Jelisava

A powerful and diverse civic movement for social justice

From the front lines: thanks to our reader "T" for participating and documenting this Day of Action march on the Howard St. bridge in Baltimore / Nov. 17, 2011

You cannot evict an idea whose time has come.

The people are on fire

The other 99% Protestors in Zuccotti Park after marching on Wall St. / I'm marching virtually with 27,527 other viewers around the world / Nov. 17, 2011 (thanks T -- occupy the bridge!)

collusion between
wall street and those elected
to serve their people

the brilliant fall leaves
a visual portrait of our
anger and actions

The poetry of hands, 44

The computer the size of a palm responds to the touch or swipe of a finger

Today is the day of the man who went through life with an exclamation point leaping from his head, but from his view it looked like this: i

~ wiremesa 

Of venus and mother nature

Rendering of the Capitoline Venus (hope that she wasn't damaged in the earthquake)/ August 2011

This was the lovely summer afternoon coming on the heels of a summer with stretches of intense heat and then intense rain when suddenly mother nature shifted and stretched and the chair beneath me rocked and the walls swayed and moaned and I finally got my wits about me and realized that it wasn't the usual tremors caused by the passing train and ran down the stairs and out the front door into the bright sunlight.

Of the people

A drink and a shot of Elvis might help / August 2000

This was the morning of waking in a stupor, depressed by the stupidity and pettyness of one's government that was in no way working by the people or for the people and searching for a little relief and hope in a beat and a little movement of the feet...

 

 

The remarkable wind effect

Setting sun over beach art during a heat wave / Wildwood, NJ

This was the evening (when the thermometer read 74 degrees and a cool breeze whipped around the exposed beach) before the afternoon when the temperature hit 104 degrees, which can feel remarkably refereshing when a breeze comes off the ocean's cool water: nature's version of air conditioning.

Of flightless birds who are excellent navigators

Basking in the glow of late afternoon spring sunshine / May 2011

A story that I read has been on my mind lately: A person travels to a faraway place where a penguin vomits a big green mess on them. They are at first upset, then see it as a cosmic joke until someone tells them that penguins nurture their young by chewing food, mixing it up with God's enzymes, and then vomiting it into the mouths of their babies. It is suggested that the person was not the butt of a cosmic joke, but rather received a special gift of love and nurturing. I keep thinking about how things happen to us that we perceive as "bad" when, if we look at it another way, perhaps it is a gift (albeit one not tied up neatly in a bow).

I want a countenance like hers

A patch of fresh oregano springs up out of the muck / April 2011

This was the day when the woman at the door with the nice hat handed me a brochure proclaiming that Jesus “takes away the sin of the world” and invited me to “find out”; I couldn't get the peaceful countenance of her face out of mind for the rest of the day.

More weather to talk about

Some trees stay upright, reaching for the winter sky

“There has been more talk about the weather around here this year than common, but there has been more weather to talk about. For about a month now we have had solid cold — firm, business-like cold that stalked in and took charge of the countryside as a brisk housewife might take charge of someone else's kitchen in an emergency. Clean, hard, purposeful cold, unyielding and unremitting. Some days have been clear and cold, others have been stormy and cold. We have had cold with snow and cold without snow, windy cold and quiet cold and indulgent peace-loving cold. But always cold.” 

~ E.B. White in his essay from January 1943, Cold Weather

Heliopolis, Aphroditopolis, Lycopolis

Map of Ancient Eqypt from the Historical Atlas of the World, 1962 /

These were the days of being in awe of ordinary Eqyptians and their courage and persistance in taking to the streets and standing up for themselves and their people.

 

“In the wide courtyard of our house
a child not even nine yet
tossed some wheat on the earth
sprouting cities of hunger.”

~ an excerpt from Five Fragments for the Sadness of Great Figure by Egyptian poet Ahmed al-Shahawi