Octoberwareness

Pink. Purple. Blue. Red.

Because living in the grey is what I actively and repeatedly choose, GREY is the color of the month and will be the color font for all October posts. Some say it's Breast Cancer Awarness Month. Others say it's Domestic Violence Awareness month. Some remember that October 18 is Love Your Body Day. My mother reminds me that October is not only her birthday month, but the month of the rosary.

I say, who cares? Seriously, is there ever a time when we shouldn't be hypervigilant of cancer and other health problems plaguing our society, especially women of color who have limited access to healthcare and services? When should we NOT be stealing the blanket that covers the contributing factors of environment, farming, and food issues that contribute to the mystery of benign and malignant tumors?

What month should we NOT be turning our attention to domestic violence? When will we fully realize that we need not to look further than into the homes of own communities to see women being beaten, raped, and sacrificed at the hands of their domestic partners? When will we include precipitating factors that contribute to the oppression of women - harassment, stalking, emotional and verbal abuse, and daily relationship control?

And then there's LYB Day. I've got a love/hate relationship with this - do we seriously need another day when we are more focused on our bodies? Of course I agree that we need to be more accepting...blah, blah, blah...But let's get real here. It's like the world's going to hell in a handbasket and we're wondering how asses and thighs will be able to fit in the casket. Here's a novel thought: turn your critical eye to media and the psychology of consumerism rather than your belly. Accept, love yourself. AND THEN MOVE ON. Dammit...there's so much more to this world than just yourself.

My mother would say to pray your way into salvation. If we've got so much to be "aware" of in October, I'd say that it's fitting to find a way to cope and think of others. If it's the rosary, rock on. I prefer to pray my own way. In the mornings, I wake up, write for about 15-20 minutes, warm myself into vinyasa yoga, and then face the exploding purple and orange bursts in the sky. I talk to the sunrise about what I hope for the world that day. And because I, and the world, need it, I close my eyes and send a blessing out into the world from my deck.

I pray it reaches my friends in their apartments, flats, and huts, to the women bloggers in Iraq, the street orphans in the Ukraine, and to the surviving family of the 2yr. old little boy who died from eating a smoothie mixed with baby Spinach.

Be aware. Focus on something else beside yourself this month.