The Senate's main arena is cold and hard. Empty, its symmetrically placed pods are eerily beautiful, a microcosm of all that they represent: justice, equality, and freedom. Each pod is the same, solid, glistening, and gray. Not quite black, but a nondescript shade of gray, even more imposing. There is strength in the uniformity of its design, ingeniousness in the way that the Galactic Senate works. The Chancellor occupies its heart as each pod moves forward with its cargo, the pieces to the Galactic puzzle. It's all very civilized, brilliant even in the way it physically adheres to the tenets of democracy.

But life is not a democracy; life is a rainbow.

I find it fascinating that the leaders of our pseudo-capitalistic society here in the USA continue to fall back on that old adage that we are all created equal. What a crock! I am no more equal to, say, the five people who were born to this world of my own body than the rancor was to Luke as it tried to eat him! No two people are equal. No two beings are equal. Rights and equality must not be confused! I may really want to be a runway model, strutting my stuff during fashion week in New York, but my chances of making it in that profession aren't even slim; they're none. I have a right to try that runway strutting job and I'm thankful that I have that right, but I'd be foolish to think I have an equal chance at it. It's important to know the distinction.

In the attempted enforcement of this ridiculous concept of equality, the Galactic Senate eventually succumbed to the Evil Empire and its leader's twisted interpretation of peace....before the Empire was itself overthrown in a burst of love and passion and unique power.

Politics isn't my forte. People are. Relationships are. I got married very young. I was just nineteen when my husband proposed to me and twenty on the day we got married. Only the second to wed in my generation of my very large, extended family, I was mostly clueless while I made my wedding plans. Neither of my parents are exactly the take charge type, and they both followed my lead about what my wedding day would be like. I did not abuse their trust in me! I chose the hall, the caterer, the music, planned the ceremony...and very important to me...I chose the flowers.

Most florists were into silk at the time, and most every bride I'd ever known carried some sort of arrangement of mostly white. Gorgeous arrangements of silk calla lilies and white roses and carnations...those were the choices of brides "in the know" in the early 80's. They were stunning brides, and it worked for them! But this was one part of the wedding that I had very clearly envisioned from the start, and save for some baby's breath sprinkled throughout, I wanted color. I wanted a big, beautiful, sprawling bouquet of live blooms of every shape and hue. I wanted my bridesmaids, each dressed in similar gowns of different shades, to carry differently colored baskets of flowers, too. The crazier the better...kinda like me. Kinda like life. The wedding ceremony is the most significant part of one's wedding day, and I wanted it to reflect who my husband and I were...are.

In the imposing sameness of the Senate chamber's main arena, the ceremonial symbol of power and decision-making throughout the galaxy, color could not be contained. Each pod may have been immaculately similar in its design, but the beings each held were not. One pod contained the beautiful blues and greens of the Twi'leks. Another held the gray and red-striped Utapauns, Still another was graced by the presence of either the elaborately gowned queen of Naboo or her senator or perhaps, her colorful Gungan counterpart. The Galactic Senate was made up of creatures of all shapes, sizes, colors, and creeds...all of them wonderful in their differences, all splendidly bright, beautiful, and different.

Alas, even the Jedi embraced an unnatural sameness. Dressed in similarly drab garments and vowing to spend their lives evenly meting out justice to those in need, never marrying or acquiring anything that might set them apart, indeed, they even groomed their order's padawans from an age before the desire to be too different from the group could take hold. I guess I've never understood why there is a cookie cutter perception of what makes a great leader or why, among the masses, so many people struggle just to be the same. I can't imagine why the Jedi tried. It's incredibly significant that in choosing and the creating their weapons, their light sabers, the Jedi were allowed to exert their only real individuality...but that's a blog for another day (and another blogger more educated in the EU than I!).

Back to the Senate chamber. The sight of it gives me the chills. I don't conform well. As much as I struggle to fit in, I usually fail because I'm just not like anyone else. Truth-be-told, no one is. In the context of the Galactic Senate, I might just be like one, small pod in the cavernous whole, but I would be a yellow and pink blip, unique in who I am and what I can contribute. Each pod, each of us, is a beautiful part of something bolder and bigger and more glorious than ourselves. We're meant to embrace our differences, not stifle and oppress them. Humanity. like our fictional counterparts in the GFFA, is populated with characters of all shapes, sizes, and colors, and we're at our best when we're just allowed to be ourselves...none of us equal, yet all of us amazing in our own way.

On this day that we celebrate one man whose life was tragically cut short, I have a dream of brushing the Senate Chamber of our lives with bold, beautiful colors, part of the bouquet that is humanity.

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There are...others...