NYC Pride Fest

June marks Pride Month which celebrates everyone in the LGBTQ community. The month also honors the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

Otherwise known as the Stonewall Uprising, which saw members of the LGBTQ community fight back against harassment from the police in Greenwich Village in June 1969. 

Stonewall is still unfolding today. The year leading up to its 50th anniversary has served a constant flow of corrections, retellings, and contradictions amid a general fumbling toward the many truths of what happened in 1969 and what it signifies to us now. 

PRIDE image by Golden Cosmos

In New York City we come together in this spirit, remembering to fight for liberation, dignity, self, and communal determination.

We remember and we resist!

*We have chosen to use the phrase Queer as an umbrella category to represent the wide span of sexual and gender minorities and outlaws who have historically and currently been oppressed.

“Queer” signals for us a political stance of rebellion and a demand for liberation more-so than simply an identity category. We are trans, bisexual, lesbian, gay, queer, intersex, asexual, two-spirit, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals and communities.

There There by Tommy Orange

Reading Tommy Orange's award winning literary debut There There is a heart warming paean - an opus to the deep longing for forgotten ways of being.

Orange sublimely recounts the plight of the urban Native American growing up away from any Native community in contemporary Oakland, California. 

Available on Amazon

Grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice, and heroism amidst disappointment and neglect.

Tommy Orange is a master storyteller - interweaving each character's story in a wild read that is poignant with heart felt humor - utterly contemporary and forever unforgettable.

Reaching back in time through bloodlines and ties with the land, each one's story opens up new territory in the heart of its readers. This book is such a beautiful gift.

Not surprisingly it has garnered many prestigious awards. Kudos to the author for opening up his world to us in this humane epic set in a generally unrepresented sector of Oakland.

The way Orange brings such an eclectic, nuanced ensemble of a historically marginalized population to life aptly elicits comments like “groundbreaking” and “essential.”

Read more in this author interview by David Canfield for Entertainment Weekly. 

adventurers, pioneers, colonizers

It takes an adventurous spirit to head off into the unknown. To risk it all to pioneer a new life in a new world. Proud conquerors of much trial and tribulation.

No wonder colonizers often ignore, forget and intentionally bury their original sin. Invaders of a paradise who dispossessed its original inhabitants. Settlers in denial of how much they unsettled in staking their claims.

Violators of nature and its wilderness. Resorting to violence to tame their new home. Aggressively wiping off all other contenders. With no consideration for its original inhabitants - plant, mineral, animal or human.

Recorded or remembered the Philippines predates many of today's nations. Yet too many of its masses are kept ignorant and primitive. Byt the few who continue to rape and dishonor our country and its folks out of greed and power.

In the Philippines June 12 is designated as the birth of a nation and its independence day. Proud of its claim as the oldest democratic nation in Asia. The country's independence has remained on shaky ground from birth until today.

Long before the first colonizers invaded its verdant shores much of its primordial life and indigenous history had already been lost to winds of change and territorial warring.

The victorious rewriting history blinded by ahistorical visions of idealism and grandeur. Blanketing the past and hiding its truths in shaded stories and fraudulent claims.

How do we untangle this miasma when we can only guess at what may have been? How can we hold our ground when it too easily blows up or away when we need to hold on to it the most?

Paradise lost indeed. Persevere and preserve what is here now. All can still be revived and restored.

make peace not war

Today we remember and honor those who have died in service of the United States of America, our nation and its values.

We recently read that the US has only had twenty one years of peace throughout its brief history. Here is a list of America's major wars from 1776 to the present.

Having only recently celebrated Mother's Day, our attention goes to the mothers, wives and daughters who mourn the loss of their loved ones this Memorial Day.

The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states.

The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I.

When the holiday changed from honoring those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war.

Today we ask our readers to voluntarily observe in their own way a moment of remembrance and respect. Take a brief break from whatever you are doing for a moment of silence or prayer.

Wherever or however you spend your Memorial Day weekend, choose to move forward and may peace be with you.

around the block & a world of difference

After months of agonizing, I have finally moved into my very own Casa Azul.

For the past ten years I have lived in Hudson County. Moving from Hoboken to Union City. Then to Weehawken and now back to Union City once more. My favorite barrio!

casa azul

“Never in life will I forget your presence. You found me torn apart and you took me back full and complete”. ~ Frida Kahlo

The creative universe of Frida Kahlo is to be found in the Blue House, the place where she was born, where she painted as she convalesced, and where she died. 

Ina Gunid | goddess of war & poisons

Ina Gunid was invoked for success in war and mangayaw raids. She was also associated with another trinity of deities when working with and concocting poisonous oils and charms. 

Courtesy of Anituo

Also known as Ynaguinid, Inagunid and Naguinid, she was one of the three deities according to whom the tribe offered prayers to for success in the battlefield.