Green Gatherings: Issue 1

Table of Contents

The Tragedy of Big Dipper

By: Ansalma Rodriguez

When the Earth became filled with humans, the Sky asked Ursa Major and Ursa Minor to look over them. Not knowing where to start, the sisters went down to the Earth and spent their years living with the humans and came to love them. Ursa Major was a guide for the travelers of the land and sea. She also provided vast knowledge for the curious humans. Ursa Minor provided medicine, healing, and counseling for the humans who were sickly or suffered from their own wrongdoings. As time passed, the humans understand these two as their heavenly mothers, the divine watchers who greatly cared and looked over their incompetence. Ursa Major was especially fond of the role and craved the relationship between a mother and child.

So, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor went up to the Sky asking for a divine child of their own. The Sky complied to this request, and Ursa Major was given Big Dipper along with Ursa Minor given Little Dipper. The twins were raised on Earth under the protection of their loving mothers, almost inseparable despite being complete opposites. When the time came, Big Dipper asked Ursa Major to leave and venture into the human world in pursuit of human knowledge. Big Dipper left his beloved sister but promised he would come back to her no matter what. She was sad to see him go, but she knew she could not hold back her brother from doing what he had always wanted.

He travelled far into distant lands of all the corners of the Earth, meeting many humans in which he would journal his encounters, and throughout decades of study became a master in the history, philosophy, mathematics, sciences, and languages of the humans. Big Dipper was given the title divine teacher by the humans, for he collaborated with the brightest and apprenticed those with greatest potential, and like his mother, grew a deep love for the humans. One day, as Big Dipper was passing through a forest, he stumbled upon a trap and found himself in the hands of a very peculiar and strange human. He referred to the human as the golden human, for they had hair as yellow as pure gold. Big Dipper was intrigued by the human and decided to stay with them. The two beings lived together in the forest becoming incredibly close.

The golden human taught Big Dipper how to hunt, fish, and scavenge, while the latter taught the other math, science, and debating philosophy. They especially bonded over their love of the stars, studying the patterns every night, and whispering stories until the dawn of morning. Their friendship soon found itself embraced by intimacy and passion, and Big Dipper and the golden human married, promising to devote their lives to each other. In blindside to his love towards the golden human, Big Dipper had forgotten his promise to Little Dipper, and stayed in the forest with his lover for the rest of his years. But sometimes even the good things fall apart.

Dressing Room

By: Elva Rubio

It’s been four hours. This is the eighth store you’ve been to. The 200^th article of clothing you’ve tried on. And still… nothing. Everything is too big, too small, or just totally and completely not your style. Nothing in any of the stores has made you feel good or cute or confident in yourself or your body. You blame it on the dressing room - the florescent lighting and cold environment. The fact that you’re uncomfortable trying on clothing outside of your bedroom or because your bloated since you just ate. You blame it on everything except the real reason; the reason you are too prideful too admit to yourself, and to your mom outside the dressing room door asking if you are ready to show her yet. The reason is you. You are the reason nothing is fitting. You are too tall or too short, too thin or too fat, too dark or too light. You are simply too ugly for anything to feel or look good on you. You are the reason; the only thing you can change is you.

From a very young age, I thought I had to look a certain way; from the covers of magazines my mom was buying to the TV shows I was watching. I never saw anyone that truly looked like me - no model, no actress, no Disney princess. I never even felt I looked like the traditional Mexican women around me, the ones with a small waist and a tiny chest. I felt like an outsider in my own world. Society had molded this image of beauty in my head, and it looked nothing like me. I felt I had to look a certain way to be considered beautiful, and I would never be able to attain that kind of beauty. My body and looks were simply not good enough and I just had to live with it.

Growing up, shopping really meant crying in the dressing room, and a night out really meant comparing myself to the other girls: what they were wearing, how they looked, how their makeup was done, and how I could never compare. I wanted to be like them so badly! I wanted the same clothing, to follow the same trends, and to have the same hairstyles; but I knew I never could. The perspectives and opinions I listened to for so long completely effected the way I saw myself and my self-worth. In my head, appearance was everything, and I had none of it. I lived with the burden of never feeling confident in my skin, and always in need of reassurance from other people. It wasn’t until I hit high school that all of this changed. The fashion industry had started promoting body positivity and self-acceptance. I would watch the commercials of the models with no photoshop, with bodies like mine. It was empowering and different. I knew I had to become comfortable in my own skin because this “image” that the world created about beauty was only one. Beauty is universal and everyone has their own depiction, so who can say that mine doesn’t fit the description? I worked on viewing and treating myself with love and care, embracing the young woman I am, and respecting the body that was given to me. I want to own my identity and use the clothes I wear to express the way I now see myself.

Fashion played a big part in this realization. Without it, I probably wouldn’t have hated myself the way I did – but with it, I am able to be my true self; dressing comfortably and confidently. This is why I want to pursue a career in fashion, because I believe that making a little girl or little boy feel bad for looking like themselves is wrong. I want to be able to help promote a healthy self-esteem and freedom in personal expression: for individuals to be themselves, without trying to meet outside expectations. I want everyone to radiate their own kind of beauty, not only in their appearance, but also in their soul. No one can take my beauty away… and the dressing room isn’t so scary anymore.

Memory TV

By: Anonymous

It’s rather interesting, what instances become the memories that get replayed and re-watched in your mind. If someone were to pop open my skull, dissect my brain, and look into my hippocampus they’d find a girl in the very back, a miniature of me you could say, staring intently at an old TV and flipping through channels. Her eyes are glued to the screen, snuggled in a warm fuzzy blanket, the kind with a big picture on it that only your Abuela ever had. All the lights are turned off so that bright technicolor blasts on her face, imprinting unto her. She knows her duties are best served in the frontal lobe, being productive, moving around, acting in the moment, yet she still finds herself drawn to watch, and watch, and watch.

I think she likes to watch old reruns of fuzzy memories from when I was five, conveniently forwarding past the scenes where the adults were crying in lieu of the ones where I chased cats around the house for so long I could only remember their tails. Sometimes she’ll snuggle up for the night and put on ‘My Most Embarrassing Memories’ making her laugh until she’s crying while I blush with shame.

Then sometimes she decides to be mean, and put on the worst kind of scary movie, that is more sad than horrific, turn up the volume, and perch herself in the far regions of my occipital lobe leaving me alone to watch. I cover my eyes, so I don’t have to see the gruesome details of family fights with angry words lit up in loud voices, crying friends who push and pull at my limbs, tearing me apart like vultures.

That’s usually when I have to get involved and argue with her about changing the channel, which after much contention I usually win. By the end of her binging, she decides to finally bring herself away from the tv, leaving me in reminiscence instead, because it’s my turn with the remote.