New Clear Vision

A Woman’s Life Offered Unto Itself

by Mary Sojourner

I wrote. When all was said and done, when I had known it was over, when I had barred the door behind my love, when I had burned his last letter, the one in which he diagnosed me as permanently broken and lost; when dust radio broadcast no more, and the word “much” meant only a great deal, then on a silver-gray day I wrote.

I wrote because to do otherwise was to negate the slab of juniper tucked in a niche below the porch roof of my little cabin. The wood was golden. A red prayer ribbon from a Tibetan nun looped through a crack in the juniper. A few weeks before my love (Code name: Monkey) had come to visit the first time, I wrote She Writes on the juniper in black marker. I wondered why I felt compelled to declare the ordinary. There had not been a day for two decades in which I hadn’t written.

A year later Monkey arrived to live in a cabin near me. A few weeks later, he began to die in front of my gaze. His ghost was hungry to move in — not to occupy Monkey’s cabin, but to seep into Monkey’s flesh, to live behind his eyes, to stare out, un-seeing and unseeable. (more…)

What Are YOU Doing to Live Well and Contribute to the Cause?

by Jan Hart

The Occupy movement is alive, credible and growing in the United States and the world. International in scope, the Occupy movement began just a few months ago in New York City, followed by San Francisco.  A few weeks later the protests had spread to 95 cities across 82 countries and over 600 communities in the U.S. Ordinary people are standing up to a system that they feel is unequal and unfair. The recent eviction at Zuccotti Park serves only to make the movement stronger. In a world where the wealthy elite, the 1 %, have all the power and control, 99 % of the people feel powerless to effect changes that would make their lives better. (more…)