Democracy for New Mexico

A Winter Solstice Message - December 21, 2014

Happy Winter Solstice! It has been a very very long time since I have come over here to write a piece. I am not sure what motivated me this morning to actually take action on finally writing something here but I am going with it.

This note finds me , Mary Ellen - save, secure, in good health and loved. Life is nothing as it was in the past but I am resigned to accept this and go with it, I liken it to drifting.

Three years has past and I still grieve Barb. Wow I loved her more than I knew. She was a powerhouse. One reason I had to abandon posting here is it was so hard to grieve her not being here and return here to her daily writings and her heart poured into trying to make the world a better place.

But alas, on the Winter Solstice one of her favorite days of the year I return in her absence. If you have any curiousity as to what time the winter solstice happens in your neighborhood go here. She loved the whole pagan history of this short day. And the believe that other religions commondeered the pagan custom.

I am going to link to a couple of her Winter Solstice posts:

December 21, 2006 and another good one - December 21, 2004 - 10 years ago today. And I love this one from .

On the Winter Solstice 2010, the last true Winter Solstice celebration together we had the rare delight of being able to witness a full moon eclipse that year. And as usual Barb and I stayed up til past midnight to try to capture these minutes. Here are some of the images from that night -

this first image was taken at 12:29 AM:

This second image was taken at 1:05 AM

 

The Third image here was taken at 1:16AM

 

And this last image was taken of Barb as I looked through the window at her working on something online. Either persuading someone to think about some thing differently or listening to music, or reading, or just exchanging thoughts with her FB friends.

 

It amazes me that the eclipse of the moon took about 45 minutes that night. Life is going that fast as well. There is so much going on that we have no clue of. I am not sure if there are any coincidences. I love this planet earth and the universe we spin in.

Mushy love to all this Winter Solstice!

From Mary Ellen and Barb in remembrance.

Time Moving On

Hello folks! Low and behold I got the inkling to write a blog post. I was thinking on one of my long commute drives that Barb started this DFNM Blog on July 15, 2004. Nine years ago!

There has been so many happenings to post about these past months. Super great end to DOMA, and a great victory against the haters in California. Most of the issues Barb would write passionately about though still continue. Racism, greed, lack of leadership, corruption. On and on.

Personally I am working on very meaningful work to me. I have a temporary job which expands often enough to keep me going and challenged. The economy is still shakey but there is improvement over here on the east coast. I watch with dismay as the economy in NM still struggles.

Looks like many qualified people trying to step up and run for offices. I look forward to seeing a true contender to run for Governor. I also hope that someone is talking daily to Sen. John Arthur Smith about how bad things are and the rainy day is here. I cannot imagine four more years with all the same nonsense. No sense!

Today, I was thinking how much I miss Barb. A Phobe Snow song came on and I just stopped and cried at my desk. Coming to the blog is hard cause her being is totally here. I always respected her vision and her desire to do this work, she was magnificant at persuading, and challenging. I was able to keep this blog going for a full year after her death, now these days I don't visit here often. I am always surprised at how many hits it gets without daily input though. Just shows what she built nine years ago.

I am sorry that I can't carry the torch that Barb carried. I carry a different torch, we all carry different torches. I love to do architecture and I am grateful to be continuing that passion and on healthcare design to boot.

Bye for a while again, who knows what will move me to come and update all our great relations in the southwest.

Cheers to Barbara Wold - for her desire to take action and follow her passion and start this blog.

Happy Mothers' Peace Day Message

Barb Wold first wrote this post for Mother's Day in 2006. Barb always wanted us to remember the basis of this day was for peace.
From this weekend's Code Pink Mothers' Day Peace Demonstration

Mother's Day was created after the Civil War, as a protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their sons. The first person to fight for an official Mother's Day celebration in the United States was , who had nursed wounded soldiers during the Civil War. You may be more familiar with her as the writer of the lyrics of the Civil War song, The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Howe was born in New York City on May 27, 1819. Her family was well respected and wealthy. She was a published poet and abolitionist. She and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, co-published the anti-slavery newspaper The Commonwealth. She was active in the peace movement and the women's suffrage movement.

In 1870 she penned the Mother's Day Proclamation. In 1872 the Mothers' Peace Day Observance on the second Sunday in June was held and the meetings continued for several years. Her idea was widely accepted, but she was never able to get the day recognized as an official holiday. The Mothers' Peace Day was the beginning of the Mothers' Day holiday in the United States now celebrated in May.

The modern commercialized celebration of gifts, flowers and candy bears little resemblance to Howe's original idea. Here is the Proclamation that explains, in her own powerful words, the goals of the original Mother's Day in the United States:

Mothers' Day Proclamation: Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870

One Year Ago Today

Barbara Rose Wold loving our earth

One year ago today Barb left the planet at least in the form we recognized her in.

The support from the community of friends has been outstanding, fantastic, life sustaining. Thank you is too small of a word to express the gratitude. Time and love from friends and friends we do not even know we have heals us. 

There is not a day that goes by without me remembering in full detail some aspect of our life together.

I find rest with the understanding that Barb is fullfilling her souls journey. And that we found each other and had the good fortune of traveling together for 23 years. I have to fulfill my life journey, you have to fulfill your life journey and there is no time to waste.

Love and Service

Thanksgiving New Mexico USA North America Continent Planet Earth 2012

Thanksgiving in New Mexico USA November 22, 2012

Things are hardly peaceful on earth. We have wars, we have greed run-a-mock, we have power hungry nonleaders, we have humans suffering from hunger, suffering from cancers. Souls and Beings of all sorts passing to somewhere everyday all day.

We do not know what is happening on this plain as we inhabit this earth.

Why all this love and hate? All this beauty and ugliness? Why all this killing and torture? Why do some of us have so much and some so little?

A very loving friend told me this week I am part of the 1%. That I have riches beyond so many. It was wonderful to hear this and remember we are part of the 1% if we look at the 1% as those that love and feel and want to share, we that can still think and move effortlessly. Us that really do care about the welfare of others and try to put action behind the words.

This Thanksgiving holiday is the last holiday for me to celebrate without Barb in the first year of the string of firsts. I miss her as much as it was yesterday she left. In my conversations with Barb that still continue, she told me the other morning in the shower that "You know you have to let go of me too, so I can move on." Just as clear as could be like you have got to let me get going on with my afterlife.

I went looking for old posts for Thanksgiving that Barb had done - I loved this one from 2009 and this one from last year. God I loved this woman.

Now this year of 2012 I am still surrounded by love both far away and right here in my house. I have a huge spread of food that could serve a small country. I have all the same wonderful birds and have added some to the flock. They each will enjoy there own spray of millet tomorrow, and the outside critters will have there treats as well. Show peace, love and gratitude for all the earth offers.

Labor Day! Labor Day! Break Free, Break Through the Walls of the Status Quo Criminal Class

Below is a great post that Barb did for May Day 2010. It is totally still right on for Labor Day 2012!

Just watch it

My forebears came in from Poland, Germany and Norway through Ellis Island when there were no immigration quotas. They worked like dogs at the jobs Americans didn't want, like almost all immigrants do. I am the beneficiary of their courage and hard labor. And so is our nation.

I grew up in Chicago, a city built by immigrants of every ethnicity. Most of today's America was built by immigrants, not the descendants of the Mayflower Pilgrims. We built on what was built for centuries by slaves and indentured servants, not the ancestors of the Mayflower Pilgrims. Immigrants and racial, ethnic and other minorities have always been our strength and our salvation. They work hard and they unite to stand up to the corrupt forces of the status quo. Think unions, think every civil rights and liberation and reform movement that ever emerged in the U.S.

Now the forces of the status quo and their frightened and misguided followers want to stop all this. They always do, whether it's been freed slaves or immigrants from Ireland or Italy or Eastern Europe or the Caribbean or Africa or Mexico or wherever. The very word 'conservative' means to keep things as they are because I am the beneficiary of power, position and wealth by my very bloodline and/or longstanding connections. The irony is that today's right wingers and teabaggers are often victims of the greedy, insular forces of the status quo, yet they defend the very forces that oppress them, convinced that it's immigrants or minorities or liberals or unions or a government that serves the needs of ordinary people that's to blame for their penury.

Today, on May Day, a day for celebrating the labor movement, a day when immigration reform marches are taking place all over the land, I say fuck the forces of White only and English only. Fuck the forces that scapegoat people willing to take risks and work hard to provide for their families. Fuck the forces that use vile propaganda to stir up hatred and reward ignorance.

Fuck the forces that defend the status quo ruling class so huge blobs of money can keep flowing to those who sit on their asses and "invest" in scams and manipulate and steal and deregulate oil drilling so that our entire Gulf coast -- including all its wildlife, its working people, its entire ecosystem and economic infrastructure -- is going to be devastated and entire ways of life destroyed so BP could save the money it would take to employ technologies to help prevent that. Fuck the forces that keep arms flowing all over the world and eternal wars going to feed the war profiteers and enable the usurping of natural resources all over the globe. Fuck the forces that destroy native cultures and whole communities and huge parts of the world so they can keep themselves and their "investors" in the money.

Immigrants, whether documented or not, and minorities of every kind are not the enemy, are not the terrorists. Our real enemies and terrorists are in power either upfront or behind the scenes in connection with -- or bought off by -- every "deregulated" financial and corporate undertaking that is raping our nation and nations around the globe for obscene profits. They kill and maim and torture people. They kill ecosystems. They kill education. They kill health care. They kill children. They bankrupt governments and homeowners. They kill wildlife and plant life. They poison the seas and the groundwater and the very air we breathe. It is they who must be arrested and jailed and convicted and stopped in their tracks, not families fleeing from utter poverty caused by all the "free" trade and monetary policy scams that have made slave labor the preferred option for the corporate and banking interests who call all the shots.

Today, on May Day, let's start pointing the finger in no uncertain terms at our real enemies. Let's work towards uniting all the hated minorities - the black and brown and yellow ones, the gay and bi and trans ones, the people who care about the earth and human dignity and the animals and justice -- and use our union to go after the bloodsuckers who are causing the horrors that are erupting and spreading each and every day. If we don't, we know the dark forces will win. They've got the guns but we've got the numbers -- only if we unite. We all know in our hearts that's what this era will be about. Can the united forces of progress overcome the stultifying forces of greed and privilege? Only time will tell.

Happy Valentines Day! Love Grows

After 22 Valentine Days with Barb I greet this Valentines Day with mixed emotions. To start the day Peter Moulson and I rushed up to the legislature in Santa Fe to be sure the latest Super DOMA legislation did not go any further in this 2012 Legislative session. And it did'nt. Hate stopped again in NM.

It dawned on me writing my rant to Chavez yesterday that what I experienced with Barb was beautiful soulful love. I mean I knew we were in love but we were deeply connected. It grows even now when she is no longer with me, it grew while I took care of her, her last weeks, months, days, hours of life. Love grows people.

I realize that the body is just that, be it male or female. It is the soul within the space suit that matters. We are lucky to find a soul mate. A soul to help us grow in our understanding of love.

Below is a poem my soul mate Barbara put up on Valentines Day 2007. It is perfect still for today and I thought I would share it from Barb and myself. Love you Barb. Always did. Always have. Always will. Happy Valentines day to all! xoxo

We were talking
about the space between us all
and people who hide themselves
behind a wall of illusion
never glimpse the truth
then it's far too late
when they pass away

We were talking
about the love we all could share
When we find it
to try our best to hold it there
with our love, with our love
we could save the world
if they only knew

Try to realize it's all within yourself
no one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small
and life flows on within you and without you

We were talking
about the love that's gone so cold
and the people who gain the world
and lose their soul
They don't know, they can't see
Are you one of them?

When you've seen beyond yourself
then you may find
peace of mind is waiting there
And the time will come
when you see we're all one
and life flows on within you and without you

Love, Hard Work, Honesty, Barb Wold’s Life

I wish we could know where we go when we perish. That is the age old question of what almost all wars are fought for. Barb passed away 4 weeks ago. I miss her dearly. I wonder if she is close or far. Did she just turn off like a light switch or do we go on to another universe, a different plane, do we reincarnate, do we go to heaven or hell, what do we do when we leave our bodies behind. None of us will ever ever know. I say shoot, I want to know.

So no one knows if Barb was around on Thursday evening for her celebration of her life. But I felt her memory was bigger than the room. How special the whole evening. So much love and caring. In attendance were our neighbors, our friends, our community, fellow activists, elected officials, mine and Barb’s landlord, all having a common reason to come out on a Thursday evening, to pay tribute to my Barb, my partner, my lover, my best friend, my soul mate.  I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. The afterlife services are for the living Barb would say and I think it was very very special for me and hopefully helped others.

I am posting all the videos I took of the various people I asked to pay tribute to Barb. I am posting them in the order they were said that evening.

First was Hakim Bellamy. Hakim is our local slam poet hero. He painted a beautiful picture of Barb as Anita Walsh said in a FB post. You can find the words to Hakim's poem here.

Champion for Barbara Rose Wold - by hakim bellamy 

Below is a small tribute to Barb from our good friend Jeanne Hoover who is our friend for 20+ years.

Then came Brian Colon; who was our successful Dem Party Chair in 08 when we took the whole state blue.

Then came Jason and Maxine Marks. Good friends since we entered the political fray in 2003.

 Then was NM Congressman Ben Ray Lujan, who captured Barb in a short phrase of ”Be who you are.”

Then another wonderful voice for the night was local poet activist teacher lesbian Erin Northern. The words to In the Offering of Petals for Barbara Rose Wold, Erin’s poem is attached here. Barb was a strong oak.

In the Offering of Petals for Barbara Rose Wold by Erin Northern

And last was Jeannette Chavez our dear friend who wove a beautiful poem together using various phrases of the song list Barb and I made the last night of her life.

Onward is what Barb would say. Enough about me she is saying, there is work to do Mary Ellen. She never did this blog for her ego, she shyed away from the praises for her work. There is work to be done. Tomorrow starts the 2012 Legislative session to cover. And not to mention every political seat in the state. So onward we will go.

Please Join Us This Evening for the Celebration of Barb Wold's Life

I am glad it is a somewhat slow news day for political blogging. I have final organizing for the memorial this evening. We have some great people attending and going to share their thoughts. One of Barb's favs Hakim Bellamy is going to be one of the guests providing a small tribute, just to mention one of our diverse community to speak. My niece Sarah, from Boston came in to town for Barb's memorial. It will be wonderful to have Sarah witness the love and support Barb and I have in our life.

I have had selfless help setting up this event from our good friend Peter Moulson, and from County Chairwoman Ana Canales, and the generous use of space from our local unions.

So today is the day. Some closure. I cry alot and I miss her greatly. But my life is continuing on. Please remember to support the blog here in Barb's memory. Donate here in lieu of flowers. Please.

 Please Join us for
A Celebration of Barbara Rose Wold’s Life
May 5, 1948 to December 18, 2011

to be held on Thursday, January 12, 2012
at the United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters Union Hall,
510 San Pedro SE, (SE corner of Zuni and San Pedro)
from 5:00pm to 9:00pm.

 In lieu of flowers, please contribute to her blog:  DemocracyforNewMexico.com
make checks out to: Democracy for New Mexico
Mail to 8522 Flower Pl. NE Abq NM 87112 or donate through PayPal on the blog

Help us keep Barb’s passion for justice and
her legacy alive.

 

Due to the outpouring of love and support for Barb and Mary Ellen, we decided to change the location to a slightly larger space. So that everyone can be comfortable, we will have plenty of seating and tables, plenty of standing and chatting room, and plenty of space to Celebrate Barb's life.

Food and beverages will be provided. And some words of remembrance will be started at around 6:00. Look forward to celebrating Barbara's life with you all. With love and peace - Thank you all.

1/12: A Celebration of Barbara Rose Wold's Life on January 12, 2012

Please Join us for
A Celebration of Barbara Rose Wold’s Life
May 5, 1948 to December 18, 2011

to be held on Thursday, January 12, 2012
at the United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters Union Hall,
510 San Pedro SE, (SE corner of Zuni and San Pedro)
from 5:00pm to 9:00pm.

 In lieu of flowers, please contribute to her blog:  DemocracyforNewMexico.com
make checks out to: Democracy for New Mexico
Mail to 8522 Flower Pl. NE Abq NM 87112 or donate through PayPal on the blog

Help us keep Barb’s passion for justice and
her legacy alive.

 

Due to the outpouring of love and support for Barb and Mary Ellen, we decided to change the location to a slightly larger space. So that everyone can be comfortable, we will have plenty of seating and tables, plenty of standing and chatting room, and plenty of space to Celebrate Barb's life.

Food and beverages will be provided. And some words of remembrance will be started at around 6:30. Look forward to celebrating Barbara's life with you all. With love and peace - Thank you all.

The Year 2011 Into The Year 2012

If anyone told me the year 2011 would be a year I would experience tremendous beauty and tremendous sorrow as it has been this year - I would have said you are crazy. But alas that is the story of my year 2011. I looked up big events for year 2011: and there are some big ones this Vancouver Sun articleseemed to list them out and stir memories of each event for me. I wish there were more positive events listed because we all know there are those - thank heavens.

I think of the millions who have died this year, and the millions who were born. So natural of an occurrence but so huge for the lives who are attached. I miss one very special human-being. I stayed with her and made her as comfortable as possible til her last hours.

I received a beautiful hand written letter yesterday from a woman Barb or myself have not even met as of yet. I am going to share a beautiful thought from this letter: "I believe in the higher purpose of our lives and possibly that the shape-shifting of Barbara's spirit from the physical to beyond served this great purpose....to inspire those of us left behind in our physical shells to step up and honor her work through our own. I believe a warrior such as Barbara might pass, so that 10 or 20 or more activists will be inspired to work in her memory, and in turn inspire others with their light and thus creating the most powerful, positive shift in human consciousness, as a result of the dedication and commitment to change demonstrated slowly over time by one true and beautiful soul."

That is the message for 2012 for me. Carry the light on to touch others.