Raymond Buckland, an English Gypsy

Back in 2000, I was living on a houseboat on Lake Lanier near Atlanta, Georgia.
That is a story in itself which will be shared in time, but for now, let me say that
it was a perfect gypsy set-up.
It was cheap, easy and when you were ready for a change, all you had to do
was turn the key in the ignition, cast the lines and go wondering on the water.
When you found an island with a sandy bank, you would just beach your boat there,
tie off and live till your supplies ran out.  Sleeping under the stars, revelling in the simplicity
of life.  No electricity, complete freedom, back to basics.
My old houseboat afforded just enough shelter, but it was spare enough to leave you living
close to the elements.   It was heaven!

A houseboat existence also left me with a bit of a home base...not too much, not too little,
from which to travel.
That summer, I indulged a long-held fascination with Spiritualism and it's roots.
Spiritualism is the belief in the continuation of life after the transition we call death.
150 or so years ago, it was a movement that swept America and England.
What remains of it in today's America are 3 communities: Camp Chesterfield in Indiana,
Lily Dale in upstate New York and Cassadaga near Daytona, Florida.
I decided to go visiting, one by one.
What I found was a quirky and wonderful assembling of psychice, mediums, healers
and investigators.  The camps are visited by all manner of interesting folk, as well.
I went as a bit of a curious and somewhat skeptical observer.
Having had plenty of unusual expereinces myself over the years, I knew that these things
are real and I wanted to spend  a little time among these people.  In particular, I wanted
to interview some of the older folks who had been born with gifts of healing.
My plan was to go to Camp Chesterfield and spend 3 weeks-3 months there,
observing and writing.
That was 12 years ago.  I am still here.  An unexpected chapter of my life unfolded here
and my beautiful boat days came to a close...
All good Gypsies must stay flexible, lightly attached and open to the call of Spirit.

There are what is called 'settled Gypies' and roaming ones.
I find myself somewhere in the middle...and it works pretty well.

So back to the story... Raymond Buckland was coming to give a series of lectures at
Camp Chesterfield and I was excited to meet this half-Roma son of a Gypsy king,
prolific writer,  and avid psychic investigator and teacher. 

to be continued...

Serbia and the Gypsies continued....the Aftermath

 At this camp, I witnessed the most inhumane living conditions of the Roma 1^st hand. 

I was so incensed and upset by what I experienced that I could suddenly think of nothing else. 
I had come looking for answers and I was choking on what I found.   
But there was no doubting  that I needed to witness this for myself. 
The scene burned its way into my psyche, branding it forever. 
My driver tried to take some of the edge off the experience by taking me on a long drive.
He turned off his meter and we drove slowly back to the old city.  He started to share many things. 
"I know where a Gypsy Museum is.  Would you like to see it?" 
"I remember an interview with a Roma teacher...I think I can find his place."  
We spent several hours together finding the places and people.   
It was a valuable experience in many ways.
He opened up and we began to talk in earnest about the situation from various perspectives. 

"In the time of socialism, everyone had a job, an apartment,  education and security. 
Despite differences, we lived as equals.  When Tito died and our system crumbled, factories closed,
the economic changes were too much, the war took place and we lost everything.  Society is
still struggling for even basic necessities.  I myself am 40 years old, and I still live with my parents.
I am on a long waiting list for an apartment.  My girlfriend and I cannot marry and raise a family
as a result.  I work 2 jobs, long hours to make ends meet.  This is the case for many Serbians now.
If apartments were given to Roma ahead of Serbians, there would be turmoil.  We are all waiting.
This camp has been here for 2 years.  Most of these people are recent arrivals from Kosovo,
hoping to find a more hopeful situation in Serbia..  They would be at the bottom of the list for housing.  They might wait many years for help."  

The situation was complex and difficult, yet this was insufferable.  I had only a few hours left
before flying back to the States.   I agonized over what could/should be done.  My first thought
was to find a way back to the camp and give my extra cash, but there was no way to make that happen. 
A part of me wondered if it would be received as an insult.  
I was deeply moved by their plight, but I couldn't find my place in the situation. 
Everything that I tried to do was blocked on some level.  I would have to wait for guidance. 

When guidance came, it was not what I expected.
I wanted to DO something...and quickly.  Instead  I was told to do nothing but pray...for now...
and to pray hard!    I was reminded that that is the most powerful act.       
I put all my heart and mind into it.  I prayed that the government would no longer turn a blind eye
and that it would move these people to shelter that was decent and safe. 
I thought of nothing else for many days. 
I returned home, a bit heavy-hearted, but with a sense of force and determination.
Prayer has many times turned impossible situations around. 
I went back home and back to work with their situation pressing in my mind and heart.

Just 7 days later, as I was scanning for news articles on the recent International Roma Day.
I stumbled on camera footage of the very same camp! 
On that day, the camp made headlines around the world.
It was being dismantled by order of the mayor of Belgrade!    Incredible!

People were being  registered for services of all kinds and they were being moved into various kinds of housing and otherwise resettled in safer conditions.   I also found that there were many NGOs, media and welfare organizations on the scene, monitoring the situation.    Though there was some criticism of decisions made by the government, the evidence bore out that the Roma were given new housing in many cases and that they were well-treated.  They were given money to live as well as funds to rebuild homes in their old villages. Families remained intact and were carried by buses.to their new homes.   Army trucks and personnel came to load their goods and transport them to new locations.
They still faced struggle for sure, but at least this burning garbage dump was behind them.

To all my readers, thanks for your patience these last months.  This was a difficult chapter to write.
There is still much to understand and learn...

warm salutations to all the good Gypsies...

next. post.:.a weekend with Roma author, Ray Buckland... and.meeting some unexpected Gypsies!

Belgrade and the Gypsies

One of the aims of this visit was to find the Roma enclaves in and around Belgrade.
I had done a little homework prior to the trip.  News reports had turned up 3 settlements
on the outskirts of the city, but I knew there had to be others.
According to some reports Roma make up 7%  of Serbia's population.
Approximately 500,000 people in all.
I would have to rely on the locals for more information.

One of the things I like to do when travelling through a city like Belgrade is to take
local busses or trolleys to the end of each line...to the outskirts of each suburb.
That is often where the Roma are to be found.
In this way, you get a glimpse of real life of a place...you get to see the outlying
neighborhoods far from the city center with all its tourist attractions.
I find that while I love the architecture, museums and other cultural accoutrements,
I am a people watcher at heart.
Nothing else interests me more than the people...their faces, moods, their daily lives...
They are the living history of a place.
I perch myself in the middle of the trolley and wonder what kind of job each one is
rushing to, what their lives are like.  The neighborhoods they emerge from,
the environments that shape their lives.
I explore the various neighborhoods and districts, getting my bearings...
getting a feel for the place and its people.

Serbia's history lies heavy in the people..
It is better to be a discreet observer than to ask many questions.
People will tell you what they want you to know.

Their history is difficult, to be sure.  Belgrade itself has been razed to the ground 44 times
throughout its history.  Such conflict.  Unimaginable to us.
The people have a resiliency and strength that defies logic.
Somehow they manage to live around that legacy.
I remember walking past various buildings and getting cold chills,
only to find later that they were places of horrific carnage.
The building that housed my hotel felt haunted by restless, disturbed spirits.
Belgrade, for all its glitz, would not be an easy place to live.

Over the last few years  I have spent time in what was the former Yugoslavia.
After seeing the landscape still bearing the scars of the conflict in the 90's,
layer after painful layer emerges. It is such a strange conflict on several levels.
One wishes that everyone could find a way to get along.
But time spent in Croatia and Bosnia and now Serbia, showed me that
there are distinct differences in these people.
Their bloodlines, though sometimes mixed, have ancient roots.
Their bodies are different as are their temperaments.
They inhabit the same region, but, by nature, they are unique.

Perhaps that lies at the base of much of their natural struggle.
I'm not sure that it is wise to impose any 'solutions' on these things.
Each culture is quite beautiful and extraordinary in many ways.
If those distinctions could remain intact, perhaps some cooperation would naturally result.

Once I got my bearings, I began to ask delicately about the Gypsy neighborhoods and camps.
More than once, the subject was shifted toward tourist attractions.  "A monastery, perhaps?"
"An ethnographic museum?"  "Why would you want to see THAT?"  "What Gypsies?"
"Oh no...there is nothing to see."   The degree of discomfort was palpable.
I assured them  that it was just idle curiosity on my part.
There were no takers... 
I finally befriended a young tourist guide who told me confidentially that there might be a place
near the Holiday Inn in new Belgrade.  Bingo!   I had heard of this one.
The camp was in the shadow of the fancy hotel.
No cabbie, though eager for business, would take me there, however.
I was tired of being stone walled.  I resolved to take public transport and walk there
early the following morning. 

I was excited about what the next day would bring.  I went to bed early to make the most
of the next day.  Tomorrow I would surely find the Roma settlements for myself.

But that night a strange thing happened while I slept.  At first, I thought I was dreaming.
I smelled something really horrible in my 'dream'.  An almost unimaginable stench seemed
to take up all the air in my room.  It was suffocating and vile.  It woke me up out of a dead sleep.
I thought the building was on fire at first, but everything was quiet around me.
The stench was so strong that it almost had me in a panic.
I opened the window to the street below and gasped for air.
I surveyed the street and all was peaceful.  No fire trucks, no smoke.
I called the front desk.  The sleepy clerk assured me that all was well.
For the rest of the night, the noxious smell literally hung over me.
I eventually realized that the acrid smoke smelled like a garbage dump fire.
Horrible!!   And strange....

As the sun came up, it subsided.  It had been a hard night and I was glad to get up and move around.
I was strangely unsettled and my nerves were on edge.  I took a long shower trying to get the stench
out of my nostrils.  Once dressed and leaving the hotel, I looked all around, but there was no evidence
of anything out of the ordinary.  The morning air was fine.
I checked my map and headed for the Holiday Inn.  My map was far from scale and I walked for an
hour or more without much visible progress.  Finally a businesswoman helped me trick a cabdriver
into taking me to my destination.  He assumed that I wanted to go shopping at the market
near the hotel.   I went along with the plan.  My driver spoke reasonably good English and we began
to talk about Belgrade on the long drive.  I was able to tell him my real reason for going there.
He was a bit mystified but he offered to guide me and wait for me as I would not be able to get a ride
back from that neighborhood.  As the area came into view, I could see he what he meant.
Literally in the shadow of the modern hotel ringed by construction sites, was a shanty town of
dilapidated shacks thrown together with cardboard, old planking and corrugated metal.

I asked my driver to slow down so I could really see it.  His inclination was to race by and rush me
back to the city center.  I rolled down the window to see more clearly and was immediately assailed
by the smell of a garbage dump.
It was the same smell that had filled my room only a few hours before!!!

I took a closer look.
The shantytown was burning!
Smoke curled around all the hovels and I saw that these people were living on an active
garbage dump!
My God!!  No human being should be forced to live like this!
People in the Balkans treat street dogs better than that!
It was impossible to think that in a civilized society that this could happen.
No wonder people were reluctant to discuss the Gypsy encampments.

My driver was visibly embarassed.  I begged him to linger but the best he would do was to circle
the camp once more.  He was afraid to stop or to even let me out for a few minutes.
'Afraid'  I thought ?!
There was no sense of danger from the few miserable people we saw.

I wondered at the hypocrisy of people calling them "dirty gypsies".
There were no sanitation facilities and no running water.
The Roma were smudged with smoke from the burning dump.
I thought about all the rhetoric about their laziness, but I saw them picking through the garbage
and construction refuse to recycle what could be saved...to make a few dinars to eat.
Suddenly all the criticism about their unwillingness to assimilate, work, go to school,
make themselves presentable was a cruel and horrible joke!
How they were even able to survive this experience was beyond me.
Breathing in toxic vapors, living without water, worse than beggars.
This society had relegated them to the garbage heap on every level.  Denied housing and jobs,
begrudging them water, food and assistance and then blaming them for their uncivilised state!

Serbia had just experienced it's worst winter in 100 years with most of the country placed under disaster status.  Whole villages were buried under heavy snowfall for weeks, roofs and houses collapsing. 
I wondered how many Roma had perished and what the struggle for survival must have been like.
One would become half mad from toxicity alone.  I knew what a few hours of it had felt like.

Something galvanized inside me in that moment.  Suddenly the whole trip seemed to hang
on this event.  Nothing else mattered.  My stomach was knotted with the reality of what I saw.
Everything in me shifted...and shifted hard.
I told my driver to stop a moment, telling him my camera had malfunctioned and that  I needed
just one photo.  It was a bid to get more time.
He did his best.  By now he was deeply humiliated by the scene and for a moment he saw, as well.
He drove a little slower, a little closer.  I stuck my head out the window, craning to get
a better view and to lock this scene in my mind when, suddenly, the most amazing thing happened.

As I did that, I saw three middle-aged men sitting on a makeshift bench outside one of the shacks.
We made eye contact in a startling moment.
They stood to their feet politely, smiled from their hearts and waved in greeting.
Their rugged faces were beaming.
There was no suffering or self pity, no begging or seeking. 
They were simply and genuinely welcoming.  It was a salutation, a greeting.

There was joy in their faces!   It was a joy that went through me like a bolt of electricity.
Such joy...
It was not only joy, but a deep sense of humanity.
Welcome humanity in a desert of cold inhumanity.
It was as if they held the last remaining fragments of sanity and what it is to be a real human being
in a world that aimed to stamp out all remaining traces of it.

It is hard to describe the impact of their plight, their resilience in the face of all they suffer,
their innate humanity unchanged.

Had they transformed into angels to bear the brunt of man's inhumanity
and to continue to bear witness to a better way?  I would not have been surprised.

"the meek shall inherit the earth."

to be continued...

Serbia continued...

My first impressions of Serbia were garnered on the bus ride through the countryside
enroute to Belgrade...
It was a warm early summer morning with overcast skies and light rain dappling the hills...
perfect for seeing the depth of terrain, the greenery and softened landscape.
Fields, hills and villages were spread in every direction, softly shadowed.

I was impressed with the carefully tended land.  Every inch of it was under cultivation.
This land was well-loved...  You could feel it in every sworl and ridge.
It was meticulously planted and managed well.
The traditional houses gave a similar impression of great care and strength.
They were hand-built, good sized and solid.
Not ostentatious, but fine and strong and of generous proportions.
It was easy to see the character of the people in their fields and houses.
They were hard-working, aware and fully engaged in their lives.

They had earned a certain prosperity through their efforts...it was well-deserved.
I was intrigued with the yards surrounding their houses.
Much like the fields, the yards were neatly cultivated to the last inch with flowers and vegetables...
no lawns to be seen anywhere.
Everything gave off a sense of strength and a good kind of pride and industriousness.
I could hardly wait to encounter these people.

After a few hours, I changed buses in Nis.
The energy of the place and people was quite distinct.
I knew without a doubt that I was in a different country now.
The Serbians are somewhat serious in temperament with a sense of mannered reserve.
They carry themselves with a sense of pride and keen awareness,
It is much like the kind of feeling I get at a chess tournament....highly charged intelligence.

As I walked through the crowd, I became aware of the large community
of Gypsies milling around, as well.
The darker skinned men were sharp-eyed, nervous, seeking.
The women in long skirts were quiet and submissive to their husbands.
They were a separate society...not quite shunned, but tolerated.

I was the only foreigner in sight.  I felt various peoples' curiosity.

Back on the bus for the final leg of the trip, the sun came out and lit up the countryside.
There were gently rolling hills with cattle and sheep, serene villages, and spring crops.
A few hours later, we rumbled into the sprawl that is Belgrade.
At that moment, I much preferred the serene and beautiful rural Serbia,
but I had committed to several days in the city for this first trip.
Belgrade had been described as one of the liveliest cities in all of Europe
with something for everyone...a must-see.

I hopped off the bus with map in hand, intent on stretching my legs for awhile
and walking off the long  bus ride.
According to my map, I was within walking distance of my destination...the city center.
I was soon surrounded by cab drivers offering help.  A few of them spoke a bit of English.
I politely assured them that I would be fine walking the short distance.
I just needed to get my bearings.  Several of them insisted that it was too far to walk...
several kilometers...and through dangerous neighborhoods.
I began to doubt my map reading, but I was not up to being rushed into a waiting cab.
Besides, I had no money. My first stop would be the bank.  That said, they left me alone.

My first Serbian exchange was with the unsmiling bank guard, who eyed me warily
at first before relenting and holding the door open for me.
He offered to help with my bags and asked where I was from.
I told him I was from the US, and shared that it was my 1st visit to Serbia...
and that I was half Serbian on my father's side.  He finally smiled at that.
He thought for a moment before earnestly impressing me with the remark
that my Serbian side was my 'better half'.       Serbian pride... 
He studied me soberly while I handed over passport and dollars in exchange for Serbian dinars.
Once more, he went the extra mile in helping me leave....much unsaid, but felt.
It was going to be an interesting trip...

Belgrade was a typical big city with people rushing by, unable or unwilling to stop for questions,
but I eventually found the tourist information building.  Once again, I was assailed by cabbies.
I waved them aside so I could get to a window with a guide.
The woman behind the glass, who, thankfully, spoke flawless English, helped me make
a hotel reservation for the next few nights and showed me the shortcut up the steep hill
to the city center...a mere 8 blocks away.
Beware of the cab drivers, she warned.

I found my hotel after a good, stiff hike up the hill past shops and restaurants.
I dropped my things, freshened up and hit the streets, eager to make the most of my time.
I walked big circles around my hotel to familiarize myself with the neighborhood.
I was in the perfect spot...close to everything...parks, museums, trolley cars
and boulevards lined with open-air cafes where one could rest, sip coffee and people watch.

As I explored, I was delighted to find several well-stocked bookstores within a few block radius.
People were serious about books here!  It reminded me of the good old days in New York City
when independent bookstores were plentiful.
I soon procurred a copy of Momo Kapor's "The Magic of Belgrade".   How perfect!
I had read Momo's "Guide to the Serbian Mentality"...a book laced with touching humor
and insight born of a life of keen observation.   What more fitting guide!
I could weather whatever came my way with Momo as my guide.
I chose a small local restaurant for dinner, wine and some good reading...

" Belgrade is not all in Belgrade.  A much bigger part of Belgrade is in the yearning for Belgrade,
 which makes it more beautiful than it actually is...."
.

Serbia Bound...

This post is much delayed.  My time in Serbia was brief and unexpectedly intense. 

It has taken some time to understand the experience and even more time to be willing to write about it.

Serbia was to be a special highlight of my trip to the Balkans. 

There are several reasons for that….

A little less than a year ago, I found that my father’s family was from Serbia.

I had  always had a deep affinity for all things Balkan…and somewhat of an affinity for Gypsies, as you can see, but I never imagined that it was anything more than a romantic fantasy.

A few years ago, after my 1^st trip to the former Yugoslavia, I took some time off to write
about my experiences there.
In my stack of notes, I came across a scrap of paper bearing the name of my biological father. 
As a child, I had been told he was French Canadian. I accepted it without question at the time.
But seeing his name as an adult made me wonder about its origins.
I was strongly impressed to dig deeper into my alleged French Canadian roots.
I discovered that my father was  an American born son of Yugoslavian immigrants
and that they were Serbians. 
Suddenly, many things about my inner life made perfect sense. 
Things such as my love of their music and dance, which could be a chapter in itself, 
my somewhat edgy and serious temperament,  my inner sense of history, struggle
and deeply felt emotions/opinions. 

Quite typically Serbian, for better and worse.

There was a strong psychic component woven tightly throughout this series of discoveries.

It was as though my father’s spirit was driving me to find him and to know more of his story.
I literally felt a personality over my shoulder for months on end. 
Many times, I grew weary of the search.  I didn’t think it should matter at this later stage of my life,
but I was literally compelled to keep working at it. 
I hit many dead-ends, ran out of ideas and then finally, when it seemed  completely hopeless,
my phone rang one afternoon.

On the other end was the last surviving member of that generation of the family…

an 83 year old woman in Des Moines.

She was as forthright and honest as could be hoped as she began to tell me about
my biological father and their family.
Everything she described fit the personality of the figure over my shoulder…exactly.

It was a heady experience…a difficult story, but one worth knowing.  

It was also a life-settling experience on some really deep levels.

As you can imagine, I could hardly wait to go to Serbia and immerse myself for a time…

to understand them…to understand myself.

Seven months later, I boarded the flight and then the final bus to Belgrade in high hopes!

I had done a fair bit of homework prior to the trip. 

One of the surprising things that emerged was that Serbia was the biggest exporter of gypsies
in the modern world.
Not only that, but that most of them settled in the Midwest…Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and the like. 
My own back yard.
As pieces of the puzzle emerged, I realized that I had had several dealings with them already. 
My curiosity intensified!

Suddenly, I realized that the family that cut my trees down as well as the people that took care

of my driveway coatings were gypsies.

People who offered roof repairs and other transient jobs were, as well.
Even though I was bit leery at times, I had a certain deep-rooted sympathy for them.
My experiences of them were not always perfect, but they were generally good. 
Certainly better than the stereotypical stories that are passed around!

I began to see with newly opened eyes their lives, their families, their not-quite-mainstream lives.

Then I began to share notes with friends who seemed to have a gypsy connection.  
We learned that many of them had blood ties to gypsy families.

In early America, it was forbidden for gypsy men to marry white women. 

They married blacks as well as native Americans, with whom they often felt

a greater sense of affinity. 

There were periods of prejudice in earlier times and often the children were either

not informed of their gypsy heritage or they were told simply that they were part

Native American.

One such friend pulled out old photographs of her great grandmother decked out

in colorful long skirts with huge gold loop earrings.  It was suddenly clear to her

that she was gypsy and not native American. My friend embodies both cultures…

It was often very life affirming for people to find these missing bits of their history. 

to be continued...

The Gypsy "Problem"...assimilation vs. inclusion

You know, language is a slippery thing sometimes....

We are bombarded with so many words, so much information these days
that images, ideas and information begin to blur together.
We are jumping to conclusions before we have even quite heard the stories.
As an old friend once cautioned me, "we are jumping to confusions".

On the recent trip to Bulgaria and Serbia, I had to wonder about two of these
'blurry' concepts, in particular...
On one hand, as I looked upon the post communism/new capitalism era
I suddenly heard myself...and was dismayed at my mistake.
I had thought 'capitalism' and not 'democracy'.  

Isn't 'democracy' what we pride ourselves on?
Wasn't 'democracy' the original and stated goal?
How had 'democracy' come to denote 'capitalism'...and rampant
western-style capitalism at that?

In a far departure from the ideals of democracy, there has occurred a blurring
of these concepts....perhaps even a 'bait and switch'.
Unfettered capitalism seems to have replaced the democratic experience.
The terms are now used interchangeably and casually to the great harm of societies everywhere.
They have become nearly synonymous. 

Having been granted the democratic freedom of autonomy and the rights of individuals
to pursue their own course in life, we find growing numbers of greedy people and corporations
taking over the landscape.
Instead of a noble and uplifting result,  what we wound up with was the right to amass
as much money and power at the expense of as many as possible.
Rats clambering up the ladder to success.
We are not building a more just and equal society on either end of the ladder
at this stage of the game.
It is an exclusionary and elitist system that harms the good of all.

Democracy has not delivered on its promises because capitalism has replaced it.
People were seduced onto the path of competition, selfishness and greed.
It is clearly not working... Those in post-communist societies suffer still...more so.

The other concepts that have become unfortunately intermingled in people's minds
are that of 'assimilation' and "inclusion".
The context of my observations has particularly to do with the Roma people,
but it concerns all minority people in almost every conceivable context.

I believe that no person or society or government can work without a good underlying
philosophy.  Fix that and most of the rest will take care of itself.
Without a sound and sane philosophy, there is simply chaos and base tendencies run amok.
Of course, this always serves the opportunists well.... Think about it...

The Decade of the Roma is well underway.  Begun in 2005 in Sofia, Bulgaria,
it calls for the inclusion of the Roma in every level of society.
Many fine words have been spoken, programs initiated, meetings held.
So much rhetoric but so little tangible progress.  Lovely window dressing.
Much money has exchanged hands on behalf of the Roma, but I see that little of it reaches them.
Instead, it continues to circulate within the tight circles of the privileged.

But again, we have the problem of language...
Where does inclusion start?     In the minds and hearts of the excluders.
Who does "inclusion" appeal to?    Those that "exclude"... of course!
But somehow the argument is turned on its head and, once again,
the burden falls not on the "excluders," but on the Roma who are now expected to "assimilate". 

Again the terms are bandied about loosely...one or the other will do, it seems...
It's all the same...or is it?

 If you stop to consider for a moment, it is quite clear that these are very different paths.

"Inclusion" assumes the right of every individual and group to co-exist in an equal and fair way.
Sharing the goods, services and opportunities... and not only that...but sharing the responsibilities,
as well.
It is common sense simple... and it is the only tool for healing society's troubles.

Whereas "assimilation" calls for the blending in or obliteration of the society or individual
as the price to be paid in order to participate in society as a so-called "equal".
This a an antagonistic approach that functions to keep people in unequal relationship to one another.
It cannot work.  It goes against nature.

There is a further aspect to be discussed in my next post....  Trip to Serbia

The Gypsy "Problem"...assimilation's impact on you

In my last post, I considered the attitudes regarding assimilation of the Roma
as the solution to the so-called Gypsy problem. 
I found that most of the rhetoric and effort is geared toward assimilation...
fitting in, erasing differences, leaving Roma values and culture behind
and adopting those of the dominant culture.

This does not only apply to the Roma people, but to those who are Gypsy in spirit.

It is not easy to carve out a life or livelihood when you find yourself at odds
with the prevailing culture. 
You set aside your art or music, your freedoms and innate rhythms, your very uniqueness
to conform to a culture that encourages alienation from others and self. 
Your color, your wild nature, your reaching for joy are all too much
for the uncreative and mechanistic culture that surrounds you.
  
You rein in your Love for Life and for People to match yourself to those around you.
You know it is wrong every step of the way but you are caught up in the flood for awhile.
You adopt fear, set aside generosity and innate goodness, and wipe away your open smile
to conform to a cold society.
It can be experienced as a kind of death to self to stifle your best and truest impulses
in order to survive...


You literally take your life in your hands if you dance sideways of the system to fashion
a life out of the deep and half-hidden desires and sensibilities you hold within.
Many times you run counter to family, spouses, friends, and authorities of all kinds
as you begin to assert yourself. 
You run up against hurdle after hurdle until you are almost too weary to fight on. 
We incur so much pain and self doubt along the way.
Much of our life is lived underground...we live as small and secret selves,  hidden Gypsies.

We have already learned to reject ourselves...to hold prejudice on an inner level.

The work begins there ultimately...on the inside...as you discover and acknowledge
all that you are.  To make a little room for that self...a safe and respectful place where
it can be protected and cultivated again on its often interrupted path through life.
It becomes a kind of spiritual quest for self and for God who gives continued nudges
as well as strength for the journey. 
A colorful mosaic emerges... as messy, crazily beautiful and exuberant as life itself.

Do what you are able to do for now, but know that you will one day need to come
out of hiding and declare who you are...if you are lucky.
That is Life's gift to you ...to free you from self-limiting ideas...self-limiting lives...
other-limiting lives.

That is also your gift to others...  to be who you are without reservation or apology.
To bring who you are out into the open...and to make that possible for others, too.
To forge a new and better culture day by day...

Consider it a creative challenge...don't sit around complaining about your plight.
Use your innate intelligence, wit and humor to out-strategize the system.
But find legitimate ways to express who you are, even if who you are changes daily.

Don't stop until you find the cleverest, most ethical, most lovingly human ways
to show the prevailing culture that they are misguided in regard to you and to life itself.

Don't become a leech out of anger and self righteousness  as many have done,
but find the most artful and compelling ways to frame your innate beauty, character
and gifts.

Don't struggle...simply take what you have right now...for it is enough...and Outshine.

As always, be a Good Gypsy....Be a Smart Gypsy while you're at it!