POEM BY ~ Manidoonaateshing-ikwe / Phylmarie Fëss, woman of Ojibwe Turtle Clan

get well card

a girl was battered

sometimes by her angry mother with the father’s belt,

but because mother said to,

most often her father swung that leather strip

or his hand,

while he said,

“look at me when i talk to you.

don’t look at me like that.”

or he’d ask,

“what are you crying for? i’ll give you something to cry for,”

“don’t you feel it? i’ll make you feel it,”

then he’d hit again.

again.

and the girl hugged herself and tried not to cry too much or too little

saying in her mind, “not your fault.

remember they used to love you.

try to forgive.

try.

it’s not

your

fault.”

a young woman was declared tramp and evicted

by her landlady

when she respectfully, privately

requested that the older woman tell the elder's father

to please keep his strange words,

and his hands

off.

so the young woman walked along the treed, nighttime road

with cases and purse in arms and wept silently

while strangers stared

thinking to herself, “not your fault.

they are sick.

try to forgive.

try.

it’s not

your

fault.”

an at-home-alone daughter was raped

by a drunken neighbour

who chastised her sin,

so she reclused to her room

and watched the door,

for months.

till one evening she whispered her shame,

and her mother recradled the girl in arms and wept with her,

saying, “not your fault.

his mind is sick.

try to forgive.

try.

it’s not

your

fault.”

a ‘with-child’ woman was pounded

by a stranger who threw his jacket over her head

on a downtown street,

beaten as he shrieked, “bitch! bitch!”

and later her sister held the woman in her arms and wept with her

saying, “not your fault.

his mind is sick.

try to forgive.

try.

it’s not

your

fault.”

how many more

we belted girls?

we tormented women?

we raped daughters?

we pounded mothers?

before we all walk together

and need no longer cry, “not our fault.

it's the violence-borne society,

the violence-porne society,

the violence-torn society,

that is sick.

it’s not

our

fault.”

no more,

Creator, please.

no more,

now.

we

walk

together

now.

~ manidoonaateshing-ikwe / phylmarie

If you wish to share, I give permission. If you wish to share without photo, I give permission, but to preserve layout, copy and paste the whole honour song poem from title to signature line end. Miigwech / Thank you, for passing on the message in defense of girls and women.

Domestic Violence Created by Poetess Queen Francine Nedd Nov 2006

Domestic Violence
Created by Poetess Queen Francine Nedd
Nov 2006

Oh God, hear my prayer, my voice, my cry, my plea,
from the grave for the suffering people
of violence still alive behind me,
For my eyes are now closed, and sewn very tight,
because the man I love decided to kill me one night.

It all started out gradual then progressed very slow,
the longer I stayed
the violence began just to grow and grow.

It started as insults verbal, lowering my self-esteem,
I’d wondered to myself how he could be so mean.
It escalated to harsh beatings, bruises, and broken bones, to a degree I would often sit in the dark afraid and alone.

Ashamed of my face disfigured to such a degree,
and he’d convinced me that my suffering and bruises
were all because of me.

Afraid to call my family or the police on the phone
he told me if I did, he’d break my face and collarbone.
For almost any reason he use to beat me,
to much damage to the womb and I lost two babies,
maybe three.

Fed up and convince he truly had no love for me
I planned my escape and my chance to be free.
I just said this is enough I can’t take it no more
and I grab my coat and headed to the door.
He grab me by the hair, said you think you leaving me,
and he began beating my face until I could not see.
I was leaving that was it, I’d made my decision,
and I struggled harder and harder to repair my vision.

I was unable to reach across him to the wall phone
I stole the chance and I kneed him in the groin.
As he toppled over and we hit hard against the floor
I struggled to rise and headed for the door.

Surprised he was even able to grab my leg’s
as I fell he gave me two sharp blows to my head.
My head became groggy and very light
as I continued my fight to save my life.
The man I‘d married, loved for many years
was sealing my death and ignoring my tears.

Yes, my husband and I had a terrible and final fight;
the last I remember was a twist of a knife.
My husband not only took my life and the life of himself
but our newborn baby due on the twelfth
I lay next to him before we both took our last breath,
he said, I told you that this marriage would be until death.

My bodies in this casket as my family say’s goodbye to me, I am a victim of a crime of domestic cruelty.
Maybe this prayer may save the next couple,
and I hope too God it’s true,
because problems of domestic violence
can lead to your deaths too.

Lord there is such a great need for a healing,
when people are reacting in violence
without thinking or feeling
Domestic violence is violent no matter how big or small, violence is violence let’s put and end to it all
If its man against woman, or woman against man,
stop closing your eyes saving lives is the new plan.

To be seeing and not telling or a continued
victim in silence,
the toll is rising, put and end to
Domestic Violence

NADIA by Veronica Marjon Van Bruggen

NADIA  

Nadia is a girl

She is a Yazidi girl

She is a very brave Yazidi girl

She is a very brave victimized Yazidi girl

She is a very brave victimized and orphaned Yazidi girl

She became enslaved

She was (legally !!!!) raped

She managed to escape and was a refugee

She had to endure all this, because she is an innocent Yazidi girl.

She now has an advocate

who is ashamed

and says so in an assembly of the UN

she is proud to present Nadia

as a survivor, 

a Yazidi leader

a Nobel Peace Prize nominee

a Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations.

Her name is Nadia Murad.

Nadia  by Veronica Marjon Van Bruggen   Copyright   September 2016  

A TRIBUTE TO REBBETZIN ESTHER JUNGREIS

HINENI --- Here I Am by Celine Leduc edited by Norman Simon

“Here I am,” Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis would say she was a spiritual and mystical person calling people back to Judaism, touching soul with her unconditional love.  She has passed away, has left this world, but she is still alive in my heart, in my soul. 

Condolences to her family, friends and followers. I would like to share with you how I met Rebbetzin Jungreis, the meaning of her blessing, and the impact she had on my life. I am not Jewish; however, my ancestors were Jewish before they converted Christianity (Catholicism) over 500 years ago (1492). Due to the downfall of Andalusia (Spain), they chose life as Christians moved to Rouen, France, and then to Canada. 

THE TWO HOLOCAUSTS

She saw both the physical Holocaust of Jews that occurred in Germany, and the spiritual holocaust when she landed in New York as she saw that people had lost their Jewish spirituality. She had seen the physical horrors and death in a Concentration Camp.  She would say: “Hineni.” Here I am, to awaken the Jewish soul, the lost spirituality of Judaism.  She did bless and touch so many hearts to reawaken the spirit that would bring you HOME. 

I heard her speak in Montreal a few years ago as she was promoting her latest book.  In her speech, she spoke of her experience in a Concentration Camp.   A heckler had started saying, “How can you believe in God after such horror?”  I was sitting in the audience and my spirit was moved, so I told  the man off and told him to listen with his heart and stay quiet before Rebbetzin Jungreis had a chance to answer.  Hence started a wonderful friendship.  After the conference, I bought her book which she signed and gave me a blessing and thanked me.   I was touched.

The next day, we went out visiting Montreal and we talked about life.  I told her I felt ashamed and felt so bad as I had made so many mistakes in my life.  She asked me, “Do you know the story of my ancestor, David? He made so many mistakes. You can read about them in the Torah.”  I knew the story of David, knew intellectually about how he was forgiven; but she gave me a new way of seeing things from the spiritual lens. He made mistakes, but also mended his ways.  He asked for forgiveness and was forgiven because his heart was pure and his mistakes were part of his learning path.  The lesson of David is all about life’s challenges, how we handle them, what lessons we learn, and how we can correct some others. We can also be part of the lesson to think and grow spiritually. 

JEWISH SOUL

She knew I was not Jewish as I had told her.  After I had been with her for more than a week spiritually, I had a spiritual awakening. She would sit with me/ She was a palpable vision her spirit was there at breakfast and we would chat, spirit-to-spirit.  She loved stories about cats and wrote about one the cat that was at the King David Hotel in Tel Aviv and got adopted by a woman. She told the cat that she would be back as she had to go to Jerusalem or Haifa for the day.  She put a ribbon or collar around the neck of the kitten, gave him enough food, and left.  Once she arrived at her destination she was amazed and surprised to see her kitten waiting for her.  How did the cat get there before she had? It was the same kitten with the same collar and markings he answered to is name.  I know this story is real as she did sit and have breakfast with me spiritually. Yes I could feel her love and kindness and oneness with the universe and her blessing. 

She went back to New York and gave me her contact information. I would call her on a regular basis and listen to her radio broadcasts.  One day I called and spoke with her about the fact my family on both sides had once been Jewish, in Andalusia which became Spain.  Jews and Muslims were friends then and worked together for the betterment of society.  She asked me, “How did you find out you had Jewish ancestry?”  I told her it was because of prejudice. My aunts were always telling me to stop being so Jewish when I questioned too much.  It was because of the family secret: an egg pie that had originated in Andalusia and was a family secret. It was about my family name, Leduc which was a derogatory name given to Jewish converts. It meant that we thought we were royalty, something my aunts would remind me of, until I read “Les Juifs” by Roger Peyrefitte, and discovered my family name was there.  My aunt, the historian of the family and a nun, refused to believe me, in 1967. In the late 1990s just a few years before her death and after she had gone to a family gathering of all the Leduc’s in Rouen, she could not find any tombstone prior to the 1500 bearing the name Leduc.  I mention to my aunt I had proof our family name was Duce or e-Duce in Toledo, and she said, “We were like Jesus, a Jew.” After I met the Rebbetzin, someone told me we had come from Toledo which confirmed my lineage and what Peyrefitte had theorized.  My mother’s family name was Foisy, also Freedman in English. The family was also from Andalusia and had been named after a river, another clue to their Jewish origins.  She told me that in order for me to be recognized as a Jew, I would have to convert and she suggested I do a DNA test to show that many Jews were converts or that their identity was hidden and their origins were denied as being Jewish in the family tree. 

AVOIDING A THIRD HOLOCAUST

Here I am and thanks to the Rebbetzin, I will write about the lesson I learned from our numerous talks. She never tired of my calling, always smiling, listening, and giving me a blessing.  The winds of another Holocaust is on the horizon. This time it involves racism and xenophobia in Europe with the hatred being focused on Muslims; yet Jews will be blamed for the religious war that is in the imagination of the elitists and intellectuals of Europe.  These intellectuals and haters are using religion as a weapon.  Up until colonization, Jews and Muslims lived side by side as descendants of Abraham according to the Torah, or Hebrew Bible. Isaac and Ishmael did make up, stopped the sibling rivalry, made peace, and lived side by side as the fathers of two great Nation.  Isaac and Ishmael are the antithesis of Cain who killed Abel. In Europe, due to perception and faulty teachings, they see it as a war of religion: they want Jews to forget that they were once cousins with Muslims. Today, some Jews and Muslims are very political, because of European politics. Politics and nationalism have to do with ideologies and not spirituality.  The political ideas of the “Final Solution” are still alive, and have been exported by Europeans to the Levant.  Israel is, thank God, the refuge of Jews. Yet those dark clouds in European politics are blinding, as they use religion as a weapon.  My ancestors lived in Andalusia. We lived freely under the Moors and prospered. Our lives were threatened by the forces of Isabella and Ferdinand. My ancestors did not want to die, so they converted by the sword and migrated to Rouen, France hence to Canada.  To avoid another Holocaust that will affect the lives of Muslims, Jews, Roma people, homosexuals and those with a physical handicap, we need to unite and stop the advancing troops of hate.  Here, I am calling on all those spirits from Andalusia and all those who died in the Holocaust to come and stop the madness.  Let us awaken our spirit by uniting and telling hate mongers to stop, as they not only want to destroy Jews, but Israel and the whole of the Levant and North Africa because of their greed and lust for power.  They want to kill Jews, Muslims, Christians, Yezidi, all living beings and wipe out history.

Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis spoke of two holocausts: one physical and one spiritual. Jews were scapegoated in Europe many times. Now they are again becoming the target and being used to cause a rift with Muslims.  Yes, there is a war that is political and not religious going on. That war is being fueled by hate mongers who lust over land and oil. They favor one side as the victim and demonize the other. However, they hate both, believing one killed Jesus and the other is the devil incarnate. This is the elitist mindset.    I remember Andalusia and my love of life of being Jewish and my being friends with Muslims, and I remember the Holocaust.

Rebbetzin Jungreis spoke of unconditional love and lived it. She was open to everyone. She awoke the spirit in each of us regardless of our religious affiliations.  Here I am, Rebbetzin Jungreis. I am ready to do what needs to be done to stop the dark clouds of war to stop the hate…  No more holocausts.

The question on everyone's lips....

TWO HIJABI WOMEN AND THE REPORTERS by Celine Leduc August 24, 2016

inspired by Chana Miriam Opert

Journalists flocked the two HIJABI winners

The athletes who won MEDALS at the Rio Olympics

Cameras click --- They are PORTS HEROES!

The questions everyone want to know.

DO YOU WEAR BURKINI?

The burkini IS front page news

European men and women know

Burkini is a symbol of Islamic submission

These women are not FREE

WE LOVE WOMEN OUR WOMEN ARE FREE

Women WE LOVE it is for their own good

WE want them free YET what about Yezidi

You prove: Muslim men ARE evil barbarian men

YET you are deaf blind and mute re Yezidi

LOVE women you DO NOT

Nigeria pleads “Bring back our Girls”

You talk Burkini hijab niqab

You pity the poor oppressed Muslim women

Yet you bully them to submit to your will.

IS THAT LOVE (of women)?

You claim you want to free Muslim women

You forcibly enforce and impose your laws

Make it legal so I can bully legally

Do nothing too free those kidnapped

IS THAT FREEDOM?

Bring BACK OUR GIRLS in Nigeria

BRING BACK OUR YEZIDI GIRLS

STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN

Yet you ask SPORTS HEROS what’s on everyone’s mind and lips:

DO YOUR WEAR A BURKINI?

THE YEREVANIAN SKETCHES OF 2009 written by Diana Hambardzumyan and translated and edited as stated below

THE YEREVANIAN SKETCHES OF 2009

TRANSLATION BY ANUSH MKRTCHYAN

EDITED BY DR. ALFRED G. MUELLER II

The street caught its breath. The body of the boy sitting beneath the wall was tattered like a boneless corpse in a bloodthirsty predator’s jaw. But the boy, oblivious of his body, moved his wounded hands upward and murmured some obscure words.

When it was possible to make sense of what he was saying, we realized that it was the Lord’s Prayer pouring out of his bloodstained mouth onto his crossed legs. The street stopped dead. The boy looked hazily towards the people; in shame he rapidly dropped his hands and covered his face with his dirty fingers.

         The street shook its head, smacked its lips and went on to dine.

         I shuddered; we ought to feel ashamed instead of him. My heart ached, but in the everyday hustle and bustle I went home and frowned as though I had seen a nightmare. Finally, I came up with a decision and calmed down.

         The next day, I changed my route to expiate my sin; I had put iodine and bandages in my bag. Having taken some sweets, a shirt, pants and a half-sleeve vest, I made a neat package. I came to the street and struck with astonishment. The boy, now well-groomed, sat enthroned on a small carpet that was spread under the wall. There was an ice-cream in his hand, and he was licking it heartily.

         I couldn’t believe my eyes. Taking a couple of steps I saw a red banner on which the following was written in black letters, “Everyone to the elections.” There was a table full of sweets, with an obvious effort to satisfy the vagrant boy’s hungry eye. I saw that the boy had the same wounded face and the same grubby black hands that stood out vividly against the background of his snow-white shirt. 

         What a collage!

         Every time I try to offer my help, trapped in my naïve conscience, it appears I’ve been awfully mistaken. In broad daylight, the filth crawling under the snow-white shirt that is being smoothed and concealed is shoved in the street onto you taking great opportunity of the “Elections”. The most important thing is that the Lord's Prayer wasn’t poured in vain onto the boy’s crossed legs. I felt myself to be anachronistic, like a moral victory in the life of a contemporary Armenian.

         Recoiling, I hung my head in disgust and crossing the road, I threw the charitable package into the trash-bin. 

***

         It takes a half-hour to reach the downtown from our underdeveloped suburb if you take a minibus. If you walk, as once my writer friend was doing when he lacked 100 drams[1] of pocket money, it will take two-and-a-half hours to get there. And if you happen to afford the luxury and take a taxi, ten minutes later you’ll find yourself on North Avenue, where lazy oriental melody, rending from the tar[2], echoes in the depth of uninhabited super-European buildings.

         Yesterday when I was in a minibus on my way to the downtown I realized that the killer driver collecting 100 drams is ready to do away with a dozen people since he has no other place to perform his driving stunt. Suddenly he would accelerate at high speed. On each turn, the car would swing right and left, and the passengers jolted bundling on each other, and at the bus stops, with a weary smile, he would paternalistically announce, “Guys, let them get on.” Sitting on each other, smelling each other, having no other way out, people would hold onto whomever they could or onto whatever body part they could.

         Happily like this, we were driving from our underdeveloped suburb to the downtown when our familiar self-satisfied minibus driver accelerated and, with a crash, bumped into a car that had parked near the pavement, destroying the car’s lights and breaking the right door window into pieces.

Imagine what would happen if our eccentric driver were in charge of another steering wheel, of a spaceship’s, a city’s, or a country’s.

         But wait, this is not the end yet. With the experienced manner of concealing his guilt, our outrageous driver, cursing strongly, came down from his throne and stormed at the driver of the damaged car. “You are to blame, brother; the passengers will unanimously attest to it…No? You say no? Wait…Don’t you know what is in store for you? I’ll just make one call, and they’ll come and take you, twist your arms … just wait and see! Folks get out, I am not driving”

            The driver was smiling complacently and confidently. He was savoring his victory. The people got off the minibus silently, with their mouths shut with heroic effort of concealing their fright, anger, and disgust. Being among these people, I didn’t know whether to cry or to be happy with the minibus driver’s divine gift, with our bad luck that every day with 100 drams we employ a “killer” and wait for our glorious demise.

***

            With the first beams of the sunrise, Nunufar as usual set off to the Malatia bazaar, pulling her cart on rocky shortcut road. From the wholesale market she would buy several kilos of cheap onions, potatoes, carrots, beets, and cabbage, some bunches of basil and fennel. She would take the same rocky road back, put the vegetables in front of her house, and sell those for 10 to 20 drams more per kilo to earn living for her family.

            On her way to the bazaar, the sun was piercing, and the birds were flying in circles touching the windows of the fifth floor. Nunufar was unhappy as there was no wind: the laundry wouldn’t dry and would get wet in the rain. Squinting her eyes, she indignantly looked at the clouds building in the sky and yawned, rubbing her darkened face with her even darker hands. Then she remembered that in the notebook of debts some twenty people owed her more than hundred thousand drams, but one could never take even a penny from them. “And now how can one live?”

Nunufar sighed and with a great effort pushed the cart out of the stone pile. In her mind, she calculated how much income she would have if she bought a sack of potatoes for 60 drams and sold for 80. She wanted to buy some stuff to send to her son in the army. Then she would add some money to arrange her daughter’s dowry and, if she had enough, she would buy some medicine for her husband.

            Nunufar’s palm itched. “Today I’ll get money,” she thought. The wrinkles of her forehead smoothened, and she emerged from the alleys and byways onto the main street. Suddenly the wind began to blow. Nunufar’s long hair tangled and covered her eyes; the wind waved her skirt and heaved it about. Nunufar was bewildered: pushing the cart with one hand she pulled her skirt with the other, shook her head to remove her hair from the eyes. But the wind would attack and, tousling her mass of hair, would pull it over her eyes again. The sounds of car horns exploded in her ears, and she heard a woman scream nearby.

            The cart exploded into the air in a mess. Nunufar was stuck in the middle of the street traffic. The drivers were shouting, a couple of them cursed, a young woman stuck her head out of the car window to yell at her, “Hey, woman, are you tired of living? Look where you are heading for! Are you damned blind?” Finally, a boy came to her rescue, took Nunufar’s elbow and escorted her out of the turmoil of the street. People gathered around her. One of them brought a bottle of water and splashed it onto Nunufar’s face and neck. The other rubbed her hands, and another held her chin and propped the bottle to her mouth to take a sip. Little by little, Nunufar came to herself, and when she realized what had happened, tears went streaming down her sun-and-wind-beaten face.                                                                        2009

---

[1] Official currency of the Republic of Armenia.

[2] Armenian national string instrument.