Culture (kul'cher) n.

1. The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought.

2. These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population: Edwardian culture; Japanese culture; the culture of poverty.

3. These patterns, traits, and products considered with respect to a particular category, such as a field, subject, or mode of expression: religious culture in the Middle Ages; musical culture; oral culture.

4. The predominating attitudes and behavior that characterize the functioning of a group or organization.

I find culture fascinating. Perhaps it is because I've never felt that I've really had a culture. I don't really feel as if any one thing dominates my actions, likes, thoughts, or dislikes. In my life though, I have picked up some cultural habits that appeal to me. But the thing I love most about cultures is that there are so many different ones!

I absolutely love to learn about different cultures. What does someone in Japan do on a daily basis? What's considered normal in Chile? What does a daily routine consist of on a Native American reservation? I want to know all these things--and I want to be told them in all their proper languages (and understand them of course). Language is another passion of mine, you see. I feel the sound of a language can say alot about a person's culture.

Stereotypes tell you nothing really, you have to use good judgement to tell what is the exaggeration, what is the outright lie, and what has the sliver of truth? I'm not very social, but I love people! I've always wondered what it was like to be someone else? My friends and family find me very empathic, even to complete strangers. Some even find me a bit eccentric about it. But I've always found myself wanting to do more than think how that other person would feel. I've often wondered what it would really be like in their shoes? Experience things through another's eyes. Find connections we never knew was there, and differences that make life more interesting.

Is it because I was born and raised in America? Most people think we are all hungry for culture because we have none. I think it's impossible to have no culture. A country may have no popular culture that everyone follows, but each individual has culture. Whether it's borrowed, learned, or simply carried over from place to place.

Culture isn't something you obey for one reason or another. That can't be your culture. Culture is something you respect, a behavior you look up to as you follow it. Culture is in the language you speak, the family traditions you uphold, the clothes you wear, your favourite foods, the morals you teach your children, the spiritual desires of your soul, and the stories you and your friends and family repeatedly share, no matter how many times you may have heard them.

Culture is all the colors on the spectrum, all the spices in your cabinet, or none of them. To me, it is exciting, even the distant cultures buried beneathe ruins undiscovered.

What is my culture? I follow the various American holidays...plus and minus a few as I see fit.

-Christmas, as a day to celebrate and share in the joy of those I love, and to show them I care

-Yule, to celebrate the coming warmth of the sun (due to longer days)

-New Year as a day of renewal

(some of these may not be in their respected order as I remember them lol)

-Birthdays of those I love and care for

-Valentine's Day, as a day to share love and wonder why it is named after a guy beheaded on that day :/

-Festival of Poets (in Japan--wish to find out more about it though)

-Writer's Day

-I DO NOT celebrate St. Patrick's Day as it is in celebration of a man who murdered many innocent people in the name of christianity

-All of the Equinox's as they are all representative of life's cycle

-May Day or May's Eve--I like faeries ^_^

-Halloween, the celtic new year, in celebration of my ancestor's day of renewal

-I am currently trying to find out more about Cherokee calendars and such

-I particpate in the memorial for all the innocent lives taken in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

-same for 9-11

-Memorial day

-4th of July or Independence day

-Thai New year--because it's my best friend's culture's day of renewal

-the Independence Day of various other countries as I find out about them

-Earth Day

-Plant a Tree Day

-International Day of Languages

among some others I can't recall right now off the top of my head.

I would love to hear about some of your holidays, your favourite ones or ones unique to your country. I'd also like to hear about ones you think should be observed that are not on my list and why--tell me what goes on so I can observe it too (I'd also like to know the dates if at all possible please). Just drop me a line telling me all about your favourite, unique, or should-be-on-everyone's list holiday at ethereal_dragonfly@yahoo.com

Thanks!

I speak English (American english, but not american ghetto english, more like proper american english--is there such a thing? *laughs*). I also speak a little french though-- un peu de francais. A little less Japanese, and a few select words in Spanish, Thai, Chinese, Cherokee, German and maybe a few I'm forgetting...heh ^_^"

I tell my son a few over seas legends and stories, among some of my own that I make up for him. I've sung him English and Japanese lullabies since he was born, and he's gone to sleep listening to music from various different cultures.

I am currently studying Core shamanism, and would love to one day be taken on as a student in a Native culture, preferably Cherokee or one similar. My spirituality at the moment does not fit into any one culture but is one made from the deepest feelings in my heart that I feel I must follow, even if it is in error. The best way to get to the place you need to be, is to arrive there by error. Simply because, if you never er (sp?), you may always wonder if there's something you missed, or worse grow bitter at the experiences you gave up in order to stick with what everyone else thinks you should. Sometimes the circle needs to be traveled in order to get the direct path (get, not get to heh). That's the gist of my spiritual culture, which raised me into christianity. Unfortunately for that bit of culture, I have a restless spirit that just wasn't satisfied where it was, the wings grew and it had to soar out onto its own path. Thirsting after the knowledge of some of my ancestors.

More and more, I find myself picking up cultural habits from my ancestors, legends and stories to pass on, learning all I can about them. My culture is in the past, buried under mounds of ancestral memories, slowly being discovered as I move along in life. I hope to make them proud and eventually grow the wings required to fly free in my discoveries of the truth.

« December 2002 ~ August 2003 »

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