morning moon

All I can say is as the morning dawned here at home, I was happy to awaken to the moon as I focused my bleary eyes. What a great surprise of course the picture could have been better had I a cup of joe first. Morning is always my kiss from god.

father

how do two lives synchronize?
Were we born from the same breath?
Apples falling from a tree
A tree of dreams
Constantly searching for realities that never came true,
Listening to the mountain air,
smelling herbs long forgotten by new generations,
pitching fire flickers across a moonlight valley
hearing songs sung long ago
songs whose words are soon forgotten
whose meaning hangs between the twilight of today and tomorrow.
Each of us travel this weary path
Nothing noble in our wake,
Maybe it is my wake I speak of,
Maybe it is me who is in that space between
Today and tomorrow.
Where nothing and all things exist.

Even the humming bird never fly’s at night.
Night has come to cover my sight,
my wings have beat against the glass wall of education and
no entry way has passed my exhaustive path,
I have asked again why this is so,
what lesson do I learn from the institutional walls,
no drum beats here,
no wind blows the leaves of babies breath,
no fire,
no smoke,
no stars linger in this dark space.
Not everyone gets a PhD,and maybe they are right,
just this once
not everyone can dance this song,
that takes your heart and squeezes it dry...
until you can not hear the hummingbird's flight.

Seventh Letter

“Any ten centimeters of power between us easily becomes a thousand meters of power and of arbitrary judgement.”---Paulo Freire

“Still rejected by many people in spite of its obviousness, that education is a political act. It’s non-neutrality demands from educators that they take it on as a political act and that they consistently live their progressive and democratic or authoritarian and reactionary past or also their spontaneous, uncritical choice, that they define themselves by being democratic or authoritarian. Permissiveness, which at times gives the impression of leaning towards freedom, ends up working against it.” (Freire, 63)

Which reminds me of a story of the Emperors clothes, that the obvious is often ignored, even when it is wrong, when presented by a person of authority. Only the children unmask the ideology that "clothe" the power structures and people we work and live with. A child has not learn to believe only what they hear or what is described to them. The child looks and catagorizes the event as seen. The emperor has "no clothes" because these are the factual occurences. The citizens have learned to agree with the emperor's "worldview". When the emperor says he has clothes on so beautiful you can not imagine them. The citizens believe they can not see them since they are "unimaginable". It’s amazing that we get educated to "see" the emperor's clothes with the laws that govern us, we learn to keep our voice silent.

“The very fact that we are a markedly authoritarian society, with a strong tradition of command rooted in our history, and undeniably inexperienced in democracy, can explain our ambivalence toward freedom and authority. This authoritarian ideology of command, which permeates our culture, cuts across the social classes.” (Freire, 64)

I have noted that my skills in being authoritative have been develop due to my experiences in the educational system and the military, but the military opened me up to the possibility that authority was a relinquishment of power on my part and not the system or my commanding officer. In taking a class entitled as Classroom Discipline I learned that my philosophy was constructivism but my discipline was tradition and authoritative. That was a real eye opener. Since that insight into my own personality I have remain diligent in trying to change my natural reaction to chaos in the classroom.So the question remains, how does one deal with these ingrained attitudes?

“Authoritarian educators are preoccupied with evaluating the students, with seeing whether they are following or not. If, however, educators choose to be democratic and if the distance between their discourse and their practice becomes ever smaller, then in their scholarly daily lives, which they constantly subject to critical analysis, they live the difficult but possible and pleasurable experience of speaking to and with learners. Dialogue centered not only on the content to be taught but on life itself, if it is true, prepares an open and free climate in the ambience of the classroom.”

Ideally, vigilance is a tool in change.

“No one lives democracy fully, nor do they help it grow, if, first of all, they are interrupted in their right to speak, to have voice, to say their critical discourse, or, second, if they are not engaged, in one form or another, in the fight to defend this right, which, after all, is also the right to act.” (Freire, 65)

It’s amazing that the educational similarities between the United States and Brazil are both linked to the laws that govern us.

EDU 538.002
Curriculum Development Processes-F. Mendoza, NMSU

Cooking new traditions

As we become dependant on convenience of processed food, each generation modifies the recipe to accommodate the new developments of grandma's cooking. This is a third generation recipe of Chicken enchiladas.
My grandmother lived through the Great Depression and she would make meatless enchiladas with Colby cheese, onions, garlic and red chili. Served with a fried egg and topped with lettuce and tomato. Of course we had pinto beans and potatoes as a side dish to help stretch the meal for any unexpected company and there was always room for another mouth. My grandmother had the gift of stretching any meal to accommodate any visitor at meal time. Anytime someone came to the house, they never left hungry.
My sister provided us with this quick and easy way of making a green chili dish casserole. When we moved away from the local farming communities in New Mexico, we lost access to a vital ingredient to our family and culture, chili. Most supermarkets did not stock chili and there was only one company that provides a small can of the tasty green chili. We also added meat to the recipe because we have access to meat and it is affordable. Here is our third generation recipe for chicken enchiladas.

Ingredients:
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 can of cream of mushroom soup or cream of golden mushroom
1 cup of half and half
½ cup of diced roasted green chili
1 or more garlic clove
1 cup or more of diced onion, yellow or red if you want a sweeter taste
½ lb or more of grated Colby mild longhorn cheese
3 or more cubed chicken breasts
12 or more corn tortillas

You have the option of frying the corn tortillas or layering them as is.
If you fry the corn tortillas, get a small egg skillet with vegetable oil and fill with a quarter inch depth with oil. Prepare a place to drain the oil from the tortillas by using a wood cutting board with a layer of paper towels. You can use cardboard, newspapers, or cookie sheet or any other material that will not be damaged by the heat and oil of the corn tortillas. Turn to a high heat until you can drop a tortilla in, and then adjust the heat to keep the oil hot but not smoking. Start frying the corn tortillas the oil will bubble around the tortilla and start to dome. Turn it over and fry the other side. You can also use the spatula to hold the tortilla under the oil. It does not take long to cook them soft. Start laying them on the paper towel and when you have covered the paper towel with fried corn tortillas, add another paper towel layer and repeat until the corn tortillas are all fried.
In a large sauce pan or 2 quart pan put in the diced chicken and cover with a low heat steam the chicken until cooked. Uncover and add green chili, garlic, both cans of soup with the half and half. You can use the soup can to measure the half and half. Bring to a boil then turn off. This is your chicken sauce!
Now start layering your chicken enchiladas! Get the casserole pan and spoon some sauce to cover the bottom. Add the corn tortillas covering the bottom of the pan, and then add your diced onions, chicken sauce, and generous portions of grated Colby mild longhorn cheese. Repeat this process until you have the pan filled. Turn the oven to 275 degrees put the pan in the oven to melt the cheese and heat the green chili chicken enchilada casserole. When the cheese has melted serve with green salad. If the chili is too hot, you can add sour cream to extinguish the flames.
Enjoy!

Memorial to Danny Kanseah

Danny was a creative and inspirational artist who also had a great sense of humor. On one of his seasonal hunts in Elk Silver on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, he shot this whitetail deer. After his passing, my brother Kevin Smith painted this skull as a memorial to his life. The center logo is from the American Indian Movement (AIM) an organization Danny was involved with when he left Mescalero.
http://www.aimovement.org/ggc/history.html