REPORT FROM VENEZUELA

REPORT FROM VENEZUALA by Faith, correspondent for Terry´s Blog.

To tell you the truth, I am very sorry about Chavez because I love him very, very much.  You know I never got involved in politics.  But, when I came here, some friends invited me to their house (this was back in 1998) and they were watching a show where they were interviewing the candidates. And I also watched since there was nothing else for me to do there.  So... as I watched I asked Our Lord, out of sheer curiousity:  "Oh, Lord, I wonder which one is the best for the job. " Just talking to Him.  And, Chavez was the last one to be interviwed, and after about 10 minutes after the interview started, Our Lord said to me the following: (He had only talked to me 3 times in my whole life) "This is the one I have chosen for this job, join him and help him in any way you feel."  So, I did, but, not directly because I had no contact with him.

It is true that Nicolas Maduro and his wife are Sai Baba devotees.  I mean I read that they had been to Puttaparthy to see Baba.  I do not know how much of a devotee he is, but, I have heard that his wife really is.  I like him very much and especially since Chavez appointed him as his vice president and just before he became so ill, he gave us all a message to support Nicolas.  I went to see Chavez from where I live by airplane.  Because of my age, they let me in to see him without having to stand in those lines for hours.  There are people who have stood in line for about 13 or 15 hours.

 There are millions of people from all over the country to see him, and maybe even from different  countries.  The presidents of about 20 countries from all over the world came to see him in his coffin.  People are just flooding here to see him.  He was a very, very dedicated man.  Dedicated to the welfare of poor people who had always been treated like dirt.  And, no politician or president of this country ever did anything for them.  They lived in very, very horrible places and also very, very precarious places.  He built so many, so many houses for so many of those poor people.  Beautiful, beautiful houses.  He made it possible for them to go to school, high school and even college.  He made them feel like somebody and was always talking about God.  That it why so many, many people love him all over the world, and especially here.

  I love him very, very much and he said to support Nicolas Maduro and I do, spiritually, of course, and if someone asks for my help for him, I will gladly do it because Chavez was preparing for the last 12 years and made him his vice president.  So, I am very, very happy that he is now the temporary president until the elections, which will be within a month of two.  The exact date has not been decided by the Department in charge of the votes, etc.  But, I have heard that it will be around the beginning of April.  Anyway, i will let you know.

  Oh, by the way, Chavez came from a poor family but was educated, of course.  And, Nicolas was a bus driver.  So Chavez was and Nicolas is very knowlegeable about the poor people´s needs and of course, they are not against rich people, but rich people can take very good care of themselves, and they always ignored and put down the poor people, who deserve to live well also, and that is what Chavez did and Nicolas will be doing.  Of course the rich people need poor people around, so they can feel that they are better than someone else.  And, that is the whole thing that is happening.  I feel very, very strongly that Nicolas will win the elections and will continue with the same work since Chavez prepared him very well for that.

So, i guess now you are more well informed than you were before and I hope you come and see all the wonderful things Chavez did for the poor people and that Nicolas will be doing for them also.  I mean these were people many of whom had never even gone to school in their lives and they have even reached high school and many of them college.  And, they love Chavez so much, that is that they are very grateful which not many people are when someone gives them something.  So, many times it has brought tears to my eyes to see how much Chavez did for them and how they appreciate it and how much they love him.  I mean, can you imagine them waiting on line 10, 12, 13, 15 hours?

 As I said before, I even went there by airplane and because of my age and the pain on my back when I stand for more than 10 or 15 minutes, I was let to see him in a shorter period of time, but I was there and I walked at least 4 miles to go see him.  I had never seen anyone in a coffin that looked so alive in my life.   There was a lot of light around him.  And, millions of people love him so much (including me, even though I am not Venezuelan legally, but I am at heart).

Anyway, i hope now you know enough about him and what a wonderful human being he was and still is.  He believed in :Total surrender to God and his duty.  Everyone can feel his energy all around.

Faith

The Medicine of Mother Love

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THE MEDICINE OF MOTHER LOVE
By Terry Reis Kennedy

There is a terrible sadness that floods the heart of a mother when her children are no longer children and she’s no longer an on-duty mother. When my three children were little I couldn’t wait for them to grow up so that I could have some time to myself. Then, when they left the nest, I suddenly had all the time in the world. And I didn’t like it. I had never lived alone in a house before and I was more than a little lonesome. Before long, I decided to buy myself some birds to keep me company.

One morning I went out to the aviary and I found my new parakeets quite happy, jabbering away. The canaries were singing as if all life depended on them. But on the floor, my brand new Silky chicks weren’t doing so well. I’d purchased them the day before. But the farmer had sold them to me too early. In my ignorance, I’d carted the trio home in a paper bag. The farmer didn’t say a word; he just counted the money.

On closer examination, I noticed that one of the Silkies had died. I picked it up, checked it over, wondering if the jealous parakeets had dubbed it intruder and pecked it out of existence. But no, there were no beak marks. Nothing broken or bent. Merely the stark emptiness of a body whose life force has left it.

Why had the week-old chick given up the ghost? Maybe you couldn’t mix mundane chickens with exotic birds. I didn’t see why not. It was happening all over the planet. But something really was the matter and I couldn’t imagine what it was. Then I noticed how the remaining two chicks were huddling together, moving as if with one body. Peeping! Peeping! They were squawking like newborn babies shut away from warmth. That their little bodies could emit such piercing squeals was amazing. Finally, it dawned on me. The chicks were suffering because they missed their mother. The tiniest had died of a broken heart.

Oh, yes, I’d been taught that a bird’s heart knows no feeling, cannot, like ours, sink with longing into the pit of despair. Well, that’s a lot of conditioning that simply isn’t true. These baby Silkies were going fast because they were longing for their mother! And there I was, mother of three grown wonders of my own, still standing, still staring, still doing nothing. I was immobilized by my own insecurity. Yet I knew I couldn’t just watch the little birds die.

Suddenly I rushed into the house and began to rifle through my bird books. Sure one of them would have all the information I needed on how to care for week-old motherless chicks. A book, mind you! All I had to do was listen to my own instinct—mother’s instinct. But I was so busy being scared that I couldn’t even hear it.

Why, I wonder, do we doubt our own inner guiding voice? Surely someone primitive, new in a land without experts or books, picked up chicks beside a dead mother, for instance, and knew exactly what to do.

Meantime, I’m still standing around doing nothing, just reading frantically. The book is technical, describing brooding lights, excrement pans. By now the peeping is getting more desperate. I hurl the book down and race back into the aviary. The two tiny balls of white buff look weaker, more abandoned. Finally, I do what any normal mother would do. I bend down and gather the babies in my arms. Both of them actually fit in my right palm. I squeeze my fingers gently around their wings. Then I move the tiny, peeping heads close to my heart. I can hear it thumping with anxiety. I begin whispering soothing words of encouragement.

The morning air is sweet with the inimitable fragrance of the first days of spring. The sky is stirring with low-slung clouds moving as lazily as gigantic cows across the blue-gray wonder of space. And here in the magnitude, in the mystery, the chicks up against my pounding heart, a miracle takes place—a miracle similar to the one I experienced holding my first-born in my arms. Imagine it. These babies are reviving me! Somehow, I’ve forgotten all about my loneliness.

It wasn’t long before the peeping stopped. Then the struggling stopped. Soon, the lackluster eyes took on fire. The beaks opened up and let out sighs. Sighs of relief? In the peace of the moment, I studied these twin engines smaller than field mice. Each talon was perfect. Each feather complete.

Dear God, what beauty You create! And what surprises. My heart was no longer pounding. I felt strong and whole. I was not only a functioning on-duty mother again, but I was also a witness to the healing power of love on all sentient beings.

One with my baby Silkies, I moved to the garage, found a cardboard box, filled it with straw and down from an old pillow. There. I’d made a surrogate to help me out. Next I plugged in a light, hung it over the box, then covered all with wire and towels to the neighbor’s cat wouldn’t be tempted. Food and water in an ice-cube tray, I waited. My chicks, in tandem, rolled on the straw. Then with their wings and beaks they fluffed the down up around them, arranging a nest.

Now, as if aware of my concern, they looked up from the box at me. I swear, the smiled, tumbling over graceless as toddlers to the makeshift feeder. Slowly, they tested my offerings.

I was thrilled with the morning’s accomplishment. My library books on the subject were useless, I decided. Instead, instinct—mother’s instinct—held al the knowledge I’d ever needed for “Good Poultry Management.”

So, as I listen to the wind ruffling the trees with their singing, I can hear my parakeets jabbering still. The canaries are trying to outdo one another. And I hear, too, a rhythmic cooing from the womb of the cardboard box. My chicks, sensing love—Mother Love—dream on.

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Terry Kennedy is a poet and journalist, the author of three books of poetry. Her writings on Tibetan culture appear in a variety of publications. She presently lives in India where she is a volunteer teacher of English to Tibetan Buddhist monks living in exile there.