But if I had to choose, i'd have to say it's the arts; namely, songwriting, playwriting and storytelling. My mother was an artist and both parents played guitar. Self-expression was very normalized in my home. In college I made friends mostly with a group of musicians with whom I formed a band. I was definitely not heavily involved in mainstream activities.
When I had children (two girls) and dug some roots in NoVa, I began to notice that people inside and outside of my bubble were really struggling. The love of art and myth and prehistory all began to coalesce around the realities of poverty, abuse and survival. My focus, especially as my children grew older, began to bend toward activism. I went back to school to get a masters degree and that is when the dots finally connected. I realized a larger picture of life existed that was outside of my perspective. For instance, while growing up near Tulsa OK, I had never heard about the Tulsa massacre. I knew about the Trail of Tears, but only in the way we hear, mostly as children, about Harriet Tubman. The focus was on her running away and helping slaves escape, but we never really knew the extent of the horrors of WHY. The humanities paints a big picture. To love the gothic cathedrals, we must also understand the oppressive state that bore the peasant wars. To appreciate medicine and science, we must understand the plight of the multitude of untold women lay-healers that cultivated ages of wisdom and knowledge of herbs for healing, but were never credited. To know our collective humanity is to know all of the sides of this great and troubling and wondrous paradox of existence.
My offerings on Medium are musings, explorations and critiques of issues surrounding human rights, feminisms and integrating goddess lore into current culture. Please enjoy.