Learning the Ropes

I'm dipping a tentative toe into the blog world with these first few words. I have not always tagged behind people, so this is really rather different for me. However, it's only one part not having the know-how & equal parts wondering if I have anything to say that might be of interest to anyone else besides myself. But then, I guess that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things because primarily, I'm doing this for one person anyway, & that's myself. If I can help anyone along the way, that's a bonus. As I peek in & read other blogs I see it all comes down to that end anyway, so here goes! It's cheaper than going into therapy & we really want to stay away from those drugs now, right? Or hey! Worse..."natural supplements". They aren't even regulated. Ephedrine...or Ephedra is a supplement & not considered a drug.

As I ponder & contemplate the things that have occurred to me the last five years, I realized I needed a place that I could lay it all out to examine & analyze it's nuances. So many times when something medically immense has taken place in a person's life, we don't know how to deal with it. Because it's brand new & because it's not usually something we get the chance to practice on, we so often flounder & get it wrong. We are also 'directed' on how to deal with it by others who have no clue how to deal with it themselves, yet feel that they are because they have that medical degree & are armed with all kinds of text books & journals.
Or because they love you, they feel they're expert advisers for you. Right up front I have to say, until you've worn the moccasins, (as the saying goes) stick to suggesting, but don't try to tell me how I feel - or should feel. I already know that. And it's not even close to the way you might imagine.

Five years ago in May of 2001 I had an aneurysm. It ruptured. And it was heavy duty! Pre to that, I had been an extremely active person; I ran daily, biked & hiked weekends, climbed mountains twice a year...or as often as I could get to them.


I ate healthy & stayed fit in my own complete home gym. I didn't smoke & rarely drank but for special occasions such as weddings or the holidays. There never seemed to be enough time in my days for the things I wanted to do, but I crammed as much as possible into every 24 hours & loved it that way!
My life was generally full & not complicated with health issues of any kind.

Then May 29th 2001 arrived. I found I wasn't as energetic as I wanted to be in prepping for a busy Memorial marathon weekend. I needed something to keep me going without lagging. I knew with all the things we had planned, that I needed an energy boost. So I bought some Metabolife to balance my metabolism. Yesirree! I was going to get it done. Much the same way Steve Bechler must have felt that day in 2003 as he was getting ready to pitch his game for the Baltimore Orioles. Steve was the 23 year old pitcher who wanted to combat fatigue & decided to try Metabolife to revitalize himself. But like Steve, that wasn't in my future either.

I say "like" Steve, but not quite because Steve died.

At that time, Metabolife contained the Big E. For those who still haven't heard about this wonder herb, that's Ephedrine. The herb that people are trying to get put back on store shelves because they want to 'look good'. Gambling with their own lives for vanity. Russian Roulette for the buff body. All of which could be viewed very prettily laid out in a casket.

I took my first little pill in the morning of that first day, another in the afternoon & pill three before bed. I was feeling pretty good about all this; I was doing something healthy for myself & doing it "naturally" & not paying out money for prescription drugs.
So! In the morning, I took my fourth pill & went outside to do a little gardening. That was the last thing I remember until I 'woke up' in hospital seven weeks later totally paralyzed on the left side. My good fortune & what probably saved my life was that I had two doctors living right next door to me & they were tending their garden as well, when I hit the ground. They made an immediate evaluation & had me medi-vaced to the hospital downtown in eight minutes.

That was to be the first day of my second life. The one where you find out you're incredibly more resilient than you ever thought possible; the one where you find out through sheer determination that you can amaze yourself as well as the medical world. The one where, if you look at things as a challenge instead of a disability, they are surmountable. And the one where you find out who your friends are & sadder, just how very weak your family structure is. Those people who 'love you' were all of a sudden way too busy to call or lend a hand. The ones who will 'try to get around' or if they find the time, they will pick up that item you're needing but can't get yourself. Have they always been that self-involved or have you just been too self-involved yourself to notice? New life; new questions.

Counter that however, with those you never noticed in your life before. They come forward & quietly sustain you as you plod along in your new life. Supportive, helpful, not just given to lip service as surprisingly, family members only seem to manage. These quiet friends are there to bring you out of the hospital for the day & take you for long drives & to a wheelchair-friendly restaurant for lunch. They run the little errands for you that your loved ones are (sic) too busy to run & they sit & listen as you try to figure out what happened in your life literally overnight.

I am learning so many valuable lessons in my second life. Some I wish I hadn't ever needed to learn; others I am eternally grateful for learning. As Maya Angelou so eloquently stated:
"Courage allows the successful woman to fail & learn powerful lessons from the failure...so that in the end, she really hasn't failed at all!"

At any rate...bear with me here...I'm still learning. Now there's this blog thing! ~*wink*~

Back To The Egg: The Extremely Outdated and Oft Misread Second Amendment....

Back To The Egg: The Extremely Outdated and Oft Misread Second Amendment....

The Extremely Outdated and Oft Misread Second Amendment....

The first Bill of Rights

 
The Extremely outdated and oft misread Second Amendment desperately needs to be amended again, this time including a guarantee that all citizens are given an adequate education so that they are capable of reading and comprehending what they have read. This amendment has been so often misread, intentionally or otherwise, for the personal gain of those that want it to support their views. 
It was written at a time when a property owner also needed to protect his property because he was the only one around that was able to do that. There really were no organized police forces that you could call on your cell phone...erm, phone....oops, yell out the window to the small local constabularies!

 Fast forward 222 years, from it's inception in 1791 to today, 2013. You can almost hear the rumbling underfoot as the Founding Fathers spin in their graves. They are appalled and stunned that the people they gave guidance in the form of the Bill of Rights, are so stupid as to never amend that Bill again, never amend to fit the era they live in, never understand that in the day when there were no assault rifles, no multi magazines, no phones, no TV, no cars, no computers, no radios, not even something as simple as a zipper!

Keep in mind please, that this amendment was written & adopted when George Washington was still in his first term as president!! It had only been eight years since the end of the American Revolution, altho' we were in the midst of the Northwest Indian War, taking place in what today, we know as the Industrial Midwest – Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc. Vermont had just recently become the 14th state. Originally, the Second Amendment is very much about local militias keeping check on a federal military establishment. 
It’s about Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. It’s a product of the American Revolution. The motto at the founding is when guns are outlawed, "only the king’s men will have guns." 

In a nutshell, almost everything ordinary Americans think they know about the Bill of Rights, including the phrase ‘Bill of Rights,’ comes from the Reconstruction period. Not once did the Founders refer to these early amendments as a bill of rights. We read everything through the prism of the 14th amendment — including the right to bear and keep arms.” The reconstruction Republicans didn’t love local militias. They believed in Grant’s army so they recast it. It becomes an individual right. The NRA is founded after the Civil War by a group of ex-Union Army officers. Now the motto goes, when guns are outlawed, only klansmen will have guns. Individual black men had to have guns in their homes because they couldn’t count on the local constabulary. 
It’s in the text of the Freedman’s Bureau Act of 1866 that we actually see the reinterpretation of the original Second Amendment. It becomes about original rights.” 

To say the United States was a very different place at that time than it is today, is an enormous understatement. At that time, the country’s population was a little more than 4 million, nearly 1/80th of what it is today. The inventions of the American Industrial Revolution were still 40 years away. The Colt 45 Revolver wasn’t invented and wouldn't be for another 80 years. The firearm of choice in 1791 was a single-shot highly inaccurate muzzle loaded rifle. While we can certainly say that the framers of the Constitution were wise and prescient men, it would be ludicrous to think that they envisioned a world where anyone on the street could buy an automatic or semi-automatic gun with incredible firepower and large self-loading magazines. They would cry to see how the IQ of an entire nation has decreased and using your words to support sheer stupidity. And that’s where we are today. 

Yes, we hear the words from people -- 'Everyone wants reasonable gun laws...gun controls'. But that simply is NOT true. Gun manufacturers certainly don't. The NRA by and large, doesn't. We need to face this first and foremost before anything can be resolved - not "everyone" is for reasonable gun control. A wide swath of people are for no gun regulations at all, which is what makes this national "conversation" so frustrating to the more sane element in the country. 
 If what you have in your personal arsenal is equal or greater to what your military has, with its drones, anti-aircraft shoulder rockets and weapons grade plutonium, then I, for one, think it more than reasonable to limit your access, as you seem to have taken an oath to sheer insanity.

My merry ancient Christmas, conventional in the most unconventional way!

Thomas Nast's first illustration showing Santa Claus 1868

People are always chiding me about Christmas because I do it up to the nines! I adore this time of year so much & I can hardly wait for the season to roll around so I can get started! Decorating, shopping, making out cards, baking, candy making, practicing carols on the guitars, gift making & all the peripherals that go into making merry. Years ago, when more of our friends were nearer & not scattered across two countries & overseas, we'd have a house full of merry at this time of year. Friends knew what I was all about & loved being a  part of it.                                                                                        

But people I've met in more recent years don't get it...don't get me. They think, 'Oh no Ginger, you must be religious, otherwise how can you love Xmas so much?' Or...Ginger, you must be a Christian & you just don't know it (huh?) because otherwise you wouldn't feel the way you do about this season...sigh.  And besides, if you're not religious, then you're just one big ol' hypocrite!

Really?

Well, let's tidy up some facts of this holiday right here, okay? I don't say I subscribe to any of these things, but to claim boldly that Christmas belongs solely to the Christians is also more than a little bit arrogant as I'll point out.

Christmas need not have anything to do with either Christianity or any other organized religion, really. What it does have are origins in the midwinter festivals, almost to a one, pagan rites. Since much of it is a celebration of nature rather than religion, everyone should be able to enjoy it & be happy together in spite of their reasons to celebrate!!

As we already know, the ancient European pagans celebrated the midwinter festival & a number of other festivals long before Christianity ever existed!
Babylonians celebrated the feast of the Son of Isis with gluttonous eating & drinking, giving gifts to the goddess of fertility, love & war.

The Romans held a festival on 25 December called “Dies Natalis Solis Invicti", celebrating their own god Sol Invictas - PAGAN.

The Persian god Mithras, the Syrian sun god Elah Gabal, the German Sol, the Greek Helios & the Mesopotamian Shamash. But also Saturnalia, honoring Saturn, the God of Agriculture. This was a celebratory time of year for them all - the law courts & schools were closed & no public business could be transacted. All these celebrations or rites were but a fraction of the things which this holiday we call Christmas originated - ALL PAGAN!!!

In Rome, groups of costumed went from house to house, singing, dancing & entertaining people. And this was where the caroling Christmas tradition originated PAGAN!!

Statues of the Mother & lover or the Mother & son were paraded through the streets, not only in Italy but also in Africa, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany & Bulgaria. Thus, the symbolism of the Heavenly Virgin & the infant child paraded on a yearly basis are not of Christian origin. They stem from the Mother goddess religion, which is very ancient & ENTIRELY PAGAN!!

The Scandinavian countries celebrated Yule honoring Thor- PAGAN. Yule is the time when Pagans honor the Goddess for giving birth to the sun (the God). Yule is celebrated on the night of the Winter Solstice. The yule log...

In Germania (not Germany) they celebrated midwinter night followed by 12 wild nights of eating & drinking. Born is the 12 days of Christmas - PAGAN!!

And so the traditions began. Wax tapers were given by the more humble to their superiors. The origin of the Christmas candle - PAGAN!!

The Venerable Bede, an early Christian writer pointed out that the Christian church absorbed almost all of the Pagan practices when it found the population unwilling to give up the festivals. Thus, a lot of what Christians now see as Christians practices are, in fact, pagan!!!

The church under Pope Julius I declared that Christ’s birth would be celebrated on December 25 in 350 AD in order to try & hijack the PAGAN symbolism & festivals, but it was largely ignored. Christians did not really celebrate Christmas until 378, but it was then dropped in 381 & not really resurrected again until 400.

The Christmas tree too, stems from pagan tradition & ritual surrounding the Winter Solstice, which included the use of holly boughs ivy & other foliage as an adaptation of pagan tree worship. Holly & ivy represented male & female. Mistletoe was considered a sacred plant, & the sweet custom of kissing under the mistletoe began as a fertility ritual - all PAGAN!!

Santa Claus came from the Dutch “Sinterklaas” who was a tall figure riding a white horse through the air. He was  usually accompanied by Black Peter, an elf who punished disobedient children. Also the origin of the reindeer, sleigh & the elves ALL PAGAN!!

Our modern red coated Santa?  Well, that would be the Thomas Nast creation in 1863, for the magazine Harper's Weekly depicted in my heading picture. Though this illustration was not in color, he did go on to recreate him in color soon afterwards in all his red and white glory later on.

 
From there of course, Santa went, shall we say viral was then brought to us by just about everyone, the most beloved I guess would be Coca Cola!!

America actually banned Christmas several times & is the originator of the expression “Happy Holidays” which came about because of the pagan origins of Christmas to include all religions & traditions!!
 
Christmas is the time of year Christians strive to prove just how pagan they aren't by proving just how pagan they are...lol! In spite of emphatic declarations to the opposite.

Abundance, charity & good will toward men, celebrating family, love, joy, friendship, giving, sharing & warmth are all part of what the pagans did during their celebrations of this holiday!! It is a sobering thought that nearly every tradition associated with the Christmas celebration is steeped in pagan rituals & heathen god worship. The origins of these practices simply can not be ignored by Christians who wish to have their God’s favor. Those who claim to be followers of Jesus’ way of life must make a close examination of this ubiquitous holiday & ask is Christmas really Christian & do I have any right to criticize those who don't believe as I do?

My advice is, just go, embrace the season, celebrate with the tree, the holly, the ivy & other plants. Make the gifts, buy the flowers, fruit, clothing etc & above all, make it a celebration that includes everyone in a joyous time. Doing that, you will be having a true Christmas!!!

As for me, keep your season as you like, allow others to keep it as they see fit...& for whatever reasons they see fit. Without recrimination, you will learn the true meaning of giving.