Dear Everyone who reads this blog and travels through time and between worlds to share my adventures in the first century CE
(That was a long greeting, but not as long as Paul of Tarsus' in his even longer epistles. Don't worry this is a letter, not an epistle.)
I don't know if you remember Elizabeth's six week experiment, during which time I was banished to the comment section? Well, the results are in. Elizabeth has been accepted as a Huffington Post blogger. She is apparently allowed to post her blog here as well as at Huffington Post, so her Tuesday blogs at this spot will continue. And I will continue to COMMENT on them! I also expect to advise her on her blogs and perhaps achieve some mention in them on occasion. I will also communicate with you directly from time to time just as I am today.
How are things in your century? You don't have to answer that question if it's too upsetting. I am more or less up on your current events, and am aware of various catastophes in your current events. Catastrophe is also brewing in my time, as you may have gathered if you've been following my tweets. (Outside a tree limb just broke. The wind is, excuse the cliche, howling. Better finish this letter quick before the power goes out, something we didn't have to worry about in the first century).
It is an odd thing to live in and outside of time (maybe everyone does, but we just don't know it). I know about your supreme court ruling last week, and Elizabeth and I both know what history of the Boudican rebellion, but when we are in the middle of a scene, neither of us knows what will happen next. We have to live it. I have finally told Boudica the truth about who I am, who she is. Now I am waiting to see what happens next. And I will have to wait till Wednesday your time, because of all this blogging and platform building. That is something about your century that I find trying. I didn't have to have a platform in my time. I just stood on the bare earth, opened my mouth--and well stood on one foot while I inserted the other one.
Elizabeth has to do some research for her blog tomorrow, so I will close for now and post this letter before lightning strikes. Please do keep in touch. And do visit Elizabeth at Huffington Post. She'll keep you posted on the postings.
Be of good cheer, laugh as much as you can, cry when you need to, and call my name as much as you like, in or out of vain. But if you ever ask yourself WWMD, and you actually do that thing, I really can't be held responsible!
Love,
Maeve
Showing posts with label first century Celts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label first century Celts. Show all posts
Monday, January 25, 2010
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
MotherRight
First to everyone who has been so kindly inquiring, my husband is continuing to do thorough research about his treatment options. My mother-in-law, Olga, is thriving in her lively new home, as much a queen as ever. She has several guardian cats. She regards them with a certain tolerant disdain (and secretly enjoys their attention). What is a goddess to do?
Every now and then a story in the news gets under my skin, and I have to respond directly. I read the story on http://www.truthout.org/1114098. The next day aol had picked it up: w|dl3|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Fmain%2Fnc%2Farticle%2Falexis-hutchinson-refuses-deployment-to%2F769226 Here's the gist:
Alexis Hutchinson, an army cook and the single mother of an eleven-month-old son, was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan on November 15th. The plan for her son's care that she had filed with the army fell through when her mother realized she could not add care of an infant to the load she was already carrying. (Three family members in need of nursing care.) The army first granted, and then revoked an extension that would have allowed Alexis Hutchinson to arrange for alternative care. When Ms. Hutchinson refused to leave her son on the appointed date, he was taken into foster care, and she was arrested and is currently confined on a base in Georgia. She faces potential court martial and a year in jail.
The army's decision to revoke the extension, place the child in foster care, and arrest the mother appalls me. That Alexis Hutchinson was using her child to avoid deployment in Afghanistan, as military officials have alleged, is the grossest speculation and moreover beside the point. If parents of either gender are willing to risk their lives in the course of military service, the military has an obligation to support them in every way possible in making acceptable arrangements for their children. Forcing a parent to place a child in foster care is unacceptable. The suffering already inflicted on this child and this mother is both cruel and unnecessary. I wrote to Michelle Obama, who has said that she has a particular concern for military families, to ask her not only to look into this case but into military policy regarding parents who must leave children behind when they deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan and other posts where family cannot follow.
The title of this blog is Mother Right, a concept that was part of ancient Celtic law and the laws of some other ancient peoples, I believe. I have been searching for a definition of it among my books, including in Magdalen Rising where Maeve gives a definition. But I haven't been able to place my finger on it yet, and I am almost out of time today. I will keep looking and include the definition in next week's blog.
For now, I am going to make something up. Mother right, in today's winging-it definition, not only has to do with the rights of women to own property, participate in all aspects of the political process, bear arms, have spiritual authority, and sexual autonomy, all of which rights ancient Celtic women exercised and enjoyed. Mother right in today's definition is law that includes both common sense and compassion. The spirit that gives life instead of the letter than kills (as good lordess deliver us Maeve's nemesis Paul of Tarsus once said). A law that is unresponsive to individual circumstance soon becomes a form of oppression and abuse.
As to the subject of mothers (and fathers!) in the military and the heartrending choices they make--or have made--that is a subject for another blog. Or novel, like the one I am writing now set during the rebellion of Queen Boudica against the Roman occupation. A hard book to write. More another day.
Every now and then a story in the news gets under my skin, and I have to respond directly. I read the story on http://www.truthout.org/1114098. The next day aol had picked it up: w|dl3|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Fmain%2Fnc%2Farticle%2Falexis-hutchinson-refuses-deployment-to%2F769226 Here's the gist:
Alexis Hutchinson, an army cook and the single mother of an eleven-month-old son, was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan on November 15th. The plan for her son's care that she had filed with the army fell through when her mother realized she could not add care of an infant to the load she was already carrying. (Three family members in need of nursing care.) The army first granted, and then revoked an extension that would have allowed Alexis Hutchinson to arrange for alternative care. When Ms. Hutchinson refused to leave her son on the appointed date, he was taken into foster care, and she was arrested and is currently confined on a base in Georgia. She faces potential court martial and a year in jail.
The army's decision to revoke the extension, place the child in foster care, and arrest the mother appalls me. That Alexis Hutchinson was using her child to avoid deployment in Afghanistan, as military officials have alleged, is the grossest speculation and moreover beside the point. If parents of either gender are willing to risk their lives in the course of military service, the military has an obligation to support them in every way possible in making acceptable arrangements for their children. Forcing a parent to place a child in foster care is unacceptable. The suffering already inflicted on this child and this mother is both cruel and unnecessary. I wrote to Michelle Obama, who has said that she has a particular concern for military families, to ask her not only to look into this case but into military policy regarding parents who must leave children behind when they deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan and other posts where family cannot follow.
The title of this blog is Mother Right, a concept that was part of ancient Celtic law and the laws of some other ancient peoples, I believe. I have been searching for a definition of it among my books, including in Magdalen Rising where Maeve gives a definition. But I haven't been able to place my finger on it yet, and I am almost out of time today. I will keep looking and include the definition in next week's blog.
For now, I am going to make something up. Mother right, in today's winging-it definition, not only has to do with the rights of women to own property, participate in all aspects of the political process, bear arms, have spiritual authority, and sexual autonomy, all of which rights ancient Celtic women exercised and enjoyed. Mother right in today's definition is law that includes both common sense and compassion. The spirit that gives life instead of the letter than kills (as good lordess deliver us Maeve's nemesis Paul of Tarsus once said). A law that is unresponsive to individual circumstance soon becomes a form of oppression and abuse.
As to the subject of mothers (and fathers!) in the military and the heartrending choices they make--or have made--that is a subject for another blog. Or novel, like the one I am writing now set during the rebellion of Queen Boudica against the Roman occupation. A hard book to write. More another day.
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