What Once Was and What is Yet to Come

My friend Farron and I on NYE

Of course as the year ends and this new one begins, why not start with the standard review of the year passed and the one to come. What a year it's been for me. A friend of mine once told me that I'm not someone who grows slowly and gradually, I remain stagnant for periods of time and then experience very quick and steep periods of growth. I can tell you this entire year has certainly been one of growth. I began last year depressed and not understanding my place in this world. I felt as though I had been searching for a way in which to make my mark. I think I'm beging to find it in this blog, and in my activism.

Ah my activism....how I've adored being so incredibly involved in my local and global community. I love fighting to make this world a better place. I know that as I live and breathe my goal is to ensure that I am always there for those in need, to listen, empathize, validate, and to give advice when needed. For those that have been reading this blog, I'm sure you know by now that my focus has been mainly on womyn, womyn identified, transsexual/gender folks, as well as anyone else that has ever felt oppressed or isolated.

I've learned this year that the hate isn't confined to specific situations, and certain people, it's prevalent even amongst the most surprising communities. Born female, a beautiful friend of mine, "D”, recently began to identify as androgynous. As D’s politics began to shift and grow, I watched as she was shunned within feminist communities for not being female enough. I was incredibly saddened to experience first hand, as I defended this person, the discrimination and ignorance D  faces daily, based solely on the fact that she changed her first name, and pronouns from "she" to "they" or if you like, D allows us to use "he", "she", or "they" preferably interchangeably...yes i know it's confusing but I love this person dearly for the choices she's made. 

Love..well that is certainly something I've experienced in the last year,  I've written about the loss of friends that once loved me  and the absolute despair i felt after people who had been with me since childhood chose to walk away. It's incredible how shattered I felt and how difficult it was to see those morsels of my spirits scattered around me like shards of broken glass. Though I've fallen in my life more times than i care to think of, a good friend sent me this "Falling down is part of life…Getting back up is part of living" and so i picked myself back up, put back together those pieces and began to learn to love myself more truly and deeply. I grew not only in my self love but in my love for God and the feeling of utter tranquility in the knowledge of that existence. This process of self growth has been incredibly positive even gave me the confidence put myself out there a little.

Everything happens for a reason and I know now that the loss of those friends had to happen or I would have never  met some of the most wonderful people I know today. People who have given me the space to heal in many ways, by being an ear (or a set of eyes in the case of an email or text) by providing me with sanctuary, by loving me and believing in me, and never letting me down. For that I am nothing but grateful. Life has given me the opportunity to make some very fruitful lemonade from the lemons I once held in my hands.

I guess what I look to in the new year, is for this growth to continue. For my goal of helping and supporting others in need, to evolve and reach new heights. I hope for this blog to grow as I do. I've written several posts pertaining to my politics as of late but I do wish to delve back into the personal as well. I began this blog two years ago as a means of communicating with a friend of mine, in the last several months I began to feel that I wanted to increase the visibility of this blog and I hope that 2012 bring more people to this place, new faces to meet, and new stories to read, new ways to grow, learn, and reflect.

Happy New Year, folks!

December 6th 2011 Let us Always Cherish our Lives...

This day is an important one to me and I wanted to take some time to share it with you all.


On December 6th 1989. 22 years ago, Mark Lepine walked through the halls of École Polytechnique, a Univesity in Montreal Quebec, and opened gunshot on the students. Enraged that he had been rejected from the Engineering program, he stalked the hallways ready to fire when necessary. He walked into a classroom and demanded that the men and women be separated by sex into two lines and asked the men to leave the room.


"I am fighting Feminism"

He shot 6 of them from right to left and continued through the hallway where he proceeded to walk through the rest of the school, targeting womyn in his rampage. He entered another classroom and shot and killed another 8 womyn. In total he killed 14 womyn, injured another 10, and injured 4 men, before turning the gun on himself and committing suicide.

Every year on this day we commemorate the deaths of these young womyn and remember others who've died at the hands of violence. I think what i carry the most in remembrance of December 6th is the structural violence people of all genders face, and the hatred that some people carry on a daily basis. We live in a world that teaches us to hate, that teaches us that for one reason or another if you don't conform to certain standards set by society, you dont deserve to be a part of it.

I was involved in organizing the city wide vigil this year and about a hundred people came to morn with us. They gathered to Ottawa's Women's monument, to share a moment of silence for the 14 womyn that died at École Polytechnique.

Police came in uniform. It always pleases me to see police officers coming to take part in a night like this. Particularly knowing the way the justice system treats issues of violence against women.

A group of native womyn held pictures of their missing or murdered loved ones as a choir sang a song of remembrance. There are over 500 missing and murdered aboriginal womyn in Canada today. Let us remember that this land once belonged to them, and was stolen from them.

We began to name the women that had died all over Ontario this year. As each name was read out loud, along with a small story about who they were, a rose was placed at the base of the Women's Monument to represent each of those lives lost.

A native woman started to spread something around base of the monument where the lanterns and flowers were placed. I just stood and silently wondered what she was doing.

 Soon after, I ran up to her and asked what it was she had scattered. She told me it was tabacco. Apparently tabacco is sacred plant to the Aboriginal tribes of Ontario. She told me that the roots of a tabacco plant run deep into the ground but the smoke, once burned can rises into the sky, making its way to the heavens, therefore connecting those on earth to people in the afterlife.

As the night came to an end, everyone made their way home, ready to end the night in a nice warm bed. I went to bed grateful to be alive, grateful to be fighting this battle for equality, grateful to have never faced such extreme violence in my life. Most of all, i was grateful to know there are people out there who love me, know me, treasure me. While my life is far from a perfect one, on Dec 6th every year i'll be thankful to be alive.