Anyone who has read my blog knows that throughout much of the Bush administration’s reign, I have felt many strong emotions, including despair, frustration, and anger. One thing I haven’t felt much of in the last seven years is hope.

Today, I feel hope. Today, I believe that we, the people, have an opportunity to seize control of our own futures, our own nation, by voting for a President who will bring change, a President who wants peace, a President who has lived and worked in the real America most of us live in, not a life of privilege and thus a distorted view of what Americans experience in our daily lives.

I am supporting Barack Obama–so far only through donations and verbal support, but when an Obama office opens in Spokane (which I hope one will soon), I plan to actively work for the campaign. I believe that he can be my generation’s JFK–someone who inspires the people of America, who moves us to work for our country in a way that other politicians have not.

I have not always considered myself a political person, but I now firmly believe that each and every American ought to get involved. Whoever your candidate is, support that person. When we let go of opportunities to be a part of the political process, we lose our voices–it’s not enough just to vote. By the time we vote in an election, we’ve already missed many opportunities to help determine who is on the ballot, and what issues voters will be considering as they go to the polling places.

I believe that the last seven years are a lesson in what can happen to us when we don’t use our voices. We can end up with leaders who disregard what we want–who take us into a war by lying to us, and then keep us in that war long after we have made it clear that we, the people, do not support it.

It is time to reclaim our voices. It is time to reclaim our country.

Peace, Diana 

1.  My proposal for a Poetic Justice workshop at the 2008 conference of the National Association for Poetry Therapy was accepted. It’s not a paid gig, but I was planning to attend the conference anyway, so it costs me nothing and will spread the Poetic Justice message and mission to a wider audience. The conference information is available at www.poetrytherapy.org. It takes place in early April in Minneapolis. I don’t know yet which day I’ll be presenting, but will post more details here once I have them.

2. Earlier this week, I got the go-ahead to start a “Creative Writing Club” at my son’s elementary school. This is the fulfillment of a longtime desire of mine. When I was in elementary school myself, we had an art teacher who  traveled between the six grade schools in town. I wanted her job, but teaching writing instead. This opportunity at my son’s school isn’t a staff job, but I will be paid by the parents, consistent with other after-school programs, like Math Club and drumming lessons. We’ll meet weekly beginning in January, working on a variety of fun writing exercises to help the students find and explore their voices. I also plan to compile an anthology of their work at the end of the school year. The principal and I are already in talks about a one-week “creative writing camp” during the summer. It’s great to have the chance to help encourage a new generation of writers!

This is also the end of my first semester of graduate school, and  it has been a wonderful, challenging, growth-filled experience. I’m already looking forward to the next semester, which will start on January 14th.

What new projects have you taken on? As we head into the new year next month, think about ways you can get your words out into the world to make a difference. Don’t forget that submitting your work here is one of those opportunities!

In peace,

Diana 

Here they are, in no particular order:

• H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) – “Helen in Egypt” (an epic poem from the female point of view)
• Gertrude Stein – “Tender Buttons”
• Anna Akmatova (her complete works)
• Anne Marie Albiach – Mezza Voce
• Alice Notley – “The Descent of Alette”
• Lorine Niedecker (her complete works)
• Cecilia Vicuña – “Unraveling Words and the Weaving of Water”
• Kazuko Shiraishi – “Let Those Who Appear”
• Mina Loy – “The Lost Lunar Baedeker”

I haven’t read this much poetry in such a short time in years! I always have my nose in a book now, and I’m loving it. So far, I think my favorite is Vicuña, who definitely qualifies as an activist poet. (For all foreign poets, I’ve been reading English translations.)

Happy reading!

In her book The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult, Alice Walker said of her writing, “The way that I understand my work is that it is a prayer to and about the world.” (Incidentally, Alice Walker delivered the commencement address this year at Naropa University, where I am a new graduate student. Synchronicity is a marvelous thing.) What a beautiful and powerful way to think of our writing…as a prayer both to and about the world.

I would combine those two ideas to say that not only is our writing praying to and about the world, but it is also ministering to the world. One definition of “minister” is as an intransitive verb, meaning “to give aid or service.” By that definition, we are performing an act of ministry with the words we write.

I think by considering our writing to be a sacred act–whether of prayer or of ministry–we allow ourselves to value it more highly than we might otherwise. In doing so, we empower ourselves to truly use our words to change the world.

I’ll be working towards an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in Creative Writing through Naropa University’s low-residency program. Most of my coursework will be done online, but each summer I will get to spend 4 weeks doing intensive coursework on campus in Boulder, Colorado.

Classes start Monday (six days from now), and I’m eager to begin. As an undergraduate, I would never have guessed that I wouldn’t start grad school until I was in my mid-30s, but now I know that I am much more prepared, and much clearer about what it is that I want to do, than I would have been in my early 20s, fresh from my undergraduate work.

I have no illusions that the next few years will be easy, but I know that they will be enriching, stimulating, and inspiring, and that I will be both a better writer and a more effective voice for change when I am done.

Along the way, I’ll come here to share both experiences and the writing that comes out of my work in the classes I take. I hope you’ll enjoy the journey, and that if you’re considering a return to school yourself, that you might be inspired to follow that dream, as I am following mine.

In peace, Diana

Protestors arrested on Fourth of JulySPOKANE, Wash. – Right now police are containing a group of protestors at River Front Park in downtown Spokane. Authorities have made 17 arrests on charges of Failing to Disperse and Second-Degree Trespass. Four of the arrests are juveniles, the rest are adults.The protestors were seen carrying signs with slogans of anti-war sentiments and anti-police brutality. 

Now, I realize that there may be more to the story. I may find out tomorrow that the protestors became violent or threatening. However, on the surface, it sounds to me like some peaceful picketers who believe that our country is doing some things wrong used the occasion of a national holiday to speak out. Last time I checked, that wasn’t illegal. And while others may label it unpatriotic, I disagree. I consider myself both a patriot and a pacifist, and I see no contradiction in that.

One of the things I celebrate on this holiday is that I live in a country where important rights including freedom of speech are granted to all citizens. I celebrate my right to say that I believe that this country, which I love fiercely, is being led in dangerous directions by people who are not being true to the ideals that I believe our country is grounded in.

I celebrate those freedoms with less certainty this year…less certainty that those rights still exist in reality, less certainty that our government honors the rights granted to us by the founders of that government, less certainty that I can speak out and still remain safe.

It sometimes worries (and always angers) me to think that I could be jailed for speaking my mind, especially for speaking my mind about the ways in which our government’s actions make me frightened for our country’s future.

Had I known there would be a peace protest tonight, for example, I might have been one of those carrying a sign with anti-war sentiments on it. I almost feel guilty that I wasn’t–that I sat comfortably at home with my young son, watching the Washington, D.C. fireworks on TV, instead of protesting some of the troubling decisions and policies made in that city.

On the other hand, I was at home with my son, while my firefighter husband worked and hoped no one would start a grass fire in our too-dry city with illegal fireworks. My family counts on me to be at home on nights that my husband works, not in jail.

I am saddened and infuriated that I have to choose between being sure that I can be with my son, and being able to show him by example that speaking out for truth is the right thing to do.

I believe the delay in the fulfillment of this dream is actually going to make it an even better experience. I am not only 16 years older, but more mature, more well-rounded, and much more self-aware. I am not, in fact, the same person I was 16 years ago, in many ways. (Who really is the same at almost 36 as they were at 20? Who would even want to be?) I bring a lot more to the graduate school experience, which I believe means I am going to get much more out of it. I also have a sense of where it is that I’m headed, at least in general terms…and in my senior year of college, all I knew about my path was that I thought graduate school should be the next step on it. After all, a Bachelor’s degree in English doesn’t really do much for you out in the real world, so a graduate degree is the natural next step. Life took me in other directions, and now I’m so glad that it did.

In the process of compiling my grad school application for Naropa, I saw for the first time how pieces of my life, things I did as far back as grade school and as recently as the week before I submitted my application, were all steps on the path I am on now. Things that seemed to be unrelated, isolated events at the time are now clearly the seeds of the work I’m called to do now, combining writing, spirituality, and activism.

I know that I still have an incomplete vision of where this path will take me next, but I see enough of it to know that I am going in the right direction, and that I’m going to have an incredible time along the way.

Mr. President,

I am an American, a voter, and a world citizen concerned about the planet we live on. Though I did not vote for you in November, due partly to my fears about what you would do on environmental issues, I resolved to give you the benefit of the doubt and judge you on your actions once in office rather than on speculation. Regrettably, those actions thus far have only increased my fear that your term will be one in which the United States not only fails to take steps to improve the health of our planet, but also takes steps to actively harm it. Allow me to give you a few examples. In the few months you’ve been in office, you’ve taken several steps in what I feel is the wrong direction.

You have already broken at least one campaign promise, one of the few promises you made that sounded good to those of us who care about the environment. Your decision not to begin regulating carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, on the grounds that the action could increase already heightened energy prices, is shortsighted. That stance places a higher priority on energy prices than on protecting our environment. I’d much rather pay higher prices for fuel now, and still have a healthy planet to live on in the future.

Similarly, your rejection of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol is wrongly placing our own economy above the health of the planet. I ask you, sir, what good a healthy economy during your term will accomplish if in the long run it contributes to the disastrous environmental changes we are headed towards? I believe that you are putting your own political welfare above the welfare of the planet which houses and sustains all human life. You are concerning yourself only with American interests, and not even with all American interests. I can assure you that I am far from the only American who cares more deeply about the environment than I do about my own personal financial situation. I would like future generations, in America and around the world, to have a healthy place to live. If you’re not concerned about that, at least consider the impact this action has on foreign opinion of the United States. How much respect will we–and you–command from other countries if we don’t keep our promises?

Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling would be not only irresponsible, but disastrous. The refuge is the last pristine stretch of that coast that has not yet been exploited for oil extraction. The tundra is actually quite delicate and any scarring or pollution lasts a long time. This area is the calving grounds for the Porcupine caribou herd, one of the last great wild herds. The Gwitchin Indians rely on the caribou for subsistence hunting and have opposed drilling all along. Your support for drilling in the refuge shows a lack of concern for the animals and humans (American citizens, might I remind you) who live in that area.

Your actions on these and many other issues sadden me, as I am finding that my concerns about your presidency were apparently all too well-founded. Please prove my fears wrong, and do what is right. I don’t mean what is right for the energy industry, for oil companies, or for your hopes of re-election. Do what is right for all the people you represent, and for future generations of Americans. Protect our home, and do what you can to ensure that it continues to be able to support us in the future. You have the power to influence the future, sir, and you should use it responsibly.

I am certain that my one small voice will not change your mind, but I felt it was my duty as a citizen of this country and an inhabitant of this planet to voice my concerns. I have now done my duty as best as I can. Please do yours.

Sincerely,

Diana K. McLean

Well, he didn’t prove me wrong. In the nearly 6 years since I sent that e-mail, my last name has changed, but not my opinion of his anti-environmental stances. And of course, less than six months after that e-mail, September 11th happened, and he took us down the path that ultimately led to last night’s announcement that he plans to send 21,500 more troops into the disastrous war he is waging in Iraq.

I believe I just may have to write another e-mail. I know it will have no more effect than the last one, but again, at least I will know that I spoke up.

The last few months of 2006 were busy ones for me, and I didn’t do much with this blog. Now that I’ve turned in my graduate school application and made it through a very busy holiday season, one of my goals for the new year is to do more writing, here and elsewhere. For those of you who have been faithfully checking for new posts on this blog, thank you!

I am starting this year filled with hope, and with excitement about some of the doors that are opening for me. I’ll share my adventures with you as they happen. And may you have many adventures of your own!

Yesterday, the American people sent a clear message to our government that the status quo wasn’t working. Even President Bush called it a “thumpin’”. The Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994, and the nation is watching the vote counting in Virginia to see if the Democrats will also control the Senate.

Exit polls showed clear dissatisfaction with both Bush and the war in Iraq, among other issues. In the wake of the election, Bush announced Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation as Defense Secretary today.

I hope this is an indicator that we, as a nation, are coming to our senses and realizing that our leadership has failed us on a grand scale over the last six years.

Now, I am looking ahead to the 2008 Presidential election, and hoping that we will give ourselves leadership we can believe in, leadership that can help us regain what we’ve lost during the Bush administration’s reign, starting with not only international respect but also self-respect. I’m hoping that Senator Barack Obama will run…although he and I differ in areas of theology, I’ve been impressed with just about every word of his that I’ve read or heard. He seems to me to be the kind of leader we need: one with integrity, openmindedness, and the courage to speak truth to power.

Meanwhile, we have two more years of the Bush-Cheney administration. I hope Rumsfeld’s resignation will put us on a new course with regard to the war in Iraq: a course that is in keeping with the American population’s clear desire to bring our troops home and end our involvement in a war that many Americans believe we should never have begun.

If I could send a message to every leader in our nation, it would be the following lyrics from the song “Circle Chant,” which appears in “Singing the Living Tradition,” the hymnal of the Unitarian Universalist Associaton. A women’s choir I belong to sang it at the close of our rehearsal last night, as we each hoped for election results that would bring what the hymn says to life.

Circle ’round for freedom
Circle ’round for peace
For all of us imprisoned
Circle for release

Circle for the planet
Circle for each soul
For the children of our children
Keep the circle whole.

(I wish you could hear the beautiful harmonies of this hymn, which reinforce its message of peace and connectedness.)

May peace be with us all.