justice

Hi guys!

I hope all is well and that you’re having a great spring! And even if things seem a little tough right now, sometimes it just takes a goose and a lot of patience to put everything in perspective. :-)

I’ll get to the goose in a second, but first, here’s a music update for you guys! Basically, I was feeling very frustrated about having my music often overlooked and ignored that I decided to use that energy for something good. So, I sat down and wrote a song about it! And about all of the pain of the last few years and all of the missed opportunities and lack of caring on behalf of many others. And it’s also about hope for the future and the good things that will come if we just keep trying and never give up! It’s a song that I think a lot of people can relate to and I really hope that it might help you guys as well if you’re ever feeling alone, frustrated, or forgotten. The song’s called “Searching for the light” and I should have a new video up for it sometime soon over on my YouTube channel (Tara Trent Music on YouTube). (I just have to learn it and memorize it first haha). And anytime that a song makes me cry repeatedly while singing it, well, I take that as a very good sign :-)

Ok, now back to the goose…

In a world full of crazy (yet often entertaining) White House presidential tweets in which facts are magically invented on the spot, an EPA director who has ironically taken up the noble mission of destroying our environment, a Congress that refuses to engage in open and respectful dialogue and speak out against the desecration of the news media and the lack of respect for the truth and for our justice system, etc., well, in this world, sometimes we just need a goose. And a nest. And a goose sitting in a nest on top of a house in a beautiful tree-filled neighborhood in Las Vegas!

I had the honor of visiting this mother goose every morning for over a week, and she was always there and very alert, keeping her eggs safe and dry and warm. This goose could teach us all a lesson in patience: I have a hard time sitting down for more than half an hour at a time, and this beautiful goose patiently sat on her rooftop nest at almost all hours for nearly 30 straight days. And you know guys, patience pays off! Five beautiful goslings, the return of the proud daddy (who did fly down the street quite often to visit his nesting sweetie), and one long family walk to the entrance pond to begin the swimming lessons!

Ahh, sometimes Nature is just so calming and beautiful and it really does help to put everything else in perspective.

So to conclude this post, here’s a friendly neighborhood coyote and a few pics of yours truly enjoying the wonderful seasonal display at the Bellagio!

Take care,

Tara

Hey guys! I hope things are going well!

So…a lot of important issues swirling around lately. Police violence, police and violence, social/racial inequality, discrimination/profiling, and the search for lasting peace, justice, equality, and change. So much that can be said, but I’ll try to offer just a few thoughts to consider.

First of all, PEACE does not just happen. True peace is the absence of violence, the acceptance of the societal status quo (as something just, or, at the very least, tolerable), the calmness of a soul that feels valued and equal among its brothers. As Albert Einstein stated:

“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”

But what is meant by “understanding”? What is it, or who is it that we need to understand? Perhaps to better understand each other, it is important to first understand that we are all unique. We are all imperfect. We make mistakes. We search for meaning. We long for community, to be part of a family… and we long to stand alone as self-sufficient individuals. To believe ourselves equally important, equally valuable, equally human. It is when we do not believe that society, family, or other outside forces believe this of us (and/or when we do not believe it of ourselves) that we often feel called or compelled to take action, to recover or create this invaluable inner peace.

And we might also seek to understand that we are all brothers and sisters. No matter the color of our bodies, our clothes, our spirit, we are all human. All part of the one race of human beings that inhabits Planet Earth. Black, white, etc., these are all social constructs and subjective, artificial categories that only serve to create barriers and an only too real distance and inequality among brothers. Where does white end and black begin? What shade of humanness is better than what other shade? Is one breath of air better than another? One water droplet more valuable than the next? Can you tear apart a rainbow?

As Martin Luther King, Jr. once stated:

“Differences have been contrived by outsiders who seek to impose disunity by dividing brothers because the color of their skin has a different shade.”

And as Dr. King further points out:

“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be… This is the inter-related structure of reality.”

This is why one bullet — or one decision to embrace peaceful, decisive nonviolence in response to violence — can be so powerful. The cycle of violence can only be broken by the healing power of courageous nonviolence by the very victim(s) of the pain and injustice inflicted by another’s violence. This by no means excuses the violent acts themselves; rather, it is the explicit, deliberate decision to “be what I ought to be” in spite of your unnecessary violence, in the hopes that by doing so, I will help you to become what you ought to be: another member of my peaceful human family.