“THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!”
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Commentator: ProPublica reporter Ginger Thompson
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For
For the asylum seekers’ children in America – severed from love and touch.
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You are known by us.
We care.
Hear our heart songs to you.
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NEST: THERE IS MORE FOR YOU Catherine L. Johnson 2010
http://www.mnartists.org/artwork/nest-thereismoreforyou-2010-painting-selected-national-poetry-award
NEST: THERE IS MORE FOR YOU
was selected as a visual accompaniment to a 2010 prize winning poem:
http://www.mnartists.org/article/mnlit-original-what-neurologist-doesnt-say
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Samba Je Hed an intimate improvisation Anthony Cox / Billy Higgins 1991
Please click on link below for this sonic balm – a spontaneous, beautiful, intimate conversation
– an improvisation, pure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeNEaT4sfZg
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Observers have raised concerns about the psychological toll on young children who enter this shelter system. NPR’s Joel Rose talked to one former shelter employee who said he quit after he was instructed to prevent siblings from hugging each other. The organization that runs the shelter said it allows touching and hugging in certain circumstances.
https://www.npr.org/2018/06/19/621065383/what-we-know-family-separation-and-zero-tolerance-at-the-border
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What’s Behind the ‘Tender Age’ Shelters Opening for Young Migrants
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Many are toddlers and babies and require special care, and their numbers have been rising since last month, when the government enforced a “zero tolerance” policy on people crossing the border. Estimates suggest that more than 2,400 children under the age of 12 are now in federal custody, including many who have been separated from their parents.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/us/tender-age-shelters-family-separation-immigration.html
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Please note:
The images in the video below are very distressing and disturbing.
You may choose to read the comments.
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I lived the story it documents
from 6 months to 3 years old
at Shriner’s Hospital for Crippled Children.
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Hospital policy:
ONE parent 1x week and NO touching of your child,
who was in an institutional bed in lines in the nursery.
All designed for administrative ease.
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We know better now.
Touch + comfort of/to/from a loved one is fundamental + imperative for living!
The repercussions and reverberations are real,
severe
and
inscribed in the heart and bone of a child forever.
The story does not lift away in time.
It can be re-constructed for meaning
and
re-contextualized
to serve
the freedom voyage / flight of others
to set out to sea to enter their ship
and
fly boundlessly with their full wing span.
WOUNDED HEALERS.
Of course, I remember!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_healer
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I had within me a fierce,
compassionate and courageous
divinity,
a radiant wilderness,
a luminous chapel
that was stronger
than I was.
I was given this sacred fire.
It was mine to keep alive as it kept me alive.
I prevailed.
I became an artist – giving voice.
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My Mother, Doris Eileen Cottor Johnson Omlie,
wrote a 12 page, a hand-written memoir, in 1996
(two years before her sudden and unexpected death)
to “tell me the truth”.
And the writing, her writing, was a release for her.
She was a young woman of 26
when it all occurred to her
and
my Daddy’s, Richard Harold Johnson, life.
She was 66
when she wrote it in blue ink,
with her delicate song of Palmer’s handwriting script,
on her favorite stationary.
She wrote my Genesis story for me,
She did not rise until it was completed.
The air changed,
the light changed
– the harvest of knowing
and
being SEEN for WHO you are.
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I am sharing this story of truth
to you,
the viewer of this entry,
in my WordPress of 2 July 2018.
Yes, I feel exposed.
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Yet, I must tell you
for those who have NO voice and are defenseless:
the children of asylum seekers.
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We know the TRUTH,
that DT and his WH administration
with their ZERO tolerance immigration policy,
a “determent” policy,
is proof that their empathy wires are cut from humanity
and
what they see are their own demons
rather than
vulnerable, innocent children
who are terrified,
frozen in fear,
without a voice
and
who yearn for comfort
of their NEST
and
the balm, the lullaby, the sing-song
of pure and loving humane voices.
Incompetence and cruelty go together with DT and his White House.
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My finding of the video below
was a gift that I was ready for.
There it was on the sidebar of YouTube.
I was viewing the videos of
“FAMILIES BELONG TOGETHER”
nationwide protests.
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I took a deep breath, and clicked on the link.
I viewed what I had lived
– and what other children lived at that time.
Pre-verbal.
It was poignant that this video was silent.
I remember the wails,
the constant lament, the shrieks,
the gurgling sounds of giving up.
The playing with my hands to know I was here, to self-soothe, to hold on.
My body remembered all
– the inchoate feelings.
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Yes,
I worked with the grace and love
of expert trauma specialists
to slowly,
oh so slowly,
oh oh so so so slowly
to lift the veils
– like the skins of a burn victim,
and
carefully remove
with sacred attention,
the defending vigilant stones of my fortressed walls
to release my stories
that were prohibited from being told.
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I was fortunate to have certain loved ones
who told, who witnessed,
certain loved ones who I loved
and
I KNEW
loved me who could
SEE the ME within.
FREEDOM.
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Healing is done with lullabies – the balm and the touch of pure love.
INTIMATE.
SACRED Listening.
Call and Response.
Moving forward instilling
HOPE
to those who are devastated,
distressed
and
breathing
the same oxygen as us all
and
know the sound and touch
of authentic
love’s redeeming,
restorative energy and elixir.
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Please click on the link below for the telling:
https://catherineljohnson.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/809-the-longest-day-summer-solstice-until-the-story-of-the-hunt-is-told-by-the-lion-the-tale-of-the-hunt-will-always-glorify-the-hunter-african-proverb/
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I turn toward Nature’s grace, beauty + ephemera for restoration.
I turn toward Nature and bear witness and, in turn, I uphold wonder and awe.
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I offer you
what Nature offered this evening,
after I had completed this entry,
while riding my bike:
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My parents took me out of Shriners at 3 years old – doors closed shut.
My life was met by the creative medical genius of
Dr. Mark B. Coventry, Mayo Clinic.
My beloved Dr. Coventry.
A remarkable collaboration began between that called out GOLD.
https://catherineljohnson.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/13-july-look-to-this-day-for-it-is-life-the-very-life-of-life-dr-mark-b-coventry-promise-me-two-things-only-let-those-who-honor-and-respect-you-come-near-and-always-remain-an-art/
HE ASKED ME TO MAKE TWO PROMISES
TO HIM BEFORE HE DIED:
“PROMISE ME TWO THINGS:
ONLY
LET THOSE WHO HONOR AND RESPECT
YOU COME NEAR
AND
ALWAYS
REMAIN AN ARTIST.”
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We are given opportunities
in the arc of our lifetime
to give and accept offerings of
awe + beauty + freedom.
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The salutation of
I SEE YOU
is an irreplaceable intimate epiphany
of
knowing a beloved.
This intimate knowing
illuminates all within the beloved
welcoming
his/her incandescent and fragile truths
slowly,
with sincere tenderness like a gospel song.
What was once kept captive
within
locked in darkness,
shut down and hidden from view
is
WITNESSED,
embraced with love’s elixir.
Now, irreversibly RELEASED and wings unfurled –
EXODUS.
An unfolding dialectical freedom lullaby
that IS a mutual call and response
– a sacred, fortuitous, blessed
improvisational song.
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And, I / YOU / WE AIN’T GOING BACK…
Moving FORWARD, at last.
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EXODUSIMFREEATLASTIAINTGOINGBACKIMFREE CATHERINE L. JOHNSON 2013
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TO ENLARGE + FOR DETAIL, PLEASE CLICK ON THE IMAGE
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CATHERINE L. JOHNSON 