METTA MIND

the importance of Aunts

2011-10-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

"I have always maintained the importance of Aunts as much as possible, & I am sure of your doing the same now" wrote Jane Autsen to her niece when the latter became an aunt herself.

I feel the same way. I had a most excellent aunt of my own - my loving and inspiring Aunt Gail. I have a beloved niece and now, in the last few months, I've become a aunt to my nephew Beo as well as honorary aunt to Esme. And, if all goes well, I'll again be an honorary aunt of another little one.

It's exciting to see these new people emerge into the world with all the happiness they bring to those around them. I wish that every baby would be this welcome and beloved.

Cultivating the energy to act

2011-08-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places -- and there are so many -- where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

- Howard Zinn

Situation & Story

2011-08-06T10:17:00.000-07:00

Every work of literature has both a situation and a story. The situation is the context or circumstance, sometimes the plot; the story is the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer: the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has to say.

- Vivian Gornick
The Situation and the Story

Reading notes: poetry and the Fertile Void

2011-08-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I read:

Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry (Orr) - a funny, thoughtful and innovative introduction to poetry (modern or otherwise). The author talks about encountering poetry as you would do when visiting a new foreign country,

...amble across the landscape, taking some time to visit some of the less obvious attractions as well as the racy ones, pausing to nap in a shady spot or to sample some of the local dishes, even the ones that smell like a wet dog. Like all foreign countries, poetry has customs and rules that should be respected, but you don't need to memorize the entire catalogue of local rituals in order to make the trip worthwhile.(p.xvi)

Inventing the Rest of Our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood (Levine) - notable for its concept of the "Fertile Void" described as that long slow deep breath during which we let go of old demons and demands and "begin building new dreams, one well-lived day at a time." (p.77)

The Painted Garden (Woodin) - pretty, gorgeously executed watercolors, and yet lacking ruminative depth. Perhaps this isn't fair since, unlike Vivian Swift, Woodin is a designer/visual artist not necessarily a writer or book artist. However she did find some good quotes such as:

Without an inborn love of natural beauty, no one will ever care enough about drawing to persevere.
- Mrs. C.W. Earle (1887)

To me the meanest flowers that blow can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears
- Wordsworth

The best cure for loneliness is solitude.
- Marianne Moore

or (my favorite):

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
- Thoreau

Sex & friends - writing the stories we need

2011-08-06T08:26:00.000-07:00

Sex and the City has always appealed to me.

The reason? In spite of all the drawbacks, and there are many, it focused on four women whose deepening friendship was the leitmotif of the show. Also, I appreciated that it challenged the Ideal Narrative (e.g., every woman wants to partner up and have kids) and, even more so, that it critiqued how single women are treated as less than women who are partnered and/or with kids.

Of course there was sex (but how cool is it to have women with multiple sexual partners? I haven't seen this as a normal narrative for a woman outside of In Plain Sight and even then it was linked to the character's inability to emotionally connect) as well as lots of clothes and the search for a romantic partner. However, for me, that never felt like the heart of the show. I haven't seen all the episodes, but in the ones I have seen the scenes come alive when the characters come together with one another to deal with the preference to be single, the fear of death, the acceptance of one another for who they are, the reality of being a parent, etc. And what a relief to have a show mercifully free of Very Important Actions (24, etc.) or a pile of dead bodies and creepy/damaged people (pick just about any other show on TV: CSI, etc.). The show has been criticized for not being realistic. And yet every TV show I've ever seen has been supremely unrealistic.

Are there things I'd change/add? Absolutely. After all, that's why I write - to tell the stories I need. Meanwhile, I'll also take my tales of female friendship where I can find them. And Sex and the City is one such place.

Reading notes

2011-07-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf

"I might in the course of time learn what it is that one can make of this loose, drifting material of life; finding another use for it . . . . What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk, or capacious hold-all . . . . I should like to come back, after a year or two, and find that the collection has sorted itself and refined itself, into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the light of our life . . . ." p.13

"No longer can I summon up that [extroverted] energy . . . . Once I had a gift for doing this, and a passion, and it made parties arduous and exciting . . . . when I wake early now I luxuriate most in a whole day alone; a day of easy natural poses . . . slipping tranquilly off into the deep water of my own thoughts . . . and replenishing my cistern at night with [reading]." p.78

"The idea has come to me that what I want now to do is to saturate every atom. I mean eliminate all waste, deadness, superfluity: to give the moment whole; whatever it includes . . . . Waste, deadness, come from the inclusion of things that don't belong to the moment; this appalling narrative business of the realist: getting from lunch to dinner; it is false, unreal, merely conventional. Why admit anything to literature that is not poetry-by which I mean saturated? Is that not my grudge against novelists? that they select nothing? The poets succeed by simplifying: practically everything is left out. I want to put practically everything in: yet to saturate. This is what I want to do . . . ." p.136

". . . I think I am about to embody at last the exact shape my brain holds. What long toil to reach this beginning--if The Waves is my first work in my own style!" p.172

"Why all this criticism of other people? Why not some system that includes the good? What a discovery that would be--a system that did not shut out." p.183

"I am now at the height of my powers in that line [reading], and have read, with close and powerful attention some 12 or 15 books since I came here. What a joy--what a sense as of a Rolls Royce engine once more purring its 70 miles an hour in my brain. " p.187

Regarding Form (defined as: "the sense that one thing follows another rightly.")
"[Turgenev] wrote and re-wrote. To clear the truth of the unessential [his] idea that the writer states the essential and lets the reader do the rest." p.203

"A curious feeling, when writer like [Stella Benson] dies, that one's response is diminished . . . . My effusion--what I send out--less porous and radiant--as if the thinking stuff were a web that were fertilised only by other people's (her that is) thinking it too: now lacks life." p.207

". . . I should be who I mostly am: very rapid, excited, amused, intense." p.224

a certain Slant of light,

2011-07-17T09:17:00.001-07:00

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons —
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes —

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us —
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are —

None may teach it — Any —
’Tis the Seal Despair —
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air —

When it comes, the Landscape listens —
Shadows — hold their breath —
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death —

...there's no small bench by the road

2011-07-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

"There is no place you or I can go, to think about or not think about, to summon the presences of, or recollect the absences of slaves . . . There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath, or wall, or park, or skyscraper lobby. There's no 300-foot tower, there's no small bench by the road. There is not even a tree scored, an initial that I can visit or you can visit in Charleston or Savannah or New York or Providence or better still on the banks of the Mississippi. And because such a place doesn't exist . . . the book [Beloved] had to."

-Toni Morrison, World Magazine (1989) interview in which she spoke of the absences of historical markers that help remember the lives of Africans who were enslaved and of how her fifth novel, Beloved, served this symbolic role. See The Bench by the Road Project - a memorial history and community outreach initiative to address and redress this absence.

an appetite for other streets, other slants of light

2011-07-17T07:59:00.001-07:00

Truly landlocked people know that they are. Know the occasional Bitter Creek or Powder River that runs through Wyoming; that the large tidy Salt Lake of Utah is all they have of the sea and that they must content themselves with bank, shore, and beach because they cannot claim a coast. And having none, seldom dream of flight. But the people living in the Great Lakes region are confused by their place on the country's edge--an edge that is border but not coast. They seem to be able to live a long time believing, as coastal people do, that they are at the frontier where final exit and total escape are the only journeys left. But those five Great Lakes which the St. Lawrence feeds with memories of the sea are themselves landlocked, in spite of the wandering river that connects them to the Atlantic. Once the people of the lake region discover this, the longing to leave becomes acute, and a break from the area, therefore, is necessarily dream-bitten, but necessary nonetheless. It might be an appetite for other streets, other slants of light. Or a yearning to be surrounded by strangers. It may even be a wish to hear the solid click of a door closing behind their backs.

- Song of Solomon
Toni Morrison

To Be in Love (Gwendolyn Brooks)

2011-07-16T20:08:00.001-07:00

To be in love
Is to touch things with a lighter hand

In yourself you stretch, you are well.

to saturate every atom - Virginia Woolf

2011-07-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

The idea has come to me that what I want now to do is to saturate every atom. I mean eliminate all waste, deadness, superfluity: to give the moment whole; whatever it includes....Waste, deadness, come from the inclusion of things that don't belong to the moment; this appalling narrative business of the realist: getting from lunch to dinner; it is false, unreal, merely conventional. Why admit anything to literature that is not poetry-by which I mean saturated? Is that not my grudge against novelists? that they select nothing? The poets succeed by simplifying: practically everything is left out. I want to put practically everything in: yet to saturate. This is what I want to do...

from A Writer's Diary
- Virginia Woolf

What I found at Yale...

2011-07-10T21:24:00.001-07:00

In 1992 I attended graduate school at Yale University for one year. I escaped - leaving sans a degree but avec two amazing friends. I don't see either of them as much as I'd like (one now lives in NYC and the other in SE Washington - both are cool creative cultured women, both teach French and are mothers of two). Luckily, my Washington friend has a blog: Deep Domesticity - thus helping me stay abreast of her life. Here's a recipe she posted that I need to try.

Red Lentil Soup with Greens (from Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers)

1 1/4 cups red lentils
1 t. salt
2 T olive oil
1 1/2 t. black mustard seeds
1 1/2 t. anise or fennel seeds
1/4 to 1/2 t. red pepper flakes
2 T minced fresh ginger (or 1 t. ground ginger)
1 garlic clove, minced
4 cups rinsed, drained, and chopped fresh greens
(I used kale, but mustard greens, chard, or spinach would also be good.)
1/2 t. salt
3/4 cup coconut milk

--Rinse lentils and drain. In a soup pot, bring 5 cups of water, the lentils, and salt to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and cook until tender, about 30 minutes.

--While the lentils cook, warm the oil in a saucepan on medium heat, add the black mustard seeds, and cover until they pop. Stir in the anise/fennel, red pepper flakes, ginger, and garlic and cook for a minute, stirring constantly. Add the greens and the salt and cook, stirring frequently, until the greens are just wilted. Stir in the coconut milk and simmer for a minute. Remove from heat.

--When the lentils are soft, stir in the greens and coconut milk mixture and add salt to taste.

Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss

2011-07-10T20:21:00.000-07:00

From brainpickings

Marie Curie is one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of science. A pioneer in researching radioactivity, a field the very name for which she coined, she was not only the first woman to win a Nobel Prize but also the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, and in two different sciences at that, chemistry and physics. In Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout, artist Lauren Redniss tells the story of Curie through the two invisible but immensely powerful forces that guided her life: Radioactivity and love. It’s a turbulent story — a passionate romance with Pierre Curie (honeymoon on bicycles!), the epic discovery of radium and polonium, Pierre’s sudden death in a freak accident in 1906, Marie’s affair with physicist Paul Langevin, her coveted second Noble Prize — under which lie poignant reflections on the implications of Curie’s work more than a century later as we face ethically polarized issues like nuclear energy, radiation therapy in medicine, nuclear weapons and more.

Thinking twice, looking again...

2011-07-10T19:32:00.000-07:00

Seattle is not a bastion of visual arts so the Bellevue Art Museum's exhibit Think Twice: New Latin American Jewelry is a rare treat. Note: this blog post is a mix of my notes and text from other sites and reviews. Please see end of post for places to go for more information). Also the BAM website has images of many of the pieces mentioned below.

The exhibit was divided into three sections:
History, Memory, Tradition
A Knack for Invention and Seeking
Expressing Identity

It included artists and artisans from South America, Mexico and the Caribbean whose innovation and imagination electrified the exhibit. Of special note is their use of jewelry as a commentary on heritage, struggles, religion, violence, gender, politics, spontaneity, economics, values and even drugs. I found the materials, ideas and resulting jewelry both impressive and inspiring.

Here are some of the artists featured and their pieces:

Maria Paula Amezcua (Mexico) Altar Itinerante, 2007, a two sided necklace of brass, glass, cotton, collected materials. She call this a "mobile shrine" – one side a protective shield of winged hearts (symbol of San Miguel Arcangel) and the other an astonishing dense series of tiny retablos containing text/images/memories. The exhibit notes say that it represents "Amezcua’s thoughts on Catholicism. The front of the piece is the outward, public side and the inside is the personal pagan inheritance of the native people that was never given up; that which is in their blood." I'd extend that to also include the experience of colonized peoples as well as Mexicans who suddenly found themselves in the USA (surface USA but still Mexican - "we didn't didn't cross the border, the border crossed us").

Alejandra Hernandez Montoya (Colombia) Urn, 2007, a spectacular ring of earthy (not shiny) silver with a deeply inset rutilated quartz. See BAM website for photo of this piece which I find difficult to describe in words.

Martacarmela Sotelo (Mexico) Roots, 2010 a necklace made with pieces of Nopal fiber (one for each state in Mexico), stainless steel wire coated with nylon exploring the increasing movement of the Mexican people throughout Mexico, the USA and the world.

Valentina Rosenthal (Chile) Invisible Cities - a necklace made of items recovered from the rubble of neighborhoods destroyed by recent earthquakes (in this case: recovered wood and plaster rosette, silver, bronze, nails, mirror, steel cable)

Teresa Margolles Ajuste de cuentas - a photo and small installation made from gold, window shield glass, diamonds referencing skyrocketing Mexican crime. Margolles collected glass from criminally caused car crashes then mixed the glass with diamonds - looking at which of the two is really precious.

Alcides Fortes (Cape Verde & Mexico) Olvides de la Revolución a necklace made from discarded tombstone memorials, small oval porcelain and copper portrait medallions of a family assassinated during the Mexican Revolution.

Carolina Hornauer (Chile) created a series of brooches made from resin, cedar wood, cashew lacquer, eggshell, silver, citrine quartz. I especially liked how she incorporated sections of old pictures frames - reconstructing them to create something new of something old - new stories, new contexts. She include the picture frame along with the brooches - as if the pieces of frame had broken free and grew new parts.

Laura de Alba (Mexico) Love Handles a necklace made of recovered drawer handles and yarn (each painted in vivid color). "Her pieces seek to cause surprise and pleasure. De Alba recovers all those materials...leftovers of furniture, buttons, toys, and medals are carefully organized on substrates of weaved, knitted or knotted textile 9re-examining] notions of value and shift our perception of the worthless."

Claudia Cucchi (Brazil) - orange brooch and ring made of perspex (similar to plexiglass or lucite) covering photo negatives or (to great effect) orange peel.

One piece was inspired by the "mamio" quilts of the artist's home country Suriname. These quilts are often made with scraps of ‘pangi’ material (the plaid fabric that traditional Maroon people wear in Suriname).

There was a necklace of tiny glass vials left empty for the wearer to add what small items carried meaning for him/her. To my delight, one of the vials contained a colorin bean (those gorgeous beans that are bright red with a black spot that ones sees in Peru)

Caio Mourao (1933-2005, Brazil) Anti-Jewel (1959) a rough hewn necklace of silver, gold, hematite. "Mourao was one of the major instigators embracing ancient techniques to create jewelry that is defiantly Brazilian. His daughter currently continues his work." More of his work.

- Additional images and information and a blog review.

First lines, last lines

2011-03-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

My friend is revising her novel. One of the things she must do is create a strong opening. It made me think about opening lines that draw you right in. Lines like:

"I left my wedding dress hanging in a tree somewhere in North Dakota." - Julia's Chocolates by Cathy Lamb

Ending a book can be even more difficult. However what a pleasure when someone does it well such as Michael Ondaatje in his novel The English Patient And there are those like Susan Brind Morrow who excel at both - the beginning and ending. See her memoir The Names of Things

excerpts from "Labor's Last Stand" by Jane McAlevey

2011-02-21T18:00:00.000-08:00

Emboldened by November’s election results, corporations and their right-wing allies have launched what they hope will be their final offensive against America’s unions.

...

There is a strong correlation...between red states, right-to-work laws, an overall worse quality of life for the average worker or poor person, and a more hostile climate for progressives, from environmentalists to civil rights activists. The average worker in [an anti-union/anti-worker] state earns $5,333 less than his or her counterpart in a pro-worker state. Twenty-one percent more people lack health insurance. Late last year, immigration advocates anticipated Arizona-like measures in twenty-two states, eleven of which are controlled by Republicans. Of those, seven are right-to-work states. Not surprisingly, three that are not—Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana—are where the attack on government workers’ unions is the strongest.

...

Liberals and progressives don’t understand why, in poll after poll, Americans support Social Security, Medicare and money for their local parks and other services but oppose “big government.” If we want to close the gap in the often bimodal results of polling, we don’t need more polling: we need well-trained and highly skilled organizers who can help facilitate conversations among next-door neighbors and co-workers. We have good “framers.” We have smart policy wonks with big degrees who can write good policy. We have lawyers to defend the policy. And we have no one in any serious way out talking with Americans about this crisis. It’s organizers who help people in large numbers to come to the self-realization that things aren’t working and that it isn’t their fault. Good organizing is really the only way that workers, the unemployed and the poor can overcome the impulse to blame themselves for the crisis they face. Yet liberal foundations often balk at funding such efforts, believing that it won’t add up to policy change and channeling money instead to policy, legal and “communications” work.

Unions and progressives need to return to engaging large numbers of people in one-on-one conversations. Unions should kick-start the campaign by sponsoring and unleashing the biggest Union Summer program of all time and pay student interns, and unemployed rank-and-file workers, to work with union groups and nonunion allies in a mass education campaign that seeks to change the narrative from “We all go down together” to “It’s time to return to the American Dream we all deserve.” Unions must stop pretending to be engaging the base by setting up call centers or buying cellphones for their members. Foundations must stop pretending that unions don’t matter, and that messaging strategies can overcome America’s cultural norms of extreme individualism. Real conversations, where people have a chance to understand the war that is being waged against them and the power they must build, are the only thing that will save us.

Source: http://www.thenation.com/article/158640/labors-last-stand?page=0,0

Vibrant

2011-02-20T23:46:00.000-08:00

Beads I'd love, be honored, to wear. These stones are vibrant and alive (unlike the stasis of precious stones).

Power & beauty

2011-02-20T23:19:00.000-08:00

I came across this image in a book on "ethnic" jewelry yesterday (a pity my photo is so blurry). This necklace combines two of my favorite things: turquoise stones and coral beads/the color red. The word turquoise dates to the 17th century and is derived from French turques, because it was first brought to Europe from Turkey from mines in Persia. It was know to the Aztecs as chalchihuitl. Turquoise is a powerful stone - one to which I've always been drawn. I'm not a materialist, but must say that I'd love to wear this necklace.

Jan Morris' Oxford - the book & the place

2011-02-13T19:27:00.000-08:00

"This is a stippled city--'towery city and branchy between towers,' as Gerard Manley Hopkins thought, 'cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmed, lark charmed, rook-racked, river rounded'."

I especially loved Jan Morris' description of the Bodleian Library (pp.149-153) - "a vast and baffling organism" humming with knowledge and home to untold numbers of manuscripts, scrolls, charters, etc. as well as the many books - some requiring two people to remove them from the shelf.

What is France to you?

2011-02-12T21:51:00.000-08:00

As someone who lived in France (student/au pair in Paris and creperie waitress in the Hautes-Alpes) and loves Normandy and the Langue d'Oc region, I've been wondering what my personal France is - what it means to me. The person who got me started thinking about it is Vivian Swift who is soon to publish a book about France.

I learned French in Belgium and became fluent in France. I've always loved the language, but my feelings about the countries in which I learned it were more complicated. I realize that the places/people I cared for most were those outside of the cities/mainstream - people who fiercely loved their locale: keen-eyed shepherds from the mountains around Briançon, gallery owners ardently promoting art in the shadow of Charleroi coal country slag heaps, deserted verdant paths between lush fields in Normandy, Walloon-language puppet shows in Liege, the long stretch of Bayeux Tapestry, the Seine river in early morning before Paris was awake, soaking my feet in the hot water springs under bright star-lit skies in the Alps.

What is France to you?

Resurfacing & Vivain Swifts' November art journal

2010-11-26T11:08:00.000-08:00

Life has been hard of late. My stepson struggling mightily with his illness. And so I've not had the energy to post. However a visit with my brother and niece has rejuvenated me as has my favorite blog. If you haven't read Vivian Swift's book When Wanderers Cease to Roam and her blog yet RUN don't walk to the nearest bookstore/Internet and do so now.

She has inspired me with her recent post which goes like this:

So here’s my tip for your November art journal:

1. Get out your wubbies. (If you need a prompt, here’s a scavenger list: a piece of warm clothing, a favorite piece of furniture, a sentimental object from a far-away place, something from your jewelry box, the most valuable book on your shelf.)

2. Draw each one.

3. Describe what makes each object meaningful to you, why it gives you comfort on a cold day. In 100 words or less.

If you need a writing recipe, try this: write one sentence about the way the object feels on you/in your hands/when you sit on it. Write another sentence about what you were doing the day you first got hold of this object. Write another sentence about what you want your heirs to do with this object when you are dead.

Example: Don’t write This is my favorite pair of shoes. They’re Jimmy Choo. They cost $450.00. (This is just a caption to an illustration, and captions are boring.)

Instead, write (as per above recipe): These Jimmy Choo high heels make me feel like Wonder Woman. I was 29 and I’d just been fired and was walking to the bus station when I stopped in at Bergdorf Goodman and saw these on sale — I hated my old job, but I was scared of being out of work; I couldn’t decide if I was happy or sad so I bought these shoes. I want my grand-daughter to have them: put them on and be brave. [80 words]

See? Now you have more than just a caption — you have a story. And that’s what you need to put in your art journal besides art: you need stories. Because it’s the stories that tell us who you really are.

Homeschooler attends convent school...in a castle

2010-10-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

For someone who was homeschooled most of her life not entering school until the 8th grade, attending a Catholic convent school in Ireland was sure to be a shock. Even more so if this convent school was housed in a castle. I remember my parents' car rounding the corner of the drive up to Kylemore Abbey and my mouth literally falling open. "I'm going to school in a castle?" I gasped.

Nestled at the base of Druchruach Mountain on the northern shore of Lough Pollacappul, in the heart of the Connemara Mountains, Kylemore Abbey is one of Ireland’s most lovely castles. It's relatively new having been built in 1867 and yet already steeped in history - engineering initiatives, model farms, walled gardens, tragedy, a hideaway during Ireland’s troubled history, royal visits and education for the global elite and local girls.

The history of Kylemore fits into three distinct periods:

Mitchell & Margaret Henry (1867–1903)
The Castle was built by the Henrys. Connemara was a popular destination for hunting and fishing. The couple visited Connemara while on their honeymoon and dreamed of building a home there. Mitchell introduced many improvements for the locals who were recovering from the Great Irish Famine, providing work, shelter and later a school for the workers' children. He represented Galway in the House of Commons for 14 years. Sadly, Margaret did not get to enjoy Kylemore Castle for very long. She died suddenly in 1874. Mitchell later lost their daughter as well.

Duke & Duchess of Manchester (1903-1910)
In 1903, Mitchell sold Kylemore to the Duke and Duchess of Manchester. They lived a lavish lifestyle and spent only a few years at the castle. The property as heavily mortgaged and the Castle was eventually taken over by a London banker who installed a caretaker and land agent until a buyer was found 7 years later.

The Benedictine Community (1920–present)
In 1920, The Irish Benedictine Nuns purchased Kylemore Castle and converted it into an Abbey. Kylemore Abbey is the oldest of the Irish Benedictine Abbeys. The community was founded in Ypres, Belgium, in 1665, to provide an education and religious community for Irish women during times of persecution in Ireland. Through the centuries the daughters of the Irish nobility, lived there as both students and postulants. In 1688 the nuns moved to Dublin at the request of King James II only to return to Ypres two years later after James’ defeat at the Battle of the Boyne. It was only after their Abbey was destroyed in WWI that the nuns left Belgium eventually settling in Kylemore in December 1920. There the nuns opened an international boarding school and established a day school for local girls.

Last year I returned to Ireland. It was my first time back in 24 years. What a difference two decades and one Celtic Tiger can make to a country. However Kylemore Abbey has remained relatively unchanged. My classroom looked exactly as it had in 1985 with the same scarred tables and chairs that I vividly remembered from long boring days in the chilly classroom overlooking the Lough. And yet it too was about to change. The Mother Superior told me that the 2009-2010 school year would be the school's last year of operation. Kylemore Abbey will continue as one of Ireland's most popular tourist destinations as well as home for the nuns.

I can't say that I felt any regret at this news. I never enjoyed the school - grumpy hierarchical nuns, unenthusiastic students and a permanently bone-chilling castle. What I loved were the ever-changing verdant grounds, the castle as history, a mysterious walled garden, Lough Pollacappul so expressive of the sky above it and those broad-shouldered mountains towering all around. That's what Kylemore is to me. I may never see it again, but I'm relieved and pleased that it will continue to house the nuns and receive visitors. I think Margaret and Mitchell would have liked that too.

...catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

2010-09-25T19:14:00.000-07:00

The Burren is an amazing place. Situated south of Galway in County Clare, Ireland, the name derives from "bhoireann" Irish for "stony place." This karst limestone region composed of limestone pavements are eroded in a distinctive pattern known as karren and crisscrossed by cracks known as grykes. Underneath it all you find caves and rivers. At first glance it appears a barren land, but upon closer inspection teeming life becomes apparent including rare wildflowers such as gentian, orchids and bloody cranesbill. It has also known death rife as it is with megalithic tombs and villages abandoned during An Gorta Mor/The Great Famine. Home to people for thousands of years this is a place of celtic crosses and a ruined Cistercian Abbey as well as where local farmers graze their animals come winter. Best of all it's bordered by the Atlantic ocean - a perfect combination of rock and water - making it one of my favorite places on earth.

Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
...
Useless to think you'll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

- Seamus Heaney

Color!

2010-09-24T12:16:00.000-07:00

Before I moved to the Pacific Northwest 16 years ago, autumn was my hands-down favorite season. Especially given the many years I lived in Vermont, northern NY state and Massachusetts. I loved the smell of autumn, the chill snap in the air and - being from a family of passionate and talented gardeners - harvest time. Then after living in the Pacific NW for a couple years I fell even more in love with spring (or, to be exact, the return of the sun). Even so autumn will always have a special place in my heart. Yesterday I was stopped in my tracks by the beauty of this tree. It looks like the branches dipped themselves in red paint only up the elbow and then stopped - summer and fall all on one branch. Here it is for you to enjoy as well.

Pepon~pompon~pumpion pumpkin~citrouille~calabaza

2010-09-23T22:27:00.000-07:00

My brother and wife love pumpkin pie. I'm not a big fan, but I do love the color and shape of the pumpkin itself. I recall that, as a child, my brother would stake out a section of our huge family garden to plant pumpkins which we'd carve for Halloween come fall. The word "pumpkin" originates from the word pepon (πέπων), which is Greek for “large melon". The French adapted this word to "pompon," which the British changed to "pumpion" and later American colonists changed that to "pumpkin". The origin of pumpkins is not definitively known, although they are thought to have originated in North America. The oldest evidence, pumpkin-related seeds dating between 7000 and 5500 B.C., were found in Mexico. Like dahlias, pumpkin (calabaza in Spanish) is another of Mexico's gifts to the world.

Patricia Polacco - artist of stories & life

2010-09-19T15:55:00.000-07:00

I first read a book by Patricia Polacco when I came across her unforgettable picturebook Pink and Say. Over the years I've enjoy her books - her stories as vivid and compelling as the illustrations - with one of my all-time favorites being Mrs. Katz and Tush.

Little did I know that Polacco is from Michigan just south of where my parents live. Indeed, after many years in Oakland, CA she has moved back to the farm where she lived as a little girl.

Her love of her farm childhood, loving respect for her elders and their stories, commitment to and celebration of diversity as well as her sheer pleasure in art, animals, books and storytelling all give me such joy. She published her first book at age 41 and is still going strong. Plus anyone who likes goats as much as she does (she takes her pet goat on walks around the neighborhood) has a place in my heart.

Food of mind & soul....

2010-09-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

My preferred creative outlets are writing and gardening whereas author and doctor Nassim Assefi is a catalyst for people and events. Her latest project is the October 10, 2010 TEDx Rainier event in Seattle.

As a Global TED Fellow Nassim is part of the innovative global TED community. With "Ideas Worth Spreading" as its motto TED is one of the places I go for brain food and large doses of rational optimism.

Check out the TED website for exciting talks/performances and, if possible, attend TEDx Rainier next month!

Gardening on a smaller scale

2010-09-16T14:27:00.000-07:00

Having a small balcony garden brings a different scale to my gardening. I used to have a front and backyard to admire (and maintain). Now I have about five planters with star jasmine, fuchsia, a calla lily, a couple of grasses, lavender, crocemesia and chives. The traffic noise is too loud for me to linger on the balcony, but I admire them all through the windows and sliding door.

I never paid much attention to fuchsia until I bought this one for my wife (jasmine and fuchsia are her favorite plants). It has impressed me with its hardiness, generous second blooming and amazing flower structure. When the blooms drop I bring them indoors to draw and look at - the curling pagoda-like outer leaves, the waxy sheen, the long stamen hanging far below the bud itself, the vivid colors. What a creation...

Mexico's "gift to the world"

2010-09-15T20:14:00.000-07:00

Dahlias...called acocoxóchitl by the Aztecs who used them for food, medicine and perhaps even to carry water and treat epilepsy. The earliest known written description of the dahlia comes from the Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagún, who arrived in New Spain in 1529. The Aztec name is believed to derive from "plant with tube-like stems."

Named after the 18th-century Swedish botanist Anders Dahl, dahlias were declared the national flower of Mexico in 1963 by President Adolfo López Mateos who described the flower as being one of Mexico's numerous "gifts to the world."

An insightful and eloquent memoir about growing up under Saddam Hussein by Zainab Salbi and Laurie Becklund

2010-09-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam by Zainab Salbi and Laurie Becklund

The question "why did they stay?" haunts this engrossing memoir, as Salbi shows how Saddam Hussein "managed to make decent people like my parents complicit in their own oppression."

"Growing up in Baghdad," the author remembers, "was probably not unlike growing up in an American suburb," but then Salbi's father became Saddam's private pilot. Gradually, the man who treated her like a niece became a man she called " 'Amo' [Uncle] not out of affection, but because I was afraid to say his name—Saddam Hussein—out loud." Interspersed with Salbi's memories are her mother's recollections of imposed visits from and disquieting parties with Saddam. These riveting passages reveal a self-absorbed man who, as Salbi comes to understand, "saw no conflict between feeling fondness for people and killing them."

Making a physical escape from Iraq was easy—a marriage was arranged in the U.S. to an abusive husband (from whom Salbi also had to escape)—compared with making the new life that culminated in founding Women for Women International, an organization that assists women victimized by war.

Books to come will offer more historical and statistical data, but this may be the most honest account of life within Saddam's circle so far; not a rebel's account, although Salbi is certainly a dissident, rather, it's an enlightening revelation of how, by barely perceptible stages, decent people make accommodations in a horrific regime.
-review from Publisher's Weekly

NOTE: Women for Women International provides women survivors of war, civil strife and other conflicts with the tools and resources to move from crisis and poverty to stability and self-sufficiency, thereby promoting viable civil societies.

Seeing...and beginning, again

2010-09-08T14:31:00.000-07:00

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day,
as it does each way.
- Stanley Kunitz

Handmade ~ Learning to see

2010-08-31T12:52:00.000-07:00

I've always admired people who can make things by hand. My parents and siblings are immensely talented both intellectually and manually. As I mentioned in my previous post, I've started learning to draw which has been an exercise in learning how to see (shapes, negative space, colors, etc.). I struggle with feeling wasteful when I do something "unproductive" like learning how to draw (no satisfying products yet). However it's enjoyable and something I've wanted to do for years now and so I keep at it. Also, I'm reminded of how poet (and gardener) Stanley Kunitz wrote, "The first task of the poet is to create the person who will write the poems." That's part of what learning to draw is for me - creating the person I wish to be - learning to see, learning to make something by hand.

Two Ways of Knowing - Art & Productivity

2010-08-22T08:45:00.000-07:00

Drawing on the Right SIde of the Brain - "Betty Edwards has used the terms L-Mode and R-Mode to designate two ways of knowing and seeing - the verbal, analytic mode and the visual, perceptual mode. Most activities require both modes, each contributing its special functions, but a few activities require mainly one mode, without interference from the other. Drawing is one of these activities. Learning to draw, then, turns out not to be "learning to draw." Paradoxically, "learning to draw" means learning to make a mental shift from L-mode to R-mode."

For years I'd been meaning to take the course outlined in the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain book. That intention was strengthened when I read Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind in which he mentioned how the class helped him to think in more flexible ways. It fits in with the premise of his book. Namely, the "future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind. The era of 'left brain' dominance, and the Information Age that it engendered, are giving way to a new world in which 'right brain' qualities-inventiveness, empathy, meaning-predominate."

I'm already a right brain kind of person. However I thought it'd be interesting to see what it's like to learn to use my right brain in new ways. And I wanted to learn to draw. What surprised me most was how uncomfortable I felt. It seemed that I was wasting time, that I should be doing something "productive" (paying bills, writing). I was intrigued by my resistance and stayed with the program. I'm glad I did because I'm learning to see in new ways (negative space, shape, line) and now have a new way to express myself.

And yet I still feel unproductive.

Perhaps that's simply what most amateur artists must struggle with given how undervalued art and creativity are in this society. Do any of you feel this way?

One of my favorite flowers...

2010-08-17T19:53:00.001-07:00

Originally from Asia, hydrangeas are now found everywhere. I don't remember these flowers from my childhood the way I do, say, purple lilacs. However there's is something quite deep-seated in my affection for them.

The beauty of a nazar amulet

2010-08-16T10:19:00.000-07:00

This is a "nazar" or evil eye charm that I got while in Turkey (in Turkish it's called a "nazar boncuğu"). I first saw nazars in the Khan el-Khalili market of Cairo many years ago. It's popular all over the Middle East and North Africa. You'll see them hanging from rear view windows in many cars, especially taxis. I love the deep blue color. I also like the variation I found on three beads that I took home and made into this bracelet, now one of my favorite pieces of jewelry.

Topkapı Palace

2010-08-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

An image from Istandbul's breathtaking Topkapı Palace. I spent a day at the palace during my trip to Turkey last year. I look forward to going again. On my next trip I'll spend more time in Istanbul.

Friday evening walk

2010-08-14T10:02:00.000-07:00

A view from Seward Park - one of my favorites places in Seattle. On the horizon is Tahoma (more recently known as Mount Rainier).

Joy is...

2010-08-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

...a wide open uncrowded beach with nothing but waves, sea otters, bald eagles and lots of sky.

Morning view

2010-08-12T07:25:00.000-07:00

In the few moments it took me to get my camera all the other dewdrops had fallen from the tips of the calla lily leaves. This one held on long enough for me to take a photo.

I love mornings.

Klee finds color

2010-08-10T11:49:00.001-07:00

Garden in St. Germain, European Quarter of Tunis (1914)

Paul Klee went on a trip to Tunisia and his art was never the same. I love his work from this watershed moment in his life.

A good story - young adult literature

2010-08-09T21:36:00.000-07:00

I appreciate and admire the amazing writers who are making young adult fiction one of the most exciting genres around today. I've always loved young adult literature and am pleased to see it gaining the recognition it so richly deserves. Right now I'm re-reading books by Tamora Pierce. She has long been a favorite of mine (especially the three series pictured above).

Susan Fletcher is new to me, but after reading her richly nuanced and well written novel Shadow Spinner I look forward to reading the rest of her work.

East and West

2010-08-08T10:08:00.001-07:00

I lived on the east coast for many years before moving to the Pacific NW sixteen years ago. I've never missed the east coast (except for that fact that two of the people I love the most live there). Then my friends send me photos of their hike in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and now I'm all ready to move there! To see what I mean click here

Not that where I live is anything to sneeze at as you can see below...

Seeing joy ~ beauty in New Hampshire

2010-08-03T11:15:00.001-07:00

I love boulders and water - I like them even better when they are together. Therefore it'll be no surprise that I want to be hiking in this beautiful New Hampshire location. To see the video for this place click here Thank you to Jenn (and her In the Present Moment Mom blog) for sharing this with us.

So, where do you love to hike?

Seeing...joy?

2010-08-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

Rumi says, "The wound is the place where the Light enters you." If that's the case then I'll never need another lightbulb...

Seeing joy ~ art + nature

2010-08-01T22:11:00.001-07:00

Today in my local bookstore I came across bookmarks featuring the art of Heather A. Wallis Murphy - wildlife biologist and artist. For information about her click here or more of her work here.

Seeing Joy - books, librarians and public libraries

2010-07-31T15:09:00.000-07:00

I love books - always have. My first memory is of cuddling up with my mom as she read a beautiful edition (burgundy cover, thin vellum pages) of War and Peace. Here is book that celebrates books, the people who love them and the joy that they can give even the most reluctant readers. Don't miss this story of how Miss Brooks wins over the bibliophobic narrator (with a little help from the narrator's mother). Yay for librarians, yay for books and hip hip horay for free public libraries!

Seeing Joy ~ The heart's a deep well

2010-07-30T09:45:00.000-07:00

Poet Gregory Orr writes,

Squander it all!

Hold nothing back.

The heart’s a deep well.

And when it’s empty,
It will fill again.

My heart feels shallow and brittle today.
So I listen to Orr and smile as I look at this photo of my niece on a hike in Colorado this last spring. Notice the stuffed fox being held between her knees. I like how it almost looks like she has a tail.

Seeing Joy ~ 7/29/10

2010-07-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

The work of Swedish painter Carl Larsson makes me happy and more aware of the loveliness of life. I especially appreciate how he saw the beauty of his daily life and family - things many of us take for granted. The photo above is a detail of a watercolor included in his book "At Home." Someday I'd like to see Lilla Hyttnäs - the home of Carl and his incredibly talented mult-media artist wife Karin (she excelled at painting, furniture design, weaving, ceramics and more). To see a photo of the room depicted in this image click here.

Seeing Joy ~ 7/28/10

2010-07-28T09:02:00.000-07:00

This is Buster. The photo I'd really like to post would be when he has his head out the car window jowls flapping in the wind, enjoying the fresh air. This photo shows you how he sticks he head out and takes a huge sniff of morning air. He is so present - fully taking in what is.

The Boxer breed was developed in Germany where it was bred from an English Bulldog and a Bullenbeisser. Boxers were first exhibited at a Munich dog show in 1895. Boxers were used for military work (messengers, pack-carriers and guards) during WWI. However it wasn't until after WWII that they became popular around the world when they were taken home by returning soldiers who introduced the dog to a wider audience. Boxers are now the sixth most popular breed of dog in the United States.

Seeing Joy ~ 7/27/10

2010-07-27T09:08:00.001-07:00

My stepson's disability has taken up the majority of my attention for the last several months. But I need to change that. So every day I'll take a photo of something that brings me joy. Here is the image for today, the first day of my Seeing Joy project

Stargazer Gazer lily blooming on my deck
Dating as far back as 1580 B.C., when images of lilies were discovered in a villa in Crete, lily flowers have long held a role in ancient mythology. Derived from the Greek word “leiron,” (generally assumed to refer to the white Madonna lily), the lily was revered by the Greeks who believed it sprouted from the milk of Hera, the queen of the gods. Lilies are known to be the May birth flower, and the 30th wedding anniversary flower. While white lilies symbolize chastity and virtue – and were the symbol of the Virgin Mary’s purity and her role of Queen of the Angels – as other varieties became popular, they brought with them additional meanings and symbolism as well (pink stargazer lilies are said to represent wealth and prosperity). Developed in the latter part of the 20th century, the stargazer lily is a recent addition to the lily family, but has quickly become one of the most popular types of lilies for gardeners and in bouquets.

Poetry as you've never seen it before...

2010-07-15T17:15:00.000-07:00

Kids Can Press has published Visions in Poetry is "an innovative and award-winning series of classic poems re-interpreted for today's readers by outstanding contemporary artists in distinctively beautiful editions.

The sixth Visions in Poetry book is The Owl and the Pussycat, a nonsense poem by Edward Lear, brilliantly illustrated by Stéphane Jorisch. The artist's vision begins in a segregated world where different species never mix and everyone hides behind a mask. Against this backdrop an aristocratic owl from Owl Heights and a bohemian pussycat from the other side of the tracks find each other. They escape society's disapproval by sailing in their pea green boat to "the land where the bong-tree grows," a utopia of mismatched creatures living together, their masks doffed for good. Jorisch's playful and fantastic interpretation is inspired in part by Lear's own illustrations as well as the films of Fellini, the art of Miro and The Beatles' Yellow Submarine..."

Ernest Thayer's Casey at the Bat, the fourth book in the series, is more than a poem about a proud and mighty slugger who strikes out during the big game. It is a slice of baseball lore, as much a part of the game as hot dogs and the seventh-inning stretch. Illustrator Joe Morse sets the poem on gritty urban streets with a multiracial cast of characters. It's a startlingly fresh approach that not only revives the poem for a new generation, but also brings it new richness and depth."

Playing to be(come) fully human

2010-04-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

"Friedrich Schiller wrote on the subject of play in On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795). Adults, Schiller insisted, must maintain their ability to play because 'man only plays when he is, in the fullest sense...a human being, and he is only fully a human being when he plays.' Schiller advanced the notion that human beings must play with ideas, symbols, objects, and the universe to develop their art, as well as to integrate thoughts and emotions to maturity and 'dare to be wise.'"

"The quieter we become the more we hear."

2010-04-13T16:01:00.000-07:00

- Ram Dass

Before speaking I ask myself:
Are these words true?
Are they necessary?
Are they kind?

"You must find your own garden" - Nelson Mandela

2010-03-13T10:57:00.000-08:00

In the early 1970s, Nelson Mandela began keeping a vegetable garden on the prison grounds (His first plot was a rocky patch measuring just on yard wide; lacking tools, he had to dig with his hands.) In so doing, he not only found a way to supplement his fellow inmates' scanty diet with fresh vegetables--he cultivated a space apart, a pocket of calm amid harsh realities.
- Oprah Magazine (March 2009)

Invictus is a poem that inspired Mandela during the 27 years he spent in jail, imprisoned by the white South African government for fighting against apartheid.

Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henley

Happy Birthday Leslie Marmon Silko & Lady Gregory

2010-03-05T19:46:00.001-08:00

from Writer's Almanac

It's the birthday of novelist Leslie Marmon Silko, born in Albuquerque, New Mexico (1948). She grew up on a Pueblo reservation, where her community was made up of matrilineal families. Her first novel, Ceremony (1977), was one of the first novels ever published by a Native American woman. It's a masterpiece.

It's also the birthday of a playwright and folklorist who was also W.B. Yeats's early patron, long-term and most loyal friend, a woman G.B. Shaw called "the greatest Irishwoman." Lady Gregory was born Isabella Augusta Persse on this day in 1852 (some sources say March 15) in Roxborough, County Tipperary, Ireland. She helped lead the Irish Literary Revival in the early 20th century and she co-founded, along with Yeats, the Abbey Theatre.

At age 28, she married a man who was 35 years her elder — he was 63, well-educated with a large library and art collection, a former member of the Irish parliament, and once the governor of British-controlled Ceylon (Sri Lanka). He'd also been knighted by the British Empire. So when they got married, she took the title "Lady" along with his last name, Gregory.
She moved into his estate at Coole in County Galway and spent a lot of time exploring her new shared library. During their marriage, she sat and worked on a memoir and wrote some short stories and poems, but she published almost none of them. They had a house in London too, and they spent a lot of time there entertaining in their living room poets Robert Browning and Lord Tennyson and writer Henry James. But then her husband died just 12 years into their marriage, around her 40th birthday, and she was grief-stricken. She returned to their Coole Park home in Galway and spent the next year editing the autobiography he'd written, getting it ready for publication.

She started Irish classes, and she began collecting tales and folklore from along the countryside; she was especially interested in what she called "Kiltartanese," English spoken with a Gaelic syntax, and prevalent in Kiltartan, an area of Galway. She would end up publishing several volumes of this folk material, including A Book of Saints and Wonders(1906), The Kiltartan History Book (1909), and The Kiltartan Wonder Book (1910).

It was through a neighbor of hers at Coole that she met W.B. Yeats, and began a friendship that would last for nearly 40 years, for the rest of her life. Yeats was also very interested in folklore of the Irish peasantry, and like Lady Gregory he hailed from a landed Protestant family. They decided to start an official movement dedicated to reviving Irish folklore. It first took shape as the Irish Literary Theatre in 1899 and a several years later morphed into the Abbey Theatre. The first play to have its premier at the Abbey was one that Lady Gregory herself had written,Spreading the News. She wrote about 20 plays of her own, and she did so much working and rewriting of some of Yeats's plays for the Abbey Theatre — coming up with peasant dialogue, and such — that some scholars suggest she essentially co-authored some of Yeats's early plays for the Abbey, including The Countess Cathleen.

Irish historian R.F. Foster has said that W.B. Yeats's friendship with Lady Gregory was "the great enabling relationship of his life." In his early years, she was his patron, and even after he'd become rich and famous, he continued to spend summers at her Coole estate in western Ireland. Her place provided inspiration for a number of his poems, including "The Wild Swans at Coole," "I walked among the seven woods of Coole," "In the Seven Woods," "Coole Park, 1929," and "Coole Park and Ballylee."

"The Wild Swans at Coole" begins:
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

Giving Haiti a chance

2010-02-27T08:38:00.000-08:00

from a Feb 9, 2010 piece by Amy Goodman

The tragedy of the Haitian earthquake continues to unfold, with slow delivery of aid, the horrific number of amputations performed out of desperate medical necessity, more than a million homeless, perhaps 240,000 dead, hunger, dehydration, the emergence of infections and waterborne diseases, and the approach of the rainy season, which will be followed by the hurricane season. Haiti has suffered a massive blow, an earthquake for which its infrastructure was not prepared, after decades—no, centuries—of military and economic manipulation by foreign governments, most notably the United States and France.

Haiti was a slave plantation controlled by France. In 1804, inspired by Toussaint L’Ouverture (after whom the now barely functioning airport in Port-au-Prince is named), the slaves rebelled, founding the world’s first black republic. Under military threat from France in 1825, Haiti agreed to pay reparations to France for lost “property,” including slaves that French owners lost in the rebellion. It was either agree to pay the reparations or have France invade Haiti and reimpose slavery. Many Haitians believe that original debt, which Haiti dutifully paid through World War II, committed Haiti to a future of poverty that it has never been able to escape. (While France, as part of the deal, recognized Haiti’s sovereignty, slave-owning politicians in the United States, like Thomas Jefferson, refused to recognize the black republic, afraid it would inspire a slave revolt here. The U.S. withheld formal recognition until 1862.)

The U.S. Marines occupied Haiti from 1915 until 1934. In 1956, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier took control in a military coup and declared himself president for life, initiating a period of brutal, bloody dictatorship, with U.S. support. Papa Doc died in 1971, at which point his 19-year-old son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, took over, maintaining the same violent dictatorial control until he was driven into exile by popular revolt in 1986. Jubilee USA, a network calling for elimination of debt owed by poor countries, estimates that Baby Doc alone diverted at least $500 million in public funds to his private accounts, and that 45 percent of Haiti’s debt in recent decades was accumulated during the corrupt reign of the Duvaliers.

Loans from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) imposed “structural adjustment” conditions on Haiti, opening its economy to cheap U.S. agricultural products. Farmers, unable to compete, stopped growing rice and moved to the cities to earn low wages, if they were lucky enough to get one of the scarce sweatshop jobs. People in the highlands were driven to deforest the hills, converting wood into salable charcoal, which created an ecological crisis—destabilizing hillsides, increasing the destructiveness of earthquakes and causing landslides during the rainy season.

Haiti’s first democratically elected president was Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Catholic priest committed to the poor. He was elected in 1990, then ousted in a military coup in 1991. In 1994, with Haitian refugees flooding into Florida, the Clinton administration was forced to restore Aristide to power, but only with additional structural-adjustment demands. Aristide was re-elected in 2000, only to be deposed again in a U.S.-backed coup in 2004, Haiti’s bicentennial.

The destruction of Haiti’s rice industry, which was replaced with U.S. government-subsidized rice that Haitians refer to as “Miami rice,” as well as the sale of critical state-owned enterprises, like Haiti’s sole flour mill and cement factory, have left the country dependent on foreign trade and aid, keeping Haiti at a permanent disadvantage.

It is critical now to cancel Haiti’s ongoing foreign debt, so that the country can devote its scant resources to rebuilding and not to repaying debt. The G-7 finance ministers met in Canada this week and announced the forgiveness of the bilateral debt between member states and Haiti. But the World Bank, IMF and IDB debts remain (the IMF controversially promised a $100 million loan after the earthquake, eliciting condemnation, and has since pledged to convert it to a grant).

Earthquakes alone do not create disasters of the scale now experienced in Haiti. The wealthy nations have for too long exploited Haiti, denying it the right to develop in a secure, sovereign, sustainable way. The global outpouring of support for Haitians must be matched by long-term, unrestricted grants of aid, and immediate forgiveness of all that country’s debt. Given their role in Haiti’s plight, the United States, France and other industrialized nations should be the ones seeking forgiveness.

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column. Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. © 2010 Amy Goodman

USA - a failed democracy

2010-02-26T09:33:00.000-08:00

An acquaintance named Preston wrote: "The fundamental problem with US healthcare is that it is sold to us by the insurance industry. With the loss of the government or public alternative, it seems that there is very little to talk about. Obama is going for what he can get and the rest is detail. The game is over and our nation has lost in a big way."

The fiasco that is US healthcare "reform" and my deep disappointment in Obama's and the Democrats' lack of real sustained creative drive on this issue is making me very sad today. This is further exacerbated by the Supreme Court's recent decision allowing elections to go to the highest bidder, the election fraud of 2000 that I fear will be back in the next presidential election, the Bush-era shredding of the Constitution that seems will go unfixed and unpunished, the horror that is Gitmo and it still being open. Talk about a failed democracy.

I'm now seriously considering something I've never wanted to do - moving to a country I can support, a country of which I can be a proud citizen.

"Education is the husband who will never leave you." -South African nuclear physicist Dr. Daphney Singo's mother

2010-02-11T11:16:00.000-08:00

TED is one of my favorite places to go for cutting edge ideas and information. Their Long Beach conference is going on right now. Check it out here.

A different journey - parenting & living with "diffabilities"

2010-01-28T19:16:00.000-08:00

For anyone who has a "non-neurotypical" child - or wants to learn more about the world of children who have autism, Asperger's, anxiety disorders, etc. - I recommend the following young adult novels and nonfiction books.
~ Anything But Typical by Norma Raleigh Baskin
~ Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco Stork
~ More Than a Mom: Living a Full and Balanced Life When Your Child Has Special Needs by Amy Baskin & Heather Fawcett
~ Reflections from a Different Journey: What Adult with Disabilities Wish All Parents Knew edited by Stanley Klein & John Kemp

ANYTHING BUT TYPICAL comes to us from the point of view of Jason, a talented writer, older brother and, oh yeah, young teenage boy living with autism. His talent for writing, reading and observation affords him little help in interacting the world around him, most notably the emotions and expectations of other people. I have yet to read such an eloquent and helpful (to me as a mom) portrait of what it's like to live inside a body and mind that experiences the world around differently from the norm and must make sense not only of the dominant paradigm, but also of the ostracism experienced from others.

Most people like to talk in their own language...They strongly prefer it...But more than talking in the own language, people like to hear things in a way they are most comfortable...The way they can most easily relate to, as if that makes it more real. So I will try to tell this story in that way...I will try- To tell my story in their language, in your language.

And he succeeds - translating for us an experience of finding his unique way forward. Jason's story while specific to his world is also applicable to any of us who have been anything but typical at some point in our lives.

MARCELO IN THE REAL WORLD is the story of Marcelo who has Asperger's. Like Jason, Marcelo sees and moves through the world in a very different way from those around him including those who love him most, but frequently don't understand him. Marcelo narrates his story with flat inflections and lack of the first person (something that Jason refers to it the above quote) and makes reference to his mild obsessions. But none of this is overdone, merely a part of his personal landscape that we are privileged to see. The novel takes place one summer when Marcelo is thrust into the "real world" and finds that not only does he have weaknesses, but unexpected strengths as well. Both novels deliver nuanced portraits of compelling people caught in circumstances that are specific to and illuminating of their medical conditions as well as resonating with universal challenges that everyone must face.

MORE THAN A MOM: LIVING A FULL AND BALANCED LIFE WHEN YOUR CHILD HAS SPECIAL NEEDS divides its copious, practical and detailed information into chapters such as Parenting with a Difference, Taking Care of Yourself, Daily Life-Reality Check, Family Ties, Overcoming Barriers to Quality Care, Career & Home, Redefining Your Work Life, From Struggles to Strength and ends with many resource lists. There are several good books out there for parents, but this one remains the most thorough I've yet to find.

I often wonder what my son will wish I'd known/done when he was young. Helping me in that regard is the excellent collection titled REFLECTIONS FROM A DIFFERENT JOURNEY: WHAT ADULTS WITH DISABILITIES WISH ALL PARENTS KNEW. It covers an array of issues by people with a wide range of conditions so not every piece is as relevant as the next. However the overall message is consistent:
1) Support your child's independence (as much as possible)
2) Practice good self care (you're no help if you aren't healthy)
3) Try using the term "diffability" (combining "different" + "ability")
4) Focus on your child's abilities and a positive future outlook

THE LION & THE MOUSE by Jerry Pinkney

2010-01-27T13:14:00.000-08:00

This year's richly deserving Caledcott winner THE LION & THE MOUSE by Jerry Pinkney "starts on the cover with the glorious, golden countenance of a lion. No text is necessary to communicate the title: the direction of the beast's gaze and the conflicted expression on his tightly cropped face compel readers to turn the book over, where a mouse, almost filling the vertical space, glances back. The endpapers and artist's note place these creatures among the animal families of the African Serengeti. Each spread contributes something new in this nearly wordless narrative, including the title opening, on which the watchful rodent pauses, resting in one of the large footprints that marches across the gutter...Varied perspectives and the judicious use of panels create interest and indicate time. Sounds are used sparingly and purposefully...The ambiguity that results from the lack of words in this version allows for a slower, subtle, and ultimately more eloquent and satisfying read. Moments of humor and affection complement the drama." - School Library Journal

Seriously folks, you must check this book out. It'll enchant all ages and tastes.

What would you do? Books exploring that question & telling a darn good story in the process

2010-01-25T19:31:00.000-08:00

Much has been written about THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins. Inspired by reality show competitions, war coverage and the Greek myth of the Minotaur of Crete who devours sacrifices of Athenian youth. As Collins explained, "Crete was sending a very clear message: 'Mess with us and we'll do something worse than kill you. We'll kill your children.'" The book deserves the accolades, but in spite of my admiration and reading pleasure I grew frustrated by a forced romantic triangle and the stretching out of a story that could be well told in one, maybe two, books but was being played out too thinly into a trilogy. I especially regretted that the initially strong and interesting protagonist increasingly lost her direction and inner self. Increasingly the focus zoned in on which boy she'd choose. Granted there were significant ramifications to her choice, but couldn't that have been attached to some other decision of hers? For example, what political allegiance she claimed. I'm all for romance, but not at the expense of deepening a character's development.

Two recent books that explore similar moral and human dilemmas in rich and satisfying ways while also sustaining more organic and well structured telling are UNWIND by Neal Shusterman and THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX by Mary E. Pearson. (Follow the links for more detailed reviews.) Both of these novels have the thrill of action and mystery along with strong characters and story lines.

Films: The Grocer's Son & Lives of Others

2010-01-22T11:32:00.000-08:00

If you liked "The Visitor" and "Station Agent" be sure to see "The Grocer's Son". Although it may not be as complexly satisfying, it has rewards all its own, especially the depiction of and love for rural France and the elderly who have stayed behind in its small towns. Director Éric Guirado prepared by spending 18 months filming portraits of traveling tradesmen and their customers in Corsica, the Pyrenees and the Alps. (I, for one, would love to see that those film portraits.) The story of a prodigal son returning to help care for the family business is a familiar one, but lead Nicolas Cazalé gives a nuanced performance that escapes the mudlin complimented by a strong supporting cast most notably Jeanne Goupil as his mother and Liliane Rovère as the prickly and dry-humored customer with whom he must make peace.

"The Lives of Others" the 2006 debut film by writer director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck starring East German actor Ulrich Mühe is simply one of the best films I've ever seen. A strong storyline, impeccable pacing and cinematography, subtle accumulation of detail and superb acting deliver a suspenseful tale of life in a police/informer state - illustrating how in even the most oppressive societies individuals have free will which they can, and do, use - both for good and for ill. It's a demanding subject and the film ends by takes the easy way out by giving redemption when it would've been more in keeping with the overall tenor of the film (and the reality of East Germany) to show how hard any counter-government action would be even for Stasi employees - themselves closely watched and seldom if ever working alone. As Anna Funder, the author of a book about the Stasi, "...what is more likely to save us from going down the wrong path again is recognising how human beings can be trained and forced into faceless systems of oppression, in which conscience is extinguished." However this point of view is not entirely absent for, as LA Times move critic Kenneth Turan points out this film, "convincingly demonstrates that when done right, moral and political quandaries can be the most intensely dramatic dilemmas of all." The Lives of Others proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt and thus lays groundwork for more of such necessary and artistically sublime projects.

The health of a city after a disaster is directly related to the health before the disaster

2010-01-21T12:42:00.000-08:00

Amanda Ripley points out in her informative blog that anti-social behavior almost never happens after a disaster. "In fact, the opposite is true. People, like all animals, tend to form groups and show each other great courtesy in times of extreme shock and duress. People do this because it is in their interest. There was looting and some sporadic violence after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, but the mayhem never rose to a level that justified the amount of coverage. More people likely suffered because of the fear of looting and violence--due to delayed relief and search-and-rescue efforts and unnecessarily hostile encounters with police and armed, frightened civilians--than because of actual looting and violence."

However there are rare cases in which looting and violence can become widespread. Ripley interviewed Enrico Quarantelli, director of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware about his Theory of Looting which posits that widespread looting only seems to happen when the four following conditions are all present:

1. Dramatic disparity between rich and poor.
2. High levels of petty crime and gang activity. ("Gangs are almost always the leaders in any case of mass looting”)
3. An ineffective and corrupt police force. ("A corrupt and ineffective police force doesn’t scare anyone")
4. A massive catastrophe.

Ripley observes, "Notice that three of the four conditions are all pre-requisites, present before the actual disaster strikes. Another reminder that the health of a city after a disaster is directly related to the health before the disaster."

Daughter of Keltoum and Algeria vs. the Kabyle Berber peoples

2010-01-21T10:24:00.000-08:00

Don't miss this visually-arresting film by French Algerian writer and film-maker Mehdi Charef. On the surface it's the story of Rallia (Cylia Malki), a 19 year old Kabyle (Algerian branch of the Berber peoples) adopted by Swiss parents as an infant and her search for understanding why she was "abandoned." Rallia's "mad" aunt Nedjma (Baya Belal) accompanies her niece (in spite of her terror of an outside world she has never seen). They travel by bus, hitchhiking and on foot to find Keltoum at the far-away luxury hotel where she works as a maid. Rallia is the stand-in for the viewer while determined and terrified aunt Nedjma and the people they meet along the way constitute the opaque heart of the film. A film of a beautiful desolate region inhabited by proud, base, complicated people - not always what they seem at first glance - who are brutally oppressed and in turn oppress one another as well as give their children the most fierce and deepest of loves.

Some helpful context to this film and Algerian/Berber politics in general: "For several decades, the Algerian government has dealt with the Berbers, the descendants of Algeria's original inhabitants, the way most postcolonial governments in the Middle East and North Africa have dealt with ethnic and religious minorities-by attempting to buy them off, and when that has failed, by the blunt force of repression, in the hope that over time they would assimilate into the majority. To be fair, the Algerians in power have never been as brutal toward the Berbers as the Iraqis and the Turks have been toward the Kurds, perhaps because many of Algeria's politicians are themselves assimilated Berbers. But today, it's clear that those politicians have been just as successful in encouraging the very resistance they hoped to calm. In the mountainous region of Greater Kabylia, the cradle of Berber Algeria, a full-scale revolt against the Algerian regime and its Arab nationalist ideology has been underway for the past two years: The repressed has returned, with a vengeance. Ever since the late 19th century, Kabyles have been renowned for their military valor. But despite Berber fighters' disproportionate sacrifices in the revolution against French rule, the National Liberation Front (FLN)-the leading party in the national struggle against French authority-defined Algeria as a homogenous, Arab-Muslim state upon winning independence in 1962. It made standard Arabic mandatory in education, even though the language is spoken by few Algerians, most of whom use a North African dialect. The FLN also broke up Berber cultural meetings and frowned upon the use of the Berber tongue Tamazight as a threat to national unity....For an artist's version of this reality, I recommend 'Daughter of Keltoum'." - Adam Shatz, Boston Globe (6/8/03)

Film review: Amereeka

2010-01-21T09:34:00.000-08:00

AMEREEKA follows Muna, a single mother who leaves the West Bank for small town Illinois to give her her teenage son Fadi better opportunities and safety from the Israeli occupation. However she soon finds that the USA presents its own challenges: racist school bullies, general anti-Arab sentiment and the only job longtime banker Muna can get being at White Castle. However Muna, like so many immigrant women and mothers before her, is determined to put together a new life and does it with a flair all her own. This debut film, told with a crisp eye for both humor and pathos by writer-director Cherien Dabis, features standout performances by Nisreen Faour (Muna) and Hiam Abbass (recently seen in "The Visitor") as Muna's sister.

Books: Birds Without Wings, A Better View of Paradise & The Book of Salt

2010-01-19T06:02:00.000-08:00

Much has been written about the novel Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres. What I wish to add is that it's a must-read for anyone seeking to understand (as much as we ever can understand) genocide among neighbors such as in Turkey, Cambodia, Liberia, the former Yugoslavia, etc. The novel is strongly linked to a specific geographical place and historical era, but it explores a story that is, sadly enough, quite universal and intensely relevant today.

Another good read is the recently-published novel A Better View of Paradise by Seattle author Randy Sue Coburn. Reading this book gives the reader a chance to experience something of Kauai - both present-day and mythic. Also making a strong showing are: Chicago, baseball and father/daughter relations. The ending is too neat after the more nuanced tenor of the book up to that point and there's a formulaic quality to the protagonist's romantic relationship. However these are minor quibbles compared to the pleasures that this book offers.

The Book of Salt by Monique Truong comes to us through the eyes of Binh - a young Vietnamese cook to Stein & Toklas. I treasure Truong's lyrical writing as well as having a chance to journey to a different Paris - the Paris that one finds on the other side of door from the heady salons of Stein & Toklas. Read this book for a view of familiar place from new and illuminating angles of light.

Happy Birthday Edwidge Danticat

2010-01-19T05:53:00.000-08:00

Today I'm celebrating the life and work of writer Edwidge Danticat who was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1969. Her books include: Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994); Krik? Krak! (1995); The Farming of Bones (1999); After the Dance: A Walk through Carnival in Jacmel, Haiti (2002); The Dewbreaker (2004); and two novels for young adults, Behind the Mountain (2002) and Anacaona: Golden Flower, Haiti, 1490 (2005).

Happiness is my life's common denominator

2010-01-18T09:03:00.000-08:00

Last week I finally began to see and articulate a common thread in my work, my life - happiness. I realized that over the years and the many different things I've done my interest has always been on cultivating happiness - both my own and that of others.

In my personal life I actively shed layer after layer of current and ancestral grief/anger in order to emerge into a space where happiness can be cultivated. My professional goals have constantly been the success of my “client” (be it an academic journal where I worked, my therapy clients or the readers of my work). And frequently I've focused on bicultural children and high achieving women who often lack therapists who can keep up with them and actually be of help.

Meeting my wife in 2007 brought me to a whole new level of existence. She teaches me about happiness and opens up a channel for it into my life. She also helps me become more rooted in joy and able to gracefully accept what I cannot do. When I live in and act from happiness my past, present and future are connected and in balance. The cultivation of happiness weaves together my varied and seemingly dissimilar life experiences and interests.

Now that I am aware of this I will spend the rest of my “wild and precious life” putting happiness at the core and forefront of every day. It doesn't mean that I will avoid or be free of sadness or pain, but rather those experiences will be only a small part of a much bigger journey.

Joy

2010-01-16T18:10:00.000-08:00

"Who could need more proof than honey—

How the bees with such skill and purpose
enter flower after flower
sing their way home
to create and cap the new honey
just to get through the flowerless winter...."

from "Joy" by Julie Cadwallader Staub
Read the rest of the poem at Writer's Almanac

Book review: When Wanderers Cease to Roam

2010-01-15T09:04:00.000-08:00

After twenty years of travel Vivian Swift finds a village on Long Island Sound and decides to stay. She brings an attentive eye to, as she says, “Staying Put” as well as weaving her travel memories seamlessly into her new life. Swift's entertaining , thoughtful and always beautiful combination of words and images is to be savored – read a little and then come back to it later. This is a book as unhurried and flavorful as the cups of tea she enjoys. Being a Peace Corps volunteer threads through her later travel experiences in Ireland, France, Tunisia, etc. I like how the author holds her travels in the same time zone of her heart. In other words, the Sahara of her Peace Corps years lives right alongside a Paris cafe of a couple years ago, today's walk in her village, a book she read, a fact she learned, tomorrow's dreams, etc. It’s a rich and multilayered palimpsest of existence – of life.

Save your local economy three stores at a time

2010-01-13T07:51:00.000-08:00

3 - Think about which three independently owned stores you'd miss most if they were gone. Stop in and say hello. Your contribution is what keeps these businesses around.

50 - If just half the employed US population spent $50 each month in independently owned stores, their purchases would generate $42,629,700,000 in revenue. Imagine the postive impact that would have on our local economies.

68 - For every $100 spent in independently owned stores, $68 of it returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures. If you spend that in a national chain, only $43 stays here. Spend it online and nothing comes home.

1 - The number of people it takes to start the trend...you.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
The 3/50 Project

PICK 3. SPEND 50. SAVE YOUR LOCAL ECONOMY.

Poverty & inequity are the real killers in natural disasters (think: New Orleans, Haiti, etc.)

2010-01-13T07:01:00.000-08:00

"Poverty always hugely magnifies natural disasters. I saw this first in the terrible 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh that killed more than 100,000 people. The poorest people lived in marginal areas, such as flood plains, and in flimsy huts that were immediately washed away. So they were killed. Those who were better off lived on firmer land in sturdier homes, and after the disaster they were able to afford clean water and medical care for their children. Frequently what kills people in these disasters isn’t just nature but its interconnection with poverty, and in Haiti it’s imperative to arrange not only the earthquake response — digging people out of rubble — but also a public health response by controlling disease and assuring access to clean water for survivors."

~ Nicholas D. Kristof

Diario de Oaxaca by Peter Kuper

2010-01-12T13:51:00.000-08:00

Diario de Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico by Peter Kuper was listed on a resource list for information on Oaxaca, Mexico. Intrigued by this combination of word and image I checked it out of the library.

Peter Kuper arrives with wife and daughter just as anti-corruption/pro-justice protests fill the streets and zocalos of Oaxaca and the government suppresses the protestors with depressing and predictable brutality. It's understandable that a large part of the Diario is spent depicting this situation in sketches and photos. Gradually Kuper begins to explore other aspects of his time there such as his daughter's joy at helping ecologists release baby sea turtles into the ocean, the side-by-side worlds of tourists/expats and Mexicans, slowing down and smelling the jacaranda (and other more unpleasant odors). I found most rewarding and informative the moments of the Diario when Peter Kuper rediscovers his childhood passion for insects: "Before the idea of becoming an artist was even a scribble in my mind, I was determined to become an entomologist, or 'bugger' as I declared to a friend of my parents who worked at the natural history museum." His daughter shares his predilection for insects and so the family make a pilgrimage to El Rosario and the Sierra Chincua forest in Michoacan state where migrating Monarch butterflies gather.

Diario de Oaxaca gives an earthy and organic feel to what living in Oaxaca can be like. It combines a journalistic eye for political events with the close-up gaze of a people (and bug) watcher. You won't find the voices of the Mexicans who surround him (the protestors or others) or much in the way of historic/political/social information. However you will see, and perhaps even smell, what it was like for one person living in Oaxaca.

True financial equity-5 point plan from "Paycheck Feminism" by Karen Kornbluh & Rachel Homer

2010-01-10T14:53:00.000-08:00

Did you know? 2/3 mothers are breadwinners and women make up 50% of the paid workforce?
1) Stop making unemployment, retirement and other benefits contingent on steady FT work
2) Don't make flexible hours a barrier to health insurance, and do stop charging women more for health insurance
3) Guarantee workers paid family & medical leave
4) Provide high-quality healthcare
5) Stop taxing women's income unfairly/disproportionately - get rid of: a) flat taxes=payroll taxes for SS & Medicare are flat taxes which means that people w/lower incomes pay higher percentage of income than those with higher incomes (over $106,800) and b) get rid of taxing combined income pushing the lower earner (usually a woman) into a higher tax bracket=second earner penalty (from MS Magazine, fall 2009)

Lois Beardslee, artist from one of my homelands-the Great Lakes

2010-01-10T14:36:00.000-08:00

Lois Beardslee is Ojibwa. Her art reflects a lifetime spent in northern Michigan, interaction with other tribal members, and the formal study of Native American art history. As a teenager, she was profoundly influenced by the work of Yvonne Walker-Keshick, with whom she worked at the Traverse City Indian Center. Her work incorporates traditional techniques, materials, and images drawn from her knowledge and experience. She gathers pigments for her paints from the earth in northern Michigan and finds design inspiration in ancient pictographs and Woodland Indian legends. She participates in the Great Lakes Indian Artists Association. Her involvement in the Native American Women Artists" project has prompted her to explore the themes of Native American culture, women, and water in her work. In addition to painting, the multi-talented Beardslee also specializes in beadwork and is a superb storyteller. Her presentations to audiences of all ages, tribal and nontribal, are filled with tales of Nanabush and other Woodland Indian figures, as well as personal reminiscences of her childhood. Her stories have recently been collected and recorded on audio cassettes as Leelanau Earth Stories.

Words...

2010-01-10T12:16:00.001-08:00

Keep alert for dense, rich words, and don't hesitate to fling them around. How about "fox," dirt," "leather," "squirt," "chafe," "warp," "vortex," and "crinkle"? Being on good terms with words like that will keep you from losing yourself in the labyrinth of the abstract and the over-intellectual. I'll never be able to cross a mountain torrent, now, without thinking of Hopkins' "crispest endive sprayings."

And cleave to verbs. A drifting, off-target account can suddenly ignite if you insert the right verb. There are plenty of verb-gems languishing out there that deserve to be polished up and placed in new settings: dissolve, mirror, badger, uproot, winnow, slather, suspend, carve, blot, bundle, contort, revolve, flood, crumble, dither, tamp, utter.

from Keeping a Nature Journal by Clare Walker Leslie & Charles E. Roth

What is art?

2010-01-10T11:51:00.000-08:00

Celebration, teaching, history, ritual, research, human activity, making meaning, a business model, generates creators (not just more consumers). Paraphrasing some comments made by Bill Cleaveland.

Investing in Creativity

2010-01-10T11:28:00.000-08:00

Investing in Creativity by the Urban Institute found that artists need:
1. Validation & Recognition
2. Markets for & Vehicles with which to share/sell art to audiences
3. Material Support - healthcare, supplies, housing
4. Training & Professional Development
5. Communities & Networks
6. Access to information (e.g., Artist Trust in Seattle, LINC in NYC)
Check out: 4Culture, Trumain Foundation, etc.

Don't miss Anjali Banerjee's new book coming May 2010

2010-01-09T21:53:00.000-08:00

SEAGLASS SUMMER, coming May 11, 2010:

Preorder from Amazon

Eleven-year-old Poppy Ray longs to be a veterinarian, but she's never had a pet. This summer, she's going to spend a month with her uncle Sanjay, veterinarian and owner of the Furry Friends Animal Clinic on an island off the Washington coast.

Poppy is in for big surprises. She loves tending to the dogs, cats, and even a bird, and she discovers the fun of newborn puppies and the satisfaction of doing a good job. But she learns that there's more to caring for animals than the stethoscope and cotton swabs in her Deluxe Veterinarian First-Aid Kit. She's not prepared for quirky pet owners, gross stuff, or scary emergencies. With help from a boy named Hawk, a chunk of seaglass, and a touch of intuition, Poppy gains a deeper understanding of the pain and joy of working with animals.

With warmth and humor, Anjali Banerjee tells the story of a resourceful, determined girl who can't wait to grow up, but begins to realize just how much she has left to discover.

Ferran Adria cooks & Grace Lin tells a story

2010-01-09T21:27:00.000-08:00

Over the holidays my mother told me about the Spanish innovator and cook Ferran Adria. She then sent me "Decoding Ferran Adria" - a DVD of the program done by chef Anthony Bourdain about Adria. I'm lucky she did since it isn't available on Netflix. Adria is a mix of high-tech and fundamental - he loves the most basic of restaurants when he eats out, seeks to evoke memories of flavors and the very essence of food while also playing with our senses and expectations of food. Examples of this play include serving a fish that seems raw, but is perfectly cooked; apple cavier; the filling of ravioli but without anything holding it together (looks like an unbroken raw egg yoke); an egg yolk w/the outside carmelized and a tiny topping; a fish dish that you eat while holding a sprig of rosemary (the herb is too strong if added to the dish, but the scent gives just the right amount of "flavor"). I found myself wondering what Adria would do if he did his experiments, but in a low-tech way. Could it work? If so, what would the results be?

Today I finished the pre-/early teen reader novel Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by illustrator and writer Grace Lin. Lin delivers a wonderful mix of luminous two- and full-color images and elegant text which updates and invigorates classic Chinese characters and themes through fairy tales that Lin created for the novel. The main story is of a Chinese girl Minli who sets out to find a way to improve the fortune of her poor parents and village. Her adventure is interwoven with the evolution of her parents as they mourn her absence and the many stories that are told by various characters along the way. The illustrations, while not integral to the narrative as they are in say, The Invention of Hugo Cabret or The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, are an unmitigated delight and serve as an effective to draw reluctant readers in and expand the reader's visual knowledge more about China and Chinese culture. Enjoy!

What I'm reading/thinking about today (thank you Nancy)

2010-01-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

When Wanderers Cease to Roam. . . (from Nancy Pearl's excellent book blog - see links)

by Vivian Swift

I cannot adequately convey how much I ABSOLUTELY loved Vivian Swift’s When Wanderers Cease to Roam: A Traveler’s Journal of Staying Put (Bloomsbury, 2008). For over two decades, Swift traveled the world, for work and fun, and then settled down with five cats in a house in a small village on the Long Island Sound. This is a diary (highly illustrated with her watercolor drawings) of those years, as well as the events of the past. It’s charming, delightful, and captivating. I loved the pictures of the single mittens that she’s found over the years, but I could have equally chosen any of hundreds of other examples of what made this book so much fun to read. Here are others: it’s through this book that I learned about the mid-18^th century French soldier, Xavier de Maistre, who was confined to prison for 42 years (for dueling), and decided to write about each of the items in his room as though it were an important tourist attraction. Swift says that he “invented a new mode of travel.” And Alexander von Humbolt, who was an explorer and naturalist, and almost an exact contemporary of de Maistre (although they probably never met). He spent five years exploring Latin America and then, according to Swift, lived in Paris for 20 years and wrote 30 books about his Latin American adventures.

Feliz ano nuevo

2010-01-08T13:14:00.001-08:00

It has been months since I created this blog.

Part of the delay has been due to parenting a son with special needs (or, to be more accurate, navigating the complicated systems that surround people with disabilities/different-abilities). However mainly it's due to having such a range of interests that I struggle with how to focus this blog.

This isn't a new challenge. I've always had my finger in many different pies - a foot in multiple worlds. (No wonder it took five years, two colleges and one university on two continents for me to get my BA.)

Right now my worlds include: reading and writing young adult/children's books and literature in general, investing in girls worldwide, providing bilingual mental health & career counseling, learning more about service animals, becoming fluent in Spanish, parenting a child with special needs & helping raise my bilingual niece, living as an antiracist white, cultivating peace, savoring joy and building a home after years of travel.

Welcome!

2009-09-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

Bienvenidos to the new blog METTA MIND - keeping a metta (the Pali word for "loving-kindness") mind on what matters. US American poet Mary Oliver wrote, "Let me / Keep my mind on what matters, / which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished." That's a good description of this blog - a place to keep a metta mind on what matters - standing still, learning, reflecting and, above all being dazzled and delighted. Namaskara!