Deb Curreen Author

Feminists are currently fighting their big girl pants off  to keep the ground they have  hard won over several decades. Donning big boots,  off they go again to fight another fight, a bit more weaponised than 50 years ago, but still in fear and trembling of what the future may hold for their daughters, granddaughters, sisters, friends. It's disheartening to hear our sisters are still chanting and waving placards that say, "My body, my rights, my decision....my life." I read one statement that said, "Woman's rights ARE human rights." Whoever said that women aren't human? What a travesty and at guess, the chauvinist men in power still making decisions for women that suit men. Or just power hungry blokes trying to teach us a lesson, "put us in our place."  I was pondering the biblical view of women and the disrespect and mistreatment goes right back to the Garden of Eden, when Adam, on being sprung eating the fruit that he had been told not to, sa...

FEMINISM -    the belief in social, economic, and political  equality  of the sexes. Although largely originating in the West, feminism is  manifested  worldwide and is represented by various institutions committed to activity on behalf of  woman's rights and interests. Just for something different, I thought I would tackle one of society's biggest sacred cows, feminism. Note, sacred cow, not bull, though some of those bulls might get knocked out during my musings - using strong words, of course, not bullets. I grabbed this simple definition of feminism from the Britannica site, hopefully a woman wrote it but it seems to sum it all up in a few brief sentences - social, economic, political equality and the right to make decisions regarding healthcare, our bodies, employment opportunities, etc. All the things our strong matriarchs have fought for and won in the past 100 years or more. Women now have a stronger voice, and we may even see a woman Pr...

 Pohutukawa. Tree of life. Beautiful and grand, idling in the light of approaching dusk, standing sentient, watchful, a guard beside the ocean's shore You hold the pulse of the moon and sea in your arms, the carefree waves that carry salty promises to thee. I stand on shaky rocks. Oh wide and curling waters, I'm at your mercy. I pray under a silent sky of blue. waiting for answers in the shadows,  tangled in the dappled branches, as I clutch the rustling leaves of the Pohutukawa. Tree of  Life.

  In the scrappiness of winter there is beauty in the garden, glowstick bursts of colour, as if Heaven herself has painted the earth this morning, reflections of hope, inklings of spring. I look to the skies and I see a rainbow of happiness beaming beneath the heavy clouds with a promise of more sun shinings  for the morrows yet to come. I praise winter for the rains while birds sing in barren trees joyous and alive grateful that worms still wriggle and bugs still crawl so there is breakfast again this morning. Yes, the mud still puddles and the clouds try to frown while the clouds begin to part and I wear gumboots outside searching for hope and glory, again, amongst the scrappiness of winter in the garden.

 The skies outside are burning, the grass on my lawn has been swallowed by Mud. Down the road, there are highways of mayhem, bolts of public opinion jam the flyovers, thoughts are rear-ended by vehicles of outrage every day, bottlenecks of conflict and arguments. There is an acceleration of madness in the world right now, coming to a town near you. 🌘🔥💣💔😓🌵🐞🐸💥🌒🌈 Screens flicker all day long with ultra-violent beams of mottled truths and sticky facts, brainwashing dialogues roll up and down  blurring our vision. Accelerated madness sashaying daily in the pockets of our youth,  swinging in the handbags of middle age, sliding across the dashboard of the uber I now sit in. Pop goes the weasel of reason.                                                           🌘🔥💣💔😓🌵🐞🐸💥🌒🌈 However.... on the flipside of chaos where...

  As sure as the Iris smiles in my garden, is my promise to send you her face. As she beckons the sun to come down upon the Earth,  to pull out the colours,  that's when I will call, "Whaea, the winter has gone, come see the spring." The moment I see the gold unfurl amongst the green  with emboldened stems painting serenity for me, and for you I will  fast-post pics of her happiness to your home. Faith hope and love, the greatest of these, love, while iris faces glow in the storms of life. Here is hope, whaea, for a day without clouds and a Heaven come to earth in the faces  of our garden flowers.

It's your birthday today, you would have been 70 and it feels ridiculous now to think about all the mad things that we did when we were young, but hey, I've penned a few words for you, sprinklings of love, like toppings on a donut, Lashings of jam on pikelets, a cool ginger ale at the end of a spring night. Because my heart leaked on the pages for you, when you went away, snatched from us, one terrible Friday in March 2019, just before my birthday (which was two Saturdays later). That month feels ruined now but still, I have the chaos of colour that was you, the joyful noise that filled a room from your lips, memories locked down, inside my heart. 💘💚🍩🍉🐞🐸🐝 I run out of words, trying to capture you, I wrote a book (of poems) and dedicated it to you and gave you a whole chapter, at the back. 'cause while you were a front row diva, you rarked it up in the back - a Back Row Rebel. Lines for Lynn, Poems for Pikelet, a Shout for the Shaheed that you were. Now a void in the ...