These photos were taken 12 hours and 5 minutes apart on 22 March 2018. When I looked at the photos, it was amazing that only 5 minutes past 12 hours apart for both photos to be taken. After all, a few days after the spring equinox.
“Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.”
Ancient Indian Proverb
The last week in September is International Deaf Awareness Week and a new hashtag came up: #hearingprivilege. Naturally, people reacted. The way of the world today is to react as quick as you can and regret your thoughts later.
Most deaf people are not complaining, just showing a way of life that we cherish and at the same time can be negative by outsiders’ perspectives. People think we’re complaining because life is not fair. Hon’, we all know life ain’t fair most of the time. That is why it is a journey that we travel throughout our life.
That is why it is okay to agree to disagree; however, I digress. If one disagrees on basis of not understanding why they disagree, then we cannot agree to disagree. The purpose of #hearingprivilege is to enlighten people about the struggles we go through daily. Many people will have never realized this behavior because they did not have the opportunity to be aware of it.
Examples of the hashtag available on Facebook and Twitter:
#HearingPrivilege is never having my intelligence or work ability questioned based on my language modality. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hearing-privilege_us_57ebd4c5e4b024a52d2bb142?section=women& This article has more hashtags.
or #hearingprivilege is never having to hear the words, “Never mind”, or “I will tell you later” during family dinners and conversations.
This is an opportunity to personally analyze the response we see and react to when we see words that challenge us on a daily or frequent basis. This opportunity I presented to my students with varied responses, average result would be opening of the minds, yet there are some responses where “Hearing Privilege” does NOT exist. Hon’, this is the real world – not the ‘hearing’ world – the REAL world. Privilege exists and will always exist. How we respond to the privilege is what will gain the most in the path to enlightenment.
Sorry, if one does NOT believe in privilege, the ability to be open about the paths that the world turns on will be a narrow one. Even, I as a deaf person, took the time to analyze what #hearingprivilege means because my experience as a deaf person is not always the same as the other deaf person. I will be grateful for those opportunities because of parents who were opening their world to include their children’s worlds. That was why I try to add #deafgain, which is how deaf people contribute to the world through our differences to positively enhance the real world, benefitting others who are not deaf or sign language users.
Sometimes it is hard to accept that privilege and even harder to change, remember it is better to have tried than never tried. Imagine how many new relationships one will have with a diverse group, just because one began to understand and will be able to agree to disagree.
Below is a good video of an explanation regarding #hearingprivilege.
Snapped on iPhone6 and edited/posted to Instagram a month ago. Trees have always fascinated me because of their strength and ability to encompass different parts of the physical world such as roots for underground, branches and leaves reaching to the sky and the trunk being the balance between both. Trees among many are our lifeblood to the world. Without them, we would not exist.
A life’s journey begins in conception. The end of the journey is unknown.
Love, live, learn, teach and embrace your journey.
Darkness ascends.
Sounds are silent.
Eyes adjust no better.
Heart beats quick.
Brain scrambles in loss.
A deep breath.
Another breath.
Breathe deeply.
Reach out.
Spread self.
Hands.
Reach out.
Move hands.
Hands and Wall meet.
Feet knows Ground.
Move with faith.
Feel the darkness.
Own it.
All of us have layers. You. Me. Yes.
The complicated layers, countless. The simple layers, countless. What about those layers in between? Still countless.
Neat types of layers? Nah. How we rip those layers off depends on how we perceive the sense of self. Journeys taken can build layers or take them off.
One could rip the layer off like one would rip a bandaid off – the quick the pain is the quicker it goes away. Peel the bandaid and suffer the pain – indefinitely or at least until the bandaid is off.
How we perceive our layers within self can be painful so you can either ignore or delve into yourself. We almost never do things halfway – most likely going to either extreme.
We can reframe our layers until the truth is hidden away or it becomes a glaring light, putting one to shame in this world we live in today – either way. We can move our layers around, whether it is intellectual, cultural, linguistically, racially or the like; throughout all that, do we take the time to really reflect on how we present ourselves or choose the layers to cover ourselves to people?
I wonder if most people use layers to place their own fears into shadows. I know I do. I struggle with the sense of my self’s layers, what do they mean? How do they reflect the multi-chapter aspect of my own personal book? Does it reflect how much one does not understand about something and their reaction to the concept?
I had a family friend’s daughter announce that the family would be focusing 110% on their child getting an cochlear implant. This was like early 2000’s. Now the idea of cochlear implants was not new nor the controversy with the idea of such; however, this was someone I knew most of my life and this straightforward news brought a shock to me and some friends of ours and our reaction was not too great. Afterwards, this person just disappeared. At the same time, I had to turn inward to reflect on the reason why I reacted this way, after all we shared a common bond, the deaf community.
After reading the story above, if you wonder if my response was towards technology, my initial response was regarding technology. This is where I had to peel a layer away, to ask myself if it was truly technology that I was reacting to, after all I wore hearing aids. It was a long retrospective reflection. Technology is a tool and rightfully so. Technology is manipulated by our own selves.
So then what? As a human, it was language, communication, social and community that me responding in a negative way. In a way, this person was telling me that the upbringing they went through their entire life was a farce or a negative aspect, a type of upbringing I had, despite having hearing parents myself. Technology was one layer, the rest came up when I reframed how I used technology as a deaf person.
Do we build our own layers or do we have others build those layers upon us? When I think of this, I think of a black person wanting to rip their blackness off themselves so they can pose as a white person because society deems it acceptable. The problem with society is that the concept of layers are multiple and will follow the whims of society, suppressing so many layers that truly make us human.
Ummm…
In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Monochromatic.”
This photo was taken with a hard hug by sister to brother. I like to play with colors sometimes and often monochromatic (black/white, grays) show more than color can.
The Kids
Today I went to church and the sermon topic was “Water”. Our pastor talked about water as a critical aspect to life, including baptism. He mentioned that there were three topics frequently commented through out the Bible – water, blood, and fire.
I am drawn to what nature gives us in terms of those three aspects, in many ways are purification types; however, they also lead to renewal. This is whether it is physical or spiritual. In almost all religions, water is used for baptism, from simple sprinkling on the forehead to immersion. We also cannot live without water. Did you know that a body can survive days of no food, as long as there is water to drink? Our bodies are made up of 72% water.
Our world, when one is paying attention, her climate is changing because of how we humans are changing the landscape of nature. The Great and Salt Lake Basins are drying up its aquifers and looking into the Colorado River to feed its population, especially Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Reno. The rainfall there is a scant 5 to 12 inches annually.
Another aspect of life is blood. Blood is as strong as water and is composed of water. Familial blood ties tend be much stronger between families even if there’s a dramatic love-hate relationship going on. We are reminded of blood daily even if we do not see it, for it courses through us. In other words, what of earth’s blood are spilling daily with the deforestation and ever increasing exploitation of our natural resources for greed? Blood will tell.
Fire, an interesting element, while destructive can be a renewal source. I cannot say for California’s forests which in the last few years have gone through forest fires, compared to the last 3 decades can be scary. In the Plains, controlled or natural forest fires actually bring new growth because the ashes fire leaves behind has nutritional properties and coupled with water, something grows within a few days.
Admit it – how many of you have stared in a fire and just let your thoughts run around? Fire, such as burning thoughts, spark creativity, desire to accomplish and of course warms us in the dark of nights. Primal, is it not? Summer comes soon.
Each element, water – blood – fire, each have a heartbeat that pulses within us and within the earth which we live in. We worry about its physical power but forget the spiritual power that reaches deep into our primal selves. These elements remind us that we are not gods. We cannot let greed dictate us, we need to go back to our natural selves and begin to see what we are doing as a whole – a spiritual whole and begin to work, clean up and restore equilibrium to our world, that WE all NEED to have. is soon here, where fires will run rampant.
*deep sigh*
