Spring is here

I had one of those days today where I woke up and the world was full of potential.
It was full of serendipitous sunshine and the Party was everywhere.
It was in my favourite musky-smelling pillow. It was in my clanky old keyboard with the letters worn off the keys. I was allured and searched for the Party further. It was in my rose, geranium and olive oil soap from the four toothed lady at the markets. It was in the wine glasses from last night with shiraz sediment in the bottom. I turned – and lo! There was the Party hiding in my closet, beside the tangerine indulgence cocktail dress and the aquamarine one-day acceptance speech number. The Party was in the red lipstick I had forgotten I had. The Party winked at me from behind my camera. The Party twirled me and pointed my toward one of its many favourite hiding places in amongst my cds.
Then the Party give me a kiss and a squeeze and took my hand and said “Welcome to September – Spring is here.”

Humanity

Brewing inside my soul, I feel it.
I crave it.
We need it.
Revolution.
We need to stop this avalanche of consumerism before it obliterates everything anyone ever stood for.
A Chinese sweat shop cannot make us a new Pacific Ocean.
An Indian call centre cannot tell us how to love each other.
And no amount of Coca-Cola or MacDonalds can feed the starving African heart.
In Australia this year, there was a coup. Our streets were silent. People flicked the station and watched some more goddamned masterchefTM.
In America this year, a private company dug a dirty hole and gave a fast spreading cancer to the people’s southern east coast. People waved their hands a little bit and went back to their too-mortgaged homes.
In Iraq and in Afghanistan our husbands and brothers and fathers and lovers fight a war that has no strategy, let alone any exit strategy.
For ‘Nam – people bled their hearts on the streets. They shook off their forsaken jackets and the silk business noose around their necks and they bled their passion and power and pain on to the streets and they made the change happen.
And now?
We can’t muster the care to buy The Big Issue from the cheery homeless man on the street.
In this, you and I are equal. You and Obama are equal. Steve Jobs and I are equal. Joe down the street and Robert Mugabe are equal. Korean and Chilean are equal. Australian and English are equal. Irish and Spanish – all equal
We are all equally to blame.
What will it take for us to understand this disposable life we lead will not sustain us?
What will it take for us to realize we are poisoning ourselves?
Will it be the last moment when there is nothing left, an infected abdomen and an empty head? Dust, and useless litter and disintegrating possessions?
Or can we muster the courage and the strength to do something before then?
In the late 1800s they had Romanticism – an enamor with the Surreal and a resistance to industrialism. In the 1960s they had their hippies and free love and a resistance to the war and oppression of civil rights. And now. In the year 2010 – we need it again. We need a commitment to community and a resistance to the destruction and the disposability of our way of life. We need to take up our arms and heed the call to Revolution one more time.
This Revolution is about Humanity.
Without our humanity we will not make it through this cruel winter we have brought upon ourselves.
Without our humanity our brothers and sisters will starve. They will kill each other and we will rip out and torch the soul of the earth that raised us.
No more disposable fashion and music and art. No more replaceable wars and politicians and corporations.
Bring back our Humanity.
We need this Revolution.