Blasphemy With the Poor

Matthew 26: 6-11

6 Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,

7 There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.

8 But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste?

9 For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor.

10 When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me.

11 For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.

12 For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial.

13 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.

Zanele Muholi (South Africa)
Miss D’Vine II, 2007
From the series Miss D’vine
Chromogenic print

The image above is from the exhibition The Way She Looks: The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture, a photography exhibit on photographs by and of African women at the Ryerson Image Centre (RIC).

The exhibition's photographs were assembled from the Walther Collection

RIC Facebook page here
RIC web page here

A perverted, selected, imagery of African Women

Real Beauty
From the exhibition: The Way She Looks
At the Ryerson Image Centre

The gyrating "African Woman," exploited by those who claim to be on her side, but who voyeuristically inspect her every fold of fat, which feed in nicely into their "African Woman as Our Savior" discourse.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time"

Fall Leaf Patterns
[Photo Collage By: KPA]

Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time.

African Woman

Jodi Bieber
Babalwa, from the series Real Beauty
2008, pigment print

Above image from the Ryerson Image Centre exhibition: The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture, on view also at the RIC website, and other publications such as Canadian Art. More information at the RIC Facebook page.


African Woman,
Dj Shimza (South Africa)

Paul Edward Costa: Mississauga Poet Laureate

A Line of Poets
By: Paul Edward Costa

A baton touches my hand when it swings back
and in an instant
I’m not a solitary runner on a cracked desert;
it slowly dawns on me that I never have been,
I’m linked to a train
reaching from the cool, steady hand
passing this position to mine,
all the way back to poets who set
the vivid life of city states into history and permanence,
cast lassos in the air,
caught ethereal spirits and emotions
floating above the heads of people
in squares of celebration
and set them into the shapes of runes lighting up
when you read them and see a sensation you’ve always felt
but never had verified
by the reality of a concrete shape.

I pray I leave behind
not just a record of words
but a poetic spark in more souls
than those who know they have such a lightning inside them,
that I hope grows into a fire of minds
fiercely expressing their free identities
and setting lines of future poets aflame
with the responsibility of their art’s capacity
for commemoration,
celebration,
reminding,
remembering,
and encapsulating the dynamic realities of this place,
this time.

The Monarch

[Photos By: KPA]

I've been dormant for a while.

I am back!

A lot has been going on. Mostly character building.

Here are photographs of the Monarch Butterfly, which is leaving us (Canada). I caught its fluttering wings in the beautiful Jubilee Garden in Mississauga a couple of days ago. It was a stroke of luck. The whole garden was full of these butterflies, which seem to like yellow: I was guaranteed to find several on the yellow flower.

I went a couple of days later, and the garden was eerily quiet. Although the butterfly flutters were silent, their sound was left to my imagination. I could still hear them.

The monarch is a metaphor, a butterfly that endures thousands of miles to get to the place where it wishes to remain to regain strength for a journey back to its home.

It is also about the intertwined history, culture and nature of Canada and America, something which I have always believed, and always written about.

I will follow the monarch's treacherous path path in my blog, as I always have, through my posts, views, opinions, perspectives and writings.

And how can I resist regaining, refueling, my blog by announcing this unexpected, and regal visitor.

The monarch becomes a metaphor for endurance, principle, and a goal to be accomplished.

All that Reclaiming Beauty is about.