The Columbia River Gorge
"He likened voting to a 'prayer for the world we desire,' and called democracy the 'political enactment of a spiritual idea' that everyone has a divine spark."
About Pastor and Senator Raphael Warnock
December 6, 2022: Ethical, pastoral and spiritual successor to Martin Luther King, Jr., Ebenezer Church's Pastor and re-elected United States Senator Raphael Warnock wins for Georgia and America, and will continue to add his integrity, intelligence and insight to the Congressional branch of our government.
A Prayer for Knowledge and Wisdom as We Prepare to Participate in Free Elections
God of Mercy and Justice, Knowledge and Wisdom, Strength and Compassion, guide us in our quest for these same qualities, to strengthen our communities and nation. Infuse us with wisdom and energy for right action toward the best outcome in our local and national elections. Keep us honest with ourselves and our motivations. Inspire us to make choices that will enhance the integrity and health of all with whom we share the natural resources of Earth, and help us to know how to bring about the health of those resources by protecting them from poisons of selfishness and malice or unwise use. Enlighten us in the selection of competent and wise leaders who will explore and enact the best ways of proceeding in the times ahead. Help us to select the best leaders to represent us with clarity and integrity among the nations. Restore those values of respectfulness and care which we have allowed to weaken. Teach us to love the gifts of Creation and one another as you love us. Inspire us and guide us toward the greatest good. Amen.
Passengers of the Mayflower were not the first colonists to settle on the Eastern Seaboard of the future United States' portion of North America. This account of the earlier Jamestown Colony landing is from The Writer's Almanac, April 26, 2014:
On this day in 1607, a group of about a hundred English settlers arrived at the Chesapeake Bay. They made landfall at a cape they named Cape Henry, after the Prince of Wales, and the fleet's chaplain, Robert Hunt, said a prayer and placed a cross at the site of their landing. The fleet was made up of three ships, 39 crew members, and 103 passengers — all men and boys; the women wouldn't come along until a year and a half later. The expedition was driven by entrepreneurial motives: the Virginia Company of London hoped to reap the bounty of the New World.
Upon arrival, Captain Christopher Newport opened the sealed orders from the Virginia Company, only to find that Captain John Smith, a man who had been charged with mutiny on the voyage and who was scheduled to be hanged, had been named to the Governing Council. The orders also directed the settlers to choose an inland site for their colony, so the men got back on their ships and began exploring the bay, eventually making their way up the James River. A couple of weeks later, they landed on an island that seemed like a reasonable and easily defendable location. They unloaded the ships and broke ground on their new settlement, which they named Jamestown in honor of their king, James I.
Upon arrival, Captain Christopher Newport opened the sealed orders from the Virginia Company, only to find that Captain John Smith, a man who had been charged with mutiny on the voyage and who was scheduled to be hanged, had been named to the Governing Council. The orders also directed the settlers to choose an inland site for their colony, so the men got back on their ships and began exploring the bay, eventually making their way up the James River. A couple of weeks later, they landed on an island that seemed like a reasonable and easily defendable location. They unloaded the ships and broke ground on their new settlement, which they named Jamestown in honor of their king, James I.
History would give them their meaning long after their deaths. I lived hundreds of years away from those first eastern arrivals. Thousands had come from the west thousands of years before them. All of this and more was at the tip of my consciousness. As tears of awareness and gratitude flowed down my cheeks in the wind, I felt them blend with the sea mist stinging my face, filling me with an indescribable sense of my own small place in the reality that is America, that is the human family, so many of us having found our way here from other lands through our forebears or by our own courage and conviction.
As a future Episcopal deacon and priest, I was dedicated to the ideals of ecumenism, more than tolerance of other traditions, but interfaith celebration of our rich, multi-cultural and therefore multifaith diversity, including those without affiliation, the cultivation of respect between self-defined atheists and agnostics, among whom may exist a deep sense of awe toward the Unknown and Unknowable beyond traditions loaded with complex doctrines and customs. I've become more realistic about the human inclination to fear, resent, suspect and persecute those among us who are different from what one's own group may be in manifest beliefs and customs, based on our species' insecurities and our own otherness from others,
The Smithsonian Institution has well articulated our historical attitudes of hostility, then slowly~ our educated acceptance, understanding and respect for other faith or non-faith traditions and the people who affiliate themselves with them. Our checkered history of violence and peace-making toward each other on the basis of our affiliations is embarrassing and eye-opening, ultimately a way to better understand our fragile human nature, its fears, its destructive inclinations and potential, and its slowness to learn to value differences and diversity:
Excerpt from
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/
“America can still be, as [President James] Madison perceived the nation in 1785, an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion. But recognizing that deep religious discord has been part of America’s social DNA is a healthy and necessary step. When we acknowledge that dark past, perhaps the nation will return to that promised...lustre of which Madison so grandiloquently wrote.” Kenneth C. Davis
As I stood on deck of the S.S. United States early in the morning, 20 minutes from docking in New York harbor, tragedy and hope, past and future, all of it seemed summarized in the pink and gold dawn light breaking through gray mists and falling all around the great Lady of Liberty, striking her green metal with her torch held high to us all, now nearly 312,000,000 of us breathing the same air of this country together and calling it home.
Between Oregon and Washington
This
east-facing photo was taken the first week in April, 2011 from the Women's
Forum Park looking across and down toward Vista House at Crown Point on the Old
Scenic Highway, the waterfalls road on the Oregon side. Along the road are
seven major falls that come from a great height where their rivers have been
fed by glacial melt from the volcano, Mt. Hood, in the Cascade Mountain Range.When I took this picture on a cold windy spring day, there were hundreds
of extra falls along the roadside following the Sandy River through Troutdale,
Springdale, Corbett and Bridal Veil along the Old Scenic Highway. We had had
heavy rains for two weeks, providing the display.
Roll on Columbia, roll on ~
flowing your thousand miles west
to the great Pacific Ocean
Westward view from Vista House Information
Center at Crown Point seen in the foreground
of the top picture on another day.
of the top picture on another day.
From here, the river completes its journey
to the great Pacific Ocean.
River photos by Alla Bozarth.
Whenever an election comes up, we need to remember what a privilege it is to use our power to choose. Much of the world denies the right of voice and vote to its citizens in honest elections.
In the history of the United States, people have died to guarantee the rights of all of us to vote. Not to use the gift they've given us would profane their memory.
In the sixty-two years that Ellis Island received travelers to our Atlantic shore in New York Harbor, 12,000,000 immigrants, tired, weary to the bone, hopeful if exhausted, set foot on the ground of freedom hard-won. They were human beings seeking asylum, ready to work, to create a new life, to become educated, to become worthy American citizens. Because of those in our country's history who defended freedom for all, especially those who fought, and among them those 51,000 who died on this field, every day is Independence and Interdependence Day.
to the great Pacific Ocean.
River photos by Alla Bozarth.
Whenever an election comes up, we need to remember what a privilege it is to use our power to choose. Much of the world denies the right of voice and vote to its citizens in honest elections.
In the history of the United States, people have died to guarantee the rights of all of us to vote. Not to use the gift they've given us would profane their memory.
In the sixty-two years that Ellis Island received travelers to our Atlantic shore in New York Harbor, 12,000,000 immigrants, tired, weary to the bone, hopeful if exhausted, set foot on the ground of freedom hard-won. They were human beings seeking asylum, ready to work, to create a new life, to become educated, to become worthy American citizens. Because of those in our country's history who defended freedom for all, especially those who fought, and among them those 51,000 who died on this field, every day is Independence and Interdependence Day.
Eternal Light
of Peace Memorial,
dedicated by President Franklin Roosevelt in the company of over 1800 surviving
veterans of the Civil War on July 3, 1938, the 75th anniversary of
the bloodiest day of the Battle of Gettysburg— commemorating the 1913
re-enactment and reconciliation ceremony on Cemetery Hill on the living green
fields of Pennsylvania.
May this light's meaning and intent heal the spirits of the dead whose screams still echo on these fields, and may the living be moved to reconcile their differences with mutually unselfish honesty, good will and reason.
May this light's meaning and intent heal the spirits of the dead whose screams still echo on these fields, and may the living be moved to reconcile their differences with mutually unselfish honesty, good will and reason.
Interdependence and Reconciliation Celebration~
July 4, 2012
It began with heartbreaking remembrance,
the acrid smell of
canon fire still in the air
after half a century, the exhausted climb
up Cemetery Hill still felt in their muscles—
They had returned, veterans from both sides,
after half a century, the exhausted climb
up Cemetery Hill still felt in their muscles—
They had returned, veterans from both sides,
North and South, to
re-enact their movements
on the last of those bloody three days
of the Battle of Gettysburg.
In the final Southern charge of the war~
on the last of those bloody three days
of the Battle of Gettysburg.
In the final Southern charge of the war~
12,500 Confederate
soldiers led by
General George Pickett went straight up
that hill and into the line of fire by Union
troops waiting behind a stone wall.
Pickett lost half his men.
Of the 160,000 Americans
on both sides, 51,000 or more
died in those three days
of the Battle of Gettysburg
in our Civil War.
General George Pickett went straight up
that hill and into the line of fire by Union
troops waiting behind a stone wall.
Pickett lost half his men.
Of the 160,000 Americans
on both sides, 51,000 or more
died in those three days
of the Battle of Gettysburg
in our Civil War.
On July 3, 1913, the 50th anniversary of Pickett’s Charge,
50,000 surviving veterans traveled to the same place
in Pennsylvania, the youngest among them at 61 and
the eldest purported to be 112.
The commemoration ended
with Confederate veterans
walking the path they’d taken
up Cemetery Hill to the stone wall
where Union veterans were waiting
to shake their hands and embrace them.
In 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt
met with nearly
2,000 still living veterans
for the battle’s 75th anniversary.
Their average age was 94.
The President dedicated
for the battle’s 75th anniversary.
Their average age was 94.
The President dedicated
the Eternal Light
Peace Memorial
to commemorate that most truly civil reunion
and reconciliation embrace of 1913.
Today its flame can be seen
to commemorate that most truly civil reunion
and reconciliation embrace of 1913.
Today its flame can be seen
from a distance of
twenty miles.
On the front of the memorial
On the front of the memorial
are words carved in
stone~
“Peace Eternal in a Nation United.”
Though we are in another fractious election year,
through all our fears and differences,
may it be so.
May civility rule with compassion and reason
in creating new paths to peace.
May the way ahead be brighter.
May we keep holy the day.
“Peace Eternal in a Nation United.”
Though we are in another fractious election year,
through all our fears and differences,
may it be so.
May civility rule with compassion and reason
in creating new paths to peace.
May the way ahead be brighter.
May we keep holy the day.
Alla Renée
Bozarth
Diamonds in a Stony Field, copyright 2020.
The spirit of a dead soldier is led into Paradise by an angel.
Living waters wash away the horrors of war and refresh the spirit for a journey through healing light.
___________________________________
Today, the east-facing back door of a first generation Russian immigrant's daughter, me, Alla Renée Bozarth, born in the United States at the foot of Mt. Hood in Western Oregon, where now many of my mother's cousins and their children who came here as refugees in the 1950s are prosperous Oregon berry farmers.
Ellis Island Received Immigrants from 1892 to 1954, but laws were passed in 1921, 1924 and 1952 which greatly reduced the number of immigrants passing through. It was finally closed to receiving immigrants altogether in 1954.
Since 1925 immigrants have completed their processing in their countries of origin, or in the case of flight from danger, refugees are processed through customs at stations in or en route to their states of destination.
Today, one may take tours of both Ellis Island and Liberty Island where the Statue of Liberty reigns, continuing to welcome visitors and inspire residents of New York and New Jersey from where it can be easily seen.
Ellis Island 1907
My mother's passport picture, 1928.
She arrived on the immigrant ship Metagama
on December 1, after ten days sick at sea
when she was 19 years old.
She arrived on the immigrant ship Metagama
on December 1, after ten days sick at sea
when she was 19 years old.
St. John, New Brunswick, the Maritime
Here is the vessel, built in Scotland in 1915.
Here is the vessel, built in Scotland in 1915.
The S.S. Metagama, December 1928, with my young, sick and frightened mother aboard. I strain to see her through the walls of the vessel as it plows through the rough waters.
After leaving England on November 22, she suffered on the Metagama for 10 days. Her appendix was about to rupture, and she had an advanced infection in her foot. She sat in great pain and sometimes slept with a high fever on the linoleum floor. Our crossing of the North Atlantic in wintertime was not bad for us since we had begun taking Dramamine long enough before boarding, but most of the passengers hadn't done that, and there were fewer people in the dining room with each meal until toward the end of the storm, when my mother and I ate alone. We staggered the mostly vacant corridors as if on a ghost ship. The waters would have been at least as rough a few weeks later in the year during my mother's lonely England to Canada crossing in 1928.
What does making the best of it mean in such misery? Is there anything but the worst that's already happening, the very organs ripping their insides out? Then the appendix, then the foot with its terrible oozing . . . and her hallucinating some hell of the sea hold.
Thanks to Canadian immigration and medical efficiency, she survived.
This lonely and brave looking vessel was scuttled in England at 20 in 1935. My mother outlived her by 37 years, transcending space and time on March 23, 1972 at the age of 62.
Though she came to North America as a refugee from Soviet Russia through immigration at St. John, New Brunswick in the far maritime provinces of Canada, after living with her mother and brothers in Alberta and British Columbia where she learned English, then working successfully as an actor in the Prime Minster's Theatre Company on her own in Montreal, my mother, Alvina Heckel, later DeGolikov, also went to New York hoping to make her mark on Broadway.
There she began her process toward becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States. During her citizenship test, she proudly answered questions about American history, government structure, geography and polity correctly, raised her hand and took the Oath of Allegiance to live as a faithful citizen worthy of it all, promising to defend this country with her life:
"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."
People born here do not make such an oath, and the Pledge of Allegiance which we recite in school and at certain public events is mild compared to the serious reality of these promises demanded of those who seek refuge here from foreign lands, or simply a desirable new place to live. The Oath bespeaks of mistrust and at least potential enmity between nations, which in the hearts of most individuals simply does not exist. To renounce the land of one's birth? Surely not. To renounce tyrannical governments, yes. But the distinction must be made, and in these words, it is not. I could never have taken such a pledge, but my mother had reason to. For her, the sea-crossing meant turning her back forever on the beloved motherland which had been stolen from her, making her a perpetual exile. So she pointed herself in the direction of a secure home which she had never seen. She did so continuously thereafter.
First, she had to prove herself worthy by demonstrating knowledge about this country that most of its natives do not have. Then she had to make this Oath.
Imagining that moment now, my spirit leaps through the walls of my body and the body of time to witness my mother's small figure among other new citizens. I more than wish them well. I applaud them with my whole being. And I bless my mother for making good on her vow in countless ways not implied in the words. She went well beyond her Oath of Allegiance through her outreach to others in need.
She resettled thousands of refugee families from war-torn countries later in her career. Her work earned her two citations of praise in the Congressional Record. For the rest of her life, she mentally kissed the ground of this country every day, as do I still in my own behalf, having learned such reverence from her.
After meeting family members from the old country when my mother and I traveled together to Europe in 1965, after gaining a sense of the grand sweep and scope of human history and the geographical and geological history of Earth, I woke up on the S.S. United States one bright November morning on our return to America after three months Abroad.
Kim Novak and Salvador Dali were in First Class above us. Steerage below us was quite comfortable. One night I'd climbed over barriers to scout out both places. I was impressed with the juke box music and people carrying beer steins and singing joyously as others danced on the black and white checked linoleum floor, and several decks up, an elegant high-ceiling ballroom with an orchestra circle and a slightly raised stage for captain's tables was beautifully draped with scalloped silver blue silk curtains and valences. But it was empty, waiting for a formal evening that never happened.
Mid-voyage, we were about to navigate three days and nights of winter storm in the North Atlantic. Most of the passengers disappeared as we lurched violently westward. But on that final morning, nearly two thousand waterborne people, the population of a small town, felt quite well again.
Ellis Island was closed by then. We were moving through the ocean toward the Statue of Liberty, and I watched the dawn light descend on her in glorious colors of rose and gold. The purple pre-dawn skies opened to the sun, and the sun radiated from the body of Lady Liberty as this new land we call Home opened its arms to us.
S.S. United States' maiden voyage, July 3, 1952,
sailing between Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty
S. S. United States as she would have been
when I stood on her deck,
coming home, November 1965
I stood there and thought of our willing or unwilling immigrant ancestors from Europe and Africa in the East, or thousands of years earlier from Asia in the West. Most of us are American mongrels, mutts, reveling in our deeply mixed heritages, many diverse bloods mixed in the marrow. On my paternal side, my grandfather's grandmother's grandparents, that is, my seventh generation (great-great-great-great) grandparents, were Osage Indian, a member tribe of the Iroquois Nation. I am also a 13th generation descendant of Myles Standish who crossed the turbulent ocean in a much less comfortable vessel than I did 345 years later. English military Captain Standish was hired by the Separatist passengers of the Mayflower to be their military adviser in the New World Plimouth Colony (or Plymouth Plantation).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myles_Standish
The pilgrims on the Mayflower were not Puritans as commonly thought and formerly taught. Puritans were an extreme rightist group of ascetic conservatives who wanted to convert the Anglican Church to their ways. Separatists were a similarly inclined group who believed the Church of England was beyond reform and separated from it, placing themselves under Dutch auspices. They constituted the majority of passengers on the Mayflower. My ancestor Myles Standish was not one of them. His religious affiliation remains uncertain. He was hired by the Separatists to lead the organization of their colony in the new world and to train the men in military tactics.
As a result of his sometimes hot-headed and impulsive leadership, after an initial compact of peace and goodwill between the Europeans and New World resident peoples, troubles soon began as the latter were caught up in tribal rivalries. Thinking of how it must have been for him and his travel mates, and for the natives who were surely soon aware of their arrival, a flood of history came over me with an empathic sense of the magnitude of meaning in their arrival, not just to them but to the American natives of Asian descent already here who would appear on my family tree years later, sometime between the American Revolution and Civil War, I imagine. The meanings were not in their minds that day. How could they be mindful of anything but relief, gratitude, how miserable their bodies were, how tired yet hopeful their minds were, how thirsty and hungry for good food they were.
The Wikipedia account describes the ups and downs of the Plymouth Colony's presence in the area and Myles Standish's scouting, peace-keeping and and organizational responsiblities, successes and failures:
Establishment of Plymouth Colony
While the Mayflower was anchored off Cape Cod, Standish urged the colony's leaders to allow him to take a party ashore to find a suitable place for settlement. On November 15, 1620, he led 16 men in a foot exploration of the northern portion of Cape Cod. On December 11, a group of 18 settlers, including Standish, made an extended exploration of the shore of Cape Cod by boat. Spending their nights ashore surrounded by makeshift barricades of tree branches, the settlers were attacked one night by a group of about 30 Native Americans. At first the Englishmen panicked, but Standish calmed them, urging the settlers not to fire their matchlock muskets unnecessarily. The incident, known as the First Encounter, took place in present-day Eastham, Massachusetts.After further exploration, in late December 1620 the Pilgrims chose a location in present-day Plymouth Bay as the site for their settlement. Standish provided important counsel on the placement of a small fort in which cannon were mounted, and on the layout of the first houses for maximum defensibility. Only one house (consisting of a single room) had been built when illness struck the settlers. Of the roughly 100 who first arrived, only 50 survived the first winter. Standish's wife, Rose, died in January. Standish himself was one of the very few who did not fall ill and William Bradford (soon to be governor of Plymouth Colony) credited Standish with comforting many and being a source of strength to those who suffered. Standish tended to Bradford during his illness and this was the beginning of a decades-long friendship. Bradford held the position of governor for most of his life and, by necessity, worked closely with Standish. In terms of character, the two men were opposites—Bradford was patient and slow to judgment while Standish was well known for his fiery temper. Despite their differences, the two worked well together in managing the colony and responding to dangers as they arose.
Defense of Plymouth Colony
By February 1621, the colonists had sighted Native Americans several times, but there had been no communication. Anxious to prepare themselves in the event of hostilities, on February 17, 1621, the men of the colony met to form a militia consisting of all able-bodied men and elected Standish their commander. Although the leaders of Plymouth Colony had already hired him for that role, this vote ratified the decision by democratic process. The men of Plymouth Colony continued to re-elect Standish to that position for the remainder of his life. As captain of the militia, Standish regularly drilled his men in the use of pikes and muskets.Contact with the Native Americans came in March 1621 through Samoset, an English-speaking Abenaki who arranged for the Pilgrims to meet with [Ousamequin] Massasoit, the sachem of the nearby Pokanoket tribe. On March 22, the first governor of Plymouth Colony, John Carver, signed a treaty with Massasoit, declaring an alliance between the Pokanoket and the Englishmen and requiring the two parties to defend each other in times of need. Governor Carver died the same year and the responsibility of upholding the treaty fell to his successor, William Bradford. As depicted by historian Nathaniel Philbrick, Bradford and Standish were frequently preoccupied with the complex task of reacting to threats against both the Pilgrims and the Pokanokets from tribes such as the Massachusett and the Narragansett. As threats arose, Standish typically advocated intimidation to deter their rivals. Although such behavior at times made Bradford uncomfortable, he found it an expedient means of maintaining the treaty with the Pokanoket.
Standish’s raid had done irreparable damage to the human condition of the entire area. Not only had the Pilgrims proved violent and revengeful, but Indian leader Massasoit had betrayed his former Indian compatriots. These events had initiated a new and terrifying era for New England and it took a long time before balance came back to the region. The raid had ruined their ability to trade with the Indians, and without furs as a source of income, the Pilgrims were forced to rely on cod fishing, which had poor results. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myles_Standish
The Writer's Almanac for Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 2012 describes a harvest feast shared by Pilgrims and Ousamequin, the chief Massasoit, and other members of the Wampanoag Nation along with Squanto, an English-speaking member of the Patuxet band of the Nation who lived with them. The word Wampanoag means those who live in the east. Many tribes were part of this nation, which extended from the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island to the western and northern land bordering Cape Cod. This area included Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. The Wampanoag Nation was a part of the Algonquin people, which included all of the First Nations communities living in the northeastern region of what is now the United States and also southeastern Canada, with nine bands in Quebec and one in Ontario. They share a common ancient language family, a divergent dialect of Ojibwe. The word Algonquin or Anicinàpe, is thought to derive from a Maliseet word that translates to English as all our relatives. With the Odawa and Ojibwe, the Algonquin language nations and tribes form the Anishinaabe grouping.
The beautiful winter image below of the Statue of Ousamequin, Massasoit (chief sachem, or leader) of the Wampanoag Nation, was taken by Greg Kullberg, a local resident of Plymouth, Massachusetts, on December 14, 2007. The bronze statue is on Coles Hill in Plymouth overlooking Plymouth Rock and the shoreline. The portrait in bronze was sculpted and cast by the great American artist, Cyrus Dallin in 1920. See other works of his, such as the moving statue of Chief Joseph, and read about this interesting artist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_Edwin_Dallin
Re-enactment picture and second photo of the powerful and dignified statue of Ousamequin, Chief Massasoit [1581-1661], by Cyrus Dallin, installed in 1921, are from
https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/the-wampanoag-side-of-the-first-thanksgiving-story-TmMLTgQs40aJT_n9T3RMIQ/
WRITER'S ALMANAC, THANKSGIVING DAY
NOVEMBER 22, 2012
"In the fall of 1621, the Plymouth colonists had barely survived the previous winter and had lost about half their population. The Wampanoag people and their chief, Massasoit, were friendly toward the Pilgrims and helped teach them how to live on different land with new food sources. A man known as Squanto, a Patuxet living with the Wampanoag [Nation], knew English because he had been a slave in England. He taught the settlers how to plant corn, beans, and squash and how to catch eel and shellfish. The Pilgrims built seven houses, a meeting place, and storehouses full of food, so they invited the Wampanoag Indians to feast with them. Harvest festivals were nothing new; both the English and the Wampanoag had similar traditions in their culture.
"At the first Thanksgiving, they didn't eat mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie, and they probably didn't even eat turkey. The only two foods that are actually named in the primary accounts are wild fowl and venison. The meal was mostly meat and seafood, but probably included squash, cabbage, corn, and onions, and spices like cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and pepper.
"Unlike our modern Thanksgiving, this event wasn't just one day. Many of the Wampanoag had to walk two days to get to the Plymouth settlement. There were about 50 English people and 90 Wampanoag, and since there wasn't enough room in the seven houses for the guests, they went ahead and built themselves temporary shelters. In between eating, they played games and sports, danced, and sang.
"Thanksgiving has been celebrated as a national holiday on different dates, but on October 3, 1863, in the wake of victory at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln decided to issue a Thanksgiving Proclamation declaring the fourth Thursday in November national Thanksgiving Day. In 1941, Congress made it official." November 22, 2012
WRITER'S ALMANAC, THANKSGIVING DAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2007~
"Although the Thanksgiving festivities celebrated by the Pilgrims and a tribe of Wampanoag Indians happened in 1621, it wasn’t until 1789 that the newly sworn-in President George Washington declared, in his first presidential proclamation, a day of national 'thanksgiving and prayer' for that November.
"The holiday fell out of custom, though, and by the mid 1800s only a handful of states officially celebrated Thanksgiving, on a date of their choice. It was the editor of a women’s magazine, Sarah Josepha Hale, a widow and the author of the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” who campaigned for a return of the holiday. For 36 years, she wrote articles about the Plymouth colonists in her magazine, trying to revive interest in the subject, and editorials suggesting a national holiday. Hale wrote to four presidents about her idea — Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan — before her fifth letter got notice. In 1863, exactly 74 years after Washington had made his proclamation, President Lincoln issued his own, asking that citizens “in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” He requested prayers especially for those widowed and orphaned by the ongoing Civil War, as well as gratitude for “fruitful fields,” enlarging borders of settlements, abundant mines, and a burgeoning population."
http://writersalmanac.org/note/nov-27-holiday-thanksgiving/
We dare not celebrate all this without acknowledging our whole history as descendants of immigrants and refugees who were not always honorable in their behavior toward the original human residents here. As we sit down to our well-laden tables we must especially note our debt of thanks and more to those hospitable original resident people who brought food galore to the first feast, the many representatives of local resident tribal communities who came in friendship to our European ancestors, before the beginning of battles and hostilities with their shameful, dishonorable outcome leading to the reservation system which has brought hunger, addiction and overwhelming poverty to the descendants of those First Nations which had once welcomed the early arrivals from the East in good faith and friendship.
Statue of Ousamequin, Wampanoag Chief Massasoit
in Plymouth, Massachusetts,
overlooking the site of Plymouth Rock.
Sculpted by Cyrus Dallin, the statue was installed in 1921.
in Plymouth, Massachusetts,
overlooking the site of Plymouth Rock.
Sculpted by Cyrus Dallin, the statue was installed in 1921.
Plymouth Rock today in its sea level home
as a place of honor, very near where the Pilgrims first saw it.
Look closely below for scale.
The rock has been moved several times
and chipped away so that its present size
is estimated to be about one-third the original.
Perhaps the sketch below gives a clearer
sense of how it might have appeared
from land at the time of the Mayflower's landing
at the northwestern shore of Cape Cod Bay.
Note also that the Massachusetts Bay Colony,
situation around the modern cities of Salem and Boston,
and then the state itself derived their names in honor of Wampanoag Chief
Massasoit, who so graciously welcomed the newcomers sometime in 1621.
Also see:
www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving
To learn more about Plymouth Plantation and other early colonies and festivals and the difference between the Pilgrims (English religious Separatists from England and the Netherlands) and Puritans (who did not at first separate from the Anglican Communion but were members of an austere and conservative movement which suffered persecution within it), see the Wikipedia pages:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrims_(Plymouth_Colony)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Rock
Plymouth Rock and Pilgrims’ Feet
It was a modest beginning, and the dazed
and weary passengers, still listing and slightly
queasy from more than three months at sea,
When I feel ill and have to go out and
tend the garden in mud anyway~
Passengers of the Mayflower were not the first colonists to settle on the Eastern Seaboard of the future United States' portion of North America. This account of the earlier Jamestown Colony landing is from The Writer's Almanac, April 26, 2014:
History would give them their meaning long after their deaths. I lived hundreds of years away from those first eastern arrivals. Thousands had come from the west thousands of years before them. All of this and more was at the tip of my consciousness. As tears of awareness and gratitude flowed down my cheeks in the wind, I felt them blend with the sea mist stinging my face, filling me with an indescribable sense of my own small place in the reality that is America, that is the human family, so many of us having found our way here from other lands through our forebears or by our own courage and conviction.
As a future Episcopal deacon and priest, I was dedicated to the ideals of ecumenism, more than tolerance of other traditions, but interfaith celebration of our rich, multi-cultural and therefore multifaith diversity, including those without affiliation, the cultivation of respect between self-defined atheists and agnostics, among whom may exist a deep sense of awe toward the Unknown and Unknowable beyond traditions loaded with complex doctrines and customs. I've become more realistic about the human inclination to fear, resent, suspect and persecute those among us who are different from what one's own group may be in manifest beliefs and customs, based on our species' insecurities and our own otherness from others,
The Smithsonian Institution has well articulated our historical attitudes of hostility, then slowly~ our educated acceptance, understanding and respect for other faith or non-faith traditions and the people who affiliate themselves with them. Our checkered history of violence and peace-making toward each other on the basis of our affiliations is embarrassing and eye-opening, ultimately a way to better understand our fragile human nature, its fears, its destructive inclinations and potential, and its slowness to learn to value differences and diversity:
Excerpt from
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/
“America can still be, as [President James] Madison perceived the nation in 1785, an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion. But recognizing that deep religious discord has been part of America’s social DNA is a healthy and necessary step. When we acknowledge that dark past, perhaps the nation will return to that promised...lustre of which Madison so grandiloquently wrote.” Kenneth C. Davis
To learn more about Plymouth Plantation and other early colonies and festivals and the difference between the Pilgrims (English religious Separatists from England and the Netherlands) and Puritans (who did not at first separate from the Anglican Communion but were members of an austere and conservative movement which suffered persecution within it), see the Wikipedia pages:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrims_(Plymouth_Colony)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Rock
Plymouth Rock and Pilgrims’ Feet
Plymouth Rock is no Rock of Gibraltar,
no sentinel against the enemy,
no sentinel against the enemy,
no island of redemption, but a small
and adequate sea level stepping-stone
and adequate sea level stepping-stone
from the Old World to the New,
where the Pilgrims’ feet could feel
where the Pilgrims’ feet could feel
the solid earth beneath their sea-worn
bodies again.
bodies again.
It was a modest beginning, and the dazed
and weary passengers, still listing and slightly
queasy from more than three months at sea,
must have been grateful that such a simple welcome
as the land provided did not demand too much of them,
no awe, no dropping to the knees to kiss the ground,
just inexpressible passing gratitude for one foot at a time
to step from the stench and dreadful hardships of churning
waters felt below deck to a fresh-aired grassy place, no matter
how cold or brown, where they could plop themselves down
and lie on their backs and close their eyes and feel
the stillness embrace them.
Blessed then, the solid bed of the earth,
the waiting land that did not reject them but
gave them a chance, and no matter the cost,
they accepted, no matter the deaths over winter,
they refused to turn back and face the open waters
and the hell-hole of ocean travel again.
Freedom awaited. Freedom more dear
than any easy forfeiture of it for peace
or comfort at the price of soul's respect.
as the land provided did not demand too much of them,
no awe, no dropping to the knees to kiss the ground,
just inexpressible passing gratitude for one foot at a time
to step from the stench and dreadful hardships of churning
waters felt below deck to a fresh-aired grassy place, no matter
how cold or brown, where they could plop themselves down
and lie on their backs and close their eyes and feel
the stillness embrace them.
Blessed then, the solid bed of the earth,
the waiting land that did not reject them but
gave them a chance, and no matter the cost,
they accepted, no matter the deaths over winter,
they refused to turn back and face the open waters
and the hell-hole of ocean travel again.
Freedom awaited. Freedom more dear
than any easy forfeiture of it for peace
or comfort at the price of soul's respect.
Thank you for staying, my American ancestors,
whoever you were, starting with the professional soldier
among them, Myles Standish~ hired by the Pilgrims
to be their military guardian, scout and leader,
who was one of the valiant passengers on the original
journey, and his descendants from whom I followed.
I cannot imagine your lives, I who am spoiled
by the 21st century, who cannot tolerate the idea
of life before daily hot showers and antiperspirants,
air conditioned houses and cars and public buildings~
and jet planes with first class service over the oceans,
and steam ships with elaborately decorated ballrooms
and lavish dance parties and elegant international cuisine
at any hour of the day or night, and private staterooms
with their own terraces and Jacuzzi tubs and showers,
and one to one staff to passenger service at the ring of a bell
or a telephone call.
whoever you were, starting with the professional soldier
among them, Myles Standish~ hired by the Pilgrims
to be their military guardian, scout and leader,
who was one of the valiant passengers on the original
journey, and his descendants from whom I followed.
I cannot imagine your lives, I who am spoiled
by the 21st century, who cannot tolerate the idea
of life before daily hot showers and antiperspirants,
air conditioned houses and cars and public buildings~
and jet planes with first class service over the oceans,
and steam ships with elaborately decorated ballrooms
and lavish dance parties and elegant international cuisine
at any hour of the day or night, and private staterooms
with their own terraces and Jacuzzi tubs and showers,
and one to one staff to passenger service at the ring of a bell
or a telephone call.
When I feel ill and have to go out and
tend the garden in mud anyway~
getting thorns in my flesh while I feverishly sweat
in cold weather to beat the ice or temporary loss of power,
it’s important for me to remember that modest rock on
the shore of the northern Atlantic that welcomed those
miserable people whose distant, unrecognizable stock I am,
and without whose courage and persistent effort
I would not be.
Alla Renée Bozarth
My Blessed Misfortunes
Copyright 2012
in cold weather to beat the ice or temporary loss of power,
it’s important for me to remember that modest rock on
the shore of the northern Atlantic that welcomed those
miserable people whose distant, unrecognizable stock I am,
and without whose courage and persistent effort
I would not be.
Alla Renée Bozarth
My Blessed Misfortunes
Copyright 2012
Passengers of the Mayflower were not the first colonists to settle on the Eastern Seaboard of the future United States' portion of North America. This account of the earlier Jamestown Colony landing is from The Writer's Almanac, April 26, 2014:
On this day in 1607, a group of about a hundred English settlers arrived at the Chesapeake Bay.
They made landfall at a cape they named Cape Henry, after the Prince of
Wales, and the fleet's chaplain, Robert Hunt, said a prayer and placed a
cross at the site of their landing. The fleet was made up of three
ships, 39 crew members, and 103 passengers — all men and boys; the women
wouldn't come along until a year and a half later. The expedition was
driven by entrepreneurial motives: the Virginia Company of London hoped
to reap the bounty of the New World.
Upon arrival, Captain Christopher Newport opened the sealed orders from the Virginia Company, only to find that Captain John Smith, a man who had been charged with mutiny on the voyage and who was scheduled to be hanged, had been named to the Governing Council. The orders also directed the settlers to choose an inland site for their colony, so the men got back on their ships and began exploring the bay, eventually making their way up the James River. A couple of weeks later, they landed on an island that seemed like a reasonable and easily defendable location. They unloaded the ships and broke ground on their new settlement, which they named Jamestown in honor of their king, James I.
Upon arrival, Captain Christopher Newport opened the sealed orders from the Virginia Company, only to find that Captain John Smith, a man who had been charged with mutiny on the voyage and who was scheduled to be hanged, had been named to the Governing Council. The orders also directed the settlers to choose an inland site for their colony, so the men got back on their ships and began exploring the bay, eventually making their way up the James River. A couple of weeks later, they landed on an island that seemed like a reasonable and easily defendable location. They unloaded the ships and broke ground on their new settlement, which they named Jamestown in honor of their king, James I.
History would give them their meaning long after their deaths. I lived hundreds of years away from those first eastern arrivals. Thousands had come from the west thousands of years before them. All of this and more was at the tip of my consciousness. As tears of awareness and gratitude flowed down my cheeks in the wind, I felt them blend with the sea mist stinging my face, filling me with an indescribable sense of my own small place in the reality that is America, that is the human family, so many of us having found our way here from other lands through our forebears or by our own courage and conviction.
As a future Episcopal deacon and priest, I was dedicated to the ideals of ecumenism, more than tolerance of other traditions, but interfaith celebration of our rich, multi-cultural and therefore multifaith diversity, including those without affiliation, the cultivation of respect between self-defined atheists and agnostics, among whom may exist a deep sense of awe toward the Unknown and Unknowable beyond traditions loaded with complex doctrines and customs. I've become more realistic about the human inclination to fear, resent, suspect and persecute those among us who are different from what one's own group may be in manifest beliefs and customs, based on our species' insecurities and our own otherness from others,
The Smithsonian Institution has well articulated our historical attitudes of hostility, then slowly~ our educated acceptance, understanding and respect for other faith or non-faith traditions and the people who affiliate themselves with them. Our checkered history of violence and peace-making toward each other on the basis of our affiliations is embarrassing and eye-opening, ultimately a way to better understand our fragile human nature, its fears, its destructive inclinations and potential, and its slowness to learn to value differences and diversity:
Excerpt from
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/
“America can still be, as [President James] Madison perceived the nation in 1785, an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion. But recognizing that deep religious discord has been part of America’s social DNA is a healthy and necessary step. When we acknowledge that dark past, perhaps the nation will return to that promised...lustre of which Madison so grandiloquently wrote.” Kenneth C. Davis
As I stood on deck of the S.S. United States early in the morning, 20 minutes from docking in New York harbor, tragedy and hope, past and future, all of it seemed summarized in the pink and gold dawn light breaking through gray mists and falling all around the great Lady of Liberty, striking her green metal with her torch held high to us all, now nearly 312,000,000 of us breathing the same air of this country together and calling it home.
The New Colossus
Now like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus, 1849-1887
A telephoto view by someone who contributed it to the Internet, this image is similar to how she appeared, but from farther away, as I first began to see her at dawn. Just having awakened on the ship and hearing the call that she was looking particularly beautiful that morning, I immediately went up on deck and burst into tears of awe, realizing the varied human plights and conditions that had brought people here, and what their journeys must have meant to them, all sorts and conditions of men, women and children.
I continued to watch for the time it took for full daylight to appear.
I continued to watch for the time it took for full daylight to appear.
The Statue of Liberty faces outward in welcome. To the world across the seas, she stands strong as a symbol of integrity and of doing what is right, even if our country does not always live up to that ideal. In this way, she calls us again and again to find and enact our own personal and collective integrity, and she also extends that spirit and goal as an example to all nations. Their representatives come here, to the City of New York, gathering in all languages, bearing the sorrows and hopes of their own people, and together they sit as the United Nations, conversing, sometimes arguing about the united and broken states of the human family.
Lady Liberty at Sunset
We who are free have a sacred trust to fulfill by
studying the profiles of candidates and issues, whether annually or every two years for local elections, or every four years for presidential elections as well, or whenever the occasion arises.
Let's remember to
vote responsibly and well, and above all, to inform ourselves fully for a fair and wise choice for each issue and candidate, to do our part in making the
world a better place and humanity a healthier part of it. Good stewardship is a
joyous thing.
Voting Well
To illustrate that neither
reason, intuition, sensation nor emotion
is adequate alone, but all in combination
make the best decision—
With ballot in hand, the average half-awake citizen
these days may or may not remember all the research
on issues and some of the candidates’ positions
during election year for about two seconds—
and then vote without regard to any of it, based on
some free-floating emotional need
or disconnected prejudice.
If I were to vote on the basis of reason alone,
I’d choose the proven-smart person with no tolerance for
guns
or foul-mouthed bigots, firmly grounded in ethical wisdom,
a person of clarity and big-picture vision, abundant common
sense,
knowledge of history, an instinct for political science,
and a calm and sensible spouse and family.
If I were to vote by intuition alone,
I’d choose the most compassionate,
experienced and intuitive diplomat for the job.
If I were to vote on emotion alone
If I were to vote on emotion alone
I’d choose the person who is intolerant of all forms of abuse,
who will condemn militant ignorance, mindless violence,
fear-mongering and hatred, who will protect us
from domestic danger as well as from foreign threats,
fear-mongering and hatred, who will protect us
from domestic danger as well as from foreign threats,
who will teach Americans to respect, value and defend diversity,
and who will keep us in close friendship with our allies.
If I were to choose by my senses alone,
I’d vote for the mellow-voiced babe with a sense of style
and well-educated proportion, consistent in impeccable
social graces.
No matter which or who, big troubles, many burdens
and irrational dangers will doubtless remain in the world.
Vigilance, ethical action and a life of prayer
will always be necessary.
So I settle down and lead with reason and intuition,
listen to emotion with due deliberation, then send it to the
movies
while we wait for returns, and hope that we are doubly
blessed
and the best person for the job also happens to have
a pure spirit, a great heart and a good brain,
and be easy on the eyes and ears as well.
Come on, Everybody, let’s vote,
and do our best to vote well!
and do our best to vote well!
_____________________________________
Alla Renée Bozarth
Purgatory
Papers, Copyright © 2018.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony,
dedicated to the voting rights of women, the larger but subjugated and oppressed demographic of the American and worldwide population.
Sojourner Truth, the voice of freedom
for all women and civil rights for all people.
She delivered her famous speech for the abolition of slavery and equal rights for women at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio
dedicated to the voting rights of women, the larger but subjugated and oppressed demographic of the American and worldwide population.
for all women and civil rights for all people.
She delivered her famous speech for the abolition of slavery and equal rights for women at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio
My wonderful husband, the Rev. Phil Bozarth-Campbell, was always proud that he was born on the July 19, 1948 hundredth anniversary of the First Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. He was equally proud to be a card-carrying member of the National Organization for Women. We can still celebrate these things all year, every year. Thanks to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott for giving history The Women's Bible, too. Here's this, during the anniversary week of the ratification of Women's Suffrage in the United States of America, something to celebrate with a shower of roses and by voting every chance we get:
Miracles Happen After Hard
Work
Miracles happen—
the French took charge and cast out the Nazis
from the City of Lights, when the Occupying Germans
feared the approach of the Allies and tried to force a 9pm
curfew on the citizens of Paris.
Occupation, if it is benign, is one thing,
Miracles happen—
the French took charge and cast out the Nazis
from the City of Lights, when the Occupying Germans
feared the approach of the Allies and tried to force a 9pm
curfew on the citizens of Paris.
Occupation, if it is benign, is one thing,
but a curfew is an outrage.
The police took over a building opposite
The police took over a building opposite
the Cathedral of Notre Dame and
then the women
and children came out and started hurling their rocks
and
the men shot tanks with small guns, and de Gaulle begged Eisenhower to
bring in the Allies, which he had formerly refused to do.
Impressed
with the suddenly aggressive valor of the French,
the General agreed to follow a band of French troops int
Paris, and when they arrived, a Victory Parade was alread
underway as the Liberation of Paris had officially happened
the day before.
A distant humming reached the ears of the Americans
a strange sound rising to a low murmur as they came nearer,
then erupting into an overwhelming roar of jubilation.
The people of Paris rushed on foot to greet them,
women kissed them, some offered wine to the soldiers,
they climbed up onto the tanks, hailing the Liberation
of the City of Lights in the summer of 1944.
On the same day, August 26, twenty-four years before,
the Women’s Suffrage Amendment was written into
the Constitution of the United States, a victory for humanity
created by the relentless courage, effort and suffering
of American women for generations.
By virtue of those heroic Suffragists, on June 4, 1919,
the Nineteenth Amendment had been passed by both
the House and Senate of Congress, but it needed to be
ratified by state legislatures.
Over a year later, on August 18th the deciding state
was Tennessee, the 36th state to cast its vote in favor,
and the deciding vote was cast by Harry Burn,
at twenty-four the youngest state legislator.
the General agreed to follow a band of French troops int
Paris, and when they arrived, a Victory Parade was alread
underway as the Liberation of Paris had officially happened
the day before.
A distant humming reached the ears of the Americans
a strange sound rising to a low murmur as they came nearer,
then erupting into an overwhelming roar of jubilation.
The people of Paris rushed on foot to greet them,
women kissed them, some offered wine to the soldiers,
they climbed up onto the tanks, hailing the Liberation
of the City of Lights in the summer of 1944.
On the same day, August 26, twenty-four years before,
the Women’s Suffrage Amendment was written into
the Constitution of the United States, a victory for humanity
created by the relentless courage, effort and suffering
of American women for generations.
By virtue of those heroic Suffragists, on June 4, 1919,
the Nineteenth Amendment had been passed by both
the House and Senate of Congress, but it needed to be
ratified by state legislatures.
Over a year later, on August 18th the deciding state
was Tennessee, the 36th state to cast its vote in favor,
and the deciding vote was cast by Harry Burn,
at twenty-four the youngest state legislator.
That morning he’d opened his mail and read a letter
from his mother, in which she said she’d been watching
to see him declare his inclination toward Suffrage
for Women, but so far she saw nothing. She ended
her message, “Don’t forget to be a good boy . . .
and vote for suffrage.”
Supporters of suffrage wore yellow roses and
filled the balcony while opponents wore red roses
on the main floor.
Harry Burn walked in wearing red,
but when he voted,
he said “Aye.”
All the women in the balcony threw down
their flowers, and on that day,
there was a beautiful storm of yellow roses
raining all over the representatives
of the state of Tennessee.
Alla Renée Bozarth
Purgatory Papers
Copyright 2014.
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2014.
All rights reserved.
Good Morning to You!
It comes back to me now, on the March 27th birthday of Patty Hill who gave us the basis of the Happy Birthday song, that has helped work up the breath to blow out so many candles on so many cakes, transforming small flames into smoke rising to heaven, where they become a cumulative true-wish blessing for a person’s lifetime.
Patty was born in Anchorage, Kentucky in 1868, and dedicated herself to the education and welfare of small children. For 30 years she served on the faculty of Columbia University’s Teachers’ College, and helped found Columbia’s Institute of Child Welfare Research.
At 25, she wrote lyrics for a melody composed by her accomplished older sister, Mildred Hill, a renowned musician and musical scholar. The sisters collaborated on collecting songs for children.
In 1893 they compiled Song Stories for the Kindergarten.
Their song, “Good Morning to All,” was meant to be taught
to young children and sung with their teachers in class.
The simple song quickly spread and became beloved, and soon it evolved into the variant, “Happy Birthday to You,” when, by 1910, those universally familiar lyrics were added as a second verse, already in use and published in 1912
in The Beginner’s Book of Songs.
When radio and sound movies came along, the song
was heard by millions after the “Happy Birthday”
version appeared in the Broadway musical,
“The Band Wagon” in 1931.
In 1933, Irving Berlin used it in his revue,
“As Thousands Cheered.”
That same year, the song was used on
the first Western Union telegram.
When another of Patty Hill’s sisters, Jessica Hill,
heard it, she recognized the song her sisters
had written years before.
They proved their ownership in court
and all six versions of the “Good Morning/Happy Birthday”
song were copyrighted by the Hill sisters in 1935.
All versions of the song remain copyrighted
with renewable rights, and thanks to Jessica Hill's
business acumen, the song is finally earning robust
license fees every time it is commercially performed.
Reading this, I suddenly recalled what wisdom and joy
my first grade teacher, Mrs. Hoyt, practiced when
she passed along the original song to us.
Indeed, singing “Good Morning to All” became
a kind of community-building spiritual practice
that brilliantly set the tone for a positive learning day.
Every school day morning we opened our voices and sang
together— “Good Morning to You, Good Morning to You,
Good Morning Everybody, Good Morning to You.”
And then we stood, and in unison,
we placed our hands over our hearts
and solemnly promised, as every other
American citizen of any capable age,
including our President, would do from time to time—
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
of America, and to the Republic for which it stands,
One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, with Liberty
and Justice for All.”
It was impossible not to end our sung greeting
to each other with a smile, and a look all around
to see who was there and who was home sick that day,
and take note and send well wishes to those absent.
We truly felt the fullness of good will and citizenship
which we were given as birthright, without having
to study hard and acquire much knowledge first,
as grown people seeking citizenship must do to pass
a challenging exam before exercising the privilege of
standing together and placing their hands over their
hearts to pledge allegiance as people who share
the responsibilities of citizenship in a nation
which promises freedom and justice for all,
no matter how hard we all must still strive
to overcome stifling, even killing,
freedom-denying prejudices and
disrespectful discord, in order
to make good on our pledge.
The mutual wish for a Good Morning, at the beginning
of our awakening interactions and daily discoveries and
contributions, is a blessed way to find courage to proceed
in practicing— to make that wish come true for all
citizens of Earth, including the smallest members
of other species, whose birthrights are
a good morning, and a good life also.
Alla Renée Bozarth
The Frequencies of Sound
© 2015
America the Beautiful
selected verses
selected verses
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed great Grace on thee,
And bless your brood with all that's good*
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!
*Lyrics by Katharine Lee Bates.
Inclusive language changes by Alla Renée Bozarth.
The song was originally a poem entitled "America,"
published in the Fourth of July edition of
The Congregationalist in 1895.
To read the original poem and later versions, including
Buffy Sainte-Marie's and Wellesley College's change
from "brotherhood" to "sisterhood" in honor of the poet, see
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_the_Beautiful
Music by church organist and choirmaster, Samuel Ward, who originally composed it under the name "Materna"
in 1892 for the hymn, O Mother Dear, Jerusalem.
The music was first published with the poem as
America the Beautiful in 1910.
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed great Grace on thee,
And bless your brood with all that's good*
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!
*Lyrics by Katharine Lee Bates.
Inclusive language changes by Alla Renée Bozarth.
The song was originally a poem entitled "America,"
published in the Fourth of July edition of
The Congregationalist in 1895.
To read the original poem and later versions, including
Buffy Sainte-Marie's and Wellesley College's change
from "brotherhood" to "sisterhood" in honor of the poet, see
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_the_Beautiful
Music by church organist and choirmaster, Samuel Ward, who originally composed it under the name "Materna"
in 1892 for the hymn, O Mother Dear, Jerusalem.
The music was first published with the poem as
America the Beautiful in 1910.
Mt. Hood, Queen of the Oregon Cascades
in purple majesty!
http://allabozarthwordsandimages.blogspot.com/p/all-saints-day-and-i-begin.htm
in purple majesty!
Years ago, I
found this picture on a postcard in a gift shop in Mt. Hood National Forest.
It's filled my Google homepage for nine years, ever since I've had a computer.
It welcomes me to my workday
with beauty and serenity. No matter the frustrations or disappointments that
follow, it clears my path at the beginning and is there to return to when I
need to start over. It reminds
me how essential, how necessary to us the beauty of Nature is, how sacred the
landscape is, how carefully we must protect it, interacting respectfully with
it at all times. Of course, I never miss an election, even the minor local
ones, but treat my ballot as a sacred trust, study the issues and candidates and
make my mark as a participant in helping to make sure that we have good
governance that protects the environment and our local creature kin. This spring on a
cold, misty day after weeks of torrential rain, I drove along the Old Scenic
Highway on the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge and took the picture at the
top of this page. {It was a different weather day from the picture taken a few
summers ago below it.} I was standing on a cliff composed mostly of Mt. Hood
lava in the Women's Forum Park, looking down at the river as it winds its way
for over a thousand miles from British Columbia through Washington and Oregon
to the great waters of the Pacific Ocean. I prayed for those waters, for all
precious beings who live hidden in the depths of them, for our food and
livelihood that comes from them. Ahead of me and a little further on down the
winding road was Vista House on Crown Point. I regard it as my personal voting
booth. Entering its precincts, I am instantly aware of those who have gone
before me to create such harmony between my species and the landscape as to
make it possible for me to stand in such a place and take such a picture.
When I cast my eyes toward the Good Earth and open all my senses to it, the experience stands as an ongoing reminder to practice good citizenship, especially in the realization of what a cherishable privilege it is to participate in the making of good governance by voting. It's not only a privilege, but a responsibility, a proud duty, our democratic way of practicing good stewardship together. Even as we disagree, we are called to do our best, to make our choices for generous reasons, not for spite or selfishness, not in prejudice and fear, but as well and as fairly and thoroughly informed as can be. Without regard to race, sex, religion, ethnicity, or by any other distinction, we stand together as equals, each of us casting our vote to the best of our ability. It's an honor we share. It's a great feeling, Friends.
When I cast my eyes toward the Good Earth and open all my senses to it, the experience stands as an ongoing reminder to practice good citizenship, especially in the realization of what a cherishable privilege it is to participate in the making of good governance by voting. It's not only a privilege, but a responsibility, a proud duty, our democratic way of practicing good stewardship together. Even as we disagree, we are called to do our best, to make our choices for generous reasons, not for spite or selfishness, not in prejudice and fear, but as well and as fairly and thoroughly informed as can be. Without regard to race, sex, religion, ethnicity, or by any other distinction, we stand together as equals, each of us casting our vote to the best of our ability. It's an honor we share. It's a great feeling, Friends.
Let Thanks Be Given For All Creation!
Blessing of the Stew Pot
Blessed be the Creator
and all creative hands
which plant and harvest,
pack and haul and hand
over sustenance —
Blessed be carrot and cow,
potato and mushroom,
tomato and bean,
parsley and peas,
onion and thyme,
garlic and bay leaf,
pepper and water,
marjoram and oil,
and blessed be fire —
and blessed be the enjoyment
of nose and of eye,
and blessed be color —
and blessed be the Creator
for the miracle of red potato,
for the miracle of green bean,
for the miracle of fawn mushrooms,
and blessed be God
for the miracle of earth:
ancestors, grass, bird,
deer and all gone,
wild creatures
whose bodies become
carrots, peas and wild
flowers, whose bodies
give sustenance
to human hands, whose
agile dance of music
nourishes the ear
and soul of the dog
resting under the stove
and the woman working over
the stove and the geese
out the open window
strolling in the backyard.
And blessed be God for all, all, all.
Alla Renée Bozarth
Moving to the Edge of the World iUniverse 2000
This is My body—Prayers for Earth
Prayers from the Heart iUniverse 2004
iUniverse 2000
Blessed be the Creator
and all creative hands
which plant and harvest,
pack and haul and hand
over sustenance —
Blessed be carrot and cow,
potato and mushroom,
tomato and bean,
parsley and peas,
onion and thyme,
garlic and bay leaf,
pepper and water,
marjoram and oil,
and blessed be fire —
and blessed be the enjoyment
of nose and of eye,
and blessed be color —
and blessed be the Creator
for the miracle of red potato,
for the miracle of green bean,
for the miracle of fawn mushrooms,
and blessed be God
for the miracle of earth:
ancestors, grass, bird,
deer and all gone,
wild creatures
whose bodies become
carrots, peas and wild
flowers, whose bodies
give sustenance
to human hands, whose
agile dance of music
nourishes the ear
and soul of the dog
resting under the stove
and the woman working over
the stove and the geese
out the open window
strolling in the backyard.
And blessed be God for all, all, all.
Alla Renée Bozarth
Moving to the Edge of the World iUniverse 2000
This is My body—Prayers for Earth
Prayers from the Heart iUniverse 2004
Three Little Words
If you want to be wise,
practice growing wonder-full.
Open your Heart-mind
to the unknowable nature
of Nature, including yourself.
Consider yourself happy
to be a grain of sand
on the cosmic beach,
necessary for your part
and that is all.
Get comfortable with all
the possibilities that can
occur when you speak the truth
of these three words:
I don’t know.
Embrace the insecurity of mystery
and its faithfulness also.
Fall in love with
the wonder of not-knowing.
Fill yourself with it.
Then breathe out your blessing
into the world
with a smiling heart.
Alla Renée Bozarth
The Book of Bliss
The Book of Bliss
iUniverse 2000
http://allabozarthwordsandimages.blogspot.com/p/all-saints-day-and-i-begin.htm
