Carol A. Hand
So much has changed since I began this blog in February of 2014. It’s fascinating to look back on the past year, 2017, to discover the most visited posts. Most were originally posted during 2017, a year when the majority of the work I shared was poetry. The four most frequently viewed posts, though, were published earlier in my blogging adventure.
The top ten are listed below in ascending order.
***
# 10. Somedays I Wonder What Is True (February 1, 2017)

***
….A strange message passes through my mind as I greet the morning.
“I sent my children, prophets, to many nations. They walked the earth teaching peace and love, working miracles to show the power you have within to heal others and create beauty….”
# 9. Looking Up (July 2, 2017)

***
…. Peace – I look up and stand steadfast, an elder
My spirit one with soaring eagles
knowing no matter what comes
I’m not standing alone ….
# 8. History Keeps Repeating (April 19, 2017)

***
…. As I work on editing the book manuscript I wrote about my research [on Ojibwe child welfare], I can’t help reflecting on our inability as a nation to learn from history….
A few days ago, the U.S bombed Afghanistan again with “the mother of all bombs.” Operation Enduring Freedom? Other choices are possible and far more likely to be successful if that really is the goal of U.S. international actions….
# 7. Integrity vs. Despair (March 30, 2017)

***
…. Each one of us who resists despair
adds a bit of light to the world….
# 6. Signs of These Times (February 11, 2017)

***
…. Over the years, I have learned to view so many of you as beloved friends. I look forward to your posts and your kindness. I don’t know how many of you know that I always try to reciprocate. I try to return every visit to my blog with a like, and sometimes when I can find the words, a comment. I do take the time to read what you write before doing so….
# 5. Reflections about Then and Now (September 6, 2017)

***
Let me take just a moment
to put aside the chaos of the world
seeping into my soul
Remembering ….
# 4. Context Matters when Teaching Diversity (January 6, 2015)

***
…. Final Thoughts. Critical self-awareness is an essential foundation for effective social justice work practice. Before one can “shift center” as Andersen and Collins (2004) recommend, one must be aware of one’s center. Yet critical self-awareness is but one of many steps in the complex, life-long process of understanding and embracing diversity. Relating to diversity is a multi-dimensional endeavor that involves seeing not only one’s position at present, but also reflecting on one’s experiences within the contexts of personal and world history, power differentials, and socially-constructed meanings of difference. It requires understanding one’s privileges and oppression. And it requires the courage to make mistakes and to look foolish, the grace to face conflict, and the desire to find common ground based on honoring the richness of others’ experiences and perspectives.
# 3. Circle the Wagons – The Natives Are Restless (January 1, 2014)

…. I have tried to use Facebook periodically as a medium to heighten awareness about Native American issues, but invariably the superficiality of exchanges has convinced me that it’s a waste of my time. Yet there are occasions when I cannot refrain from commenting on blatant and dangerous information. The result, of course, is predictable. The wagons circle to protect the comforting illusions that expressing white guilt and denying any complicity for past atrocities is enough. The ultimate show stopper is to call the one Native voice “racist.” ….
# 2. The Fool’s Prayer (January 3, 2014)

***
…. Presentation day was one of nervous anticipation for me. I was excited to share what I thought was an important message with my classmates. But my anxiety grew as I sat through the recitation of nursery rhymes and “Twinkle-twinkle little star.”
“Oops,” I thought, “Maybe I made a mistake, but it’s too late now.” ….
# 1. When You Think of “Health” What Comes to Mind? (March 6, 2015)

***
…. One of the participants prophetically predicted the outcome of this hopeful project.
“Power sources are experts at turning us against each other, then they walk right over us. We are all like a circle, the non-profits working for Indian people. I try to tell people that the money-people toss a dollar bill in the middle and we all scramble for it. And I tell people we cannot do that anymore. When the money-people throw the dollar bill into the center of the circle we have to say “NO.” We must lock arms in the circle and ask for something more. We need to improve all of our lives, not just a handful of our lives. If we could just all get on the same page. It’s not about who is in charge – we are equals. But the power sources would prefer to have us at each other’s throats.”
Sadly, those in power at the county and federal levels were able to divide the community….
***
I am deeply grateful to all of my virtual friends who have been with me throughout the years, and appreciative for newer friends and followers. You have all enriched my life. I am excited to see what the coming year will bring. I send my blessings and wish to say chi miigwetch to all (Ojibwe “Thank you very much”).
How lovely to be able to do this. Wishing you an ever richer year in 2018, Carol!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for your kind words and blessings, Mitch. I send my best wishes to you for a wonderful new year, too. ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Chi miigwetch to you as well, Carol!
Happy New Year!
I hope, as weak as my hope is right now, that something will happen in the new year, to change the seemingly disastrous course that all of humanity is on at the moment.
And that’s about as positive and hopeful as I can be right now.
Thank you, Carol, for remaining who you are in this difficult time. You uplift, by spreading your love, knowledge and wisdom, and I’ll continue to be the raving mad man. Is is a deal?;-)
LikeLiked by 3 people
Dave, I do send my best wishes to you, dear friend. I promise not to tell you what to believe or how to live, and I trust you will continue to do the same for me. How’s that for a fair deal? 🙂
LikeLiked by 4 people
Works for me!!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi, Carol. I enjoy your articles. Keep it up!
And a very happy new year to you.
Neil S.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments and well-wishes, Neil. I send my best wishes to you and your wife. I also want to let you know that I enjoy your creative, engaging posts. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Amazing critic review, dear Carol! 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Dear Maria, I send my best wishes to you and thank you once again for your support and kind words. ❤
LikeLiked by 2 people
🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Enjoy all of your posts and wishing you another fantastic blogging year 2018!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for your thoughtful comments and well-wishes, Bette. Sending my best wishes to you, too. ❤
LikeLiked by 2 people
The beauty of this post, like you as a person, is beyond my ability to express properly.
Thank you for enriching my life. 💞
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for inspiring me and enriching my life, as well, A Shift in Consciousness. ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for this review, Carol. It took me into your “circling the wagons” post that I had not seen before. As highly educated professionals in the social sciences, it was drummed into us that we had to remain “objective” and to bow to the “scientific research paradigm” which invalidates or dismisses our personal, emotional responses to an issue. And even when our audience is not highly educated, an angry tone often results in defensiveness, referred to as “that tone in which it was said”. This immediately nullifies whatever truth may have been carried in our words because the “tone” was not acceptable. As if certain truths were ever heard in any form, tone, or manner by the privileged ones….
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for your important discussion, Annette, about the role education plays in indoctrinating students to believe that “objectivity” and “science” are the one true path to knowledge. As someone who was raised to see the world from two very different cultural perspectives, I questioned the unproved notion that there was one truth and one set of methods to get there. I wrote more about this in an old post, Reflections about the Power to Shape Knowledge.
Reading the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer, an Indigenous biologist, has helped me realize that a richer, more complete way of knowing can result from the blending of different cultural perspectives.
Yet as you accurately point out, others need to be open to learning even if it means discarding cherished assumptions and taken-for-granted beliefs.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Carol – thank you so much for taking the time to prepare this thorough response to my comment. I was recently introduced to Robin’s writing (Braiding Sweetgrass; Gathering Moss) and I am enjoying her writings, coming from her “conjoint” consciousness. That word just popped in my mind to describe the blending of right and left hemisphere thinking and experiencing, and, ultimately, her sublime blending of indigenous and modern technologies.
I recently read an essay by Lyla June Johnson, the young Dine (Navajo) woman who turned down her admission to Harvard Business school so she could dedicate herself to immersion and promotion of her Dine culture. In this essay, she honored both of her European and Native roots, embracing the best of both, recognizing the suffering and pain in both. Wise beyond her years, an important cultural mediator.
I have lots of stories from my time in grad school about clashes with the scientific paradigm (never mind that I produced a dissertation that contained 80 pages of statistics – total madness!); but also from my years as a clinician working with inner-city African Americans constantly looking for ways to reach them (non-verbal art therapies, sports and walks, creating income opportunities for the teenagers, etc) while the Freudian psychiatrists in charge peddled their superior “talk therapy” that the kids hated while dismissing my approach as “not really therapy.”
So many memories coming up now…. including the big knock on my German-educated analytical brain when, as a very young woman, I was immersed in Afro-Caribbean culture and witnessed voodoo rituals and a person possessed by a demon spirit. As hard as I tried, I could not find any “scientific” causes of what I witnessed and then decided that I needed to leave a space in my brain for things I did not/could not understand. It later led to an interesting paper in grad school attempting to find similarities between hypnosis, witchcraft, and shamanic work.
Though not focused on cultural differences per se, I am reminded of Carol Gilligan’s work on Women’s Ways of Knowing, challenging Kohlberg’s model of moral development (based on white male thinking). Many of the concepts we study in the social sciences need to start from the position that there are gender and cultural differences (minimally) and engage collaborators from the various groups that can help formulate the questions/concepts/study methods involved and help interpret the findings. We have so many blind spots imposed by our own cultural and educational upbringing that shape our ways of thinking. We just don’t know what we don’t know.
Ah, the scientific paradigm – as highly defended as any fundamentalist religion!
LikeLiked by 3 people
sorry, Lyla’s last name is Johnston (not Johnson)…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for such a thoughtful response, Annette, and for sharing your broad range of experiences and crucial insights about diversity and the “scientific paradigm.” I rarely have the opportunity to engage in these kinds of dialogue these days and I am deeply grateful to you for the depth and breadth of your reflections. ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Likewise, Carol, I rarely get the opportunity these days to discuss these topics at such a high level. Thank you so much for sharing your writings and valuable experiences.
LikeLiked by 1 person
❤
LikeLike
I wish you happy, healthy and to spend a year with your loved ones, Carol!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you so much for your lovely comments, Migo and WD. I send my best wishes to you, too, for a peaceful, healthy, wonder-filled year ❤
LikeLiked by 2 people
Carol, we both thank you for your kind and beautiful wishes! WD has been experiencing great excitement since yesterday. Yesterday, my another earthling friend Steinbrecher said that after 16th February, the Chinese would celebrate the entering to the dog year (I do not know what the details of it, but it could be a different calendar) WD has taken it seriously and is waiting for that day, to establish his own dog kingdom that he always desired. 🙂
LikeLiked by 3 people
🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Happy New Year, Carol 😊 I never have enough hours to read everything I want to, but I try to read your posts which are always inspiring and beautiful and make me take the breath I have been holding. 💜
LikeLiked by 2 people
Sending wishes for a happy new year to you, too, Chris, and your lovely family. And thank you for such kind and lovely comments. I look forward to your posts as well, and love reading about your adventures and family.
As I read your comments this morning, I was reminded of the creative gift you give to others with your painted stones. One of the reflections I wrote many years before I began blogging, and later posted, is about my musings while washing stones. I have included a link and would love to hear your thoughts about the reflections if you have time: https://carolahand.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/musings-while-cleaning-rocks/.
I am so grateful for your friendship. ❤
LikeLike
You educate me with each word. I am so grateful Dear Friend!
LikeLiked by 2 people
❤
LikeLike
And all of them were great posts too! How did you get this review Carol? 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much for your kind words, Natalie.
In terms of the review, it was quite easy. I have often wondered about the viewed posts & pages that are listed on the stats review “traffic” page. If you click on the heading “Posts & Pages” you are able to see all viewed posts for the day and sort posts visited during different timeframes by selecting among a number of options listed above the list. I waited until late on December 31, 2017, and looked at the list for the year. It was interesting to for me to know that longer, more academic posts were among the most often viewed during the year.
LikeLike
What a great idea as this has helped give me more insight into your blogging year. Let’s all have a more hopeful 2018. Wishing you a great year.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much for your thoughtful, lovely comments, Georgina, and for sending new year blessings. I send my best wishes to you, too, and to your wonderful family. ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person