Jim R. Schwiesow -- A two party system of slavery governs our voting choices: "A TWO PARTY SYSTEM OF SLAVERY GOVERNS OUR VOTING CHOICES
By Jim R. Schwiesow
January 2, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
A recent poll by WorldNetDaily asked the question, “Whom should be the Constitution Party nominate?” A list of names was presented, which included the following patriotic Americans:
1. Tom Tancredo
2. Ron Paul
3. Alan Keyes
4. Jim Gilchrist
5. Jerome Corsi
6. Howard Phillips
7. Chuck Baldwin
There were several other choices on the menu, which included some alternative choices to the naming of a particular candidate, they were:
1. “The name doesn’t matter so much, I’ve had it with the two major parties, and will vote for a third party.”
2. “Someone of even more profile than these names.”
3. “A vote for any Constitution candidate will virtually assure that Hillary or another Democrat will win.”
Guess which of the ten options the majority of the respondents selected. You guessed it; they chose number three from the alternative options. Nearly forty percent of the poll participants expressed that they would cast their vote for the lesser of the two evils presented by the two national parties. What an extraordinarily sad state of affairs this is. To ignore a superior third party candidate in order to vote for the less deficient of two clearly deficient candidates is ludicrous. This is just the silliest justification for a vote that I can think of. To illustrate the absurdity of such thinking, consider the following.
Suppose that you had a daughter, a beautiful young lady who was the apple of your eye. And since she was your pride and joy, you wanted only the very best for her. Now suppose that your nubile young daughter was being courted by three eligible young men about town, two of who came from very rich and influential families, but who you knew to be of reprehensible character. In fact one of these was, if possible, a tad bit more reprehensible than the other. The third suitor came from modest circumstances, and although he was not from a wealthy and powerfully influential family, he was nevertheless possessed of wonderful intelligence and character, and was imbued with unquestionable integrity. Would you, in deference to the wealth and influence of the families of the two young men with no moral scruples, encourage your daughter to marry the lesser of these two reprobates, or would you do everything in your power to see to it that your beautiful young daughter, the apple of your eye, was delivered into the capable and loving hands of the young man who would care for her, provide for her, and cherish her?
That should be a simple question to answer. If you chose the former over the latter, then there is something wrong with your thinking. You are not going to reform a reprobate, and if you think that you can, you are in for many years of misery and grief. When we choose a president, why would we not want the very best to represent our interests, and to act as our commander in chief? If we think that we can elect the lesser of two evils, and then reform him once he is in office, we deserve the grief that will surely follow. This should be clearly evident when one assesses the damage done to the people’s sovereignty by the current administration, which is headed up by a lesser of two evils.
The fact is that the political tenets of our national two-party system are contributing to the rapid decay of society, and have been doing so for some time. This necessary and brilliant contrivance ensures that the corrupted will endeavor to limit the choices for national office to a choice between the perverted and the likewise perverted. The differences in the two parties are cosmetic at best. They are horses of the same likeness internally, but with different outward appearances. These appearances are carefully devised and cultured so as to fool the people into believing that they have alternative choices within a limited two-party system. This is brilliant and effective and has serious implications for the nation.
Any of the above named potential third-party candidates would be infinitely superior to those who comprise the long list of prospects of the two national parties. Unlike all of the potentials of the Republican and the Democrat parties they are not internationalists, and are not motivated by a quest for one-world governance. They understand the implications of our continual drift into a socialistic system, and they understand the dangers of flirting with the inducements to abandon a commitment to a governance, which is guided by the principles set forth by the Constitution in order to chase after the godless dogma of international new world order advocates.
Above all else these people, unlike their contemporaries of the national parties, have a sincere and steadfast fixity of purpose in regard to the absolutes of morality, and are able to differentiate between right and wrong. The likes of Obama, Clinton, Kerry and ilk of both parties represent the evil of the godless one-world internationalists. A look at their voting habits on moral issues should convince even the most intractable that they are devoid of moral scruples. Their consistent pursuit of the legalization of abortion under any circumstance bespeaks a deviant soul. Only the most wretched of medical practitioners can coldly, and with human detachment, push a sharp instrument into the soft malleable skull of a fully-formed living baby and suction the brain in the perpetration of a most heinous act of murder. And that political leaders of any persuasion would not only condone, but also encourage, such an act points up an utterly depraved inner being.
I have repeatedly stated my belief that we are on the cusp of tipping over into a communistic form of governance. In fact the unsophisticated internationalists among us, whether they know it or not, promote the doctrines espoused by Marx and Lenin when they advocate for a one-world order. They are, most assuredly being used by the true believers in this evil doctrine, which advocates the destruction of humanity and the institution of worldwide slavery to a Godless system of communism. Too many of our political leaders are unwitting dupes of truly evil men who would build their utopian world upon the carcasses of untold millions of God’s people. And others are not so unwitting; they push for a one-world order knowing full well the consequences.
If you, as a voter, want to hasten the fulfillment of the wishes of the utterly depraved, and usher in that new world order, keep voting for the lesser of two evils, and you will surely help bring to fruition the ultimate destruction of not only this nation, but the slavery of all mankind.
© 2007 - Jim R. Schwiesow - All Rights Reserved
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Chains of Slavery
by Joe Blow
Political parties — comprised of incumbents, candidates, voters, agendas, special interests, and platforms — are the tools that the State uses to forge the chains of slavery for its citizens. The popular fiction of differences between political parties also perpetuates the enduring myth that citizens have only one means of governing themselves — by voting for a proxy. Not only is this notion patently false, the only real winner in the game is the State itself. The entire process consists of nothing more than mass delusion every time an election is held.
Political parties are very useful tools of the State, which is why they exist in the first place. Political parties can accomplish what the nebulous State cannot achieve by itself without bloodshed. Primary missions of political parties include: a.) transferring power from the people to the State; b.) pandering to special interests; c.) seizing and holding power; d.) crushing all competition; e.) fostering and maintaining the illusion that voters are governing themselves; f.) spreading propaganda; g.) demonizing the perceived political enemy of the day; and h.) lending some semblance of legitimacy to the State, however imaginary.
The Founders eschewed political parties, fearing the worst, and rightly so. John F. Bibby writes, “When the founders of the American republic wrote the U.S. Constitution in 1787, they did not envision a role for political parties in the governmental order. Indeed, they sought through various constitutional arrangements such as separation of powers, checks and balances, and indirect election of the president by an electoral college to insulate the new republic from political parties and factions. In spite of the founders’ intentions, the United States was the first nation to develop parties organized on a national basis and to transfer executive power from one faction to another via an election in 1800.” [Emphasis added.]
“Many of America's Founding Fathers hated the thought of political parties, quarreling ‘factions’ they were sure would be more interested in contending with each other than in working for the common good. They wanted individual citizens to vote for individual candidates, without the interference of organized groups — but this was not to be.
“By the 1790s, different views of the new country's proper course had already developed, and those who held these opposing views tried to win support for their cause by banding together . . . . By [1860], parties were well established as the country's dominant political organizations, and party allegiance had become an important part of most people's consciousness. Party loyalty was passed from fathers to sons, and party activities — including spectacular campaign events, complete with uniformed marching groups and torchlight parades — were a part of the social life of many communities.” [Emphasis added.]
Does this sound vaguely familiar? It should because just 60 years later Adolf Hitler used these same American political party methods to great success.
“The 25 points of the NSDAP Program were composed by Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler. They were publicly presented on 24 February 1920 "to a crowd of almost two thousand and every single point was accepted amid jubilant approval.". . . Hitler explained their purpose in the fifth chapter of the second volume of Mein Kampf: The program of the new movement was summed up in a few guiding principles, twenty-five in all. They were devised to give, primarily to the man of the people, a rough picture of the movement's aims. They are in a sense a political creed, which on the one hand recruits for the movement and on the other is suited to unite and weld together by a commonly recognized obligation those who have been recruited.
“Hitler was intent on having a community of mutual interest that desired mutual success instead of one that was divided over the control of money or differing values.
THE COMMON INTEREST BEFORE SELF-INTEREST--THAT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE PROGRAM. BREAKING OF THE THRALDOM OF INTEREST - THAT IS THE KERNEL OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM.
“In these straightforward statements of intent, Hitler translated his ideology into a plan of action which would prove its popularity with the German people throughout the coming years. For many, the abruptness of its departure from the tradition of politics as practiced in the western world was as much of a shock as its liberal nature and foresight of the emerging problems of western democracy.”
Of course, common interest is merely code for special interest and self-interest must fall to party loyalty. Once that is achieved it is a short step to swearing loyalty oaths to the party leader himself.
Propaganda is not only a primary mission of political parties, it is the best means of achieving the political goals of the party, as Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf. The NSDAP was largely successful due to the extensive propaganda machine that it employed.
In 1931, Joseph Goebbels wrote in his “Will and Way” article, “Political methods always presume a political goal. Only when the goal is crystal clear and unchangeable is it possible to determine the foundations of practical work. The means one uses to reach the goal is political will.
“There are a variety of ways to gain power. There are illegal means to gain power through brute force; one can also gain power legally by winning a majority in an election. There are revolutions, Putsches, uprisings. But each of these methods requires a political group to win the sympathies of the broad masses, if it wishes over the long run to maintain its power. But the sympathy of the people does not come of itself; it must be won.
“The means of gaining that support is propaganda . . . . The goal of propaganda is to make what the theorists have discovered clear to the broad masses . . . . The great accomplishment of the National Socialist movement is that it created a synthesis of both elements [will and way] of the art of politics.”
Hitler was among the least likely of individuals to rise to power when he did. He was unimposing, a poor student, flat broke, and a failed painter. He lived like a bum for months on the streets of Vienna and he had no special gifts, other than an ability to speak in public. If not for the NSDAP, he would have gone nowhere. It was a political party that enabled Hitler to rise to power.
"Of what importance is all that, if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape? Let them own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the Party, is supreme over them regardless of whether they are owners or workers. All that is unessential; our socialism goes far deeper. It establishes a relationship of the individual to the State, the national community. Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings." [Emphasis added.]
~ Adolf Hitler to Herman Rauschning in Why Does Socialism Continue to Appeal to Anyone? by Robert Hessen.
Hitler was much smarter than most Americans are today. He at least understood that the political party is the tool that the State uses to forge the chains of slavery for its citizens.
Political parties — comprised of incumbents, candidates, voters, agendas, special interests, and platforms — are the tools that the State uses to forge the chains of slavery for its citizens. The popular fiction of differences between political parties also perpetuates the enduring myth that citizens have only one means of governing themselves — by voting for a proxy. Not only is this notion patently false, the only real winner in the game is the State itself. The entire process consists of nothing more than mass delusion every time an election is held.
Political parties are very useful tools of the State, which is why they exist in the first place. Political parties can accomplish what the nebulous State cannot achieve by itself without bloodshed. Primary missions of political parties include: a.) transferring power from the people to the State; b.) pandering to special interests; c.) seizing and holding power; d.) crushing all competition; e.) fostering and maintaining the illusion that voters are governing themselves; f.) spreading propaganda; g.) demonizing the perceived political enemy of the day; and h.) lending some semblance of legitimacy to the State, however imaginary.
The Founders eschewed political parties, fearing the worst, and rightly so. John F. Bibby writes, “When the founders of the American republic wrote the U.S. Constitution in 1787, they did not envision a role for political parties in the governmental order. Indeed, they sought through various constitutional arrangements such as separation of powers, checks and balances, and indirect election of the president by an electoral college to insulate the new republic from political parties and factions. In spite of the founders’ intentions, the United States was the first nation to develop parties organized on a national basis and to transfer executive power from one faction to another via an election in 1800.” [Emphasis added.]
“Many of America's Founding Fathers hated the thought of political parties, quarreling ‘factions’ they were sure would be more interested in contending with each other than in working for the common good. They wanted individual citizens to vote for individual candidates, without the interference of organized groups — but this was not to be.
“By the 1790s, different views of the new country's proper course had already developed, and those who held these opposing views tried to win support for their cause by banding together . . . . By [1860], parties were well established as the country's dominant political organizations, and party allegiance had become an important part of most people's consciousness. Party loyalty was passed from fathers to sons, and party activities — including spectacular campaign events, complete with uniformed marching groups and torchlight parades — were a part of the social life of many communities.” [Emphasis added.]
Does this sound vaguely familiar? It should because just 60 years later Adolf Hitler used these same American political party methods to great success.
“The 25 points of the NSDAP Program were composed by Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler. They were publicly presented on 24 February 1920 "to a crowd of almost two thousand and every single point was accepted amid jubilant approval.". . . Hitler explained their purpose in the fifth chapter of the second volume of Mein Kampf: The program of the new movement was summed up in a few guiding principles, twenty-five in all. They were devised to give, primarily to the man of the people, a rough picture of the movement's aims. They are in a sense a political creed, which on the one hand recruits for the movement and on the other is suited to unite and weld together by a commonly recognized obligation those who have been recruited.
“Hitler was intent on having a community of mutual interest that desired mutual success instead of one that was divided over the control of money or differing values.
THE COMMON INTEREST BEFORE SELF-INTEREST--THAT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE PROGRAM. BREAKING OF THE THRALDOM OF INTEREST - THAT IS THE KERNEL OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM.
“In these straightforward statements of intent, Hitler translated his ideology into a plan of action which would prove its popularity with the German people throughout the coming years. For many, the abruptness of its departure from the tradition of politics as practiced in the western world was as much of a shock as its liberal nature and foresight of the emerging problems of western democracy.”
Of course, common interest is merely code for special interest and self-interest must fall to party loyalty. Once that is achieved it is a short step to swearing loyalty oaths to the party leader himself.
Propaganda is not only a primary mission of political parties, it is the best means of achieving the political goals of the party, as Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf. The NSDAP was largely successful due to the extensive propaganda machine that it employed.
In 1931, Joseph Goebbels wrote in his “Will and Way” article, “Political methods always presume a political goal. Only when the goal is crystal clear and unchangeable is it possible to determine the foundations of practical work. The means one uses to reach the goal is political will.
“There are a variety of ways to gain power. There are illegal means to gain power through brute force; one can also gain power legally by winning a majority in an election. There are revolutions, Putsches, uprisings. But each of these methods requires a political group to win the sympathies of the broad masses, if it wishes over the long run to maintain its power. But the sympathy of the people does not come of itself; it must be won.
“The means of gaining that support is propaganda . . . . The goal of propaganda is to make what the theorists have discovered clear to the broad masses . . . . The great accomplishment of the National Socialist movement is that it created a synthesis of both elements [will and way] of the art of politics.”
Hitler was among the least likely of individuals to rise to power when he did. He was unimposing, a poor student, flat broke, and a failed painter. He lived like a bum for months on the streets of Vienna and he had no special gifts, other than an ability to speak in public. If not for the NSDAP, he would have gone nowhere. It was a political party that enabled Hitler to rise to power.
"Of what importance is all that, if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape? Let them own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the Party, is supreme over them regardless of whether they are owners or workers. All that is unessential; our socialism goes far deeper. It establishes a relationship of the individual to the State, the national community. Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings." [Emphasis added.]
~ Adolf Hitler to Herman Rauschning in Why Does Socialism Continue to Appeal to Anyone? by Robert Hessen.
Hitler was much smarter than most Americans are today. He at least understood that the political party is the tool that the State uses to forge the chains of slavery for its citizens.
Intellect and Emotions
by Simonne Liberty
EMOTIONAL EDUCATION. Our education system has built a mental image of what education is suppose to entail. Reading, writing and arithmetic has expanded to high tech skills. Academic intelligence has become a major concern in our modern society. Education in our system is viewed as the most important goal for success. Without education a person is lead to believe that all they can face is failure.
This type of view and attitude by the educational leaders of our country puts a band-aid on problems that need to be addressed in order for education to work. There are few two parent, stable and secure families in our society. Most families are plagued by dysfunctional relationships. Alcohol, drug abuse, physical and sexual abuse. Moral break-downs, child neglect and abuse. Single parent homes, and latch key kids. Fear of fatal disease (aids), poverty, homelessness, and hunger. When all these dysfunctional problems affect the majority of children in our society today, how can their educational skills be considered a FIRST PRIORITY in seeking goals for the future?
EMOTIONAL EDUCATION needs to be taught in schools along with academic education, for children to heal as they learn. Children who have to deal with heavy emotional problems at home, can not turn off the emotions when they walk through the front door of the school. High grade point averages and high IQ's are not going to benefit children who are inflicted with deep emotional problems, that are not dealt with.
Domestic violence, sexual and physical abuse, and a high crime rate will continue to escalate among bright and intelligent students who show potential to excel in academic skills, if they are left to fend with emotional struggles that they don't know how to handle. Children will react and respond to the actions that are done to them at home. They may be able to put aside the emotional stress during the school hours, and they may even get by without detection.
A high school diploma or college degree will not heal the hidden wounds that can't heal without treatment. Earning a decent salary for academic achievement may appear to be a sign of success. But when the fears of the past are deeply rooted, they can easily erupt or resurface unexpectedly, or in expected ways. Serial killers often are intelligent human beings who have been twisted emotionally into dangerous monsters. Often the root of problems go way back into a past where emotional problems were never faced, or taken care of. The emotional dysfunction erupts into an evil end.
Many people who physically or sexually abuse their own children or spouces, also may exibit high academic skills. Again, a high IQ is NOT a garantee that the hidden problems of the past will vanish and take care of themselves. The cycle will continue until emotional education is taught and the cycle is broken.
Moral values and concern for others, is not a priority taught in the basic academic program. The issue of "loving one another," is put on the back burner to teach that we live in a COMPETITIVE WORLD. We are taught that everyone has to fight for themselves. That type of reasoning is not going to solve humanistic problems in the world.
Often the need to learn about emotional education drives people to seek this kind of teaching, by religious means. Sometimes religion helps, and other times it only adds to the guilt and shame a person already suffers with. Often a person only becomes more confused, and continues the cycle of shame under the protection of religion. Religion can become a cover for them to live a double life. It is not uncommon. Religion alone is not the answer for all who see relief from the deep dark secrets they were never able to deal with in the past.
The average academic subjects of Math, English, History ect. do not touch a childs "FEELINGS". Feelings are more a part of living than knowing all the answers on an academic exam. When emotions are put aside and neglected, to teach programmed lessons, often those who succeed will be emotionless in dealing with life issues.
Copyright © 2002-2009 Helium, Inc. All rights reserved.
EMOTIONAL EDUCATION. Our education system has built a mental image of what education is suppose to entail. Reading, writing and arithmetic has expanded to high tech skills. Academic intelligence has become a major concern in our modern society. Education in our system is viewed as the most important goal for success. Without education a person is lead to believe that all they can face is failure.
This type of view and attitude by the educational leaders of our country puts a band-aid on problems that need to be addressed in order for education to work. There are few two parent, stable and secure families in our society. Most families are plagued by dysfunctional relationships. Alcohol, drug abuse, physical and sexual abuse. Moral break-downs, child neglect and abuse. Single parent homes, and latch key kids. Fear of fatal disease (aids), poverty, homelessness, and hunger. When all these dysfunctional problems affect the majority of children in our society today, how can their educational skills be considered a FIRST PRIORITY in seeking goals for the future?
EMOTIONAL EDUCATION needs to be taught in schools along with academic education, for children to heal as they learn. Children who have to deal with heavy emotional problems at home, can not turn off the emotions when they walk through the front door of the school. High grade point averages and high IQ's are not going to benefit children who are inflicted with deep emotional problems, that are not dealt with.
Domestic violence, sexual and physical abuse, and a high crime rate will continue to escalate among bright and intelligent students who show potential to excel in academic skills, if they are left to fend with emotional struggles that they don't know how to handle. Children will react and respond to the actions that are done to them at home. They may be able to put aside the emotional stress during the school hours, and they may even get by without detection.
A high school diploma or college degree will not heal the hidden wounds that can't heal without treatment. Earning a decent salary for academic achievement may appear to be a sign of success. But when the fears of the past are deeply rooted, they can easily erupt or resurface unexpectedly, or in expected ways. Serial killers often are intelligent human beings who have been twisted emotionally into dangerous monsters. Often the root of problems go way back into a past where emotional problems were never faced, or taken care of. The emotional dysfunction erupts into an evil end.
Many people who physically or sexually abuse their own children or spouces, also may exibit high academic skills. Again, a high IQ is NOT a garantee that the hidden problems of the past will vanish and take care of themselves. The cycle will continue until emotional education is taught and the cycle is broken.
Moral values and concern for others, is not a priority taught in the basic academic program. The issue of "loving one another," is put on the back burner to teach that we live in a COMPETITIVE WORLD. We are taught that everyone has to fight for themselves. That type of reasoning is not going to solve humanistic problems in the world.
Often the need to learn about emotional education drives people to seek this kind of teaching, by religious means. Sometimes religion helps, and other times it only adds to the guilt and shame a person already suffers with. Often a person only becomes more confused, and continues the cycle of shame under the protection of religion. Religion can become a cover for them to live a double life. It is not uncommon. Religion alone is not the answer for all who see relief from the deep dark secrets they were never able to deal with in the past.
The average academic subjects of Math, English, History ect. do not touch a childs "FEELINGS". Feelings are more a part of living than knowing all the answers on an academic exam. When emotions are put aside and neglected, to teach programmed lessons, often those who succeed will be emotionless in dealing with life issues.
Copyright © 2002-2009 Helium, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
THE NEW CEATIVITY AND THE FEMININE ARCHETYPE
Since 'creativity' and the Feminine Archetype are such integral elements of the 'cultural creatives' trend, and in business in general, Jamie Walters, founder of Ivy Sea, sat down in dialogue with Julie Daley, founder of Creative Wellspring, to discuss just what we're talking about when we say 'creativity' and 'Feminine', and why it's so important right now — both within and beyond the realms of business.
JW: What does 'creativity' mean to you?
JD: It means Self-expression, where "self" has a capital S. It means your highest expression, your highest Self, which I believe is the ultimate goal of being alive is to create and extend your own authenticity in the world. Very much as we were created by the force of the Universe.
JW: For many Westerners, creativity is something that we've been conditioned to see as "a luxury" reserved for only a few — it's kind of like many of the "self-care" or even wellness related practices that have been set aside in favor of the rational, linear, productive, business or material pursuits. Why is it important, and what's the flaw of this Western thinking?
JD: Well, for me, because of how I see creativity, it's absolutely necessary for not only successful life but for a happy life. Our reason for being here is to express from our soul what really matters, so we can't be fully happy and fulfilled at the end of our life unless we've done that. It's just as important as breathing and eating.
I agree there's that flaw in Western thinking. It's also tied in here in the West with the belief that creativity is something that 'some people have' — it has to be an artistic expression. And there's also the belief that people who are 'creative' are kind of 'out there'. So wherever that work ethic came from …
JW: In your observations and experiences, what are some of the general costs of the traditional ways of thinking?
JD: The most important thing is a lot of depression, disconnectedness — both personal and professional — and I would go so far as to say illness, if you look at creativity as an energy, if it's not moving it gets stuck in the body. There's no joy.
Creativity has a lighter side, but a darker side. A full range of expression includes both. We limit what we believe is 'acceptable expression' so a lot of what needs to get expressed it comes out destructively.
JW: I've seen these as well — individually or organizationally — where suppressing one's creativity, intuition, vision, and other traits associated with the Feminine archetype has high costs, including burn-out, less-than-optimal decision-making, putting "blood, sweat and tears" into something that ultimately has no meaning for you, and other things. What about some of the costs to business?
JD: If you look at business, you'll see slower production signs, less true leadership, fewer people stepping up into their own personal leadership. Collaborative work suffers. There's a whole level of judgment placed on people and their expression — what the appropriate expression is, so there's fear of expression.
In business, it's creativity in context — there are boundaries set — but when it's so judged, then it gets bottled up. So this might mean that we believe that we need to keep the whole idea of creativity and the free distribution of ideas cloaked, and that leads to that whole idea of scarcity.
If you believe in the flow of creative ideas, it's more of a generative expression. So if you let it out in one way or place, it's generative and supports creativity in other areas.
With technological advances, we see that information is shared left and right, where as before it was much more difficult. Creativity is the same way — when it's allowed to flow, it can only stimulate more ideas, more creativity, more business, more abundance, than is the case when you "keep it close to you."
JW: If we're talking about new levels of creativity, and new ways of seeing creativity, don't we need to transform existing organizational norms and cultures? After all, most current traditional organizational cultures aren't tolerant of true creativity. In fact, they seem to excise it as soon as it really shows itself as 'creative.' What have you seen in this regard?
JD: The bottom line is that companies say they want a creative environment, but creative environments require collaboration, a movement between actions, idea generation, time spent to say "I don't know, let's look at that." Unfortunately in business these days the mindset is that "any time we spend not producing is not serving the company," but nothing could be further from the truth.
As we've talked about before, there has to be a dance between the Feminine and Masculine archetypes and the traits inherent in those. So much of the Masculine is about pushing out into action, about competing; and sometimes what you have to do requires coming in, collaborating, allowing more time to really open up to the possibilities.
But the predominant business mindset is that we have to produce right away and we don't open up truly to what's possible.
Everything is a wave, but in most organizations and the economy in general, it's seen as a straight line, and it's always supposed to go up — profits are supposed to go up, production is supposed to go up, earnings are supposed to go up. But that's not the way that Nature or creativity works; there's that ebb and flow, up and down, in and out, in order for it to truly be a creative culture.
And I really believe that people know it inside; every body knows inside what feels right, and yet there's so much fear about choosing to be the one who is different.
JW: And now we get to a prevailing issue beneath it all. Fear. Isn't fear a clamp on creativity? So if the culture is a culture of fear, and the leadership style is a style of 'fear-based leadership', doesn't this actually stop the flow of creativity, or the possibilities for creativity to even exist in such a culture?
JD: Yes. For individuals, everyone's creativity is unique, so you are going to be different — that's your nature. We've been trained in school to conform, not to be different. The same is the case in a lot of business environments, yet that's where the creativity happens, when things are uncertain.
And that word — uncertainty — when used in a business environment, generates a lot of fear and horror! With that uncertainty, who knows? Who knows what's going to get generated? You don't, really.
JW: And that goes right into the face of the myth about just how much we control, how much we can will into place by brute force. It goes right in the face of our more rigid or unexplored expectations, doesn't it?
JD: Expectation kills all creativity, it kills all uncertainty. You pull that possibility wave right down to the line. And if that unexpected pops up, then you recoil, pull away.
JW: But even as we pretend that we've planned every bit of uncertainty away, uncertainty is exactly what exists. Change, uncertainty, are the only constants, regardless of the "security lies" we tell ourselves or the games of 'make pretend' we play. And yet creativity thrives in the fields of uncertainty!
JD: Exactly. It's all second to second, moment to moment, and all we can really respond to is what's happening right now, and trust that what happens in the next moment will be the effect of what we've just chosen.
So going back to the statement about our culture, we need to reframe how we see creativity — what does it mean — and how we see uncertainty and change, which gets right to the cultural mythology of just how much we control the world.
We're seeing this with the recent hurricanes in the United States: It makes clear that we don't control the world; we're part of that force, part of that Nature. Sometimes it comes through sweetly, and sometimes that force doesn't come through sweetly.
JW: Charles Johnston, in an article in the May 2005 edition of the IONs journal, Shift, wrote, "The particular challenges ahead require of us a new kind of creativity. The future demands that we bring a new fullness to our lives — new depths in ourselves and new sophistication in our understanding of what it means to be creative. In the end, it will require a maturity in our natures as creative beings that has never before been needed — or possible." What does this bring up for you?
JD: I think it's absolutely what we're being called to do and be. I feel the calling myself. There's such a draw to the word 'creativity' to me. That's the way we have to move if we're to survive.
It's not a creativity that's contained within self, but through presence or in creative community, seeing ourselves as part of the collective, the Spiritual sense of being in community and being creative. We need to allow that creative force to come through us and mix — that's why collaboration is so important.
Everything happens in relationship, and we don't learn that in this culture. We learn that we're individuals, and autonomous, and you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And there is truth to that, but we don't learn that we're connected. We're part of the greater whole.
We need to cultivate collaboration, cultivate ways of being together, cultivate new ways of being together. We've created that capacity for connection with our technology. But our mindsets haven't caught up with the (possibilities of) our technology.
JW: These things — creativity, collaboration, conscious action, co-creating — these all entail a higher level of responsibility than might be comfortable or familiar to us, yes?
JD: Yes, and that's where the responsibility comes into creativity. The response is different, depending on how you're seeing it. If we see ourselves as an individual the response is different; if we see ourselves as part of a collective, that's a different choice. And that collective comes back to us and shows us the possibility!
There is a responsibility to choose love, to choose compassion, to think of the other.
Perhaps if we can increase that ability to respond to everything else in a way that has compassion, understanding and love, there doesn't have to be this sense that I have to control everyone's creativity.
In an organization, how can I set up an environment based on trust of people's ability to create? And how can I allow people to create, and see that they do need to create with responsibility?
So much of that goes to how quickly the Ego wants to judge. But when people are given an opening and see that they're not going to be judged, that natural tendency to create and be part of the collective, to be responsible.
Our nature is to create and to be responsible to the collective! When you shut down that energy, you also shut down the part of the collective connection, and then you see negativity.
JW: And this brings us, then, to 'higher values' of faith and trust, which uncertainty and creativity really require.
JD: Yes, it ultimately comes down to what we trust. The bottom line in business or anywhere is that you have to have trust in your own creativity and that everyone else is creative and that your sense of happiness, success, etc. all get fulfilled.
And ultimately when you have faith in that it allows you to be in that place of uncertainty because you know that you have the tools to respond, to act. And you know that the other person does too.
JW: You included some powerful quotations in your most recent email newsletter: "Tomorrow belongs to women." - Helen Fisher, The First Sex; "Learn not to be careful." - Photographer Diane Arbus to her students; "You can't stand out ... unless ... your heart is in it." - Tom Peters.
Let's talk a little bit about why these have meaning for you in terms of creativity and our experience of "the fullness of life".
JD: For me, what Charles Johnston talks about (in the IONs article that Jamie mentioned earlier) -- that new way of being -- is the Feminine. Collaborative, community, relationship. And I believe it's coming predominantly through women.
As Rainer Maria Rilke says in Letters to a Young Poet, "This humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it. Someday (and even now, especially in the countries of northern Europe, trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining), someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only life and reality: the female human being."
A new femaleness that's no longer in the image of man. That gets to the heart of what Wildly Creative Women is about — re-imagining what it's like to be a woman, to be female.
JW: As compared to what we've learned about what being male or female is supposedly about, which seems a distorted fraction of the true essence, the true potentials and gifts inherent in both genders, and the Masculine and Feminine archetypes which are resident in both genders.
JD: There's nothing outside of us, where we've been trained to look, to show us what that really is. It takes going inside. That Feminine is what's going to keep our world together.
JW: That's exactly what Dannion Brinkley emphasized when I heard him speak a few months ago, and he surely is an example of what happens when circumstances open a man to a greater balance of Masculine and Feminine. As such, he can appreciate and value the Feminine.
He also points to some of the recent aberrations in business or world politics as the result of what happens when the Masculine archetype is too far out of balance and the Feminine is too suppressed.
JD: Right now, much of what we see is what Ego would create — out of fear and scarcity. So it becomes a creative way to control.
But it also goes back to my idea of sexuality, in the fullest sense. You have to trust in your body and its intelligence. You have to trust in your nature as a woman or a man. There are so many false messages and images — they're all fake — so we don't even know what it means to "be our gender".
And we have to go inside to do that, and then go to each other, and reflect that.
JW: That's the "inner work" that allows us to transcend previous limited beliefs, concepts, and ways of seeing and working; and it also allows us to find our creativity, authenticity, vision, and even the courage so that we can "learn not to be careful," as photographer Diane Arbus told her students.
JD: David Kelly, one of my design professors at Stanford, always said: Fail early, fail often. He was talking about rapid prototyping. Getting it out there. But we sit back and we're so careful, because we're "in our heads" not in our bodies or out in action.
Companies want us to be in action, but we're in our heads, thinking of the perfect answer, because failure isn't tolerated. But creativity and being in action invites failure!
Do we not trust our bodies and instincts enough that we'll not know when we will really need to be careful? Careful means to 'have care' not to "stay safe". So it's looking at what we mean by the word 'careful'.
JW: And on the flip side, if the emphasis on safety and conformity nip creativity in the bud, what helps to cultivate creativity and the 'body wisdom' — the instinct and intuition — necessary to go with that flow?
JD: For me, a couple of the most important qualities are wonder and discovery! I love going out and just walking — looking at buildings, people, smelling smells. That idea that around the next corner, what will we find?
You see kids have that and we've lost it. If you're not careful in that "stay safe", it could mean that next great photograph.
What's really going to happen when you take a risk? You might fail. And then we go to what that word means in our society. And it goes back to that whole concept of having to have everything go up, not down, because "going down" or "going back" is failure. But creativity requires failure!
JW: I love Immanuel Wallerstein's comments about the importance of embracing uncertainty in order to allow for creativity and possibility. Wallerstein says, "If everything is uncertain, then the future is open to creativity, not merely human creativity but the creativity of all nature. It is open to possibility, and therefore to a better world. But we can only get there as we are ready to invest our moral energies in its achievement."
Similarly, Deepak Chopra in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success writes, "In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty … in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the Universe."
JD: I believe that it's in the uncertainty that we actually feel most alive. It's the place where our deepest most authentic Being wants to be. And I think we all know that at some level.
Sometimes you feel that excitement about the unknown, the other voice, the fear, is also speaking loudly. Sometimes they go hand in hand. The creative voice that wants the uncertainty, and the fear from the part of us that wants to control and avoid uncertainty is just terrified of uncertainty!
The Ego voice gets louder — keep me safe, keep me safe!
JW: And then that inclination to control comes into play, and shuts things right down, often when you really need creativity, insight, intuition, vision, and possibility opened up.
JD: When we want to control, it's that place of seeing "It's me against the world, me against you," and that so stifles the creative juice that wants to come out.
In the general culture, we see this. I really feel that what we're moving towards this creative, more collaborative place culturally. And you can just see the Ego Voice; the old ways are fighting harder to hang on.
But we really have to listen to that voice that wants to emerge — what wants to emerge — I and we need to allow that and express it.
JW: Those who are creative — who open to their uniqueness and begin to express it or give it voice — go against the grain by stepping up and standing out. That's what many people fear about it, and that's what many bureaucracies or entrenched but out-dated systems find threatening.
JD: Yes. This old cultural paradigm has been around for so long, that feeling about "going against the grain" and that old cultural voice can seem so overwhelming, so that's where that shut-down occurs. Wanting to be part of the tribe — conforming — so I shut down.
That happens in organizations, too, where you see people saying to themselves, "I won't speak up" or "That's a dumb question, so I won't ask it." Things like that. That question is tagging on your shoulder, tugging on your pants to ask it, and you can hear the other voice telling you not to ask, not to speak, not to stand.
JW: And in some of the more entrenched, traditional cultures that really don't deal well with change, uncertainty or creativity — no matter what's said publicly — you see and hear a lot about wanting creativity or entrepreneurial spirit, but what's tolerated really isn't creative at all. It's a form of make-pretend, because real creativity or real entrepreneurial spirit would blow the boundaries of "how things have been done" right out the door!
JD: Sometimes you don't even know you're not being creative; we're so well-conditioned that it feels like you're being creative, but it becomes like a fib.
People want leadership, they want innovative, they want cultural or organizational change. And they know they need it. But all of those things depend on that inner voice — you can't really be a leader unless you hear that inner voice, and you open to what others offer, and then trust enough in your own voice and conviction to act from it.
Companies so often want innovation but they don't want creativity. Because somehow creativity has that bad rap — it's that loose cannon. It's hard to control!
JW: And as we've mentioned, so many people are afraid to see their own passion, their own desire, they're afraid to wake up to that. And yet there's such a great yearning for it. It keeps calling to us, and will, until we finally give it the time of day!
JD: Yes, because what happens when you do that — when you open to that voice of your passion calling to you? You feel! And desire and passion for a lot of people are lined up with the body — sensuality, sexuality — and all of those, culturally, are no-no's.
Passion is a feeling! But without desire and passion, there isn't enough energy to allow for newness, for bigness, for greatness. Desire, hope, excitement — that fuel that carries you to that base of creation. That's the energy!
You don't see a lot of people walking around with that kind of energy. It's more that anxious, stressful kind of energy.
In contrast, that Feminine feeling of being in the body, and feeling passionate about your work. You feel that it's so exciting, and you have so much passion around it, that you're willing to work 12 hours on a project if that's what you want.
People are probably most creative and happy and successful when they are themselves. This is the biggest thing that I've discovered, and it's so simple. If we could be fully ourselves — being fully in our bodies, being intelligent like we all are, being fully me — I will be the happiest most successful member of society, organization, relationship.
JW: And then our organizations, communities, and governments also reflect the very best that each of us has to offer, and are thus more enjoyable, creative, and prosperous. The result is the highest potential of humanity, for the greatest wellness and prosperity of all being — humanity, other beings, the Earth.
THE NEW CEATIVITY AND THE FEMININE ARCHETYPE
http://www.ivysea.com/pages/ldrex_1005_05.html
JW: What does 'creativity' mean to you?
JD: It means Self-expression, where "self" has a capital S. It means your highest expression, your highest Self, which I believe is the ultimate goal of being alive is to create and extend your own authenticity in the world. Very much as we were created by the force of the Universe.
JW: For many Westerners, creativity is something that we've been conditioned to see as "a luxury" reserved for only a few — it's kind of like many of the "self-care" or even wellness related practices that have been set aside in favor of the rational, linear, productive, business or material pursuits. Why is it important, and what's the flaw of this Western thinking?
JD: Well, for me, because of how I see creativity, it's absolutely necessary for not only successful life but for a happy life. Our reason for being here is to express from our soul what really matters, so we can't be fully happy and fulfilled at the end of our life unless we've done that. It's just as important as breathing and eating.
I agree there's that flaw in Western thinking. It's also tied in here in the West with the belief that creativity is something that 'some people have' — it has to be an artistic expression. And there's also the belief that people who are 'creative' are kind of 'out there'. So wherever that work ethic came from …
JW: In your observations and experiences, what are some of the general costs of the traditional ways of thinking?
JD: The most important thing is a lot of depression, disconnectedness — both personal and professional — and I would go so far as to say illness, if you look at creativity as an energy, if it's not moving it gets stuck in the body. There's no joy.
Creativity has a lighter side, but a darker side. A full range of expression includes both. We limit what we believe is 'acceptable expression' so a lot of what needs to get expressed it comes out destructively.
JW: I've seen these as well — individually or organizationally — where suppressing one's creativity, intuition, vision, and other traits associated with the Feminine archetype has high costs, including burn-out, less-than-optimal decision-making, putting "blood, sweat and tears" into something that ultimately has no meaning for you, and other things. What about some of the costs to business?
JD: If you look at business, you'll see slower production signs, less true leadership, fewer people stepping up into their own personal leadership. Collaborative work suffers. There's a whole level of judgment placed on people and their expression — what the appropriate expression is, so there's fear of expression.
In business, it's creativity in context — there are boundaries set — but when it's so judged, then it gets bottled up. So this might mean that we believe that we need to keep the whole idea of creativity and the free distribution of ideas cloaked, and that leads to that whole idea of scarcity.
If you believe in the flow of creative ideas, it's more of a generative expression. So if you let it out in one way or place, it's generative and supports creativity in other areas.
With technological advances, we see that information is shared left and right, where as before it was much more difficult. Creativity is the same way — when it's allowed to flow, it can only stimulate more ideas, more creativity, more business, more abundance, than is the case when you "keep it close to you."
JW: If we're talking about new levels of creativity, and new ways of seeing creativity, don't we need to transform existing organizational norms and cultures? After all, most current traditional organizational cultures aren't tolerant of true creativity. In fact, they seem to excise it as soon as it really shows itself as 'creative.' What have you seen in this regard?
JD: The bottom line is that companies say they want a creative environment, but creative environments require collaboration, a movement between actions, idea generation, time spent to say "I don't know, let's look at that." Unfortunately in business these days the mindset is that "any time we spend not producing is not serving the company," but nothing could be further from the truth.
As we've talked about before, there has to be a dance between the Feminine and Masculine archetypes and the traits inherent in those. So much of the Masculine is about pushing out into action, about competing; and sometimes what you have to do requires coming in, collaborating, allowing more time to really open up to the possibilities.
But the predominant business mindset is that we have to produce right away and we don't open up truly to what's possible.
Everything is a wave, but in most organizations and the economy in general, it's seen as a straight line, and it's always supposed to go up — profits are supposed to go up, production is supposed to go up, earnings are supposed to go up. But that's not the way that Nature or creativity works; there's that ebb and flow, up and down, in and out, in order for it to truly be a creative culture.
And I really believe that people know it inside; every body knows inside what feels right, and yet there's so much fear about choosing to be the one who is different.
JW: And now we get to a prevailing issue beneath it all. Fear. Isn't fear a clamp on creativity? So if the culture is a culture of fear, and the leadership style is a style of 'fear-based leadership', doesn't this actually stop the flow of creativity, or the possibilities for creativity to even exist in such a culture?
JD: Yes. For individuals, everyone's creativity is unique, so you are going to be different — that's your nature. We've been trained in school to conform, not to be different. The same is the case in a lot of business environments, yet that's where the creativity happens, when things are uncertain.
And that word — uncertainty — when used in a business environment, generates a lot of fear and horror! With that uncertainty, who knows? Who knows what's going to get generated? You don't, really.
JW: And that goes right into the face of the myth about just how much we control, how much we can will into place by brute force. It goes right in the face of our more rigid or unexplored expectations, doesn't it?
JD: Expectation kills all creativity, it kills all uncertainty. You pull that possibility wave right down to the line. And if that unexpected pops up, then you recoil, pull away.
JW: But even as we pretend that we've planned every bit of uncertainty away, uncertainty is exactly what exists. Change, uncertainty, are the only constants, regardless of the "security lies" we tell ourselves or the games of 'make pretend' we play. And yet creativity thrives in the fields of uncertainty!
JD: Exactly. It's all second to second, moment to moment, and all we can really respond to is what's happening right now, and trust that what happens in the next moment will be the effect of what we've just chosen.
So going back to the statement about our culture, we need to reframe how we see creativity — what does it mean — and how we see uncertainty and change, which gets right to the cultural mythology of just how much we control the world.
We're seeing this with the recent hurricanes in the United States: It makes clear that we don't control the world; we're part of that force, part of that Nature. Sometimes it comes through sweetly, and sometimes that force doesn't come through sweetly.
JW: Charles Johnston, in an article in the May 2005 edition of the IONs journal, Shift, wrote, "The particular challenges ahead require of us a new kind of creativity. The future demands that we bring a new fullness to our lives — new depths in ourselves and new sophistication in our understanding of what it means to be creative. In the end, it will require a maturity in our natures as creative beings that has never before been needed — or possible." What does this bring up for you?
JD: I think it's absolutely what we're being called to do and be. I feel the calling myself. There's such a draw to the word 'creativity' to me. That's the way we have to move if we're to survive.
It's not a creativity that's contained within self, but through presence or in creative community, seeing ourselves as part of the collective, the Spiritual sense of being in community and being creative. We need to allow that creative force to come through us and mix — that's why collaboration is so important.
Everything happens in relationship, and we don't learn that in this culture. We learn that we're individuals, and autonomous, and you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And there is truth to that, but we don't learn that we're connected. We're part of the greater whole.
We need to cultivate collaboration, cultivate ways of being together, cultivate new ways of being together. We've created that capacity for connection with our technology. But our mindsets haven't caught up with the (possibilities of) our technology.
JW: These things — creativity, collaboration, conscious action, co-creating — these all entail a higher level of responsibility than might be comfortable or familiar to us, yes?
JD: Yes, and that's where the responsibility comes into creativity. The response is different, depending on how you're seeing it. If we see ourselves as an individual the response is different; if we see ourselves as part of a collective, that's a different choice. And that collective comes back to us and shows us the possibility!
There is a responsibility to choose love, to choose compassion, to think of the other.
Perhaps if we can increase that ability to respond to everything else in a way that has compassion, understanding and love, there doesn't have to be this sense that I have to control everyone's creativity.
In an organization, how can I set up an environment based on trust of people's ability to create? And how can I allow people to create, and see that they do need to create with responsibility?
So much of that goes to how quickly the Ego wants to judge. But when people are given an opening and see that they're not going to be judged, that natural tendency to create and be part of the collective, to be responsible.
Our nature is to create and to be responsible to the collective! When you shut down that energy, you also shut down the part of the collective connection, and then you see negativity.
JW: And this brings us, then, to 'higher values' of faith and trust, which uncertainty and creativity really require.
JD: Yes, it ultimately comes down to what we trust. The bottom line in business or anywhere is that you have to have trust in your own creativity and that everyone else is creative and that your sense of happiness, success, etc. all get fulfilled.
And ultimately when you have faith in that it allows you to be in that place of uncertainty because you know that you have the tools to respond, to act. And you know that the other person does too.
JW: You included some powerful quotations in your most recent email newsletter: "Tomorrow belongs to women." - Helen Fisher, The First Sex; "Learn not to be careful." - Photographer Diane Arbus to her students; "You can't stand out ... unless ... your heart is in it." - Tom Peters.
Let's talk a little bit about why these have meaning for you in terms of creativity and our experience of "the fullness of life".
JD: For me, what Charles Johnston talks about (in the IONs article that Jamie mentioned earlier) -- that new way of being -- is the Feminine. Collaborative, community, relationship. And I believe it's coming predominantly through women.
As Rainer Maria Rilke says in Letters to a Young Poet, "This humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it. Someday (and even now, especially in the countries of northern Europe, trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining), someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only life and reality: the female human being."
A new femaleness that's no longer in the image of man. That gets to the heart of what Wildly Creative Women is about — re-imagining what it's like to be a woman, to be female.
JW: As compared to what we've learned about what being male or female is supposedly about, which seems a distorted fraction of the true essence, the true potentials and gifts inherent in both genders, and the Masculine and Feminine archetypes which are resident in both genders.
JD: There's nothing outside of us, where we've been trained to look, to show us what that really is. It takes going inside. That Feminine is what's going to keep our world together.
JW: That's exactly what Dannion Brinkley emphasized when I heard him speak a few months ago, and he surely is an example of what happens when circumstances open a man to a greater balance of Masculine and Feminine. As such, he can appreciate and value the Feminine.
He also points to some of the recent aberrations in business or world politics as the result of what happens when the Masculine archetype is too far out of balance and the Feminine is too suppressed.
JD: Right now, much of what we see is what Ego would create — out of fear and scarcity. So it becomes a creative way to control.
But it also goes back to my idea of sexuality, in the fullest sense. You have to trust in your body and its intelligence. You have to trust in your nature as a woman or a man. There are so many false messages and images — they're all fake — so we don't even know what it means to "be our gender".
And we have to go inside to do that, and then go to each other, and reflect that.
JW: That's the "inner work" that allows us to transcend previous limited beliefs, concepts, and ways of seeing and working; and it also allows us to find our creativity, authenticity, vision, and even the courage so that we can "learn not to be careful," as photographer Diane Arbus told her students.
JD: David Kelly, one of my design professors at Stanford, always said: Fail early, fail often. He was talking about rapid prototyping. Getting it out there. But we sit back and we're so careful, because we're "in our heads" not in our bodies or out in action.
Companies want us to be in action, but we're in our heads, thinking of the perfect answer, because failure isn't tolerated. But creativity and being in action invites failure!
Do we not trust our bodies and instincts enough that we'll not know when we will really need to be careful? Careful means to 'have care' not to "stay safe". So it's looking at what we mean by the word 'careful'.
JW: And on the flip side, if the emphasis on safety and conformity nip creativity in the bud, what helps to cultivate creativity and the 'body wisdom' — the instinct and intuition — necessary to go with that flow?
JD: For me, a couple of the most important qualities are wonder and discovery! I love going out and just walking — looking at buildings, people, smelling smells. That idea that around the next corner, what will we find?
You see kids have that and we've lost it. If you're not careful in that "stay safe", it could mean that next great photograph.
What's really going to happen when you take a risk? You might fail. And then we go to what that word means in our society. And it goes back to that whole concept of having to have everything go up, not down, because "going down" or "going back" is failure. But creativity requires failure!
JW: I love Immanuel Wallerstein's comments about the importance of embracing uncertainty in order to allow for creativity and possibility. Wallerstein says, "If everything is uncertain, then the future is open to creativity, not merely human creativity but the creativity of all nature. It is open to possibility, and therefore to a better world. But we can only get there as we are ready to invest our moral energies in its achievement."
Similarly, Deepak Chopra in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success writes, "In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty … in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the Universe."
JD: I believe that it's in the uncertainty that we actually feel most alive. It's the place where our deepest most authentic Being wants to be. And I think we all know that at some level.
Sometimes you feel that excitement about the unknown, the other voice, the fear, is also speaking loudly. Sometimes they go hand in hand. The creative voice that wants the uncertainty, and the fear from the part of us that wants to control and avoid uncertainty is just terrified of uncertainty!
The Ego voice gets louder — keep me safe, keep me safe!
JW: And then that inclination to control comes into play, and shuts things right down, often when you really need creativity, insight, intuition, vision, and possibility opened up.
JD: When we want to control, it's that place of seeing "It's me against the world, me against you," and that so stifles the creative juice that wants to come out.
In the general culture, we see this. I really feel that what we're moving towards this creative, more collaborative place culturally. And you can just see the Ego Voice; the old ways are fighting harder to hang on.
But we really have to listen to that voice that wants to emerge — what wants to emerge — I and we need to allow that and express it.
JW: Those who are creative — who open to their uniqueness and begin to express it or give it voice — go against the grain by stepping up and standing out. That's what many people fear about it, and that's what many bureaucracies or entrenched but out-dated systems find threatening.
JD: Yes. This old cultural paradigm has been around for so long, that feeling about "going against the grain" and that old cultural voice can seem so overwhelming, so that's where that shut-down occurs. Wanting to be part of the tribe — conforming — so I shut down.
That happens in organizations, too, where you see people saying to themselves, "I won't speak up" or "That's a dumb question, so I won't ask it." Things like that. That question is tagging on your shoulder, tugging on your pants to ask it, and you can hear the other voice telling you not to ask, not to speak, not to stand.
JW: And in some of the more entrenched, traditional cultures that really don't deal well with change, uncertainty or creativity — no matter what's said publicly — you see and hear a lot about wanting creativity or entrepreneurial spirit, but what's tolerated really isn't creative at all. It's a form of make-pretend, because real creativity or real entrepreneurial spirit would blow the boundaries of "how things have been done" right out the door!
JD: Sometimes you don't even know you're not being creative; we're so well-conditioned that it feels like you're being creative, but it becomes like a fib.
People want leadership, they want innovative, they want cultural or organizational change. And they know they need it. But all of those things depend on that inner voice — you can't really be a leader unless you hear that inner voice, and you open to what others offer, and then trust enough in your own voice and conviction to act from it.
Companies so often want innovation but they don't want creativity. Because somehow creativity has that bad rap — it's that loose cannon. It's hard to control!
JW: And as we've mentioned, so many people are afraid to see their own passion, their own desire, they're afraid to wake up to that. And yet there's such a great yearning for it. It keeps calling to us, and will, until we finally give it the time of day!
JD: Yes, because what happens when you do that — when you open to that voice of your passion calling to you? You feel! And desire and passion for a lot of people are lined up with the body — sensuality, sexuality — and all of those, culturally, are no-no's.
Passion is a feeling! But without desire and passion, there isn't enough energy to allow for newness, for bigness, for greatness. Desire, hope, excitement — that fuel that carries you to that base of creation. That's the energy!
You don't see a lot of people walking around with that kind of energy. It's more that anxious, stressful kind of energy.
In contrast, that Feminine feeling of being in the body, and feeling passionate about your work. You feel that it's so exciting, and you have so much passion around it, that you're willing to work 12 hours on a project if that's what you want.
People are probably most creative and happy and successful when they are themselves. This is the biggest thing that I've discovered, and it's so simple. If we could be fully ourselves — being fully in our bodies, being intelligent like we all are, being fully me — I will be the happiest most successful member of society, organization, relationship.
JW: And then our organizations, communities, and governments also reflect the very best that each of us has to offer, and are thus more enjoyable, creative, and prosperous. The result is the highest potential of humanity, for the greatest wellness and prosperity of all being — humanity, other beings, the Earth.
THE NEW CEATIVITY AND THE FEMININE ARCHETYPE
http://www.ivysea.com/pages/ldrex_1005_05.html
United States Cohabitation Laws
Background
The law has not traditionally looked favorably upon individuals living together outside marriage. However, the law in this area has changed considerably in the past 40 years, and cohabitation has increased dramatically. In 1970, about 530,000 couples reportedly lived together outside marriage. This number increased to 1.6 million in 1980, 2.9 million in 1990, 4.2 million in 1998, and 5.5 million in 2000.
In some respects, unmarried cohabitation can be beneficial from a legal standpoint. Unmarried partners may define the terms of their relationship without being bound by marriage laws that can restrict the marriage relationship. When a relationship ends, unmarried cohabitants need not follow strict procedures to dissolve the living arrangement. Moreover, unmarried couples can avoid the so-called "marriage tax" in the Internal Revenue Code that provides a greater tax rate for unmarried couples than it does for two unmarried individuals (notwithstanding efforts to eliminate this penalty).
On the other hand, unmarried cohabitants do not enjoy the same rights as married individuals, particularly with respect to property acquired during a relationship. Marital property laws do not apply to unmarried couples, even in long-term relationships. Moreover, laws regarding distribution of property of one spouse to another at death do not apply to unmarried couples. Children of unmarried couples have traditionally not been afforded the same rights as children of married couples, though most of these laws have now been revised to avoid unfairness towards offspring.
A fairly recent trend among both heterosexual and homosexual couples who live together is to enter into contracts that provide rights to both parties that are similar to rights enjoyed by married couples. In fact, many family law experts now recommend that unmarried cohabitants enter into such arrangements. Further changes in the laws may also afford greater rights to unmarried partners who live together. However, such arrangements may be invalid in some states, particularly where the contract is based on the sexual relationship of the parties.
Unmarried Cohabitation Compared with Marriage
Family laws related to marriage simply do not apply to unmarried couples. More specifically, marriage creates a legal status between two individuals that gives rise to certain rights to both parties and to the union generally. Unmarried cohabitants do not enjoy this status and do not enjoy many of the rights afforded to married couples. Thus, if a couple is married for two years, and a spouse dies, the other spouse is most likely entitled to receive property, insurance benefits, death benefits, etc., from the other spouse's estate. If an unmarried couple lives together for 20 years, and one partner dies, the other is not guaranteed any property or benefits.
Though many groups support legal reforms providing protection to unmarried cohabitants that would be analogous to laws governing marriage, very few such laws exist today. Unmarried cohabitants need to know what laws do exist in their state and cities and know what their options are regarding contractual agreements that may provide themselves rights that are analogous to marital rights.
Criminal Statutes
Laws prohibiting cohabitation and sexual relations outside marriage were very common until about the1970s. Though most of these laws have been repealed or are no longer enforced, they still exist in some state statutes. Eight states still have laws prohibiting cohabitation, which is usually defined as two individuals living together as husband and wife without being legally married. Nine states prohibit fornication, which is usually defined as consensual sexual intercourse outside marriage. More than 15 states prohibit sodomy, which includes any "unnatural" sexual activity, such as anal or oral sex. Several of these statutes apply specifically to homosexual activity.
While most of these criminal laws are clearly antiquated, they are sometimes enforced. In the United States Supreme Court case of Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986, the court upheld the enforcement of a criminal statute prohibiting sodomy between two homosexual men. Criminal statutes proscribing private sexual activity do not violate the federal constitution under Bowers, though some state courts have held that similar statutes are unconstitutional under the relevant state constitutions.
Legal Status and Discrimination
A person living as an unmarried cohabitant with another might face some form of discrimination. For example, an employer may expressly forbid employees from living together outside marriage and may terminate the employment of an employee who does cohabit with someone else outside marriage. Such discrimination in employment is not generally forbidden, either under federal law or under the laws of most states. Some state cases have, however, upheld the rights of individuals' cohabiting outside wedlock.
Acquisition of Property
Marital and community property laws govern the ownership of property acquired during a marriage. The characterization of property acquired by unmarried cohabitants is less clear. Some property acquired by unmarried couples may be owned jointly, but it may be difficult to divide such property when the relationship ends. Similarly, if one partner has debt problems, a creditor may seek to attach property owned jointly by both partners as if the partner owing the debt solely owned the property. Problems such as these are even more complicated if one partner dies without a will, since the surviving partner has no right to the other partner's property unless the property is devised to the surviving partner.
Children
Children born out of wedlock have not traditionally enjoyed the same legal protections as children born in wedlock. Such children were historically referred to as "bastards" in a legal context. Though many restrictions on illegitimate children have been repealed, legitimate (or legitimated) children still enjoy some rights that frustrate illegitimate children. This discrepancy is particularly clear with respect to inheritance. In most states, a child born in wedlock does not need to establish paternity to recover from the father. However, a child born out of wedlock generally must establish paternity before he or she can recover from the father.
Adoption
State laws have traditionally prevented unmarried couples from adopting children. Though some states have begun permitting unmarried couples to adopt, these couples still face difficulties. Married couples, on the other hand, are permitted to adopt and are usually preferred over unmarried individuals.
Eligibility for Benefits
Recent changes of policy by insurance companies permit unmarried couples to purchase life insurance policies on the life of the other partner or jointly purchase homeowners' insurance on a house owned by both partners. However, an unmarried couple will often have more trouble jointly obtaining automobile insurance covering an automobile owned by both partners. Similarly, unmarried couples continue to face serious problems with respect to health insurance family coverage paid or co-paid by an employer. A recent trend among some states, municipalities, and private employers is to extend benefits to registered "domestic partners."
Recognition of Domestic Partners
Several states and municipalities have adopted a system whereby unmarried cohabitants (heterosexual or homosexual) may register as "domestic partners." Other states and municipalities permit domestic partners to recover benefits. These classifications provide some rights that are analogous to marital rights, though these rights are certainly limited. The greatest benefit in registering as domestic partners is that each partner enjoys insurance coverage, family leave, and retirement benefits similar to married couples, though these rights are considerably more restricted than rights afforded to married couples. However, these rights are not generally recognized outside the jurisdiction that permits registration of domestic partners.
Common Law Marriages
A minority of states continues to recognize common law, or informal, marriages. Such a marriage requires more than mere cohabitation between a man and a woman. The couple generally must agree to enter into a martial arrangement, must cohabit with one another, and must hold themselves out as husband and wife to others. Parties that enter into such marriages enjoy the same rights as couples married in a formal ceremony, including rights related to insurance and other benefits, property distribution on dissolution of the marriage, and distribution of property upon the death of one spouse.
Proof that the marriage exists is often the most difficult aspect of a common law marriage, and this issue often arises after the relationship has ended either in death or divorce. For example, the question of whether a common law marriage exists may arise after one of the partners in a relationship dies and the other seeks to prove that the partners were informally married to receive property through the other partner's estate. Similarly, when a relationship ends, a partner may seek to prove that an informal marriage exists in order to seek property distribution under marital or community property laws.
Though a minority of states recognizes common law marriages, all states will recognize the validity of a common law marriage if it is recognized in the state where the parties reside, agreed to be married, and hold themselves out as husband and wife. Common law marriages apply only to partners who are members of the opposite sex.
Contracts Between Unmarried Cohabitants
Validity
Unmarried cohabitants can provide rights to one another that are analogous to rights granted to married couples by entering into a contract or contracts with one another. The validity of such agreements was the subject of the well-publicized case of Marvin v. Marvin in the California Supreme Court. In this case, the court held that an express or implied agreement between a couple living together outside wedlock to share income in consideration of companionship could be legally enforceable. The majority of states now recognizes these agreements, though many require that the agreement be in writing. Only a small number of recent cases have held that contracts between unmarried cohabitants are unenforceable.
When an agreement expressly includes consideration of sexual services provided by one of the parties, a court is more likely to find the contract unenforceable. For example, if one partner agrees to share his or her income in return for the other partner's love and companionship, a court may find that the contract implicates meretricious sexual activity and refuses to enforce the contract. Proving an oral agreement or an implied contract between unmarried cohabitants is also difficult, and several courts have refused to recognize such an agreement due to lack of proof.
Provisions of Written Cohabitation Agreements
Written cohabitation agreements usually involve financial and property arrangements. Parties can provide arrangements analogous to community or marital property laws or can provide other arrangements that are more favorable to the couple. Parties should consult with a lawyer prior to entering into such an agreement to ensure that the provisions are enforceable.
Wills and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care
Nothing prevents unmarried cohabitants from leaving estate property to the other partner upon death in a will. Alternatively, intestate succession laws may not provide that any of the property will pass from one cohabitant to another, since intestacy laws are limited to marital and other family relationships. A fellow cohabitant might be able to get a share of the intestate's estate by arguing that the parties entered into a financial or property-sharing arrangement, though such claims are often difficult to prove. A will is generally the best method to ensure that a partner's property is given to the person he or she designates.
Another complicated situation can arise if one cohabitant is disabled and requires a guardian. To ensure that one partner is named guardian or is otherwise able to make decisions for the other partner, the parties can prepare a document providing durable power of attorney to the other partner. Under this arrangement, the person granted durable power of attorney could make healthcare decisions for the disabled person. Similarly, a party can draft a living will (also called a healthcare directive) that dictates the wishes of the party regarding life-prolonging treatments.
State and Local Provisions Regarding Cohabitation
Sixteen states recognize common law marriages, though several of these states have repealed their laws and only recognize these marriages entered into prior to a certain date. Several states and municipalities now recognize domestic relations rights, providing a registry, extension of benefits, or both. Unmarried cohabitants should check with the state and local laws in their jurisdictions to determine what rights may be available to them.
ALABAMA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
ALASKA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
ARIZONA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The cities of Phoenix and Tucson extend benefits to domestic partners.
ARKANSAS: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
CALIFORNIA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The following cities and counties extend benefits to domestic partners: Alameda County, Berkeley, Laguna Beach, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, Marin County, Oakland, Petaluma, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Francisco County, San Mateo County, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County, Ventura County, West Hollywood. The following cities and counties offer domestic partner registries: Arcata, Berkeley, Cathedral City, Davis, Laguna Beach, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, Oakland, Palo Alto, Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Barbara County, and West Hollywood.
COLORADO: The state recognizes common law marriages. The city of Denver extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
CONNECTICUT: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners. The city of Hartford extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
DELAWARE: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
FLORIDA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Broward County extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry. The city of West Palm Beach extends benefits to domestic partners.
GEORGIA: The state recognizes common law marriages entered into before January 1, 1997. The city of Atlanta extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
HAWAII: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
IDAHO: The state recognizes common law marriages enter into before January 1, 1996. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
ILLINOIS: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Chicago and Cook County extend benefits to domestic partners. The city of Oak Park extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
INDIANA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Bloomington extends benefits to domestic partners.
IOWA: The state recognizes common law marriages. The city of Iowa City extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
KANSAS: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
KENTUCKY: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
LOUISIANA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of New Orleans extends benefits to domestic partners.
MAINE: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Portland extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
MARYLAND: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The cities of Baltimore and Takoma Park and Montgomery County extend benefits to domestic partners.
MASSACHUSETTES: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The following cities extend benefits to domestic partners: Boston, Brewster, Brookline, Nantucket, Provincetown, and Springfield. The following cities provide domestic partner registries: Boston, Brewster, Brookline, Cambridge, Nantucket, and Northampton.
MICHIGAN: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Kalamazoo, Washtenaw County, and Wayne County extend benefits to domestic partners. The cities of Ann Arbor and East Lansing extend benefits to domestic partners and provide a domestic partner registry.
MINNESOTA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Minneapolis extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
MISSISSIPPI: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
MISSOURI: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of St. Louis provides a domestic partner registry.
MONTANA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEBRASKA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEVADA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: The state recognizes common law marriages but only for inheritance purposes. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEW JERSEY: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Delaware extends benefits to domestic partners.
NEW MEXICO: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Albuquerque extends benefits to domestic partners.
NEW YORK: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The following cities and counties extend benefits to domestic partners: Brighton, Eastchester, Ithaca, New York City, Rochester, and West-chester County. The following cities provide domestic partner registries: Albany, Ithaca, New York City, and Rochester.
NORTH CAROLINA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Chapel Hill extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry. The city of Carrboro also provides a domestic partner registry.
NORTH DAKOTA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
OHIO: The state recognizes common law marriages entered into prior to October 10, 1991. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
OKLAHOMA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
OREGON: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners. The city of Portland and Multnomah County extend benefits to domestic partners. The city of Ashland provides a domestic partner registry.
PENNSYLVANIA: The state recognizes common law marriages. The city of Philadelphia extends benefits to domestic partners.
RHODE ISLAND: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
SOUTH CAROLINA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
TENNESSEE: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
TEXAS: The state recognizes common law marriages. Travis County extends benefits to domestic partners.
UTAH: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
VERMONT: The state is the first to recognize "civil unions," which extends rights to homosexual partners that are similar to rights granted to married couples. The state also extends benefits to domestic partners. The state does not recognize common law marriages.
VIRGINIA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Arlington County extends benefits to domestic partners.
WASHINGTON: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners. The cities of Olympia and Tumwater and King County extend benefits to domestic partners. The city of Lacey provides a domestic partner registry. The city of Seattle extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
WEST VIRGINIA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
WISCONSIN: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Madison extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry. The city of Sherwood Hills Village and Dane County extend benefits to domestic relations. The city of Milwaukee provides a domestic partner registry.
WYOMING: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
Additional Resources
Cohabitation: Law, Practice, and Precedent, Second Edition. Wood, Helen, Denzil Lush, and David Bishop, 2001.
Family Law in a Nutshell. Krause, Harry D., West Publishing, 1995.
The Living Together Kit: A Legal Guide to Unmarried Couples, Ninth Edition. Ihara, Toni, Ralph Warner and Frederick Hertz, Nolo Press, 1999.
Understanding Family Law, Second Edition. DeWitt, John, Gregory, Peter N. Swisher, and Sheryl L. Wolf, LexisNexis, 2001.
Unmarried Couples and the Law. Douthwaite, Graham, Allen Smith Company, 1979.
Organizations
Alternatives to Marriage Project
P.O. Box 991010
Boston, MA 02199 USA
Phone: (781) 793-0296
Fax: (781) 394-6625
URL: http://www.unmarried.org/
E-Mail: atmp@unmarried.org
American Association for Single People (AASP)
415 E. Harvard Street
Suite 204
Glendale, CA 91205 USA
Phone: (818) 242-5100
URL: http://www.singlesrights.com
E-Mail: unmarried@earthlink.net
Primary Contact: Thomas F. Coleman, Executive Director
Focus on the Family
Colorado Springs, CO 80995 USA
Phone: (719) 531-3328
Fax: (719) 531-3424
URL: http://www.family.org/
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund
120 Wall Street, Suite 1500
New York, NY 10005-3904 USA
Phone: (212) 809-8585
Fax: (212) 809-0055
URL: http://www.lambdalegal.org
The law has not traditionally looked favorably upon individuals living together outside marriage. However, the law in this area has changed considerably in the past 40 years, and cohabitation has increased dramatically. In 1970, about 530,000 couples reportedly lived together outside marriage. This number increased to 1.6 million in 1980, 2.9 million in 1990, 4.2 million in 1998, and 5.5 million in 2000.
In some respects, unmarried cohabitation can be beneficial from a legal standpoint. Unmarried partners may define the terms of their relationship without being bound by marriage laws that can restrict the marriage relationship. When a relationship ends, unmarried cohabitants need not follow strict procedures to dissolve the living arrangement. Moreover, unmarried couples can avoid the so-called "marriage tax" in the Internal Revenue Code that provides a greater tax rate for unmarried couples than it does for two unmarried individuals (notwithstanding efforts to eliminate this penalty).
On the other hand, unmarried cohabitants do not enjoy the same rights as married individuals, particularly with respect to property acquired during a relationship. Marital property laws do not apply to unmarried couples, even in long-term relationships. Moreover, laws regarding distribution of property of one spouse to another at death do not apply to unmarried couples. Children of unmarried couples have traditionally not been afforded the same rights as children of married couples, though most of these laws have now been revised to avoid unfairness towards offspring.
A fairly recent trend among both heterosexual and homosexual couples who live together is to enter into contracts that provide rights to both parties that are similar to rights enjoyed by married couples. In fact, many family law experts now recommend that unmarried cohabitants enter into such arrangements. Further changes in the laws may also afford greater rights to unmarried partners who live together. However, such arrangements may be invalid in some states, particularly where the contract is based on the sexual relationship of the parties.
Unmarried Cohabitation Compared with Marriage
Family laws related to marriage simply do not apply to unmarried couples. More specifically, marriage creates a legal status between two individuals that gives rise to certain rights to both parties and to the union generally. Unmarried cohabitants do not enjoy this status and do not enjoy many of the rights afforded to married couples. Thus, if a couple is married for two years, and a spouse dies, the other spouse is most likely entitled to receive property, insurance benefits, death benefits, etc., from the other spouse's estate. If an unmarried couple lives together for 20 years, and one partner dies, the other is not guaranteed any property or benefits.
Though many groups support legal reforms providing protection to unmarried cohabitants that would be analogous to laws governing marriage, very few such laws exist today. Unmarried cohabitants need to know what laws do exist in their state and cities and know what their options are regarding contractual agreements that may provide themselves rights that are analogous to marital rights.
Criminal Statutes
Laws prohibiting cohabitation and sexual relations outside marriage were very common until about the1970s. Though most of these laws have been repealed or are no longer enforced, they still exist in some state statutes. Eight states still have laws prohibiting cohabitation, which is usually defined as two individuals living together as husband and wife without being legally married. Nine states prohibit fornication, which is usually defined as consensual sexual intercourse outside marriage. More than 15 states prohibit sodomy, which includes any "unnatural" sexual activity, such as anal or oral sex. Several of these statutes apply specifically to homosexual activity.
While most of these criminal laws are clearly antiquated, they are sometimes enforced. In the United States Supreme Court case of Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986, the court upheld the enforcement of a criminal statute prohibiting sodomy between two homosexual men. Criminal statutes proscribing private sexual activity do not violate the federal constitution under Bowers, though some state courts have held that similar statutes are unconstitutional under the relevant state constitutions.
Legal Status and Discrimination
A person living as an unmarried cohabitant with another might face some form of discrimination. For example, an employer may expressly forbid employees from living together outside marriage and may terminate the employment of an employee who does cohabit with someone else outside marriage. Such discrimination in employment is not generally forbidden, either under federal law or under the laws of most states. Some state cases have, however, upheld the rights of individuals' cohabiting outside wedlock.
Acquisition of Property
Marital and community property laws govern the ownership of property acquired during a marriage. The characterization of property acquired by unmarried cohabitants is less clear. Some property acquired by unmarried couples may be owned jointly, but it may be difficult to divide such property when the relationship ends. Similarly, if one partner has debt problems, a creditor may seek to attach property owned jointly by both partners as if the partner owing the debt solely owned the property. Problems such as these are even more complicated if one partner dies without a will, since the surviving partner has no right to the other partner's property unless the property is devised to the surviving partner.
Children
Children born out of wedlock have not traditionally enjoyed the same legal protections as children born in wedlock. Such children were historically referred to as "bastards" in a legal context. Though many restrictions on illegitimate children have been repealed, legitimate (or legitimated) children still enjoy some rights that frustrate illegitimate children. This discrepancy is particularly clear with respect to inheritance. In most states, a child born in wedlock does not need to establish paternity to recover from the father. However, a child born out of wedlock generally must establish paternity before he or she can recover from the father.
Adoption
State laws have traditionally prevented unmarried couples from adopting children. Though some states have begun permitting unmarried couples to adopt, these couples still face difficulties. Married couples, on the other hand, are permitted to adopt and are usually preferred over unmarried individuals.
Eligibility for Benefits
Recent changes of policy by insurance companies permit unmarried couples to purchase life insurance policies on the life of the other partner or jointly purchase homeowners' insurance on a house owned by both partners. However, an unmarried couple will often have more trouble jointly obtaining automobile insurance covering an automobile owned by both partners. Similarly, unmarried couples continue to face serious problems with respect to health insurance family coverage paid or co-paid by an employer. A recent trend among some states, municipalities, and private employers is to extend benefits to registered "domestic partners."
Recognition of Domestic Partners
Several states and municipalities have adopted a system whereby unmarried cohabitants (heterosexual or homosexual) may register as "domestic partners." Other states and municipalities permit domestic partners to recover benefits. These classifications provide some rights that are analogous to marital rights, though these rights are certainly limited. The greatest benefit in registering as domestic partners is that each partner enjoys insurance coverage, family leave, and retirement benefits similar to married couples, though these rights are considerably more restricted than rights afforded to married couples. However, these rights are not generally recognized outside the jurisdiction that permits registration of domestic partners.
Common Law Marriages
A minority of states continues to recognize common law, or informal, marriages. Such a marriage requires more than mere cohabitation between a man and a woman. The couple generally must agree to enter into a martial arrangement, must cohabit with one another, and must hold themselves out as husband and wife to others. Parties that enter into such marriages enjoy the same rights as couples married in a formal ceremony, including rights related to insurance and other benefits, property distribution on dissolution of the marriage, and distribution of property upon the death of one spouse.
Proof that the marriage exists is often the most difficult aspect of a common law marriage, and this issue often arises after the relationship has ended either in death or divorce. For example, the question of whether a common law marriage exists may arise after one of the partners in a relationship dies and the other seeks to prove that the partners were informally married to receive property through the other partner's estate. Similarly, when a relationship ends, a partner may seek to prove that an informal marriage exists in order to seek property distribution under marital or community property laws.
Though a minority of states recognizes common law marriages, all states will recognize the validity of a common law marriage if it is recognized in the state where the parties reside, agreed to be married, and hold themselves out as husband and wife. Common law marriages apply only to partners who are members of the opposite sex.
Contracts Between Unmarried Cohabitants
Validity
Unmarried cohabitants can provide rights to one another that are analogous to rights granted to married couples by entering into a contract or contracts with one another. The validity of such agreements was the subject of the well-publicized case of Marvin v. Marvin in the California Supreme Court. In this case, the court held that an express or implied agreement between a couple living together outside wedlock to share income in consideration of companionship could be legally enforceable. The majority of states now recognizes these agreements, though many require that the agreement be in writing. Only a small number of recent cases have held that contracts between unmarried cohabitants are unenforceable.
When an agreement expressly includes consideration of sexual services provided by one of the parties, a court is more likely to find the contract unenforceable. For example, if one partner agrees to share his or her income in return for the other partner's love and companionship, a court may find that the contract implicates meretricious sexual activity and refuses to enforce the contract. Proving an oral agreement or an implied contract between unmarried cohabitants is also difficult, and several courts have refused to recognize such an agreement due to lack of proof.
Provisions of Written Cohabitation Agreements
Written cohabitation agreements usually involve financial and property arrangements. Parties can provide arrangements analogous to community or marital property laws or can provide other arrangements that are more favorable to the couple. Parties should consult with a lawyer prior to entering into such an agreement to ensure that the provisions are enforceable.
Wills and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care
Nothing prevents unmarried cohabitants from leaving estate property to the other partner upon death in a will. Alternatively, intestate succession laws may not provide that any of the property will pass from one cohabitant to another, since intestacy laws are limited to marital and other family relationships. A fellow cohabitant might be able to get a share of the intestate's estate by arguing that the parties entered into a financial or property-sharing arrangement, though such claims are often difficult to prove. A will is generally the best method to ensure that a partner's property is given to the person he or she designates.
Another complicated situation can arise if one cohabitant is disabled and requires a guardian. To ensure that one partner is named guardian or is otherwise able to make decisions for the other partner, the parties can prepare a document providing durable power of attorney to the other partner. Under this arrangement, the person granted durable power of attorney could make healthcare decisions for the disabled person. Similarly, a party can draft a living will (also called a healthcare directive) that dictates the wishes of the party regarding life-prolonging treatments.
State and Local Provisions Regarding Cohabitation
Sixteen states recognize common law marriages, though several of these states have repealed their laws and only recognize these marriages entered into prior to a certain date. Several states and municipalities now recognize domestic relations rights, providing a registry, extension of benefits, or both. Unmarried cohabitants should check with the state and local laws in their jurisdictions to determine what rights may be available to them.
ALABAMA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
ALASKA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
ARIZONA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The cities of Phoenix and Tucson extend benefits to domestic partners.
ARKANSAS: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
CALIFORNIA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The following cities and counties extend benefits to domestic partners: Alameda County, Berkeley, Laguna Beach, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, Marin County, Oakland, Petaluma, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Francisco County, San Mateo County, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County, Ventura County, West Hollywood. The following cities and counties offer domestic partner registries: Arcata, Berkeley, Cathedral City, Davis, Laguna Beach, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, Oakland, Palo Alto, Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Barbara County, and West Hollywood.
COLORADO: The state recognizes common law marriages. The city of Denver extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
CONNECTICUT: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners. The city of Hartford extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
DELAWARE: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
FLORIDA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Broward County extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry. The city of West Palm Beach extends benefits to domestic partners.
GEORGIA: The state recognizes common law marriages entered into before January 1, 1997. The city of Atlanta extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
HAWAII: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
IDAHO: The state recognizes common law marriages enter into before January 1, 1996. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
ILLINOIS: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Chicago and Cook County extend benefits to domestic partners. The city of Oak Park extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
INDIANA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Bloomington extends benefits to domestic partners.
IOWA: The state recognizes common law marriages. The city of Iowa City extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
KANSAS: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
KENTUCKY: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
LOUISIANA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of New Orleans extends benefits to domestic partners.
MAINE: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Portland extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
MARYLAND: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The cities of Baltimore and Takoma Park and Montgomery County extend benefits to domestic partners.
MASSACHUSETTES: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The following cities extend benefits to domestic partners: Boston, Brewster, Brookline, Nantucket, Provincetown, and Springfield. The following cities provide domestic partner registries: Boston, Brewster, Brookline, Cambridge, Nantucket, and Northampton.
MICHIGAN: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Kalamazoo, Washtenaw County, and Wayne County extend benefits to domestic partners. The cities of Ann Arbor and East Lansing extend benefits to domestic partners and provide a domestic partner registry.
MINNESOTA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Minneapolis extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
MISSISSIPPI: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
MISSOURI: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of St. Louis provides a domestic partner registry.
MONTANA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEBRASKA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEVADA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: The state recognizes common law marriages but only for inheritance purposes. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEW JERSEY: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Delaware extends benefits to domestic partners.
NEW MEXICO: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Albuquerque extends benefits to domestic partners.
NEW YORK: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The following cities and counties extend benefits to domestic partners: Brighton, Eastchester, Ithaca, New York City, Rochester, and West-chester County. The following cities provide domestic partner registries: Albany, Ithaca, New York City, and Rochester.
NORTH CAROLINA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Chapel Hill extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry. The city of Carrboro also provides a domestic partner registry.
NORTH DAKOTA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
OHIO: The state recognizes common law marriages entered into prior to October 10, 1991. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
OKLAHOMA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
OREGON: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners. The city of Portland and Multnomah County extend benefits to domestic partners. The city of Ashland provides a domestic partner registry.
PENNSYLVANIA: The state recognizes common law marriages. The city of Philadelphia extends benefits to domestic partners.
RHODE ISLAND: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
SOUTH CAROLINA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
TENNESSEE: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
TEXAS: The state recognizes common law marriages. Travis County extends benefits to domestic partners.
UTAH: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
VERMONT: The state is the first to recognize "civil unions," which extends rights to homosexual partners that are similar to rights granted to married couples. The state also extends benefits to domestic partners. The state does not recognize common law marriages.
VIRGINIA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Arlington County extends benefits to domestic partners.
WASHINGTON: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners. The cities of Olympia and Tumwater and King County extend benefits to domestic partners. The city of Lacey provides a domestic partner registry. The city of Seattle extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
WEST VIRGINIA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
WISCONSIN: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Madison extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry. The city of Sherwood Hills Village and Dane County extend benefits to domestic relations. The city of Milwaukee provides a domestic partner registry.
WYOMING: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
Additional Resources
Cohabitation: Law, Practice, and Precedent, Second Edition. Wood, Helen, Denzil Lush, and David Bishop, 2001.
Family Law in a Nutshell. Krause, Harry D., West Publishing, 1995.
The Living Together Kit: A Legal Guide to Unmarried Couples, Ninth Edition. Ihara, Toni, Ralph Warner and Frederick Hertz, Nolo Press, 1999.
Understanding Family Law, Second Edition. DeWitt, John, Gregory, Peter N. Swisher, and Sheryl L. Wolf, LexisNexis, 2001.
Unmarried Couples and the Law. Douthwaite, Graham, Allen Smith Company, 1979.
Organizations
Alternatives to Marriage Project
P.O. Box 991010
Boston, MA 02199 USA
Phone: (781) 793-0296
Fax: (781) 394-6625
URL: http://www.unmarried.org/
E-Mail: atmp@unmarried.org
American Association for Single People (AASP)
415 E. Harvard Street
Suite 204
Glendale, CA 91205 USA
Phone: (818) 242-5100
URL: http://www.singlesrights.com
E-Mail: unmarried@earthlink.net
Primary Contact: Thomas F. Coleman, Executive Director
Focus on the Family
Colorado Springs, CO 80995 USA
Phone: (719) 531-3328
Fax: (719) 531-3424
URL: http://www.family.org/
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund
120 Wall Street, Suite 1500
New York, NY 10005-3904 USA
Phone: (212) 809-8585
Fax: (212) 809-0055
URL: http://www.lambdalegal.org
You Kids Are Old Enough Now To Hate For Yourselves
By Bob Whitman, The Onion, August 18, 2009 Issue 45-34
There comes a time in every father's life when he has to step back and let his children start thinking for themselves. You boys are getting older now, and your mother and I won't always be there to remind you about us and them. Before long, you'll both be off at college, so I hope you've been paying attention to all the things I've told you kids about Mexicans, Arabs, and the blacks.
Brian. Michael. It's time you started making bigoted, hateful judgments about other races for yourselves.
You know we love you very much. We've tried our best to raise you to know the difference between right and wrong, good races and bad races. The way our parents raised us. You can roll your eyes now, but some day Mom and Dad won't be there to protect you from learning anything about other cultures beyond malicious stereotypes. Soon, you'll have to distrust those sweaty, loudmouthed Italians on your own.
Now, college is going to introduce you to a lot of new people. Some of them you'll like, and some of them will have a different skin color than you. These biologically inferior folks might try to convince you that your hatred is misguided, that the throbbing, vicious anger boiling in your veins whenever you see anyone not exactly like yourself is the result of your limited exposure to the world and not your God-given right as a member of the master race. But you must have the courage to stick with your baseless, narrow-minded convictions. That's called being a man.
Before you go to bed at night, always remember that Muslims hate America, and that their only goal in life is to destroy the insular, racially homogenous town you call home.
I tell you, it's amazing how quickly kids grow up. One day you're showing them how to pitch rocks at day laborers, and the next thing you know they're giving you pointers on ridiculing the gay neighbor. Watching you boys mature with the same prejudices that my father instilled in me, well…it just about makes me choke up. I only wish your grandfather could see you hate now, but as you know, he was gutted by some filthy Hindu doctor. May he rest in peace.
The older you get, the more you'll realize that the world is a big place, and there are all kinds of interesting people and places to feel blind, unjustified rage toward. You've got to be prepared. Sure, I've taught you a lot about blacks, chinks, queers, and the French. But what about Indians, Eskimos, and Polacks? Do you even know what slur you would use if you were trapped on a bus next to an Algonquin? The answer is "nitchie." See, this is just the kind of stuff you've got to start figuring out for yourself.
If it were up to me, I'd see you boys through it all. But part of being a parent is knowing when to let go. And whenever I see you two eyeing the Gonzalez family suspiciously or locking the car doors when we drive through certain parts of town, I know you're ready, and my heart just swells up with pride.
"There go the Whitman boys," they'll say in Kansas City. "Probably off to scrawl something horribly offensive on a bathroom wall."
I envy you kids. I really do. When I left home 20 years ago as an impressionable, naïve little youngster, teeming with vitriolic prejudice, I wanted to get out there and make a difference in the world. But things change, and I've lost some of the fire I once had. You meet a black guy who doesn't rob you or a homosexual who loves hunting and you start to question everything you believe in. I'm not saying it'll happen to you boys—you're good kids—but just be careful. Be on guard. And I know I've told you this a thousand times, but don't trust the Jews.
Now get out of here before your mother starts crying.
http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/you_kids_are_old_enough_now_to?utm_source=EMTF_Onion
There comes a time in every father's life when he has to step back and let his children start thinking for themselves. You boys are getting older now, and your mother and I won't always be there to remind you about us and them. Before long, you'll both be off at college, so I hope you've been paying attention to all the things I've told you kids about Mexicans, Arabs, and the blacks.
Brian. Michael. It's time you started making bigoted, hateful judgments about other races for yourselves.
You know we love you very much. We've tried our best to raise you to know the difference between right and wrong, good races and bad races. The way our parents raised us. You can roll your eyes now, but some day Mom and Dad won't be there to protect you from learning anything about other cultures beyond malicious stereotypes. Soon, you'll have to distrust those sweaty, loudmouthed Italians on your own.
Now, college is going to introduce you to a lot of new people. Some of them you'll like, and some of them will have a different skin color than you. These biologically inferior folks might try to convince you that your hatred is misguided, that the throbbing, vicious anger boiling in your veins whenever you see anyone not exactly like yourself is the result of your limited exposure to the world and not your God-given right as a member of the master race. But you must have the courage to stick with your baseless, narrow-minded convictions. That's called being a man.
Before you go to bed at night, always remember that Muslims hate America, and that their only goal in life is to destroy the insular, racially homogenous town you call home.
I tell you, it's amazing how quickly kids grow up. One day you're showing them how to pitch rocks at day laborers, and the next thing you know they're giving you pointers on ridiculing the gay neighbor. Watching you boys mature with the same prejudices that my father instilled in me, well…it just about makes me choke up. I only wish your grandfather could see you hate now, but as you know, he was gutted by some filthy Hindu doctor. May he rest in peace.
The older you get, the more you'll realize that the world is a big place, and there are all kinds of interesting people and places to feel blind, unjustified rage toward. You've got to be prepared. Sure, I've taught you a lot about blacks, chinks, queers, and the French. But what about Indians, Eskimos, and Polacks? Do you even know what slur you would use if you were trapped on a bus next to an Algonquin? The answer is "nitchie." See, this is just the kind of stuff you've got to start figuring out for yourself.
If it were up to me, I'd see you boys through it all. But part of being a parent is knowing when to let go. And whenever I see you two eyeing the Gonzalez family suspiciously or locking the car doors when we drive through certain parts of town, I know you're ready, and my heart just swells up with pride.
"There go the Whitman boys," they'll say in Kansas City. "Probably off to scrawl something horribly offensive on a bathroom wall."
I envy you kids. I really do. When I left home 20 years ago as an impressionable, naïve little youngster, teeming with vitriolic prejudice, I wanted to get out there and make a difference in the world. But things change, and I've lost some of the fire I once had. You meet a black guy who doesn't rob you or a homosexual who loves hunting and you start to question everything you believe in. I'm not saying it'll happen to you boys—you're good kids—but just be careful. Be on guard. And I know I've told you this a thousand times, but don't trust the Jews.
Now get out of here before your mother starts crying.
http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/you_kids_are_old_enough_now_to?utm_source=EMTF_Onion
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