Author: Jenny

The Third Sex

The Third Sex

Calculate the appearance—colored clothes and something hair— Strike up a conversation if you want to take a dare.

Your instinct’s right, because you can’t just look inside the pants— Your body wants to party, not analyze the dance!

It’s dark and light in stripes in division on a horse—
Picture the zebra now—it’s an animal, of course.
Each one is different—you can see, they really are unique. Straight markings are impossible—stripes show in curves, go peek!

All in order, some of them are sexy in one way,

Others in another. God makes them—it’s okay.

Humans have fingerprints and some realistic gripes

But when the zebra moves, you don’t think about its pipes.


Are there really only two sexes? Well, ask a doctor—“No.” How about three then, if there’s hermaphroditic flow?

I say we have some billions, and every person’s great.
Each of us is unique. Some will, maybe, mate;


Some of us have babies; some just clearly can’t. Sexual organs differ, like the leg that wears the pant.


Don’t cop out, friend, be truthful to your feelings for

A person, not a gender, ‘cause in bed there’s always more

And trans folks can be amazing, just like the others can—

Please remember the zebras before you make a ban,

For God creates with panache, sometimes in black and white, Somewhat he and somewhat she but always in the right.

If He makes us in His image, well, that means He’s more complex— He is also She and More—that’s how They stack the decks.


Each person gets a special mix of dark and then of light—
The feminine, the masculine—everybody’s right!

Wise one, know that we can live in peace together—

But we must be creative, like God Itself, no tether.


Open doors but also, sugar, look within, I say—I’m ready for more tenderness, now and here, today!

Sermon

by C. Jenny Walbridge

“And if you’re in a tricky spot—

Then worry what you’ll say do not.

For the Holy Ghost

Will tell you the most

Appropriate words: cool—a lot!” 

(Luke 12:11-12, in Luke in Limericks, by me)

I’m wanting to share about my favorite Bible passages.  I’m not a minister, rabbi, etc.—I’m not an official spokesperson here.  But the Holy Ghost may be telling me what to say!  

“…I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’…” (John 1:23)

During this age of confusion, we can embrace these words of John.  If we’re going to have a God around here—Jesus, whoever—we need to do some clutter busting!  It is time to stop the divisions in ourselves and become more either yin (feminine, dark, and passive) or yang (masculine, light, and active).   I’m not talking about being gay or straight, or trans or not trans; in these lifetimes we are in, God seems to have suggested that we love in any form.   His bonobo apes, our closest relation, not only look cute–they have hair parted in the middle on their heads– they also indulge in frequent homosexual as well as heterosexual sexuality. 

For the future, we may decide to embrace sexual activities for fun and to diffuse tensions, like those apes, who do not have nuclear families (“It takes a village,” right, as goes the African proverb, to raise kids?).  (They also have babies only around every four years; see my essay, Conception, in the Feminist section of this website, for my ideas about birth control strategies.)

Also, we may decide that visual and other differences are just too challenging for humans to deal with, and that we should embrace cloning to create just several versions of males and females that will cut down on differing characteristics so we can work more on getting things done than wasting time on simple face-to-face interacting (navigating each other). 

In the meantime, we all have to be angels in order to get along with each other.  Fortunately, we have tools like music, stories, Aesop’s Fables the Smothers Brothers Way and the Virtues Project International Virtues Reflection Cards to use to learn the virtues we need.  The United Nations tries to help, but the USA is recalcitrant, something we should modify. We also have smarts to change our behavior if that’s a good idea that can be progressive for our human race—like having more intimacy.  (Maybe even gays should have occasional male-female intercourse; all our skin is chemical and needs touching, right? Sex is something prisoners—of jails or of offices—have, to offer; and we may need it, if we want healthy and mentally well populations here on Earth, it seems to me.) 

If we believe that, we could ask if rape or child intercourse are okay.  No!  In fact, if hunger–an insult to a naturally bountiful world–and rapine–seizure of body or property–were no longer part of our globe, we would be in much better shape all around; I think Sister Earth would feel less insulted. Human affairs would be more secure if people’s property was not allowed to be taken out from under them–as in rape; or auto impounding; or fracking, in which someone else can get the gas under your farm. Instead, let’s go with “Victory Through Harmony” or “Victoria Concordia Crescit,” as English soccer team Arsenal says!  They also say, “Black Liver Matter”!

“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:5)  

I have done this journey, so you don’t have to.  Because of confused parenting–and a crazy society and world– I grew up trying to distance myself from the light—I tried to avoid the masculine/light/active principle, what is thought of in some Asian cultures as yang.  Finally, through therapy, I learned that I need to embrace it—it is psychologically necessary for my health.  I went into insanity and returned from it, and I can tell you that it was a long, and lonely, way to go. However, the trip brought these ideas into being.

“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” (John 3:17)

“[H]im” is the example of Jesus which can inspire Americans and those of other lands to live like Jesus, not necessarily becoming members of any particular creed, but showing love rather than judgement to our neighbors, letting God judge, which is His job.  It maybe means that Jesus has or will come back to us (in the form of a woman perhaps, does it really matter what gender?) to help us see the error of our ways and to get us to save our world—for the future, for our offspring, for the species, even for other species! 

The envelope that I have with 3:17 on it is on the carpet next to my Southern Poverty Law Center sticker, FIGHT HATE, which I also have a problem with (fire versus fire?), though I support the group’s work.  It reminds me of the gullible American commoner, who feels hate of the monied of this country and confuses them with the government.  It’s an honest mistake—sometimes, our white-dominant, fancy-dressing, highly-paid elected official system doesn’t seem very progressive in its lack of attention to pervasive societal problems.  But the time may come when government will listen to these words and the messages from the stepped-on and, in doing its allotted duties, will care for us by working/playing with us, and all will benefit!

“Then Jesus [(a Jew)] went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.  And, behold, a [(non-Jew)] woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.  But he answered her not a word.  And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.  But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.  But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and cast it to dogs.  And she said, Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.  Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.  And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”  (Matthew 15:21-28)

Here it seems as if Jesus made a mistake at first.  People can make mistakes.  People wrote the Bible, about people, including Jesus, who was made in the image of God.  

By the way, if God is male, can I, a woman, exist in His image?  But if God is beyond gender—or embraces male AND female—I’m going to call Him, Her. She’s probably sick of us constantly ignoring Her whole nature by referring to Her only as masculine! 

Who is sicker?  The community who stays poor and violent or the (non-communing) community that gives them guns and keeps them poor by not helping them ascend?  What does it take to be able to pull oneself up by one’s own bootstraps and get out of poverty and violence?  It does take examples and encouragement; but also change—giving food relief and providing decent housing, schooling and therapy, things our service-economy does not offer people enough chances to take advantage of.  Apparently the U. S. A. can’t manage that. How very stupid we must be! I must take personal blame for not figuring out what the psychological stages of human development are, sooner, and not spending more time on proposing solutions to get us out of our misery. You can see my “The Ages of Humankind and our Future” on this website (in the Matriotic section). I have also been distracted, though for the better, by my mate, who this night tells me about the final lynching in our South in 1981 and reads me the lyrics of Billie Holiday’s song “Strange Fruit.”

Getting un-poor takes opportunity to succeed–and perspective, things that many of our white and black poor don’t get from American society.  This according to my partner. The way we do it now, the poor are shut out from any chance for small capitalistic success, and chance to grow, because the greedy rich don’t want competition.  But competition is virtuous, isn’t that what they’re telling us?  “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, compete with us in the market!”  Huh!  We try but we need some boots here!

Charity makes the givers feel good; it stimulates the brain’s dopamine pleasure center.  Who feels guilty about being well-off when others are not?  The rich should—the poor are right if they say that.  They get to be morally correct—American society has taken away their tools, so they can’t ascend, but they do get the moral righteousness.  But if they don’t get better with help—and structural (global, if necessary) change, they are “wrong.”  Well, guess what?  They ALWAYS d0! 

We Americans save money by, for example, hiring a bunch of cops rather than finding the real solution for the major problems we have; meanwhile, people are murdered by police and drug use.  Is this really the best course of action? And why is our tax money never used to get the poor out of poverty for good?

The pattern of our society is repeated internationally.  Look at Central America and Afghanistan—the U. S. gave or sold them guns and now they are hooked into an economy of drugs run by gangs.  It’s very sad!   When we are more connected globally, this won’t occur.

I have learned a lot about myself, the mental health community, and what sanity means.  It means that your world is nuts and you keep ploughing through.  It means you can be inspired—when things aren’t working out for you the way they work out for anyone else, somehow you have faith.  You have faith in yourself because you are beautiful inside—you have something to share, to offer to your fellow person.

Julia Cameron, like me, is from Libertyville, Illinois.  She wrote the book The Artist’s Way and came up with an acronym for God—”Good Orderly Direction.”  My website has on it a bunch of my acronyms—like LIFE and LOVE and BEAUTY: Living Our Virtue—Empathy; LOVERS’ Intelligence Flows Everywhere; and Being Elegant And Understanding True Youth.  Artificial intelligence could be used to come up with acronyms that humans would then discard or use to think about ourselves. We should enjoy this!

Shame: Protect Ourself!

  1. “Socialist,” “public,” and other “nasty” expressions in American

We got a coupla problems here in this State.

Of course we should feed the poor—‘cause that’s great

Christian conduct.  But we’re opportunistic.

The word “socialist” bad?—no, we’re just sadistic!

What we don’t get is, capitalistic 

Wrongdoing is masochistic.

I’m sick of being right if I see all our sin.

Joe and Kamala, please, come on in!

Half of us Americans, making a living

Paycheck to paycheck—no way we’re giving.

Meanwhile the tax base is shrinking, it’s tiny—

People too ignorant to be too whiny,

Just suffering.  Maybe they sort of feel

They can survive, just give ‘em a deal—

Making drugs, selling pills, they’re ahead of the law—

They don’t have much choice, there’s no good jobs at all!

They say, up by our bootstraps is how we must grow.

Alone, ’cept for family—that advantage is no

Privilege—it’s just luck, if you got it you’re good.

If not, you can die, you’d do well if you could!

Any idea of a safety net

For food, for school, for retirement

Is called “socialist” and rejected as wrong.

Yet this situation in Europe goes on—

People pay taxes, get a lot for their team—

Security, learning, inspiration to dream,

While we all—middle class, rich, the whole bunch—

Are psychotic at best, eating the poor for lunch!

So why has “public” become a bad word?

Are libraries, parks, and sidewalks for the birds?

Why great architecture, if not for my

Body, enjoyment, and my colored eye?

Being unique, feeling free in a strip mall?

Where independent ventures can’t trip, ‘cause they’ll fall?

I feel restricted.  Oh, expletive!

I need some wild places.  I breathe when I live!

Why’re the police breaking our necks? 

For an extra bill, we turn into wrecks!

Tell me of bald eagle—now, who he pecks?

2. The United States of America isn’t looking at what other nations are doing! 

Oh no, we cannot look to other nations 

For how they work things, because inundations

Of good feelings, humanity don’t work here.

Or could it have something to do with fear?

Trump tells me things will be greater—they are

Already!   He says so!   Like Reagan, so far.

And I like being white, it’s easy to relax,

He says we are good, he likes to cut tax,

I don’t think I want to do things any better;

Too lazy to write the paper a letter.

So, changes?  What if my dear neighbor sees

That I’m not so good—let me hide myself, please!

I feel that I’m finer, this thought is profound:

My ears are both closed and I can’t hear the sound

Of my pennies going to abuse the stuck poor,

The luckless—those folks who can’t find the door.

No, they must be weak and deserving of bad

Like aliens, Martians, I’m not like them a tad—

I’m superior to the ones down the hall

(Though if I can stand up, without friends, I’ll fall!).

So stop me from reaching you, save me! My fate’s

To continue the hushup, forget it, the gates

Are closed and this way it will stay, for us all:

I’m scared American—so very small.

3. How might we nurture our people?

My backyard is also yours.

It’s the ocean, sea that pours

Around our nation, closing us in.

The world is round; we share the din.

Who are the folks we’d like to meet,

Or should want to, to keep the beat?

Why hesitate?  Can they teach us?

Help us, in hiding—can they reach us?

We’re members here of a society 

And we have a card, we belong, we’re free.

It’s tough to rock around and be kind;

But when you do that, you help your own mind!

What are the tools of our trade—

Of stopping evil being made

By fear, distraction, and confusion,

Hurt we live with in profusion?

And how to define sanity? you may query.

I say to question of the ones who are weary,

Who see there is malaise, who feel our State

Is floundering, stuck in the mud of too late,

Of not there on time to see workers empowered

And having a chance to themselves build a tower,

For making a living’s not necessarily 

Putting in millions—this I can see.

Let me tell you, my dad, and my mother, too,

Stand straight for this country—even when it’s a zoo.

We love America, have been rich and poor.

I suggest that our wise planners build in a door

For those of us with a spiritual bent,

Who believe in freedom, whose hearts are spent 

In caring for others, in remaining human

Despite plots so bland they could never be true, and

The many voices stilled by lack of curiosity,

Folks dead inside who don’t do generosity.

I speak for the common man, also the wealthy,

The ones with perspective, who want to be healthy,

The folks who are sexy, have a love of humor—

My friends, who all agree that that Lump is a tumor,

We virtuous ones, who are also quite humble,

Who’ve been able to maintain that trait in this jungle,

Us mentally illin,’ who don’t know we are weaker,

And others, supportive of Mrs. Speaker.

Anthropology student, woman, artist, here,

Writer, too, I am these days.  I fear

That we’re in a society that’s rather mean—

Unloving to children, and rude to the teen—

Bitchy to workers, parents are slavin’—

More than one job, to the Mayor wavin.’

“Keep me busy,” says my suffering friend, Ray.

“I need friendship and I want it today.”

England’s Minister of Loneliness might

Go beyond.  Should it be Ray’s right

To have counsel, even some human contact?

‘Cause we live in a group, that’s just true—it’s a fact.

Certain things needed could be available—

Not a bad idea—I think that wall’s scalable!

Justice will triumph—I’ve seen it in me.

I changed and got better, in my mind, you see:

Let matchmakers, therapists try to solve fears;

I’ve been in treatment for quite a few years!

On a worldly scale, there’s the United Nations, 

With their Bill of Rights and compassion creation.

And persons who we might pair off with, to live—

I finally found one; we have fun with a sieve—

We stay home and cook, in the kitchen we bake

Potatoes and such, then we walk by the Lake.

You listeners, I hope you take my example:

Give kisses, go ahead, enjoy a free sample!

4. Well, solutions are out there, people!

You hurt my feelings, US of A.

Saying I’m not alright if I’m gay,

Or feminine or black or broke,

When, my friend, you gonna get woke?

For all our faults, this nation of ours 

May not always be here, there may be no cars

In the future.  It’d behoove us to open our eyes;

Some day, there might be a fabulous prize

For living together with folks from around

The planet, for singing, for making some sound

With diverse peoples, who might know solutions

For our faults, our so American pollutions.

You hurt my feelings, US of A.

Building on top of docking my pay,

Enlisting arrest when we decide to speak—

How long, my friend, you gonna stay weak?

The good news is that our minorities

Who live in this nation, don’t deserve the tease

They get—often these folks, and you and me,

Are cool—like, some say “Yo soy” or “I be.”

They give us perspective, they show us who’s who

They’re like detectives in their know and their new

And we’re like them, we need them, it’s great that we’re in

A place that welcomes all.  One nation we’ve been!

You hurt my feelings, US of A.

Saying I’m not alright if I’m gay,

Or feminine or black or broke,

When, my friend, you gonna get woke?

5. We could make life a lot easier for a lot of people!

In some other countries the folks are allowed

To do small capitalism, and proud 

Of their fruit stand they are.  And why don’t we

Give some small housing?  Austin, Portland—see?!?

One might just heal when they come to possess

Their own door knob, and even to feel blessed

To live in a space where they can just cry

Or take a nap, in privacy.  Sound good?  Let’s try!

‘Cause people are touching, and people need warming.

They want to run inside when the bugs are swarming.

We all have toes which belong to our feet—

Directing us whither we tread, who we greet.

Do we feel we don’t need manners with our neighbors?

Friends, enemies—for all folks—we must labor

For shared results, progress, two folks on the see-saw—

Neglecting each other, can’t get high, it’s a law

Of nature.  (Good deeds make us happy together!

Gifts, sharing, good-natured acting—whatever.)

Enjoy being ourself as we impact another,

And they’re holding us, like a sister or brother.

Family and friends—we do need ‘em.

See all the nations who know they must feed ‘em?

Not leave fellows to rot while leaders drink up,

But help people be strong, all join with a cup!

6. Prevention

Is prevention a concept no one understands?

Do I have to wear a sign that says, “I’m a man?”

Spending of taxes, tens of thousands per year

To keep one guy jailed ain’t the worst, I fear.

“We’ll put them away for a year and a day.”

Lotta good that does now—they killed my man, ow!  Hey!

I would much prefer if the killers got assistance

Before they grabbed guns, expressed their angst at a distance.

Prevention is justice, not “right punishment”!

We don’t need more cameras, we need to circumvent

The violence running the streets of our towns

The poverty of half our folks—why keep ‘em down?

7. Guns can’t help me feel more secure.

Of course guns don’t kill folks, people do—

Yet gun-slinging brings responsibility too

Bad people are not right enough for guns

But are qualified shooters?  No.  It’s not done:

We humans cannot muster the responsibility

To always use guns wisely.  The ability 

Gets fuzzy when emotions are awakened— 

The technology itself engenders care not to be taken!

There’s a lot of youngsters out for some life.

Having weapons around, they see, causes strife.

They are interested in the future—is that lame?

Who are the folks that should be feeling shame?

When “with child” happens in a tube

When no use can be found for lube

Then tell me I’m no animal

Who needs warmth, whose rhythms pull

Me through my life, in winter rain,

Me feeling joy, me feeling pain,

‘Cause I am one with human needs

I cry to you in voice that pleads

That here I sniff and air goes in 

And there are you, and here we been

We’re touching now in simple skin

I say your name—you let me in.

8. Maximim wage

What would equalize our poor and our wealthy

Is a maximum wage, it would make us more healthy!

No more starving ‘Mericans, it would include

Other income, too, so as not to be rude.

There are rich folks here, but, too, many poor,

And the middle class is now shrinking some more.

I’m sorry, I forgot why homelessness is sane—

Look around, poor people can’t be to blame,

With such bad supporting, from first grade to twelfth,

In prison we’ve cut training, dumb for ourself.

How ‘bout a retirement wage for the old?

Many folks labored hard, but there’s no

Help for the needy, who’d work if they could—

Walking the edge, a better life should

They take part in, instead of ending up ill,

Costing the State much more than it will

Pay for some kindness—it’s virtue’s now nil!

Exactly what do the rich do with their money?

If their neighbors were fine, it could be really funny—

They could get creative, but the way it it shakes up,

It’s not just the blind man who begs with a cup!

Less people in desperate conditions—why not?

A larger tax base would sure help us a lot!

I say “us” ‘cause we’re Illin,’ and should make some noise

To make sure that a little kid has food and toys,

Is learning to read while his sister is studying,

Grandfather’s tutoring, not sort of muddying 

His brain—he’s been active, works even today.

Far away from the doctor’s where this family stays.

Mom is contributing to her society.

Dad has enough meal to feel relaxed, quietly

Shares his new ideas in an email or two

Pet dove says, from his kitchen perch, “coo.”

Peace is what?  Another bad word in this day?

Really?   I don’t quite see it that way. 

Although it would be maybe scary to know

The thoughts of these poor folks, I think we should go

Towards permanent healing, not fast-food life—

The good things are there, ‘cause our people are rife

With talent!  It would be wise for some folks

To write some comedy, not hide from some jokes

And the humming, the songs of their brothers and sisters,

Intimacy with the moms and their misters

Who vote.  It’s not just for the fans of the famous,

It’s for the fans of freedom to play, and not shame us!

Growing Up

Growing Up: Maturation for a Nation and a Planet

by C. Jenny Walbridge

In my post-menopausal years, I am understanding what I see to be the psychological stages of humans.  We need to move into a more mature phase to globalize better—to meet our future head-on.  The popular American ideas that a) people must all be entrepreneurs b) all people must move to a city to live c) any people should not be paid a decent wage or d) people should not receive healthcare are immature and nonsensical.  Plus, people should stop being fearful of others or other groups getting more, benefiting—why not instead be happy about it?  And what happened to the values of honor and shame in the U. S?  Meanwhile, Chinese and Japanese have that capability of working together as one—“wa.”  Maybe we could use that here.  Also, folks should quit being fearful of change, myself included.  My website subtitle, foolsfortheydonottakethelongview…, is evidence of my silly self, who realizes that it makes me, in the long run, a fool too because I’m insulting people!  Sorry, other fools!  

There are some interesting issues with which the U. S. needs to deal now: can public officials lie? is one.  Then there is, what is our attitude towards international engagement?—is it supposed to help our country or theirs, or what?  For example, why not intercede with Afghanistan to enlarge their market for pine nuts, a nutritional powerhouse they can grow more of there, instead of poppies for drugmaking?  Or, take a look at Guatemala: its biggest asset in my opinion being the textiles its women were producing until gangs took over running things—but the world needs its high-quality, colorful handmade clothes!  Likewise, the woolen products of Ecuadorian and Peruvian people, and the cotton ones of the Mexicans, are world treasures that I want to be around!    

Now, defense money should be put to better use, while the USA maintains our ideals and acts, humbly but enthusiastically, like a decent neighbor with a good conscience and optimism for all other countries, which are drawn together, as never before—by climate change.  There is work/play we have to do to progress (see Matriotic/Patriotic sections–“The Ages of Humanity and Our Future”).  I have here some guidelines, projects I’ve thought up over the years to get us in the right frame of mind for the future, my own “united therapeutics:”  

For USA: 

Environmental concerns:

  1. If I were President, air pollution would be my first concern—how can air and water pollution exist in our advanced nation?  And yet they do, at this time—scandalous!
  2. Creative ways to mitigate the harmful effects of people on nature, our home. For example, plant trees and bushes that absorb pollutants!
  3. More non-car travel spaces to shift away from carbon-based travel options
  4. Etc.

Educational concerns:

  1. Education for police (required) and neighbors on being a good neighbor, including de-escalation and conflict resolution techniques, broadcast on internet and free TV, for everyone to see and take part in.
  2. Ministers of Movement to increase joy for workers by analyzing movements required for jobs and educating/ cooperating to make them healthier, to see on internet & free TV
  3. Seyed’s idea: government gives cars to all high school graduates so they can get jobs, or $10,000 vouchers.  The cars are American, built here and are specially designed by U. S.makers to be highly gas efficient; i. e. updated Mustangs or Jeeps; they will compete with Japanese cars.
  4. Childcare by parents and/or workers subsidized by workplace, leave for new babies as generous as Iran’s (one year, with ability to get job back after leave)
  5. Education free for all 
  6. Rehauling of prison system to decrease prisoner population, provide real rehabilitation

Health concerns:

  1. No wars—they are too expensive, especially when veterans get the care they need, which they should
  2. Cheap produce (fresh fruits and veggies) for the poor, to fight malnutrition and create security from within, along with more nutrition research by the National Institutes of Health, including on natural medicines like herbs, and vitamin and minerals
  3. More focus on regenerative farming to preserve soil vitamin and mineral content, with an eye to future citizens of the world
  4. Repurposing underutilized housing stock for homes for people, building little homes
  5. My 66 Following Directions paintings of my psychological problems and those common to humanity for viewing, and my journey in talk therapy shared through writing & speaking, to inspire others to engage in talk therapy; also, to push for art therapy as a bigger part of communications and education 

General concerns and procedures:

  1. Voting using ranking system so that folks’ votes count, even if their first choice doesn’t win
  2. Medicine Wheel Collection of American traveling songs for Native American reparation
  3. World (photographic, changing) flag created, my flag poems (see Patriotic, Verse sections of my website) shared, world flag on Moon in 2024, see below
  4. More towns named Libertyville
  5. Microloans and support for small capitalism (entrepreneurial efforts), like in Iran where one can make a living selling snacks by the road

For Earth: The USA will work with you if you will play, too!:

  1. Proposal for Teamwork: Team Worldwide (see Welcome! section of site)
  2. In addition to STEAM jobs (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math), CLIMB employment values: Comedy, Love, Imagination, Movement, Balance
  3. Salary of the same amount for all world citizens
  4. Sea Emocean World Ocean Year, including Library of HumanKind (see Sea Emocean section of website)
  5. Benign birth control for women and men (see “Conception” in Feminist section of my website)
  6. Photographic globes distributed all over world
  7. Use of foot and hand symbolism in art- and music-making international efforts to celebrate the Earth and humans, evolving us into the next psychological stage of humanity
  8. Mate-finding prioritized—mass training of matchmakers, all citizens getting access to the inspirational 
  9. Therapeutic aid prioritized: physical, talk, dance and art therapists; all kinds of healers; social workers—all trained & working en masse, reporting to governments on the problems on the society and planetary level that need to be solved for happiness of citizens
  10. An American Recovery Team—using an Ecological Muse—for an International Synthesis (ARTEMIS), American-led compilation of healing experience, including prevention 
  11. Value the work of the United Nations (but end veto power), protect endangered cultures
  12. Engage youth and adults in learning about Earth’s peoples; value the learning of languages 
  13. World language (starting with the funniest expressions of each culture)

The first woman will land on the moon in 2024, if the Artemis mission goes as planned—hopefully bearing an Earth flag with her, and reading aloud my “Poem to New Glory”!  A world flag, produced by the U. S. acting in concert with the U. N., to be maintained on Earth and the Moon, would offer the U. S. a chance to formally lead the world in acting less rudely on the planetary stage, and more justly, getting back to our roots and our decent values.  We could focus on the pursuit of collective happiness, not just individual growth, acting sustainably for the good of all!  

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united planet of Earth—the lands and the seas, zany and fun, indivisible, with freedom and justice for all!

Whole Food

Whole Food

I was employed at Whole Foods: Lincoln Park, Chicago for several years in the late nineties, and wrote about the experience, including conflicts and specific as well as philosophical ideas for improvement.  The Nutrition Team is responsible for the vitamins, herbs, supplements and body care items sold in this giant health food store, as I called it, and that was my team.  Whole Foods Market is still open today, and it has retained its focus on healthy food produce and grocery products, over the years, but its commitment to herbs and other supplements seems to have lessened (our large Edgewater store has no herbs in bulk, not enough space for a full range of vitamins and supplements and limited boxed teas, which make it a reduced-service instead of a complete health food store.  I bemoan this fact.).   

“‘The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.’  So spoke Thomas Edison, who bequeathed us so much; if he is right, the health food store will become ever more important as years pass.”  -“Plans for a Healthy Health Food Store, March 3, 1998

Here’s a quote from our higher up bosses: “To All Nutrition Team Members: Thank you all for everything you have done.  It is a privilege and honor to work with you all.”  -Bob C., Jim M, March 19, 1998

“My team is expected to suggest to our customers solutions for the healing of their bodies that they might in the past have paid a a traditional (Western) doctor good money to hear!  Our company doesn’t hire experts to dispense this wisdom, but poorly paid persons like myself…We are expected to learn and research healing possibilities on the job.”  -Report to Whole Foods: Lincoln Park Team Members, January 14, 1999

“Our whole society is suffering because nutritional knowledge is not in the hands of the majority of the consumers.  Whole Foods is a testimony to how shoppers will buy when they become somewhat educated and to their desire to get educated.  Whole Foods suffers in its mission because its food store consciousness lags behind its health food store consciousness: the store suggests powerful solutions, then frustrates customers when its hobbled limbs cannot keep up with their desires to buy, buy, buy!” and thus better their lives…

“The Whole Foods: Lincoln Park Nutrition Department puts power in the people’s hands and they respond by buying and feeling better about themselves and attaining better health.  Our wisdom needs to be disseminated: only greater service to the community and profit for the store can result.  It is a scandal that our medical care system continues to lag behind alternative health care; more and more consumers are turning away from doctors and to it for answers that traditional medicine is not equipped to provide, and, shamefully, many of these answers include nutritional knowledge, such as Whole Foods’ low-paid employees dispense at the drop of a hat.”  -“Store/Company/Industry Alert in Preparation for the Year 2000: Plans for an Expanded Healthy Health Food Store,” April 1998

“The commitment of my Nutrition [Team] co-workers is incredible; we must, for a small wage, act as therapist and doctor, oftentimes, which we do, out of love!”  -Email to Susannah Frishman-Phillips, subject: Inner Views news from Lincoln Park, Chicago, July 10, 1998

“We make so damn little money anyway, and besides, we care!  We in Nutrition are very knowledgeable, skilled, and patient, and we put up with such low salaries not because we are stupid or bad workers, but because we empathize with customers in search of an alternative to traditional American bullshit.”  

“If these ideas sound rational and hopeful, it’s because they are!…

“Even if there is no other alternative, we must desire to be the very best we can, for our eyes are in the future, and I predict that changes will come fast and soon; we must be sure that our feet also land there—on the Earth.”  -“Store/Company/Industry Alert in Preparation for an Expanded Healthy Health Food Store,” April, 1998

“Public ignorance of nutrition and natural healing seems, at this time, to reward big business more than new herbal, vitamin and alternative medicine products and services challenge it.”  -“Peasce Watch 1998: Radical Nutrition Information and Issues”

“It’s nearing the end of the millennium; let’s pretend that we are interested in making a new, improved version of an American health food store, shall we?  Here are my ideas on the topic.  They are not dependent on the assumption that the future will be the same as today.  I see a future that, for instance, might have a truly progressive American president—perhaps a woman, and perhaps in a less threatening world climate—and might see government subsidization of food stores as public services… such that all produce (fruits and vegetables) might be free to the public (this would a long way toward establishing a baseline of good public health, providing for the defense of our country from the inside out)…

“When employees really know food and herbs they become educators of needy customers, transporters into health and greater self-sufficiency.  The basic lesson of Utopianism when it comes to food products is that it never pays to keep a customer in the dark—knowledge is power and empowerment is good, for it leads to strength, the opposite of weakness; strength is what our new world needs!  You can serve me better if I can help you on to your own two feet—we can then work together…

“Were Whole Foods to convert to doing things the “Holy Foods” way, it could cut its executives’ salaries, which are not excessive, according to J[ohn] Mackey; while he contends that he must pay his executives salaries comparable to those they would elsewhere receive, they should be willing to take cuts and so should he, if they are willing to become involved in a public health project with the future as a core value rather than today’s superficial successes!

“The Holy Foods employees need to be educated about nutrition.  They need to work for their entire store, not just for their departments.  For example, a customer with a question about ginger supplements for anticipated seasickness who asks a Nutrition Department worker about her options should never be shown only the (most expensive) ginger pills, but should also be told about the fresh ginger root in the produce section of the store.  A caring employee will always have the best health of customer and planet in mind when he or she responds to a customer question.

“Let not a corporate body claiming to be progressive try to hold back change for the better!” -“Plans for a Healthy Health Food Store,” March 3, 1998

“Dear Jenny,…

“[Whole Foods] is an accessible public forum (as a capitalist enterprise) in which ideas about health are often exchanged, which is beneficial to both the customer and myself.  New avenues of perception are often opened as a result of these interactions, assigning meaning to Whole Foods as a place of enlightenment and its commodities as talismans to guide one on these new paths of consciousness.  The ultimate lack of appreciation at this job for what we are truly doing is a great source of frustration for me, and I keep a tenuous balance between this frustration and the satisfaction I get from actively and consciously participating in whole foods as a public health project.”  -Seanna, Nutrition Team Co-worker,  ~1999

“The phenomena at the store cried to me, elicit us!” 

 -Job Dialogue, April 1998

“education, this refueling, I say, reach for it!  And in the mean time, visualize whirled peas!  bee-(a)-cause GREEN IS GOoD, as seedleSs Skateboard Company says!

From the desk of Jenny Walbridge

The Ages of Humanity and Our Future

The Ages of  Humanity and Our Future

It seems to me that there have been psychological ages of humankind, which roughly parallel the stages of growth/development of a single, female, human.  The first was before the Big Bang (Oneness, or being in the womb).  Then came the Second Age, during which all was either yang (Asian light/active/masculine) or yin (Asian feminine, dark and passive), as the balanced creatures and forces messed around and grew—evolving. 

Then, with more humans on the planet, came the Third Age, which lasted til say the year 2000, hand in hand with belief in the Trinity (male God, Jesus, & Holy Spirit) and the three pagan goddesses–Maiden, Mother, Crone–of woman’s life cycle.  It appears that the Catholic faith and English and Spanish languages turned out to be psychological leaders, perhaps for the reason that they blossomed in popularity around the colonized world, connecting it. Today the two languages, the second and third-most spoken around the planet, are similar and utilize an almost identical alphabet (I’m talking about English and Spanish).

Others found faith in multiple male and female deities, such as the Ancient Greeks and today’s Nigerian Yoruba–or just one god, or one goddess, for only a few examples.  Naturally, birth control was frowned upon amongst the Catholics of this Age, as folks around the world intuitively knew that their “mission in life” was to procreate, or at least that there weren’t too many people, like there are today. Or, perhaps, to make enough humans to start saving Earth from ourselves, and to progress through the fourth to the final (Fifth) Age, with a balance like the Second Age, which will last forevermore, it seems. 

The next—Fourth—Age is where we are today—kind of like menopause (I call it metapause—“meta” being slang meaning referring to itself).  We are slowing down our baby creation-focus as a planet and are beginning to turn outward to see what else is going on in our planetary home.  We want to get through this uncomfortable time and (with all the people now on the planet) discover how to be connected to each other rather than living our lives separately but coincidentally in the same environment.  We want to go into the next stage (I call it the Fifth, or Quintessence—“That of which all is made”) to take the world out for a dance, together!  If we keep spoiling the planet, all humanity will be lost—for our individual selves, families, and our friends down the way (around the whole place); let’s not commit suicide here, even if we are feeling troubled!

I’ve figured out how to do it and how it will work, and it looks really, really very good, as comedian Jerry Seinfeld said in one episode of his series.  However, I have a thought that if the world were alive, as some believe, it would want us to halt rapine (seizing property or body) and starvation—these are insults to our naturally bountiful and safe planet. 

What I’ve come up with is that we need to move to the Fifth Age because it will take us to another second stage-type situation and leave us there forever, in the sense that it will be another balanced yin/yang-run time.  We will come out of our Fourth Age, self-referential cocoons and, post-metapausally, fly around like butterflies! 

I suggest that as people age, our experience of our bodies changes—and our concept of our body’s symbolism changes, too.  We start off experiencing ourselves as being two-sided, think 2+2=4, 2×2=4—the Fourth stage of experience, in which we concentrate on thinking only of what we can do with our hands (2) and eyes (2).  These body parts dominate our awareness until we proceed.  Then we enter a new state: we grow to perceive the products of our fingers and toes and thus draw 5 into the picture.  Two (sides) x 5=10.  

Computer language is all 1s and 0s.  We learn to type, play instruments or sew (for example) and walk, using fingers and toes, respectively.  Focusing on the desire to grow into Quintessence, we can plan peaceful events—artworks (and musical accomplishments)—with others.  Utilizing both sides of our body—i. e., exercising our faces, dancing, drumming with our hands, doing gentle martial arts such as the Brazilian capoeira—will bring us into a better—more mature—balance than that of four.  This is the balance of 5, which takes us together into ten, then 0s and 1s—back to a two-beat rhythm, like our two sides (10 divided by 5=2).  Thus we invoke yin’s and yang’s balanced interaction, like the first Second Age, an improvement on the Third Age and the Fourth Age, which were natural developments, given who humans evolved to be, but lacked the staying power, strength, and grace we humans are worth.  

Post-metapause—Quintessence—the Fifth Age—is all about connecting with ourselves through others, learning how to be whole by sharing the planet benignly—playing together.  This must be learned and practiced!  We have a lot of play to do: my psychological journey—growing a self as if from a seed, doing stages of growth I should have accomplished as a kid in the last 30 years of my life—would not have happened without the ability to play.  My therapist and I utilize our co-created space to do the psychological work, but it happens through our sharing our energies applied to issues of our relationship, in the spaces of the world that we encounter.  It is creative and feels profoundly nourishing, as the pieces come together and my mind, heart and soul feel attended to.  Play-working enables me to sort myself out, growing, and growing up.  I hypothesize that our world is the same, and will not develop without our full panoply of emotion—including playing (we’ve been through the grief already, and now it’s time for the good stuff, what we’ve been waiting for! Furthermore, I’ve been insane for us, so we don’t have to go down that road again.).

Using hands and fingers for friendly and cooperative acts must be accomplished if we want to get out of this Fourth Age, it seems to me.  Traveling on foot sounds like a good way to awaken our spirituality, to be able to get to someone to shake hands with.  We can enjoy the sensation of helping each other, like holding hands, if we want a future for our human race.  How to reset at peace?  We  must express and enjoy our natural body symbolism, instead of being stuck in a pathologically abstract psychological system.  Imagine how computers and/or artificial intelligence could be involved—go ahead, this is a project for you!  I think they’re helpful, but I don’t have all the answers– I hope you will start asking questions now, and be able to listen and play with others—play “together,” whatever that game or tune will be—and strive for our new stage.  Get ready to feel, because I bet you will become like an adolescent, discovering real life—planetary world citizen experience will be new and exciting for us all! Let’s be brave and embrace our future, instead of hiding from it in our cocoons!

The Fourth Age is the phase to which we’ve developed because we’ve grown as a world, having created lots of humans with lots of problems.  Why?  Because we haven’t been globally connected in certain key ways.  This age of growing up is natural, but we need to work and play in order to develop psychologically and get even healthier physically.  Creative, peaceful interaction of humans on our planet has not yet become the norm.  This metapausal age finds us stopping the widespread generation of life (as, on another level, in the U. S., for example, kids are simply too expensive to have, anyway!) and getting caught up in metaphors.  

The year 2020 finds us in bad shape.  There is less physical life around, and there are more built structures, in this young century and new millennium.  As humans are dying from the Corona virus, we seem to be dwelling in a metaphorically as well as literally sick age, so I call the Fourth Age the metaphorical (or Metafourical).  The landscape is not the only aspect that’s getting grossly overdeveloped.  Unhealthy capitalism—money grows instead of love; our metaphorical American healthcare—as if free healthcare is not jusitfied, going hand in hand with our sick relationship to nutrition—as if knowledge about good food, and its availability, should not be birthrights—proceeds with metaphorically ill American interaction —racism, white “supremacy” and sexism.  Yikes!  If we utilize our body symbolism, however, we can make the progressive change we need to move forward. 

That means cooperation with all nations/tribes for art-making and music-playing, utilizing our bodies’ parts and wholes.  That may also mean, for all Americans, taking a medicine placebo for our sickly country, which has now suffered much PTSD from “Lump’s” (Trump’s) presidency and our dearth of feminine leadership–yes, a sugar pill, so we can become sweeter and catch up with some of the rest of the world; we need to feel like we are doing something to get better! 

According to my preliminary research, conception may be self-controlled (see my essay, “Conception,” in the Feminist section of my website, in which I explain the role of vaginal acid balance in fertility and discuss the use of progesterone shots for birth control).  This new natural skill of self-controlled conception, which could be perfected, would help us live with more control of ourselves for the future—so every child is a wanted child. Yet it is important to mention that abortion is a necessity in pregnancies in the USA these days, because couples often lack resources for raising children on their own in the current system of economic disaster.

Additionally, because of our flag, America has a special responsibility to the world.  Number One, our flag is up there on the Moon.  Number Two, it is full of space symbolism and metaphor.  (It has seven red stripes, signifying bloodshed in war—also, the length of a woman’s period—and thirteen stripes in total— the amount of moon months, and feminine periods, in a year.  It has five-pointed stars which in Ancient Egyptian culture stood for the brightest star, Sirius, which enters the visible sky every year at the exact same time.  Sirius is a binary star, and the orbit of Sirius B is 50 years, like our fifty states.)  Thirdly, many Americans don’t want our flag to be utilized for evil acts, anymore, such as terrorism against our own Capitol, or against small nations because businessmen want to steal their resources from them—let alone the crimes committed against our own people!  It’s time for a new flag: a world flag!

The first woman will land on the moon in 2024, if the Artemis mission goes as planned—hopefully bearing an Earth flag with her, and reading aloud my “Poem to New Glory” (see “Patriotic” section of this site).  A world flag, to be maintained on Earth and the Moon, would offer the USA a chance to formally lead the world in acting less rudely on the planetary stage, and more justly, getting back to our roots and decent values.  We could focus on the pursuit of collective happiness, not just individual growth, acting sustainably for the good of all.  As Albert Einstein said: 

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”  

Also,

“‘We can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in…’”  (Aldo Leopold)

This, I Believe

The Zoroastrian belief holds that one is constantly struggling with the devil who wants to kill one’s inner child through one’s own behavior, says a friend raised in one of their schools.  For a long time, I didn’t understand that simple actions could be in harmony with the natural order of things—could contribute to the ease of the world, or, alternatively, cause inelegance, stuckage.  The Asian art of feng shui, that of placement, shows that energy can flow around and open up your spaces and your psychological life.  Brooks Palmer is a best-selling author for his classic book, Clutterbusting, which describes the process of “Can we let this go?”  Another author, Julia Mossbridge, coined the term, “Let’s all be more like ourselves!” 

All Unitarians, I believe, can fight the good fight and save ourselves as human beings, and become world citizens.  When all people live in consciousness of our full  energies, and nothing is holding us back from being ourselves, we can embrace the whole of Life and be much happier.  Yet to do so, we need the inspiration of each others’ spirituality, and to appreciate that there is a big world out there with human differences galore.  But one thing we all have is yin—feminine, passive, and dark—and yang, masculine, active and light—energies. 

“The light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not.”  ~John 1:5,  Bible.  This is the story of my life until recently.   Always a peace-lover, I initially figured, unconsciously—because of parental screwups at an early age—that by rejecting yang, the world would be helped—strength could come only from yin beauty.  But there is a place for the male, as I have found.  Sexuality is great, and to be cultivated, not to be frightened of.

My mission: to be a spiritual leader: ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord,’” John 1:23,  Bible.  This seems to me to be my purpose: helping yin be yin and yang be yang, and the two to attract yet stay different from each other, initiating a spiral type of movement, working and playing together!  As Pope Francis said in 2015 (as recorded in the book, Give Us This Day Our Daily Love: Pope Francis on the Family, Boston: Pauline Books and Media), “This is what marriage is all about: man and woman walking together, wherein the husband helps his wife to become ever more a woman, and wherein the woman has the task of helping her husband become ever more a man,” (p. 13).

“I’ve spent all my life looking for the answer: are we human, or are we dancer?” goes the Killers’ song “Human:”  Who named us Homo sapiens sapiens (Man wise wise)?  Do we really think we are that smart, or should be?  What would a deity like to see, looking at Her/His creation?  Life reading a book, never moving around?  Let’s be Homo sapiens dancer!  We can use my favorite proverb, an Estonian one: “The work will teach you how to do it!” 

Sea Emocean Plan of Action

Sea Emocean 

Hypothetical Plan of Action

“I can envision a world in which economic activity involving individuals and institutions will dramatically change in a short period of time.”  -Jesse M. Fink, entrepreneur, Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, Kathleen Dean Moore & Michael P. Nelson, editors, 2010, p. 232.

“God’s passion for the world includes its future.” -Marcus J. Borg, Hundere Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture Emeritus at Oregon State University, author of Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, 2008, Moral Ground, p. 253.

  1. All changes on Earth as a result of Sea Emocean should be documented for posterity.
  2. World language will be developed, using Labanotation: funny expressions of each culture utilized.
  3. All Americans need some form of medicine (ours has become a sick nation from PTSD because of Covid, Trump and lack of women leaders), even if it’s only a placebo.
  4. The United Nations declares a World Ocean Year: Sea Emocean in the Decade for Ocean Science and Sustainability (2021-2030).
  5. The USA admits the “pursuit of happiness” and the Second Amendment have gotten out of control and are having negative effects on the whole planet—and the USA needs help, which World Ocean Year (Sea Emocean) will bring, as the USA gets better connected to all peoples on Earth.  The USA apologizes for treating the planet like a shopping mall, where its citizens express their values only by buying things; also, for wanting to rule instead of share, treating its neighbors only as resources to be plundered, and for general rudeness and sneakiness towards its fellows (peoples and nations).
  6. The government of the USA makes sure our Artemis moon landing has worldwide, benign focus, not selfish, in media coverage.  The world flag is taken to the Moon in 2024 and planted there by a female astronaut.
  7. The USA distributes the world flag, I read my flag poems (see Patriotic section of this website), flag and poems get translated and given to all nations.  A new world flag with a different view of Earth on it gets distributed every so often so that all peoples can see themselves from space.  Flag is taken to Moon each time it changes.
  8. The USA develops and distributes photographic world globes to all nations, ceremoniously celebrating a new, less selfish and more fun era!
  9. Citizens of world volunteer to do Sea Emocean projects: a) list, record songs/music with ocean themes, lyrics, translate them.  b) collect & share sea product recipes  c) ordinary citizens work with filmmakers who train them to make fiction, documentary, and experimental films regarding the ocean and its creatures; such films are shown around the world.  d) Library of HumanKind: interviews with everyone regarding their experience(s) with the ocean.  e) guide others visiting ocean.  f) teach ways to express ocean in art: calligraphy; sculpture; stained glass; clothing; etc.  g) share teaching swimming techniques.  h) do karaoke Zoom singing of sea songs.  i) exhibit ocean art by artists & kids all over world. j) consider humane value of archetypes related to sea, such as fishers; decide whether to stop trawling and/or other anti-humane, destructive-to-ocean industry techniques; etc.
  10. Countries, world send folks who’ve never been to the seashore there.  
  11. Sea haikus, poetry, raps, images displayed outside (on buses, billboards, etc.) and inside.
  12. Ocean sports, research shared on TV and computers.
  13. Link up with artists to create aural and visual art/music.
  14. Provide a global salary, the same for everyone over 16.  Those previously rich are asked for their opinions of value; so are those who’ve been poor; others learn from them.  Poverty abolished as world citizens start to see themselves as islanders vulnerable to climate change.  Folks trade with goods, time, and services, not gold or cash.
  15. Engage churches, mosques, synagogues, etc. in stewarding world, using book Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, eds. Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson, 2010. (a) sharing methods of worship: dance, music, songs.  b) sharing sermons on nature, future. c) exploring feminine spirituality.
  16. Matchmakers, fishers and healers teach their crafts. 
  17. No more “food deserts:” a) cooperation for ocean farming, with no evil techniques (trawling, overfishing); b) global nutrition research;  c) global cooperation in nutrition research and education.  All produce is sold inexpensively; other foods less available as they are unhealthy, as a general rule.  Markets pledge not to sell “foodlike” products. 
  18. Countries designate Ministers of Movement to help people use their bodies more healthfully in movement: documentation and sharing of (a) improved work movements; b) making joyful noises (singing, dancing, playing instruments); c) ways to grow psychologically and maintain health through movement.
  19. Reimagine education, including skills training and a spiritual option; enable all, especially uneducated, to use available resources to enrich their lives.
  20. Dance therapy; talk therapy; and art therapy available for all who want it.  Train these types of therapists in a widespread effort.
  21. The rich can donate.
  22. Stop starvation and rapine (seizing another’s body or possessions). These are an insult to a naturally safe and bountiful planet!

Sea Emocean!

Sea Emocean

When my mother was seventeen—back in 1955—she wrote that “The sea beats like a great heart on which all life depends.”  Sixty-five years has passed, and the only expression of ocean love I’ve heard that tops that is my phrase “sea emocean.”  See?  Emotion!  I grew up in Illinois; my starfish photo that I had blown up to poster size, would console me when I broke my arm and sat, typing with one finger, working on my own poetry—at my mother’s very writing desk.  Upon feeling nourished by looking at books of stained glass art with sea themes, I wondered what could induce our art museum to have an exhibit of such work.  Meanwhile, for United Nations World Water Day, I found online a music piece idea calling for different sounds of water—the mentally ill senior citizens I worked with thought of 25 as we drank up our dixie cups of the precious liquid!  Somehow, the phrase came to me, and I thought of a potential World Ocean Year called, in English, Sea Emocean—or, in other tongues, “Sea Love!”  

People only care for what we know and love, despite efforts otherwise.  We are only human.  See—mind; emotion—heart.  People are made up of seventy percent water, just like our planet’s surface.  We sweat and weep salty water; our bodies go through cycles, just like ocean tides and waves.  Islands we live on.  The big backyard that connects all human neighbors holds huge and amazing (even as smart as us) creatures who get around the planet much better than we do.  We people are not necessarily THE event on Earth!

But when we don’t love ourselves, the Earth suffers—because we hurt, and we are a part of the Earthly art.  My latest understanding of humans suggests that we go through stages of life as one humanity: they parallel the psychological stages of a single, human female.  The First Age was womb life, before the Big Bang; there was growing, evolving, when we humans engaged in a balance of female and male energy-interaction and became our species (Age Two).  Then suddenly there were a fair amount of people on the Earth and history started.  The beliefs switched from mostly goddess-and nature-worshipping to—in the English-speaking world, the location for our evolution, perhaps strangely—god-worshipping; thus the name for this age, that of the Trinity, a triple male godhead believed in by many (Catholics): the Third Age.  This was our prime-of-life age, when science was developing but birth control was still considered immoral (you could call this understandable, since the thrust of this Age was toward population of our planet, in order for inventions and contacts to happen that would bring us as a human race along to the next stages).  The Third Age was expansive but unsustainably so.

Now we are in a Fourth psychological stage.  I like to call it Meta-pausal (“meta” meaning “referring to self”), since we are finally quitting our fascination with ourselves, our families, and our limited local communities.  We are cocooning now but need to come out soon.  Our malaise is part of our current stage; menopause can be very tricky for some women, and we have only just developed the technology to be connected worldwide.  When we enter the next stage, we will have shifted our attention from our human family to larger aspects of the world—checking out what else is going on on Earth.  We will need to create a language for the planet, but that will be no problem, since we have a way (finally) of depicting movement (Brenda Farnell’s Labanotation); and of course we can begin with the funniest expressions from each people.

The Fifth Age—Quintessence (“that of which all is made”)—is almost here, so don’t lose hope!  Feeling together as a Planet, speaking to all of our neighbors, using our bodies for art, health, music, celebration, will be fulfilling and fun for all ages.  It will take labor; we will have to move–to dance—and help each other without greed even being relevant.  In this stage, we crawl out and fly around, like happy butterflies, whatever that may be like.  Furthermore, in this stage we are secure—quite secure—because our mature body symbolism and use of computers will return us to a naturally balanced masculine/feminine-energy-interaction for the rest of history—and beyond!   

This aberration of ours—his-story, the English language, the Trinity of male gods, whatever it was—grew like a plant on the Planet, but was never ideal, the way balanced male/female energy interaction is.  (Look at the great Nigerian Yoruba, or the Ancient Greeks, with their male and female deities.)  We needed it, as we refused to give up our youthful yet blind immaturity, for a time, but our old age stage will last forever, as the ultimate meaning of life (as opposed to the pre-human part of Stage Two, or the prime-of-life but unconnected Third stage).  This Age needs to be embraced with love and enthusiasm so we can leave virus, racism, and sexism behind.  

Eventually, I saw Sea Emocean as a tool for this purpose.  Sharing our human relationship with our main planetary feature together could bring us emotionally closer together—a shared introspection on a planetary level might be just what the doctor ordered!  Plus, it will be super fun—kids will eat it up, seaweed and all, ha ha ha.  We should ask the 17-year-olds how to proceed, instead of being stuck like we’ve been drenched in molasses.  Actually that sounds yummy—maybe we all have words to share!  My idea for a Library of HumanKind could start us off: all people who have never seen the ocean get sent there, and everybody gets videoed about their ocean experiences, to save for posterity.  For the Decade of Ocean Science and Sustainability (2021-2030), Sea Emocean/World Ocean Year would be a great start; surely we could put it together after the current climate of panic. We folks need help everywhere; let’s do it!

The Good News!

The Good News!

 by Catherine Jennifer Walbridge

I am a human being who is composed of 70% water, just like you and the surface of our planet!  An American with a Bachelor of Science degree in anthropology, I thought up the term “sea emocean.”  It came to me when I broke my arm and spent a lot of time at home, recovering, typing with one finger.  Above my chair hung my eighteen by twenty-four inch photo of a Pacific Ocean starfish reposing in seaweed.

Six years ago, the Obama State Department ocean conference was called by John Kerry, U. S. Secretary of State, and Under Secretary Catherine Novelli.  I was very excited about the conference, and printed out John Kerry’s speeches.  In the words that follow, I have utilized some of his remarks in a manner that he did not necessarily intend, in order to highlight the fact that just a hard scientific approach to considering and coming to cooperate around the ocean will not save it: we need to integrate other methods of helping the world.  Also, the ocean issue could provide a rallying of humanity that will solve both our human world’s and our physical Earth’s problems and lead us into a green—and secure—future!

Busy for the last months of this summer reading Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril (editors Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson, 2010) over again, I was so delighted by the news that next year, 2021, is the first year of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030)—and that there is an international ocean conference coming up—that I dug out my old Sea Emocean papers and started writing this, for you and my website, foolsfortheydonottakethelongview.site .  This Decade follows the U. N. International Decade for Action—Water for Life, 2005-2015; yes, we are wet and salty, and hopefully there will be tears of joy, soon, here on Earth!  

“Because the world is so extraordinarily interconnected today—economically, technologically, militarily, and in every other way imaginable—instability anywhere can threaten stability everywhere,” writes John Kerry in an article for his group, World War Zero.  Since we are so interconnected, mental health should be a major concern—along with physical health and spiritual health!  Maybe one nation—for example, the U. S. A.—does not have the guiding light on health of this nature for its citizens; perhaps we have to get direction from other States, cultures, and peoples, looking out instead of in.

In 2012, I attended the Nobel Conference in Minnesota, “Our Global Ocean” because I wanted to share the idea of “Sea Emocean” as a possible U. N.-declared World Ocean Year.  I imagined the potential for us humans to use this event to explore healing emotion for our physical world and its creatures, including ourselves—without maintaining that we people are THE event on Earth.

The Economist’s February 22, 2014 article, “Free exchange: Valuing the long-

beaked echidna,” discusses the initiative called The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, which attempts to “put numbers on, and publicize, the economic benefits of biodiversity.”  Other attempts at this goal have been made, but, as the article states, it’s not that easy; “economics cannot quite capture the value of all the creatures sharing this planet.”  We need to go beyond such efforts, if we believe in our worth as a species.

I must make the point that we are a generation older than we were in 1998 at the time of the last World Ocean Year— and we must act like it, for the health of the ocean and ourselves.  Without psychological health, Earth’s people can hardly be expected to contribute to saving our ocean.  Yet it can be done—by using the ocean to rally us, a new World Ocean Year with a series of nourishing events can help humans grow, and apply ourselves to fixing the globe which we call home!  The less we share the sea with other living creatures, the less it works for us, making our oxygen, getting rid of our carbon, and giving us things to eat and ways of getting them, not to omit how it moves and inspires us.  Plus, the less we share our experiences of and gain from the sea with other humans, the less we will find interconnection and a future—for all countries, all peoples!

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We know that, as the United Nations tells us on its “Sustainable Development Goals” website, “The fundamental challenge facing human beings on planet Earth is the escalating level of our greenhouse gas emissions.  They are the cause of the climate crisis and they are the reason the ocean is acidifying, deoxygenating, and warming – and warming results in the death of coral, rising sea levels, and changing marine ecosystems.  To this challenge, we must add the effects of detrimental human behavior in the fields of marine pollution, stemming mostly from land-based activities, and some of our fishing habits – notably overfishing, illegal fishing, and the subsidization of industrial fishing fleets.”

But the question, “Q: How can innovation and technology address some of these challenges?” is not going to give us the answer we need: because for once, it is not only to science that we must turn for answers, but also to ourselves.  See—mind; emotion—heart; Sea Emocean: Love Our Sea!—a World Ocean Year in the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, is my hope.  It would have to be a set of enjoyable, enriching efforts by the planet’s people and institutions to plan and execute, as we need solutions (and good times) NOW! 

This is the answer to the above question on the UN website: “A: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made it clear that rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society will be required if we are going to succeed in limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.  This will require political will at all levels of society.  Be it climate action, pollution control, or fisheries management, there can be little doubt that the application of our best innovation and technology will be key to our success.”  Yet, I will quote Abraham Lincoln here—“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.  The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.  As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew,” and Albert Einstein—“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”  

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The Panel’s answer sounds daunting, but as U. S. Senator Elizabeth Warren would say, I have a plan for that—and like entrepreneur Jesse Fink in the book Moral Ground, “I can envision a world in which economic activity involving individuals and institutions will dramatically change in a short period of time” (p. 232). 

Beginning soon—preferably, immediately—to implement Sea Emocean: World Ocean Year is important.  Poor countries must talk to rich, and the inverse, both planning to exhibit their cultural ocean heritage, not for serious business’ sake—but for learning, and for fun!  I can’t even imagine how much positive emotion would come from this global effort, as folks would grow to understand each other’s genius and the meaning the sea has for them.  Plus, it’s time to begin caring about all of our fellow Earth dwellers—climate change has raised its ugly head, and big help is going to be needed by our friends and those the U. S., for example, used to call enemies, in an attempt to rule, instead of share, the world.  This greedy behavior made more sense in the previous prime-of-life conquest age, but now things are different—meta-pausal, I would say—and it’s time to grow up and reach out.

Today—in this messy time—we need to halt our preoccupation with making babies and start using our science, spiritual direction and creativity to figure out what else is going on in our world—and to take part in this larger project: it is time to consider what our legacy will be to the youth and the other denizens of the planet.  For example, the current time period has seen only metaphors of decent health care, nutrition and education instead of our real birthrights, on a global scale.  Additionally, we’ve been living with racism and sexism—no ways to treat potential world citizens! 

“[I]f we are going to be able to honor the ocean, the ad hoc approach we have today with each nation and community pursuing its own independent policy simply will not suffice.  That is not how the ocean works,” states John Kerry, at the 2014 conference.  I agree, and that is not how people work, either!  I feel that humans are not going to change our habitual destructive tendencies until—not until certain laws get passed—but until they are moved emotionally to live more inspired lives.  Is the ocean a puzzle to solve with our minds, and not our hearts?  Or does everyone have a unique insight and possible contribution to make to the challenge of our planetary future—and I’m not talking about sending money!? 

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Protection of our world, including our ocean and land, is a vital international security concern.  “The connection between a healthy ocean and life itself for every single person on Earth cannot be overstated,” said John Kerry, at the 2014 conference.  “The good news is that at this point we know what we need to do to address the threats facing the ocean.  It’s not a mystery.  It’s not beyond our capacity” to administer to the sea we have chronically abused.  But how do we minister to ourselves to get ourselves to attend to these matters? 

The problem is: all over the world, humans are doubtful of ourselves.  We think in one way or another that we are wrong, sick or handicapped—and we are, even those of us who are physically well-fed and healthy.  Why?  Because we have not lived up to our full potential—though this is to be expected in a non-globally, not positively- connected place.  We are deficient now, because each of us cannot remain fully conscious, all the time; we have not evolved to the next stage of humanity, to have the special experience of being world citizens.  This sensation, part of getting to and being in the next stage, would cause us to feel better and to move, I think, to a new level, and in new ways, as we work out a world language, a necessary place from which to continue life on the planet.  

All people not globally connected (everyone, today) have some sort of daily unconsciousness, I note; every culture is not wholistic—in different ways: no one people has a claim on reality—nobody is yet a world citizen!  Plus, in the recent past we haven’t had the chance to stay in touch with the world because we’ve lacked the technology to globally connect.  

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And could there be a language that could keep its speakers, globally, optimally alive and utilizing our full brains?  Well, until recently, the social sciences have even lacked a system of recording and expressing our bodies’ movement (see Dynamic Embodiment for Social Theory, “I move therefore I am,” by Brenda Farnell, modern dancer and student of Native American sign language, 2012), other than ineffective film.  But coming up with a global language must now be possible, since we have Farnell’s Labanotation.  We could start with the funniest expressions from each culture, right?  We are looking for inspiration—for ourselves; and wondering why we should reach out to save others on this planet.  Enter World Ocean Year!

Kerry spoke in 2014 as I echo in 2020, “I know all of this sounds pretty ambitious.  It’s meant to be…But look around the room [or world]…All of us [world citizens] can come together and each can help the other to ensure that every solution that we discuss [and experience] is directly tied to the best science [and creativity] available.”   

The reason I add the word “creativity” to Kerry’s original plain “science” is that my idea of a plan for the implementation of techniques for human development—Sea Emocean, World Ocean Year—would take creativity from every nation.  This is not a project just for rich donors and institutions, even governments, though they will certainly be involved—the solution must also be from and for the common person.  You scientists, for example, would need to contribute creatively—to turn your observations into inspiration for the average kids and adults.  I want to know how whales act, and to have their pictures in my home!  Also, I crave to put my son or daughter’s crayon drawing of a dolphin on my window, and know he/she understands that there are friends out there who are healthy—and who care for each other like we humans should be doing.  You NGOs can send out photographic ocean images to the poor, instead of saving them for wealthy contributors; this would help all of us, without leaving anyone out, and creatively sharing the tools for learning about and imagining our ocean friends would help fulfill the needs of everyone on the planet!  

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We need to do a few things to meet the ocean where it stands: a new World Ocean Year could have many components.  Firstly, isn’t it a spiritual sensation to just be near the sea?  You may know of the Moslems’ necessity of pilgrimaging to Mecca once in their lives.  Going to see the ocean could be like this, but in one year—World Ocean Year!  Governments will need to cooperate and share the resources needed to send their landlocked inland populace to the seashore to get a sense of the main event on our planet.  

The 1998 World Ocean Year was declared by the United Nations, which, “as the central forum for development of the law of the sea, has consistently taken an integrated approach to the subject of oceans and the law of the sea.  This approach is based on the premise, as elaborated in the Convention on the Law of the Sea, that all ocean issues are interrelated and must be considered as a whole.”  This sounds progressive.  Yet, “As an example, navigation involves issues of marine pollution, national jurisdiction over maritime space, international rules for the safety of ships, exploitation of ocean resources, and so on.”  This is quoted from the U. N’s website for “1998, International Year of the Ocean.”  Their graphic features the famous Japanese Kanagawa wave with the words “Get into it!”   But navigation is, besides the issues listed, thrilling and potentially life-changing, right?  It creates such sensations as feeling at one with Nature; learning skills; perhaps praying for safe passage; practicing cooperation and team building; forging intercultural relationships; planning for future experiences and sharing stories and marine adventures with others—which ones?  Why?  How?  What are we learning here?  Where can we share this knowledge and grow from it?

How else we could do World Ocean Year, perhaps opening the door to this approaching Ocean Decade, is open to your imagination.  I can see interculturally-shared songs, films and stories about the sea and its animals; art, especially that done by children, enjoyed around the globe; introducing seaweed, like my favorite, dulse, the red, salty popcorn topper, to people watching dolphin movies; music made with whale sounds; and exhibits of green, blue, and ocean-themed stained glass, among other ideas. 

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We definitely should use Google Maps’ (or another computer program’s) ability to show our personal visual link with our planet from Space—starting with where we are on street level and distancing our viewpoint, going straight out to a view of the sphere where we dwell.  Kerry notes that his heart was stimulated by the first Space photos of Earth in the 1970s.   Our planet’s image has always inspired me, too, and probably does everyone else.  I have written a “Poem to New Glory” about a potential Earth flag, with a photo of the planet, changed each year so all places would be represented (see end of paper).  Our home is round and one—and beautiful!—and its image should be everywhere, for us to love!  Our dwellings cannot be separated from those of our neighbors; I feel that getting a sense of that would help doors in our collective heart open, preparing us to work/play together and learn to be world citizens.  I yearn to see photographic globes in libraries, post offices, cafes, and schools.

Because we’ve never looked in a mirror as a group, enjoying each other as a whole, and seeing our planet peopled with folks who are psychologically together—individually, and as a group—we don’t know that we can help ourselves—we lack faith in ourselves and each other to be passionate, to act benignly towards each other and our environment.  It’s good news that we could clean up our ocean and use it to appreciate each other—and to proceed with welcoming the future!  Working and playing on a new level, in which we use our full bodies—brains, minds and hearts—is going to be really fulfilling, it is clear to me! 

When we implement the plan for Sea Emocean, we will be securing life for tomorrow.  We created the needy ocean situation by engaging in history, and now we have a responsibility here, and an urgent requirement—but we can solve the problem: “we need to change this” current situation, Kerry says, in 2014.  “That’s our charge here, all of us.”  So we must, even though the territory is uncharted!

My website has a communication method, so take part and join Team Worldwide, if you want—read my Proposal for Teamwork in the Welcome! section; it just gives one a sense of what I imagine it might be like to work for the world; your help is needed for turning your participation into play!

The U. N. needs to hear from you if you want to suggest that we have another World Ocean Year, so you can write them, too: www.un.org contact.  I thank every person for their participation now and into the future.  I love our Earth!  Planet, you are art!  You’ve been quite a great hEarth, allowing us to celebrate you and feast!  Thanks for being yourself, listening and hEaring! 

Make Earth Great—Awesome!

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** POEM TO OLD GLORY **

Born of love for God and country,

Flag that sets our hearts aglow.

Patriots bore thee on to victory,

Blood stained foot prints in the snow.

Our great nation, all one people,

Brothers, sisters, neighbors, friends.

Fruitful fields, rocks, woods and steeple.

All in one our nation blends.

Underneath our banner glorious,

Homes and firesides fill the land.

Freedom’s wings and ships victorious,

Vision peace to every strand.

Schools and churches safely cluster,

‘Neath thy peaceful folds unfurled,

Shedding Freedom’s radiant lustre

To mankind in all the world.

Tyrant foes may plot insanely,

Binding chains of shackled slaves.

While they rant and threaten vainly,

Freedom’s flag still proudly waves.

Cowards may quail and poltroons perish,

All their false religions fail.

Freedom and the flag we cherish,

Ever glorious.  Hail!   All hail!!

Inspiration of our nation,

Banner of the brave and free.

Jubilation!   Jubilation!!

Glorious thou shalt ever be.

Edward M. Waring, 5/16/41

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Poem to the World Flag, with Photo of Earth in Space on it, View Switched Yearly

Poem to New Glory

Born of love for land and ocean,

Flag that sets our hearts aglow.

Spacemen saw Earth in their motion

And left Moon footprints as hello!

Our great Planet, all one people,

Brothers, sisters, neighbors, friends,

Fruitful fields, rocks, domes and steeple:

All in one our Planet blends.

Underneath our banner glorious,

Songs and stories by the band,

All free to play and be victorious,

Shaking peace with every hand.

Temples, churches safely cluster,

‘Neath thy tranquil folds unfurled,

Sharing concord’s radiant luster

With humankind in all the world.

Alien foes plotted insanely,

Invading, stealing lands from braves

But new and old world converse plainly,

Humanity’s great flag now waves.

Cowards may quail and fools may stumble,

Hypocrites’ religions fail.

Liberty, the globe, won’t tumble, 

Ever glorious.  Hail!  All hail!!

Sharing human inspiration,

Banner of the true and free.

Jubilation!  Jubilation!!

Glorious thou shalt ever be!

Edward M Waring’s “Poem to Old Glory,” 1941, Original; His Great Granddaughter, Catherine J. Walbridge’s, Expansion, 2014, 2019.

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