Since the Republican vice-presidential pick was affirmed, much has been said about Alaska governor Sarah Palin. This, of course, comes to no surprise— Palin gives much to talk about. Her young age, her candid personality, her pregnant teenage daughter, and as if that wasn’t enough; have you noticed she’s a woman?

The news of the Republican presidential running mate being a woman spread like a wild fire all across the nation and throughout the media; managing to overshadow Senator Obama’s unstoppable stardom streak.

With the presidential elections shortly underway, many have begun to wonder the affect that Sarah Palin will have on the minds and hearts of women voters; many of who were left heartbroken by Senator Obama’s dismissal of an “Obama-Hillary” ticket, and whose votes may now be up for grabs.

According to the Washington Times, “Barack Obama and John McCain are in a dead heat among American women. The latest Gallup poll, conducted Aug. 30-Sept. 1 reveals that Mr. McCain has a slight edge among female voters: 48 percent to 44 percent […]” (09/05/08). An increase that seems to have surfaced after McCain’s vice-presidential choice was announced.

While McCain’s obvious gender-strategy is no mystery, there are others who believe his attempt to conquer over the female vote will leave the Republican campaign yearning for more. “The only women the choice might move is unexcited Republican women who have been leery of McCain thus far” declared an adviser to the Clinton campaign to TIME Magazine and CNN (08/29/08). “I think it’s pretty insulting to women to assume that just because his running mate is a woman, Hillary supporters will overlook her actual policy positions” is what a comment read on the New York Times’ recent blog concerning this very topic.

The fact that Sarah Palin has stirred things up for her party and the 2008 presidential election is a sure conviction. However, her success in swaying the, now infamous, “straddling female voters” towards the Republican ticket is still widely debated and contested. Her impact on this election, and specifically in regard to the women’s vote, will probably remain unknown until after the new president is elected.

The one fact that can probably be asserted already; however, is the notion that for the first time in this nation’s history of presidential elections: women have taken center stage.

Sometimes life gives you a breath of fresh air, and that’s exactly what you get with Kataka Gara. Master healer, singer, and musician—whose presence radiates a cup of healing java as soon as she walks into a room.

Although a Reiki (pronounced “rake-key”) master and healer for over 23 years, Kataka’s true passion began to unfold when she discovered that energy transmission was achievable through music. Sounds, she attains, “have long been known to possess the power to heal”. As eccentric as Kataka’s thinking may sound, the concept of ‘healing sounds’ is not as far fetched as one may think. Scientific research around the globe has proven the effectiveness of sounds as a therapeutic tool in treating many of today’s common ailments. In fact, this unconventional approach to healing stems from a very conventional basic principle: resonance1.

Remember the first law of thermodynamics? Well, if one accepts the first law of thermodynamics, one must also accept the basic principle of resonance. For if energy cannot be created or destroyed; but changed from one form to another2—then does it not become only logical to believe that this energy must radiate, live, and broadcast in some way?

The basic principle of resonance affirms that this way is through vibration, and that every item; including various parts of our bodies create sound3. Thus, an overworked or overstressed body can be compared to a guitar with a loose string or a piano out of tune. This is where Kataka Gara comes in. By combining her knowledge and experience with healing and her musical talent (she can play over 30 different globally unique instruments), Kataka Gara is able to channel energy from her music into our bodies. Her instruments, voice, and learned knowledge from her healing practices become her tools. Like a doctor who knows what tools he or she will utilize for any given surgery, Kataka also recognizes which of her tools she will need for her healings.

Kataka admits that she is constantly aware of the energy around her. Of energy received, as well as energy given off by others; as exhausting as the continuous flow of receiving and transmitting energy sounds, Kataka contends that her healings only serve to further enhance her own energy. Healings; however, she says “can only achieve their full potential when the receiver willingly opens their mind and heart” to the mending.

Kataka Gara seeks a purpose within this planet that will allow her to fill others with “beauty, grace, and joy through her musical healings”. She passionately continues to craft musical sounds with her voice and array of instruments, leading her to the creation of her newest compilation which can already be heard through her website (www.katakagara.com). Make sure to browse through her site or attend one of her many workshops or performances whenever you’re in the mood for a cup of healing java.

It took you two hours-and-nineteen minutes
to get all dolled up
30 in the shower
An hour on the hair & make-up
and the rest on those small details that, on occasions like this, make a world of difference
Pedicured toes and all

2 hours-and-19 minutes
Eyeshadow in place, mascara on the lashes
Hair stunning, and did I mention, without any frizz?
A dab of pink on those luscious lips
Skinny jeans on those hips
You was sure to get his attention looking this way
No way jose, he was not going to think,
“Man, should’ve stayed with her”

You were early to church
Gave you time to calculate
Just where you were going to sit
Not too close to the casket
But not too far from him

Sure the father’s dead
The man is losing his head
But, hey, it’s no excuse
Why not have a rendezvous?

I don’t matter anyway
I never did, in the first place
You never liked me, either way

Standing at that church
Watching you prowling for your next move
Thought about how long
All that glitz and glamour took you

You looked stunning that day
Yet your best work doesn’t compare
To my lousiest of days

Your swaying hips
are no contest
to my natural curves
Glossy lips
don’t compare
To my sun-kissed face
Your latest hair-do, with no frizz
although trendy, was a miss
When you compared it to my locks
Straight and shiny with no fuzz

2 hours-and-19 minutes
Head-to-toe glamour
Thought you looked tasty like honey

Yet your best work doesn’t compare
to my lousiest of days

That cake on your face, that you like to call make-up
May have caught his eye
And yet compared to my barren face–
It’s simply
A disgrace

What you didn’t plan out, sweet-stunning-thing
Sexiest-thing-funeral-has-ever-seen
What you fail to realize
and probably will never know
Is that
While make-up may do wonders

It doesn’t cover souls

And your dying-low-life, blood-sucking, funeral-hounding
love-snatcher-soul…

Reeked a mile away

He— the only man that came to her mind while putting on her guaraches she bought long ago in a guarache shop in San Juan de Dios; while driving to and from work through those familiar streets which she now drove through almost unconsciously (as it often happens with things that become mundane); he came to her at random times and moments. But most importantly, he came to her when no one else did.

 Still, she wondered how she would ever manage to grasp ahold of the vision that they both had once dreamed up. Of living together, of traveling to foreign lands, of raising their first child. One night, while laying awake in bed she had a vision of him carrying their little boy on top of his shoulders. The little boy happily held on to his fathers head, and the father held onto the little boy’s finger-sized hands. She watched from afar. She felt content. She didn’t question. Her need to escape, to fly was gone. Calmness was abound.

But now, and in reality; she always questioned. She had so many dreams, goals, ambitions. She wanted to do so much and experience new things. And she wanted to do it on her own. She wanted to take her guaraches to other lands—lands of ancestors different from hers. Above all, she wanted to find her true mission in life. She wanted to follow through with her dreams; whatever these may be.

She wanted to do so much. And at times, she wondered whether she would need to choose between the array of wants that often came popping up inside of her heart and in her head like a TvGuide of time-slot choices. She longed for him, and knew in the very core of her heart that there was no other man she could ever envision carrying her offspring on top of his shoulders… walking towards a playground, heading towards a baseball stadium… a park, a paletero… maybe?

She didn’t want to choose. She was afraid to. Choosing would be easy to most women, but for her—it was being in limbo. In between two heavens and not knowing where to turn. Above all, in the very core of her heart also sat her spirit. Her ever-flapping butterfly winged spirit that longed for nothing else but for constant change; for a constant flight, for different moons and horizons. For independence. Voyages…. Loneliness?

He
placed his hands up high
and, like a little girl, she couldn’t reach
he said they were there to protect her
she believed
and then one day
the sun no longer shined through them

He
didn’t mean to cut her off
didn’t mean to holler back
and yet she couldn’t speak
and when she did she had to scream
to be heard
only then it was too late

He
couldn’t place his shoes onto her world
didn’t want to open that side of his heart… anymore
and all the while
he lost hold of her

He
heard the screams
but never realized
that she screamed not because she was angry
not because she was tired or upset
but because
she was now so far away
he was a distant
unrecognizable figure
different

from the one she had fallen in love with

She
only screamed to bring him back

He
used his hands as a cage
wanted to keep her there

He
wished that he could cut off her wings
and then she couldn’t leave
and there would be no doubt that she was only his

but without her wings, she would no longer be her
and it was the butterfly who he fell in love with

My father didn’t eat for three days before crossing to “el otro lado”. While my dad scavenged his surroundings—todo hambriento, trying to figure out a way into the land of opportunity, farther south my grandmother passed her days worried sick for him. What’s peculiar about this story is that my grandmother, completely clueless of her son’s whereabouts, didn’t eat for three days as well. The story goes that for those three days every time my grandmother would try to swallow her food, she would feel a “raspón” in her throat. Witnesses say that every time she attempted to eat during those three days and she felt that sharp “raspón”, she would remember my father exclaiming, “Ese raspón lo siento porque mi hijo no ha comido”.

Pero gracias a Dios—as many of us would say, my father reached that ever so infamous destination as safe and sound as can be expected. And, shortly after my father was settled, he sent for my mom, and once they found jobs and a place to live, they sent for my brother and me. Like a colony of migrating ants, my mother, my brother and I followed each other’s trails until reaching a common ground where we can all feast together.

Sooner than later, I learned que para una pobre, prieta, y mexicana como yo discrimination comes easy. What became very clear to me at one point were the pre-conceived notions that many people thought of when they looked at me. The only advantage that I seemed to have were the free-lunch tickets that I received all throughout my public school days. Now that I think of it, I must have been the perfect prototype of a “free-ticket lonchera”—an ESL student con zapatos de charol, and a ponytail lambida con limón and tied so tight to the back of my head that it gave my eyes and instant “oriental makeover”. If one look at me didn’t say, “Pobrecita, lets give her free lunch tickets”—I don’t know what would have.

Through my adolescence and early adulthood I struggled with what I thought was a low self-esteem. After years of school and tons of practice with my guerito and already-assimilated friends, the traces of a strong Spanish accent left the root of my tongue. Still, I found it difficult to assimilate when my skin, my lifestyle, and my features still clearly stated “foreigner” to my society. Nowadays, my mocha-caramel-frappucino-like skin and dark straight- horse-like hair is considered “exotic”. Whether I owe that to Hollywood movies or social evolution, I do not know. But back then I couldn’t see the beauty within myself when I didn’t have the blonde hair and blue eyes to prove it.

At that time, I remember, my favorite telenovela being “Dos Mujeres Un Camino”, only because Biby Gaitan played the protagonist and many people considered her sexy and beautiful, and to me that meant a lot—it meant a world full of esperanza; being that she was morena with dark hair—just like me. It took me a while to realize it, and I must say that I owe my buen humor to the tormenting years that I spent wishing I were lighter and blonder. You see my mom would always say que a “una muchacha fea y con mal humor— nadie la quiere” so instead of spending my days in front of the mirror, I spent them developing a good sense of humor—and it paid off! Nowadays, if you were to ask my old friends to describe me, I would bet my life that “funny” would be at the top of their list.  Gracias a Dios, I realize now that my feelings of a low self-esteem were simply feelings of a lost Latina.

The respect that I have for myself I owe it to my parents and my education, and the value that I keep for myself I owe it to my visits to Mexico. My motherland embraced me and I embraced her. Through her pyramids, her cobbled streets, and struggles she caressed me and understood me. In each of my returns, I came back renewed and refueled, knowing that I wasn’t the only one who was lost and deprived—my whole country was lost and deprived as well. And if I—una pobre, prieta y mexicana como yo was able to skid through the cracks and make it in “el otro lado”, that meant hope for my country as well.