Frontline Angle -revised

In trying to gather ideas for the article and thinking of trying to capture sights and atmosphere here is what I came up with so far... this is not the article itself but just me writing down random thoughts to see if one particular phrase captures my interest... I am working on sources so that part is also going well... Here is what I wrote earlier after the conference and before I had to go to work:

First thoughts Frontline journal

One of my earliest memories is of my mother and how she smelled of the incense used in the Russian Orthodox church. I remember thinking this is what God smelled like. When I got older I learned that this faith was brought over from the missionaries who came to Alaska after the Russian merchants. I always felt a connection with Nature and began to explore my spirit in terms of Goddess worship. I learned of Bast first, the Egyptian Cat Goddess since I have always felt an connection with cats and my nickname given by my mother and her friends in English meant ‘Mysterious Cat’. As I got more into Indigenous believes and learned my animal spirit was a snow leopard, it just felt right. In trying to connect with the Goddesses of my people I discovered much about myself. I realized I wanted to be an Aleut woman first instead of a woman who was part Aleut.

One of the first articles I read was one called ‘There is no such thing as an Aleut’ and that got me to thinking of self-defining myself. I began to wonder how much of what I am thinking and feeling is also felt by other Unangas (self-defining word for Aleuts) woman. I wondered if they also struggled with being both a Modern American Woman and what I began to think of as ‘Proudly Prehistoric’ of the times before others began recording our history for us.

Being in an abusive marriage most of my adult life made me a bit anti-social; where I felt both different and embarrassed to have close friends. In reaching out to other woman I discovered Pulsewire where I got to meet many other woman like myself from all around the world. It was so empowering for me and now I want to try to connect with Unangas woman like myself.

In trying to figure out what to write about for the Frontline article I felt like there were many important issues and wondered where to start. So, I finally narrowed it down to the idea of self-defining myself, as an American, as a woman, as a mother, as a survivor of domestic abuse and most importantly as a Unangas woman. So my idea now is to meet other woman like myself, meet leaders in the community, and explore it and see what comes up and go from there.

I tried to incorporate my ideas into one narrower one. In trying to pick one thing this one feels right in terms of writing what I know though part of me wants to write others first. But it is like Christi said where we will be writing many more articles so write what we know best to get us off to a good start… how does it sound? Or is it still too broad or is it too much rambling yet? I will have a rough draft written up by this weekend but was trying to gather my ideas into one thought, however jumbled...

Maria