Its been over a year since I have been posting to this blog on a regular basis. The last six months have been particularly difficult for my partner and I with her diagnosis of a life-threatening illness and the loss of her business due to her disability and my own loss of employment through layoff , along with my own need for a full hip replacement which I was unable to even have diagnosed, much less remedied, without affordable insurance which, ironically, both she and I now have been able to secure because of our new status as low-income, senior citizens. I have also been forced to take an early retirement, both because of my temporary disability and my inability to find employment for myself, in part, due to my advanced chronological years.
What the two of us have been through this past year could easily fill a book but, in truth, our story is by no means really that different from what so many others have had to deal with in their lives and in this economy.
The upside to all of this is that now, because of the internet and social media like Facebook, Twitter and blog sites like Blogger, I have the time and where-with-all to resume a level of activism that I have not enjoyed since my college days in the turbulent 1960's, a way of giving back to my fellow humans in a way not possible or as unprecedented as it has ever been before in the history of activism.
My intent is not to suddenly change the thrust of this blog from the focus of examining my unconscious beliefs and behaviors, which I call shadow, and suddenly become a zealous proponent of one political or social cause or another. I am really hoping to find a synergy, a mutually advantageous blending of my personal journey toward an awakened consciousness and my desire to resurrect my social activism toward a better world for all. I do this in the midst of preparing for the surgery and the recovery period that will follow, excited both by the prospect of a new life with hips that support my intentions rather than frustrate them and the return again of my activism and my writer's mojo.
In the words of the late great actress, Betty Davis, in All About Eve, "Hang on, its going to be a bumpy ride."
By the way, I changed my animal totem name from Raven Laughing at his Shadow, to Dancing Raven because of my new intention to be able to do the latter real soon.
David Hallmark
Santa Fe, New Mexico
