tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38861187144514510142024-02-20T15:10:27.230-08:00The Wheel and the DiskAlysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.comBlogger179125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-3190298817659269282016-02-21T19:41:00.000-08:002016-02-21T19:52:53.811-08:00Being Together <style>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This was shared as a First Word at West Hills Friends church in Portland OR. A First Word is a time for members of the community to share how god is moving in their life. One of the core tenants of our Quaker faith and tradition is that god speaks to each person individually and it is our job to listen, quietly and collectively, so that we can hear. Sometimes we find that it takes a lot of work to hear and other times - and this was one of them - the message comes screaming in like a meteor. I wrote the core of this piece as a text one night, and it has not changed except in expanding it a little to provide context. Wisdom just blams into your mind sometimes and I am ever so grateful that it does :)</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>I love modern communication technology.
As an introvert who likes people, having a way to keep in touch with my friends
while still laying in my bed is like manna from heaven. Texting is really my
go-to communication method, it’s not that intrusive, it can be asynchronous but
the device is with me everywhere. But as amazing as email, facebook and texting
are for increasing communication and connectivity of ideas, those methods of
engaging with others lack some important things. It turns out, sometimes being
with people really is best.<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpgu6NZveTSlj0zylLQWZXrc0lZDp0KSTavY8I_DQsD1H5IJibECpFtvjTItSU9ZzYep1gnWwWgV5lLsTRdMBu6AURROWkaEr_7cA6W5V7QVa0GbMX4EE6L3fxvPfrmg4WVt9m-kglsfo/s1600/haring1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpgu6NZveTSlj0zylLQWZXrc0lZDp0KSTavY8I_DQsD1H5IJibECpFtvjTItSU9ZzYep1gnWwWgV5lLsTRdMBu6AURROWkaEr_7cA6W5V7QVa0GbMX4EE6L3fxvPfrmg4WVt9m-kglsfo/s200/haring1.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’ve missed church a bunch this last
month because I was off doing things with friends new and old. Even when I’m
not here I get the weekly update that lists all the things people shared during
joys and concerns. On weeks when I am here that list of names and brief
summaries of what they shared feels like a pleasant Monday reminder of what I
heard. It reminds me to think of them, as Mike reminds us to do every week. But
when I haven’t been in attendance it feels like a litany of pain... So and so
is ill, somebody's niece or mom fell, someone is having a hard time at work or
with their kids or someone else is remembering the death of a loved one or
parents dying soon. It feels overwhelming when I haven’t been in the presence
of the people sharing the pain. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrKELtbgjTqJfHN0LhZgH5M8WnM8fPG_pqueCsdLSqzV3lVGqdJH2X1jPJ936306Z7Hg2UgR3L1TGR08ZaUhkNCEjxozGRnYAY6ahinF2skHIKh6Q9RNoCzudjGNINMkl4RwHaDK2Tpyw/s1600/haring2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrKELtbgjTqJfHN0LhZgH5M8WnM8fPG_pqueCsdLSqzV3lVGqdJH2X1jPJ936306Z7Hg2UgR3L1TGR08ZaUhkNCEjxozGRnYAY6ahinF2skHIKh6Q9RNoCzudjGNINMkl4RwHaDK2Tpyw/s200/haring2.jpg" width="188" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I have been thinking a lot about this,
the importance of actually being present with hard stuff. I think about it in
terms of hard conversations or deep sharing with my friends. It’s so hard for
me to comfort a friend going through a nasty break up in Alaska, but talking
with another friend here in Portland about loss and fear in his life is easier
because I can look at his face and touch his hand as he tells the story. Hard
conversations with my sister go better when we aren’t trying to do it over
text. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in my own mind, the practice
of mindfulness meditation is allowing me to be more fully present in my body
and more able to feel all the hard stuff and the good stuff without shutting
down. The intimacy of being in the same room with people makes the overwhelming
hurt of being human so much more bearable. <br /> </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM-vZ2GeTdCRq-wjHDLYfJl4EH_39t6_si7T7jRpXmbEo9SGydO8L65wtYjJAWyRQfbSBXN4Js-nv-Q8RE5rKTzVJwE4yNM7AIML4xsmBFGIAQL3VVOPS3Fc-Jq6DinCdLVs5_gioZm04/s1600/keith-haring-dance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM-vZ2GeTdCRq-wjHDLYfJl4EH_39t6_si7T7jRpXmbEo9SGydO8L65wtYjJAWyRQfbSBXN4Js-nv-Q8RE5rKTzVJwE4yNM7AIML4xsmBFGIAQL3VVOPS3Fc-Jq6DinCdLVs5_gioZm04/s320/keith-haring-dance.jpg" width="320" /> </a></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ultimately, all of that is why we do community, right? Because we are stuck in
these bodies that fail and these lives that crack apart, but we also get each
other. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We do family and community because
we can’t stop the crap from happening, but knowing people will listen to your
story, think kindly of you, touch your hand or give you a hug and maybe bring
you some food or send a card makes it bearable in the end. And we really just
can’t do that through a device. I believe in the internet, I really do. I think
it is changing the world for the better and will solve many problems, but it
can’t replace intimate, physical community. Thank you for being my community and
making it all a little more bearable. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For more writing I have shared with my Quaker community or about my Quaker spirituality, check out my <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/search/label/quakers">Quaker tag</a>!</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The pictures I chose for this post are from Keith Haring. Check out <a href="http://www.haring.com/">his biography and work here</a>. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-43354350118891237182016-01-15T16:00:00.000-08:002016-03-29T16:10:25.965-07:00Making Friends Not Meaning<br />
2015 was one hell of a year. My mother died in March and I struggled with grief, depression and family strife for much of the rest of the year. As of right now, the turning of the year, I have found a medication that has me feeling back to myself and am actively working through a lifetime of Stuff. It's not fun but it's important. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And let me assure you, there is no meaning. Don't go looking for it.
Searching for meaning is like searching for a rhyming scheme in a
cookbook. There is none and it will bugger up your souffle. - Tim
Minchin </blockquote>
I am a very analytical person who really likes to understand why a thing is happening or how a thing works. This is a very useful personality trait when I am faced with intellectual challenges but I'm realizing that that orientation can be a barrier to contentedness. As I have waded through the last year or two, I have come to realize that my emotions are bigger and my history deeper than I was ever very aware of and it has led to feeling quite discontented with my life. I've been struggling with family history, personal characteristics and habits and the vast scale of trauma in this world in ways that feel terrible a lot of the time. Thinking is not solving any of these problems.<br />
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The Guest House - Rumi <br />
<br />
This being human is a guest house.<br />
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Every morning a new arrival.<br />
<br />
A joy, a depression, a meanness,<br />
some momentary awareness comes<br />
As an unexpected visitor.<br />
<br />
Welcome and entertain them all!<br />
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,<br />
who violently sweep your house<br />
empty of its furniture,<br />
still treat each guest honorably.<br />
He may be clearing you out<br />
for some new delight.<br />
<br />
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,<br />
meet them at the door laughing,<br />
and invite them in.<br />
<br />
Be grateful for whoever comes,<br />
because each has been sent<br />
as a guide from beyond.</div>
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This year, rather than thinking more about my problems, I'm going to focus on befriending each each passing guest. I will aim to cultivate the persona of a wise old woman innkeeper who sweeps the floor, cooks the soup, welcomes the guests and doesn't worry so much about where they come from, where they're going to or why they're pissing on the floor. I do mean actual human and animal friends as well as life experiences but I actually think those are things I'm pretty good at already. I could stretch the accepting not questioning aspect, but since Grabbing the Tiger By the Tail I've been pretty good at opening myself to external experiences. The real challenge will be welcoming the internal experiences of emotions, thoughts and self love.<br />
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As usual, I looked to a number of divination tools to help me understand my intention for 2016. I pulled some tarot cards, looked at Sabian symbols and read the works of visionary thinkers. Rob Breszny, my astrologer and personal hero for many years, kept giving us Virgos horoscopes about desire around Solstice and New Year. He posed questions about how we identify our desires and how we understand when they are pulling us in one direction, or in scattered ways. I feel that letting following desires, or at least acknowledgement of desires, will be key to my path this year. When I stop letting my brain do all the heavy lifting, something else is going to have to take over and the heart speaks through desires.<br />
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"The sky calls me," wrote Virgo teacher and poet Sri Chinmoy. "The wind
calls me. The moon and stars call me. The dense groves call me. The
dance of the fountain calls me. Smiles call me, tears call me. A faint
melody calls me. The morn, noon and eve call me. Everyone is searching
for a playmate. Everyone is calling me, 'Come, come!'" In 2016, Virgo, I
suspect you will have a lot of firsthand experience with feelings like
these. Sometimes life's seductiveness may overwhelm you, activating
confused desires to go everywhere and do everything. On other occasions,
you will be enchanted by the lush invitations, and will know exactly
how to respond and reciprocate. </blockquote>
My tarot spread was all about a journey towards wholeness and community. It started with Little Red Cap, inviting me to be the hero of my own journey, and led to the Two of Hearts and the Three of Crystals. Two is the number of resonance and connection, and the hearts point towards emotional connections, maybe romantic or maybe friendship or even a connection to the divine. Crystals are the suit of the practical and the physical while three is the number of harmony and balance. The image is of kids playing jump rope pointing to how community is formed by individuals working together. <br />
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The Sabian symbol I picked was Aquarius 25, a butterfly with the right wing more perfectly formed. This symbol compares and contrasts the emotional self with the conscious individualization, showing that one has been over developed at the expense of the other. This resonates so clearly with me, knowing that my own thinking and analytical skills are well developed while other skills are less developed. I will be called to correct that balance this year, and like any physical rehabilitation that is likely to be unpleasant at times. <br />
Everything is Waiting for You (by David Whyte)<br />
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Your great mistake is to act the drama<br />
as if you were alone. As if life<br />
were a progressive and cunning crime<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /> with no witness to the tiny hidden<br /> transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny<br /> the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,<br /> even you, at times, have felt the grand array;<br /> the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding<br /> out your solo voice You must note<br /> the way the soap dish enables you,<br /> or the window latch grants you freedom.<br /> Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.<br /> The stairs are your mentor of things<br /> to come, the doors have always been there<br /> to frighten you and invite you,<br /> and the tiny speaker in the phone<br /> is your dream-ladder to divinity.</span></blockquote>
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Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into<br />
the conversation. The kettle is singing<br />
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots<br />
have left their arrogant aloofness and<br />
seen the good in you at last. All the birds<br />
and creatures of the world are unutterably<br />
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.</blockquote>
2016 Is the Year I Stop Worrying and Make Friends<br />
<ul>
<li>It will feel like sweeping the floor of the inn, no matter who shows up</li>
<li>It will sound like distant laughter of children and the laughter of friends and the cooing of lovers</li>
<li>It will flitter like a butterfly and sparkle like pyrite.</li>
<ul>
<li>Both of these things have a bright and beautiful surface, but are deeply malleable and change easily. A caterpillar turns into goo before becoming a butterfly. Pyrite can be a cube, a plate, or a perfectly shaped ammonite shell. </li>
</ul>
<li>It will be held lightly, breathed in and out, knowing the good stuff comes and so does the bad but like sunrise and sunset. Nothing more, nothing less. </li>
</ul>
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Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-51449470692710200602015-07-05T13:08:00.000-07:002015-07-14T13:09:40.723-07:00A Summer Evening in the Suburbs<div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Suburban neighborhoods come alive when the sun goes down in the high summer. In the hot, bright days everyone is hiding, trying to keep cool. Closed blinds, buzzing AC and blaring daytime TV keeps any evidence of the outside world out along with the heat and the sun. But come 9:30, as that bright yellow sun turns neon orange and sinks below the western horizon, the neighborhood seems to emerge like a night flower. Slowly and tentatively, but surely in that fleeting time between sunset and full dark.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Walking around the block there are neighbors to talk to. Catch up on neighborhood news, how's the baby, are the kids enjoying summer camp? The old man and his old dog teeter down the street, encouraging and supporting each other on their twice daily circumnavigation of the block. Doors and window have been thrown open giving you a rare glance into the inner sanctum of the split level ranch, the faux tudor, the tiny bungalow. It looks so much like yours, but the details make you morbidly curious - that lamp, that art, that bookshelf. A window frames the sweaty woman and her daughter doing dishes together. Another window shows a glimpse of the Jewish family enjoying a late late sabbath dinner. Children eating ice cream on the stoop, bare footed and bare armed. The man watering his roses. The girl on her phone, on her back, on the grass. A cat stares from under a hydrangea in full bloom. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJjExlcicWitsYbBtPaxu6PNGOhsA6eIEYjOy7NmRo5jxopr-U8sq4NBx2YWTu6dauok9FjpN9BEEKQt19LUoTVVLmgWs_F-5njJKNhxP4FkY27ejw5l_KV8ZrCNsrYh_bY4Wl5TqE7XA/s1600/planetsinthesky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJjExlcicWitsYbBtPaxu6PNGOhsA6eIEYjOy7NmRo5jxopr-U8sq4NBx2YWTu6dauok9FjpN9BEEKQt19LUoTVVLmgWs_F-5njJKNhxP4FkY27ejw5l_KV8ZrCNsrYh_bY4Wl5TqE7XA/s320/planetsinthesky.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/starmist1/19157276278/">Todd Petit</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Turn onto the open street again and see two bright stars in the sky. They are planets, Venus and Jupiter. They are close, close enough that your outstretched two fingers, like a blessing, would cover them both. These bright lights, the Lover and the King, look close but, like the woman with the dishes and the man with his roses, have great distance between them. The planets' distance is measured in hundreds of millions of kilometers, mind boggling numbers that stretch across a solar system. The neighbors, though, what unit of measurement shows strangers who live next door? People who know each others' cars, landscaping and faces, but don't know each other. Have never shared what excites them, what scares them. It might be a bigger distance, really, between the neighbors than between the planets. </span>Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-6600664121579447202014-12-28T18:26:00.002-08:002014-12-28T18:51:06.258-08:00Open Worship, a Quaker Distinctive<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This was written as a first word for my Quaker community, <a href="http://www.westhillsfriends.org/">West Hills Friends</a>.
First words are a 3-5 minute report on how god is moving in your life
right now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Hello, my name is Alyss and this Christmas was my fifth Christmas at West Hills. I didn't grow up a Quaker but last summer, a Friend here accused me of "being convinced by the process". I laughed but have come to think of that as the best way to describe my Quaker conversion. This process, these centuries old methods of seeking and finding, these are distinctive ways of worship and business particular to us Quakers. I've seen them work and they have convinced me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">George Fox wrote, "<span class="journal">Meet together, and in the measure of God's spirit wait, that with it all your minds may be guided up to God, to receive wisdom from God. That you may all come to know how you may walk up to him in his wisdom."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="journal">Here at West Hills Friends we hold our open worship to be that special and sacred place where we wait for God's spirit. And more than once, I have received some of that wisdom Fox referred to. Sounds like it would be fun, right? Hah. Being led to speak in Meeting is not, in my experience, an altogether
pleasant experience. I like to talk and I like to tell people what I
think and know. I mean, I'm a middle school teacher - I make a living
standing up in front of big groups of people telling them what I know. But giving vocal ministry is not like that at all. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="journal"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Silent worship is, in our Quaker understanding, a time for God to
speak to us. God is speaking to us, her gathered body. God has always
had to use humans' hands, mouths and wombs to do her work and through generations of lived experience we have learned that silence
together is one of the best ways to prepare for hearing that voice of
god. That silence is important, it is sacred, it is the path we walk on
to get to the place we can hear god. And maybe be asked to share what we hear.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="journal">In 1659 early Friend, Alexander Parker wrote about giving vocal ministry: "</span><span class="journal">And if any be moved to speak words, wait low in the pure fear, to know
the mind of the Spirit, where and to whom they are to be spoken. If any
are moved to speak, see that they speak in the power; and when the
power is still, you are still."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Pure fear. Speak in the power and when the power is still, you are still. This is not a small task we are being called to. Silent worship has always seemed to me as akin to us all being archaeologists
working on a dig. Each person is intent on the delicate work right in
front of them. Giving vocal ministry is like yelling "Look - look
what I found!" Everyone stops their own work with tooth brushes and
dental picks to see what you found. If what you've found is good it will
help everyone else with their work. But there's a chance that you are
distracting them and interrupting their good work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In
my experience, being called to speak in worship is a distinctly physical
experience. It starts with a thought, just like any other thought, but
almost immediately there is a distinct bell that DINGS in my mind. A
flag that this is important. So, my mind reacts to this notice of
importance with "Oh! I should stand up and share!" But then I get a kind
of sense of dread. Nope, that's just my ego talking, wanting to be seen
and heard and have people think I'm witty and wise and clever. That is
not what this time is for. So I sit, listening again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="journal">Edward Burrough, an early convert under Fox wrote in 1655 "</span><span class="journal">Do not be hasty, when you see things open in your minds;
dwell in them, and do not run out to speak them, but treasure
them up in your hearts, and take heed, and keep low in
the fear of the Lord God, that pride and presumption do not get
up, nor anything be exalted above what is pure."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogX9tvGcd5UTWD77M9hkM59FzuxL2bqaJa89nL6jkz_uOyJWIDtjyx2uTo66dSrNK2AJSmGVqiy2ZRpIKaCnNguVntj6fp2EjlTLuE8-Ban1Ux6N2nGWgeOUCg9fAN5ghXSEN2bnDjQs/s1600/presence_in_the_midst_med.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogX9tvGcd5UTWD77M9hkM59FzuxL2bqaJa89nL6jkz_uOyJWIDtjyx2uTo66dSrNK2AJSmGVqiy2ZRpIKaCnNguVntj6fp2EjlTLuE8-Ban1Ux6N2nGWgeOUCg9fAN5ghXSEN2bnDjQs/s1600/presence_in_the_midst_med.png" height="244" width="320" /></a>Often, at this
point, that original thought expands, contracts, continues on to
something else that feels different than my own thinking and again the
bell DINGS. By this time, though, the No often comes from my ego... "I am
so not standing up and saying THAT". What before felt like a message
that would get me applauded now feels like a message that would bare my
innermost tender and gooey parts. I am not saying that out loud. At about
this time my stomach starts to hurt and my knees feel weak. Denial on
the edge of panic. No no, no. But the message won't go away and by now
it is clear that god has tapped me on the shoulder to say this thing.
She's waiting, standing behind me with my arms crossed waiting, like
Yahweh listening to Moses give all the reasons he can not possibly go
talk to Pharaoh, both of them knowing full well Moses is gonna go talk
to Pharaoh.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Other people speak and I am temporarily relieved. Sweet, off
the hook! But then the silence falls and I'm back on that hook. Finally
I can't stand it. The pressure is too much or Mike asks if "all hearts
are clear" and mine most certainly is not. I stand and start to speak.
The first few words are familiar, I thought these already. But often the
message moves away from my thoughts and things that had been nebulous
at best come out in elegant or halting words. People often thank me for
these words but I feel bashful - they weren't mine. I didn't think them,
I hardly remember speaking them. When the message is done I sit down
and thank goddess for whoever it was that donated those pillows 'cause I
really need to hug something to me when I sit back down. The first time
this happened I remember thinking, "oh! That's why we're called
Quakers."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Giving vocal ministry in open worship is a Quaker distinctive. It is a thing that sets us apart from other people, other Christians, other seekers. I don't know if this is how vocal ministry works for yo, and this is not how god works for me in most other places in my life. It is a mystery and I have no explanation. I am convinced by the process, though.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Quotes from Early Friends came from Hall V Worthington's website here: <a href="http://www.hallvworthington.com/George_Fox_Selections/meetingrules.html">http://www.hallvworthington.com/George_Fox_Selections/meetingrules.html</a></span>Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-30766391202134062162014-06-23T13:00:00.002-07:002014-06-23T13:05:01.780-07:00Walk Cheerfully Over the World <div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Journey Moon</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This was written as a first word for my Quaker community, <a href="http://www.westhillsfriends.org/">West Hills Friends</a>. First words are a 3-5 minute report on how god is moving in your life right now. As the school year ends I have been thinking about my first year as a teacher, and this is definitely how god is moving in my life right now :) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I made it. The last days of the school year are over and done with, grades entered, last paperwork filed and it is summer time! My first year teaching was hard. I mean, everyone said it was going to be hard, I knew it was going to be hard, but I had no idea it was going to be HARD. Like, really, really hard. Looking back on my year I am left with ambivalent feelings about how our public schools work, but I came away crazy in love with my students and with the science I have been trying to introduce them to this year. We go into teaching, especially teaching middle school, in the hopes of changing our students and changing the world but I walked out of my school that June afternoon knowing that I had been changed as well. <a href="http://lightandsilence.org/2007/02/walk_cheerfully_over_the_world_1.html">In 1656 George Fox wrote a letter from jail</a> in which he reminded Friends to "<b>be patterns, be examples in all
countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come; that your life
and conduct may preach among all sorts of people, and to them. Then you
will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in
every one; whereby in them ye may be a blessing, and make the witness of
God in them to bless you" </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I did not walk as cheerfully as I would have liked to through this first year of teaching. I showed up at school the same day the students did and felt like I was behind the curve every day. The schedule and pace of a modern middle school are grueling and I didn't yet know how to hold time and space for the kind of human interactions I always wanted to. I got tired, depressed and even angry sometimes. But that of God in each of my students cheerfully stepped forward and blessed me each day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Middle schoolers are intense people. They are growing so quickly that their abilities, preferences and priorities change daily. Their emotions are right under the surface, but their defenses are high. Each and every one of them was a strange, amazing and special spark of light in my life this year. S--, a beautiful, tall girl who was so worried about failing that she wrote notes to me on each test about how sorry she was that she didn't know anything and was going to fail - and got As on all her tests. C--, a guy with a round freckled face and dark hair who came dressed as a zombie baseball player at Halloween and cried when I told him I was going to email his mom because a big project was still missing. Mom was not pleased, but didn't make a big deal out of it - just made him do the work and show it to me even though I said I wouldn't score it. D--, who couldn't sit still or control his voice for even 10 minutes at the beginning of the year and by the end of the year sat quietly while other's spoke, raised his hand and waited his turn, and shared his very thoughtful comments on natural resource use and robots. I love these kids in a way that I can't even understand, like the way I love god.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I might not have been the pattern or example I wanted to be every day. Modern public schools can be inhumane places where the schedule is more important than the people. I told kids to sit down and be quiet more often than I would like - but what are my alternatives when I have 38 thirteen year olds in a room with exactly 40 seats and twelve learning targets to "get through" in 9 months. But I must have been pattern enough to be a blessing and be blessed. Late in the spring, A--, a smiling faced, touseled hair guy who was always full of "did you know..."s, held the door for me one morning. I thanked him and he replied "Anything for my favorite science teacher!" I waited a beat, and then mock exclaimed "hey! I'm your ONLY science teacher!" M--, a tall, studious and quiet sixth grader blossomed socially this year in my class. At the beginning of the year she had a really hard time being in a group with a couple rowdy kids and at parent teacher conferences her mom said "You really saw Miranda and that made all the difference for her." By the end of the year she was holding her own against all the rowdies in the room. E--, a troubled young man who also loved science but shut down with
any pressure to do work, agreed to a deal with me at the end of the
year. If he wrote a paper on a topic of his choice I could give him a
passing grade. He did, much to everyone's surprise - and it was good,
and on time. His support teacher complimented me, "He has done more
work for you this year than for any other teacher in this school this
year or last." </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJKcYrhj4Kz34fOOdOnIfSsuhK8X99Hb-utjHvApS0wWtnohRZDt-ELVJBrAz-UWyq8RmD6SCU8Ou-9MfKbgLR9JYq405o0RQ6YLwOtwmbEYVEq6xM1VitNjs4sBHexlGnxygKrub-MIw/s1600/download2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJKcYrhj4Kz34fOOdOnIfSsuhK8X99Hb-utjHvApS0wWtnohRZDt-ELVJBrAz-UWyq8RmD6SCU8Ou-9MfKbgLR9JYq405o0RQ6YLwOtwmbEYVEq6xM1VitNjs4sBHexlGnxygKrub-MIw/s1600/download2.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">George Fox wrote "<b>Be patterns, be examples in all
countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come; that your life
and conduct may preach among all sorts of people, and to them. Then you
will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in
every one; whereby in them ye may be a blessing, and make the witness of
God in them to bless you" </b>I guess this is why we become teachers, right? To be the kind of teacher we hope every kid can have, to change the world one person at a time. To be a human oriented person in a schedule oriented system. There's no guarantee that it is going to be easy, but in all the countries, places, islands and nations we can, with our life and conduct, walk cheerfully over the world and answer that of God in every one. Everyone, like B--, and L--, and O--, S--, and K--. George Fox claims it will bless them, and I know it has blessed me just to try. </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: small;">Full Journey Moon 2012: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/06/splendiferous-adventures.html">Splendiferous Adventures</a></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: small;">Full Journey Moon 2011: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/06/june-is-pagan-values-blogging-month.html">June is Pagan Values Blogging Month</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: small;">Full Journey Moon 2010: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/05/journey-moon.html">The Journey Moon</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Journey Moon 2009: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/06/journey-for-journey-moon.html">A Journey for the Journey Moon</a></span></span><br />
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<b>This post is very much about my Quaker identity. Check out my other posts labled <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/search/label/quakers">Quakers</a> for more on that aspect of my spirituality and life. </b>
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Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-49995431807613030682014-05-03T00:24:00.000-07:002014-05-03T00:28:37.196-07:00Differences and Oneness<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> May Day</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When God created everything, God said, "it is good." And God put God's own image in the creatures that walk on the earth. In the midst of the create there was a wonderful garden. It was God's garden. Everything was there, but everything was so close it was all together. God was with the rocks and plants and animals, and they were with God and each other.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">All the people were also together in one person who was called "Everyone", or in their language, "Adam." Eve was there, too. She was always there, for she came from Adam. She and Adam were a kind of AdamEve.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In the middle of the garden grew two trees. God told AdamEve that they should not eat the fruit from those trees. One tree was about difference and one tree was about forever. If you ate the fruit of the tree of difference, you would know about differences, and if you ate from the forever tree, you would live forever.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Now the serpent was more clever than any other creature that the Lord God made. And he suggested that AdamEve taste the fruit from the tree of differences. And they did. AdamEve ate from the tree of differences and things fell apart for them. They became Adam and Eve. The difference between them and God also came apart. And the difference between good and evil did, too. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">God called for them and they hid, but God found them. They did not know how to be with God anymore, because of all the difference. There were: good and evil, close and far, high and low, God and people, Adam and Eve... and many more. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The differences also did something wonderful. Now Adam and Eve could take things apart and put them back together again. They could be creators, almost like God. The couldn't make something out of nothing, but they could make something out of differences.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">After the differences, Adam and Eve could not go back to when everything was all together in the Garden. They could only go forward and they did. God sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden. An agel and a sword was put at the edge of the Garden so they could not go back, but only go forward. God went with them on their journey to help them be the best creators they could be, and to be with God in a new way, and to stay one with God. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This is the story of Genesis 2 as told in the Godly Play curriculum. My Quaker church uses this story based Sunday school curriculum because we know that sharing stories and talking about stories together is the best way to talk about god. The Godly Play stories are always followed by a set of wondering questions where those who heard the story can think together, out loud and silently, about what is important and meaningful in the story. Word fail us when we try to talk about god, but the pictures and metaphors in stories help us express what we know and what we are learning. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When our amazingly gifted story teller gave us this story at West Hills Friends last weekend, most of us brought with us baggage about this story. In the Bible as it is usually interpreted, this story is a story of bad news - deceit, falling from grace, being cast out of the garden, the pain of childbirth, original sin. In Christian theology Genesis 2 is usually seen as a set up for the redeeming nature of Christ's birth and an explanation for why life is so hard. It doesn't feel very redeeming. But interpreting the story just a little differently, as this version does, opens the story up in previously unthinkable ways. Like a flower in May, the story unfolds, revealing layer after layer of meaning to each visitor. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4025/4599719446_b0a8fe9994_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4025/4599719446_b0a8fe9994_b.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This week, the layer I am seeing most clearly is the story of differences. They ate from the tree of differences and things fell apart. That line resonates with me right now. When things are different, when you are separated, when you see the differences between this and that, thou and I, now and then, things feel like they are falling apart. But the story has redemption! Out of the differences Adam and Eve learn to take things apart and put them back together, to create something out of the differences. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As I sat in church, literally on the edge of my seat, and heard those words "create something out of differences" my very first thought was about literally making babies. We just wrapped up a unit on heredity in my 7th grade class and we talked a fair amount about how organisms that use sexual reproduction need one of each sex and the resulting offspring are similar but different from their parents in vital ways. Organisms that use asexual reproduction create offspring that are identical to their parents with genetic variation happening in different, possibly slower and less responsive ways. Without that core difference of biological sex, humans can not create the new thing that is babies. AdamEve were together and they were together with God, but they could not create new humans in that state. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I also thought a lot about what state of mind AdamEve might have had in the garden, before the differences. There is a <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight">spectacular TED talk by brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor</a> recounting her experience of having a massive stroke. She says that when her left hemisphere, the side of our brain responsible for linear thought, categorizing, autobiographical memories and language (ya know, differences), went offline she was left in a state of timeless connection with the universe, of joy and love and energy. I wonder if this is what life was like in the garden for AdamEve. As Jill Bolte Taylor says, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB7jSFeVz1U">"in this moment we are perfect, we are whole, and we are beautiful." </a></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://scontent-b-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t1.0-9/10170779_10203500388167497_1183910515722670401_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://scontent-b-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t1.0-9/10170779_10203500388167497_1183910515722670401_n.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But being a whole, perfect and connected piece of the Universal Flow does not allow us to be creative. We just are. When she realized she was having a stroke and needed help, Jill Bolte Taylor could not effectively dial a phone or communicate her need. She was too busy feeling vast and limitless. Babies, in their sense of moment to moment pleasure, pain and wonder do not have the capacity to build or create. It is only when we step into the discreteness of ourselves, when we see the differences between Thou and I, between male and female, light and dark, good and evil, that we can make anything new in the world. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">My pagan theology holds at its center the sacredness of the ebb and flow of the differences in life. Lightness flows and ebbs into darkness, winter into summer, growth into decay and as these differences dance around each other life is created and sustained. <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/12/solstice-story.html">In my creation story</a> in the beginning there was One, one Goddess. She could do nothing but Be Goddess until she woke up and realized she was lonely. She, like AdamEve, tasted the fruit of difference, found her world lacking and went about the work of creating what she needed to be connected and happy. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Our job as humans is to dance the ebb and flow of differences. To know that sometimes we must feel differences, painful and separating as they may be, in order to know how to proceed in our creation of a better life. I continue to struggle with anxiety and dark emotions this spring as I work through realizations about my separateness and singularity in the world. The angel and the sword were placed at the entrance to the garden and we can not really go back, only forward. But the path forward also has room for us to dance back into that expansive, connected place of oneness with God and with each other. My walks in the woods this spring have left me more than one mouth agape at the sheer fecundity and beauty of nature. Flowers and leaves, flowing water and animals and compost. And I am a part of it! It is there in that place of connectedness that we can reclaim a memory of Eden and know what we are trying to create out of the differences. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What differences are you dancing with this May Day?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What stories do you know or can think of that might explain how AdamEve lived in the garden?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What are you working on creating out of differences right now? </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">May Day 2012: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/05/dauntless-youth-of-year.html">The Dauntless Youth of the Year </a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">May Day 2011: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/05/brook-in-kings-garden.html">The Brook in the King's Garden</a> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/05/i-didnt-see-fairies-when-i-was-little.html">I Didn't See Fairies when I Was Little</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">May Day 2010: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/05/glory-days.html">Glory Days</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">May Day 2009: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/05/may-day.html">May Day</a></span></span></div>
Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-88731958545188625002014-04-29T00:24:00.000-07:002014-06-13T00:03:08.317-07:00A Poem Should Not Mean, But Be<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="TimesRoman12"></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">New Mating Moon</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"> </span> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">As April winds down, so is National Poetry Month. This year, as with the last three years, I have sought out poetry each day during the month and posted my favorites to my Facebook page. Each year this exercise brings me joy and appreciation for poetry. Like so many Americans, I never read poetry as a kid. I don't even feel like I have the same dislike some people have to it because I never knew any poetry enough to dislike it. I am a word person, though, and I love the way poetry allows a writer to play with language as well as with meaning. Light brush strokes of words evoke rich images in some poems while others seem densely embroidered with word and phrase and metaphor. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://scontent-b-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t1.0-9/10155922_10203428576252244_7960310992595625285_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://scontent-b-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t1.0-9/10155922_10203428576252244_7960310992595625285_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">This year, I collected all 34 poems I collected into a new blog, <a href="http://www.astheflightofbirds.blogspot.com/2014_04_01_archive.html">As the Flight of Birds</a>. This title comes from <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/6371">Archibald MacLeish's 1926 Ars Poetica</a>; "A poem should be wordless, as the flight of birds... </span>For love, The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—
A poem should not mean, But be." Those last lines speak to me especially this spring. When do we work too hard to do anything beyond be? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">My very favorite poem from the month is another poem about being, a humorous poem. I do love the phrases, the words strung together to evoke specific sensory images. But mostly I love the character of this poem, a middle aged, paunch bellied and embarrassing old were wolf. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.sfpoetry.com/sl/slarchive.html"><b><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0.$end:0:$0:0"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">No One Wants to Run Through the Woods Naked Under a Full Moon Anymore</span></span></span></span></span></b></a></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0.$end:0:$0:0"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0.$end:0:$0:0"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$24:0">by James S. Dorr</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0.$end:0:$0:0"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$24:0"> </span></span></span></span></span> <br /> Well, first off the woods were cut down last year<br /> for land to build the new subdivision,<br /> and while they are nice houses, asphalt and sidewalks<br /> are tough on bare feet, whether wolf-formed or human,<br /> and while one can cut through yards, fences and pools<br /> not to mention rosebushes make such ruses dangerous.</span></span></span></span></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0.$end:0:$0:0"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"></span>Then there are dogs, whose barking and racket</span><br data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0.$end:0:$1:0" /><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0.$end:0:$2:0">tend to ruin ambiance,</span><br data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0.$end:0:$3:0" /><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.0.$end:0:$4:0">not to mention that some slip their leashes,</span></span><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3"><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0"><br data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$1:0" /><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$2:0">but killing them even if forced to seems futile—</span><br data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$3:0" /><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$4:0">they die too easily which ruins the sport of it—</span><br data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$5:0" /><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$6:0">and either way they tend to frighten off game.</span><br data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$7:0" /><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$8:0">Worst though is the walk back, the moon having set,</span><br data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$9:0" /><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$10:0">paunch-bellied and middle-aged,</span><br data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$11:0" /><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$12:0">clothes doffed of course prior to the transformation,</span><br data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$13:0" /><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$14:0">now skulking through gauntlets of giggling schoolchildren</span><br data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$15:0" /><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$16:0">awaiting buses, braving the glares of late commuters,</span><br data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$17:0" /><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$18:0">only to return to wives back home seething</span><br data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$19:0" /><span data-reactid=".in.1:3:1:$comment10203404634453714_8285711:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$20:0">in their own embarrassment.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">How are you being true to yourself this spring? How are you finding ways to express yourself as the days lengthen and spring springs all around you? What is your favorie find of National Poetry Month 2014?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">New Mating Moon 2012: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/05/national-poetry-month.html">National Poetry Month </a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">New Mating Moon 2011: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-mating-moon.html">The New Mating Moon</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">New Mating Moon 2010: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/04/flower-story-for-flower-moon.html">A Flower Story for the Flower Moon</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">New Mating Moon 2009: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/04/lusty-month-of-may.html">The Lusty Month of May</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Also, see my <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/05/national-poetry-month.html">National Poetry Month post in 2013</a> and all other <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/search/label/National%20Poetry%20Month">National Poetry Month</a> posts!</span><br />
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10
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15406#sthash.4OE8nX6N.dpuf</div>
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10
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15406#sthash.4OE8nX6N.dpuf</div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
10
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15406#sthash.4OE8nX6N.dpuf</div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
<h1 class="TITLE">
maggie and milly and molly and may</h1>
by <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/156">E. E. Cummings</a>
<br />
<pre> 10
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea</pre>
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15406#sthash.4OE8nX6N.dpuf</div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
<h1 class="TITLE">
maggie and milly and molly and may</h1>
by <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/156">E. E. Cummings</a>
<br />
<pre> 10
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea</pre>
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15406#sthash.4OE8nX6N.dpuf</div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
<h1 class="TITLE">
maggie and milly and molly and may</h1>
by <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/156">E. E. Cummings</a>
<br />
<pre> 10
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea</pre>
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15406#sthash.4OE8nX6N.dpuf</div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
<h1 class="TITLE">
maggie and milly and molly and may</h1>
by <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/156">E. E. Cummings</a>
<br />
<pre> 10
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea</pre>
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15406#sthash.4OE8nX6N.dpuf</div>
Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-29514955676547271152014-04-18T23:52:00.000-07:002014-06-23T13:05:49.932-07:00Chickens in Life and Death<br />
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The Full Mating Moon</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Do you have any idea how amazing chickens are? They are chatty and cute, constantly moving, interested in the world and did I mention cute? This spring my students and I were able to experience the amazingness of chickens first hand in our classroom. Birth, life, growth and even death happened right here in middle school. May 14 was the full Mating Moon, a time of growth and birth, of coming together of opposites into new vibrant wholes. And a time of chickens.</span><br />
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<a href="https://scontent-a-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/q71/s720x720/10314480_10203500388607508_7878616983039717297_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://scontent-a-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/q71/s720x720/10314480_10203500388607508_7878616983039717297_n.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It all started when one of my wacky science teacher coworkers (all science teachers are weird, you know that, right?) mentioned that he was incubating eggs in his classroom. He graciously offered to let me use his incubator, provide me with fertile eggs from his flock and take the chicks back when we were done. Heck yes! In the middle of April I did a lesson on eggs and chicken incubation for my kids and then we got everything set up and eggs incubating. It takes 21 days for chicken eggs to hatch and my students and I were on the edge of our seats counting down the days.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I was expecting the chicks on a Tuesday but when I walked in the room on Monday morning I was greeting with a muffled peep! peep! peep! from the incubator. One had hatched hours earlier and was already fluffy, a second was wet still and a third still pecking at it's shell. The kids were over the moon - we got no work done that day. One student, who lived across the street from the school, stayed all afternoon and got to actually watch the third chick break open its shell and tumble out onto the mesh floor of the incubator. It was amazing to see them fluff up, learn to walk, learn to eat and, as all babies do, develop their individual personalities so quickly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For a whole week we were chicken obsessed. Every day the kids asked questions, brought in information, watched the babies grow. We talked about the various strategies for making babies and how a chicken lays an egg every day hoping some will make it to adulthood while humans put tons of energy into just a few children. The kids named them, though I never endorsed any official names, and came to watch them eat and peep at each other in their free time. After a few days I started letting kids hold the chicks and we applauded every time anyone got pooped on. Turns out, chickens poop a lot. The babies grew, the kids were enamored and I couldn't stop talking about them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But all was not happiness and roses. One of our chicks, the middle one who was sickly from the first day, did not grow like the others. He was visibly ill and by the middle of the second week he was getting worse. He'd stopped eating and his sick bowels had turned to open sores. During chicken news on Tuesday I let every class know that the sickly chick was quite sick, and not likely to make it through the night. We had good conversations that day - can we take it to the vet? How do you know it's sick? What if it gets better? And everyone got to say a bit of a goodbye.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">That afternoon I googled "how to euthanize a small pet". Turns out, this is something people have to do regularly. Like I talked about with the kids, when we take responsibility for an animal we are always weighing costs and benefits and sometimes a vet is a big cost. Too big for a chick. One website had a method utilizing carbon dioxide from a vinegar and baking soda reaction. That seemed do-able so after the kids all left I set things up and got the sickly chick out of the tub with the others. He was starting to stagger from weakness, I'm pretty sure it hadn't eaten or drank anything in two days. The process was not as easy as the website made it seem and after what felt like too much time, memories of a recent flubbed death penalty case in Oklahoma very ripe in my mind, I broke the chick's neck with my hands. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Time had seemed to stop during the time when I was struggling with the chick. It was sick and dying. It probably would not have made it through the night if I had left it alone, but in those last moments it struggled hard to stay alive. Living things simply do not want to die. When it finally did die, in my hands, at my hand, I had the experience like coming out of a pool of water. My senses worked again beyond the tiny thing in my hand. And I was nauseous.</span><br />
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<a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/t1.0-9/q71/s720x720/10334386_10203535341161300_2215753888040337870_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/t1.0-9/q71/s720x720/10334386_10203535341161300_2215753888040337870_n.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">One of my co-workers, upon hearing the tale of the sickly chick, said something like "oh, you are just so strong! I could never have done that!" I don't know if I really am strong, but I think I am pragmatic about life and death. I can intellectualize the process; chickens are the kinds of creatures that get born in large numbers with the expectation that many will die. If every chicken egg became an adult chicken the world would be overrun with chickens. Every creature will die eventually. But I am not as stoic as all that. I was physically ill and quite distressed over the death of this little chicken. In middle school I caught my pet rat's foot in the door of her cage and when she limped away I cried, worried I had hurt her permanently (I hadn't - she was fine) and in college I cried buckets over the death of my pet guinea pig. I might be more afraid of my dog's future death than that of some of my family members. I am not a cold intellectual in the face of death, I'm really not. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In her <a href="http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/6049">interview with Krista Tippet, Eve Ensler </a>is quoted as asking "What if our lives were precious only up to a point? What if we held
them loosely and understood that there were no guarantees?" She was talking about life with cancer, about seeing herself and begging to be seen as a human in the middle of a transition rather than a patient with a diagnosis. But these words have stuck with me as I struggled through the process of caring for the life of, and stewarding the death of, my baby chickens. Every creature knows its life is precious. We humans have a particular kind of self knowledge and fight like mad to maintain our lives and our integrity but all animals, and probably many other organisms, know they are alive and work hard to stay that way. Death was probably a welcome respite for my chick. The kids commented the next day on how quiet the remaining chicks were, suspecting that they were sad. I think it was just that the sick one had been distress calling for six or seven days non stop. It had been in pain and still fought against death with every ounce of its being. In the grand scheme of things, though, that little chick was really just a way to turn plant and bug energy into meat energy for the purpose of making more baby chickens and feeding baby foxes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The core of my pagan theology is the dance between opposing forces; light and dark, summer and winter, life and death. This is explicitly the theme of this month's Mating Moon - how do opposites move together to create the fertility of the Earth and human culture. In my work with the chickens this spring I was reminded of this other set of opposing elements - the individual and the community. Individual organisms are not the unit of natural selection or the unit of ecological stability. As far as evolution and the energy flow on Earth are concerned, my individual self is inconsequential. My genes and my population are important so as long as my close relatives survive, I am expendable (and as long as I survive, they are expendable). But the individual is the unit of awareness and of social change. Art and science, though collaborative human enterprises, occur because of individuals. We make changes in our human cultures by individual actions that then spread. The chick's life was inconsequential, but also the most important thing imaginable to it. Mine, too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Mating Moon 2013: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/05/national-poetry-month.html">National Poetry Month 2013</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Mating Moon 2012: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/05/happy-hours-and-pirate-queens.html">Happy Hours and Pirate Queens </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Mating Moon 2011: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/06/green-month.html">The Green Month</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Mating Moon 2010: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/04/mercurial.html">Mercurial</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Mating Moon 2009: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/05/flower-moon.html">The Flower Moon</a></span><br />
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<br />Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-92130551528860560032014-03-02T15:15:00.002-08:002014-06-12T00:32:45.957-07:00Evolution Sunday<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">New Seed Moon</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I was asked to give the message at my Quaker church for Evolution Sunday 2014. This is usually celebrated the second weekend in February in honor of Charles Darwin's birthday but a rare Portland snowpocalypse postponed it until the first weekend in March. Here is what I wrote. What I said was slightly different, but for details and impressions from the gathered crowd you'll have to ask someone who was there. Enjoy!</span><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with
many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with
various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the
damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms,
so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so
complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us..... There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several
powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into
one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on
according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning
endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are
being, evolved.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, Chapter 14, Concluding Remarks </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Today is evolution Sunday, a day when we reaffirm that science and
religion or spirituality are not enemies but both ways that we humans
find meaning in a world that all too often seems meaningless. I have always been a nature girl. My mom took me and my friends out on nature hikes all around the San Franscisco bay area from the time I was very little and there was always a sense of awe and wonder in those natural places. From climbing on redwood logs as tall as a house to catching newts and bugs in creeks and playing in the ocean, I was always most happy outside. As a teenager I spent hours wandering by myself through the forested parks in this neighborhood and my sense of wonder grew as my awareness and understanding grew. My studies of natural history and science in high school and college led to some of my first explicitly spiritual experiences - laying on a log overwhelmed with awe at xylem and phloem one year, stunned at the intricacies of the body systems of the starlings flying above me another year, grinning with joy and awe at the migrating vultures overhead another year. I watched the moon and saw the face of god there. I climbed mountains and swam in rivers and studied the workings of the earth and her inhabitants and I was in awe. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Like so many students of science before me I found wonder and awe in the theories that scientists have used to explain and understand the world, too. Mathematicians and physicists often describe equations as beautiful and I don't quite get that, but I do see stunning beauty in Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. It is beautiful because it is simple, but out of that simplicity comes immense variation and flexibility. It is beautiful because it is based on observed evidence and it is beautiful because it allows me to make some sense out of an otherwise rather senseless world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The theory of evolution by natural selection says that over time populations of organisms change because some of the organisms have heritable traits allow them to survive more easily and thus have more offspring. A classic example of this is the story of the peppered moth, a standard sort of moth found in England. The typical variety seen before the Industrial revolution was a pretty white grey with some darker specks, allowing the moth to blend in perfectly with the white grey and speckled tree bark and lichen found in its forest home. As coal burning became more prevalent during the Industrial revolution the trees in England became stained with soot, making the pretty white grey with speckles colored moths easy targets for the birds who wanted to eat them. Luckily for the moth population, some small number of moths were born with darker wings and they blended in well with these new, darker trees. In recent decades, with stricter air quality standards and cleaner trees, the lighter speckly variety is again more common. Other classic examples of populations that change because some traits are more adaptive that we all know and love are things as mundane as dog breeds and as important as antibiotic resistant bacteria.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Evolution by Natural Selection is beautiful because it is simple, but out of that simplicity comes
immense variation and flexibility. It shows a biological universe where just a few simple rules, carried out with novelty, creativity and fecundity, lead to stable ecosystems where every creature's needs are met. The rules of natural selection really basic: gather enough food and evade becoming food long enough to create the next generation. The ways creatures fulfill these rules are staggeringly varied and the results it allows for are mind boggling. Dandilions grow in any patch of soil and quickly flower, sending out millions of seeds on fluffy parachutes into the world in the hopes that just one or two will survive. Coast redwood trees, however, don't even begin to produce seeds until they are 10 or 15 years old and only about 15 percent of those seeds are viable. Cheetahs and antelope have honed each other into lean running machines though countless generations of "arms race" competition. Slightly less fast antelopes get eaten by slightly more fast cheetahs while slightly less fast cheetahs are outrun by the slightly more fast antelope. Each generation slightly faster than the last until we find in the plains of Africa today these amazing creatures. Sometimes the sheer number of types and individual living things overwhelms me. We get blase about it but our entire planet is covered in living things. Grass and weeds, ants and bugs, sea gulls and pigeons. There is so much variety of life. All I can do some days is gawk in awe. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Evolution by Natural Selection is beautiful because it is based
on observed evidence and it is beautiful because it allows me to make
some sense out of an otherwise rather senseless world. Charles Darwin spent twenty years studying and compiling evidence for his theory and scientists have spent 150 years continuing that work. Darwin himself saw evidence for evolution by natural selection in the distribution of species such as his famous finches in the Galapagos islands, in fossils and in the comparative anatomy he studied for most of his adult life. The story told in every biology text book of the bones in the forelimb of mammals is classic for a reason - my human hand has the same bones as the flipper of a whale, the wing of a bat and the paw of a cat. Common descent with modification explains that fact in a simple, logical, sense making way. North American paleontologists have discovered a well preserved series of fossils showing the change over time of a little forest dwelling leaf eater with four toes into a large, grassland dwelling single hoofed and long necked horse many of love today. Not all lines show such well preserved evidence, but exciting discoveries in fossil whales and feathered dinosaurs support the theory with evidence. Darwin knew nothing about genetics but we know lots about the biochemical mechanisms of inheritance today, and all of it shows that vastly different kinds of living things are related to each other. People talk about "believing" in evolution but that seems to me completely besides the point. It's not a matter of faith to me, it is simply the best explanation for the evidence observed. Every new way we question nature with scientific methods we see patterns of common descent and patterns of change in populations over time due to environmental pressures. I have to believe that scientists know what they are talking about, but scientific thinking provides evidence for conclusions. The overwhelming variety of life on earth makes sense when we understand evolution. There is a pattern, there is order in this chaotic complexity. And that is beautiful. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The theory of evolution by natural selection is beautiful because it is simple, but out of that simplicity comes
immense variation and flexibility. It is beautiful because it is based
on observed evidence and it is beautiful because it allows me to make
some sense out of an otherwise rather senseless world. I see in our Quaker community a similar, beautiful system of variety out of simplicity and order out of chaos with evidence to support it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Here at West Hills I see a system of just a few rules carried out with creativity and novelty that lead to a stable system with room for all who want to be here. We don't have a long list of rules rigidly enforced to keep the good from the bad, we let the equilibrium of the system that is in touch with it's source do that heavy lifting for us. Our rules really are few: the Inward Teacher is within every person, listening for that Still Small Voice together allows us better access than seeking alone, and we must love each other and God in the same way for they are the same thing. In this very room right now we have people who have widely varying beliefs about the figure of Jesus Christ, about the best ways to live a moral life and the best way to sing Happy Birthday. But all of us together make for a forest full of variety and adaptability. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I also see at West Hills a system of practice based in the evidence of what actually works. <a href="http://www.strecorsoc.org/gfox/ch01.html">George Fox, in his journal</a>, told of his first opening to understanding
that the spirit of god could speak directly to his condition. He
finished his report with the words "and this I knew experimentally". He had tried
listening to the priests and the preachers, he had examined the paths of soldier and tradesman and none gave him the peace and understanding he
sought. But listening to his inward teacher, "who
enlightens, and gives grace, and faith, and power" worked, he had evidence for a fruitful path. The earliest of Quaker advice and queries such as the <a href="http://www.qhpress.org/texts/balby.html">Balby Letter of 1656</a> admonish Friends to gather regularly and "speak the word of the Lord at such meetings, that it
be done in faithfulness, without adding or diminishing". They reminded each other to care for those in need in their community and "all be subject one to another, and
be clothed with humility". These weren't rules just to be followed because those 17th century Friends liked rules, they were advice given based on what they had experienced to work. They saw in their meetings that Friends who spoke the words of the Lord clearly and faithfully contributed to the life of their meetings. They saw that taking care of each other, walking with humility and grace and being discrete in their confrontations of straying Friends made their lives together better and made it easier to hear those words of the Lord. Quaker practice is an evidence based practice. I don't need to take it on faith that it will work, I've seen it work for four years and three centuries of Friends before me have seen it work. And that is beautiful. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />The theory of evolution by natural selection is beautiful because it is simple, but out of that simplicity comes
immense variation and flexibility. It is beautiful because it is based
on observed evidence and it is beautiful because it allows me to make
some sense out of an otherwise rather senseless world. Quaker practice is beautiful because it is simple, but out of that simplicity comes the adaptability to accept all who want to come. It is beautiful because just as George Fox before us "knew it experimentally", we see the fruits of our work, we see evidence for our best practice. And that is pretty darn beautiful.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What do you see in the human life of the mind as beautiful? What is your experience with waking up to the beauty of the natural world?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Where in Quaker practice do you see flexibility and adaptability coming out of simple rules? How has Quaker practice taught you, experimentally, to hear the still small voice?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What signs of spring are showing you the beauty of life all around us? </span><br />
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<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">New Seed Moon 2012: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/04/seed-moon.html">The Seed Moon</a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">New Seed Moon 2011: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/03/johnny-appleseed.html">Johnny Appleseed</a> (one of my all time favorite posts!)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">New Seed Moon 2010: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/03/to-everything-there-is-season.html">To Everything there is a Season</a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">New Seed Moon 2009: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/03/seed-moon-is-new.html">The Seed Moon Is New</a> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">Also, check out my <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/search/label/quakers">other posts labeled Quaker</a> for more I've written addressed to and about my Quaker community. </span></div>
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Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-4078885639576600032014-02-15T09:25:00.000-08:002014-06-12T11:33:44.357-07:00Psalm 23, Dedicated to My Mother<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Full Fasting Moon</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390841686676_4948" style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"When have you encountered the Light through music?" </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390841686676_4948" style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390841686676_4948" style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For the first time all day I was alone. Not really alone, nurses bustled about down the hall and the whole hospital building buzzed with the hushed vibrating energy that was still new and uneasy to me. My sister had just left and I knew her leaving came with both relief and worry for her. This hospital was hard for her, but she had been my rock for hours. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390841686676_4948" style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For the last time in a week I was all alone. The pain hadn't become tear wrenchingly unbearable yet. The nurses faces still shined with optimism and hope. But as I was left alone, alone for the first time all day, alone for the last time for a week, I cried. I was on the edge of a chasm though I couldn't see it at the time. All I knew was I was alone, ill and scared.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390841686676_4948" style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I found myself searching my mind and heart for something to comfort me. A fragment of a story, a glimpse of a melody. Where had I heard it before? I don't even know. But I found what I was looking for on YouTube (G(!)d(dess) bless the internet!) and listened to it all night. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Lord is my Shepard, I have all I need,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She makes me lie down in green meadows,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Beside the still waters, She will lead.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She restores my soul, She rights my wrongs,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She leads me in a path of good things,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And fills my heart with songs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Even though I walk, through a dark and dreary land,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">There is nothing that can shake me,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She has said She won't forsake me,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I'm in her hand.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">*** *** ***</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The song is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91TbjlaS4kc">Psalm 23rd, Dedicated to My Mother</a> written by Bobby McFerrin and performed by the choral group Cantus. <span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390841686676_4948" style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I've never been much of a Bible reader and </span>the imagery of god as a shepherd has never resonated with me. God as a tall, thin, bearded man with a white robe and a shepherd's crook reeks of watered down bible stories for children and patriarchy. C.S. Lewis reminds us, though, that we don't have to understand how something works to know that it does, whether that thing is a good meal or redemption in Christ. I don't know how these words, words that may or may not describe how I view
the Divine, came to make themselves known to me that night. I certainly do not know how they
soothed my very being in that dark and dreary land of the OHSU emergency
room but I do know that they did.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This was written for my Quaker Meeting's collective journal, <a href="http://www.mindingthelight.org/">Minding the Light</a>. Check the link for our web presence, and check out all my other <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/search/label/National%20Poetry%20Month">posts labeled Minding the Light here.</a> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span> </span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Fasting Moon 2012: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/03/sap-moon.html">The Sap Moon</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Fasting Moon 2011: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/02/of-peacocks-pride-and-park-rangers.html">Of Peacocks, Pride and Park Rangers</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Fasting Moon 2010: I didn't post a Full Fasting Moon post in 2010, but <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/02/spring-is-springing.html">Spring is Springing</a> is a New Fasting Moon post for that spring.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Fasting Moon 2009: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/02/full-moon-in-fasting-moon.html">Full Moon in the Fasting Moon</a></span></div>
Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-79578865247678702922014-01-03T02:13:00.000-08:002014-01-03T02:16:57.376-08:00Don't Just Do Something, Sit There<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
New Milk Moon</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: left;">
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<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">**** **** **** **** **** **** **** </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It is that darkest of dark time of the year when we review the year
that just passed and begin to prepare for the one coming up. For the
last three years I have done this in a more formal way and rather than
making new years resolutions, I have gwished a theme for the upcoming
year. As 2013 comes to a close the need for review of the old and
gestation of the new is here again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Part of a Tribe in the Spring</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">2013 was one hell
of a year. The <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2013/01/engaging-my-superpowers-calling-my.html">theme I set last January was Naming My Superpowers, Calling My Allies</a> and it came with a wish and a hope to put my talents
to good use and to build my community of allies to help with that work. I
was looking for more discernment in my activities and my companions. I
think I did a better job in 2013 than in previous years, but my skills
of discernment clearly need more honing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I didn't do as
much blogging this year as in the past but going back through my
Facebook feed allowed me to review the year in pretty good detail. Last
winter and spring were amazing times of growth and exploration. I fell in love with an amazing man and we had some wonderful adventures
together. Food, sex, conversations; it was mind and life expanding. My
<a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2013/05/hedonism-and-big-juicy-good.html">one blog post from this spring</a> dates from this period and sums up a lot
of my thinking during this time. And then my life exploded. That
relationship fell apart and then I got very ill with a bacterial
infection that took all the king's horses and all the king's men to put
me back together again. The physical toll was great and the emotional
toll was possibly greater. Emotions I didn't know I had overwhelmed me
so I did what I am in the habit of doing.... more stuff. The late summer
found me in another intense romantic relationship and then in an
amazingly intense job. I got the middle school science teaching position I've been angling for for
years and it is everything and more. This autumn has felt like a crisis time when everything is falling apart. My summer motto of 'better but not yet betterer' took on whole new levels of emotional and existential meaning. I wrote about my thinking along these lines in <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2013/11/changing-our-stories.html">this post from late November</a>. Apparently, it is </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://scontent-b-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1098099_10201532186403683_425816108_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://scontent-b-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1098099_10201532186403683_425816108_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dolled Up Mid-Summer</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">difficult for my seventh grade students to be 12, but almost just as difficult for me to be thirty three. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Even
with the major hiccup in the summer of being, ya know, almost dead for
close to a month, I still followed my standard M.O. of going full speed
ahead in 2013. I may have still had difficulty knowing what to say no to, but I had allies all along the way. My friends were amazing during my illness and recovery and I
learned so much from the men I met and loved this year. Building
community, or a<a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2013/06/practicing-community.html">t least thinking about how to do it</a>, was a major theme of
this year. In my 2013 gwish post I used a photo with the african
proverb, "if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go
together." I don't know how far I got, but I know I got there because of
my friends this year. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">During this time of gestating my intentions for 2014 I have employed many of my traditional gwishing techniques. I drew a tarot spread, listened for resonance with colors, images, animals and phrases. I thought about what I wanted and what I did not want from this upcoming year and finally, after weeks of thinking and listening, found my theme for the year. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>2014, Don't Just Do Something, Sit There.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2291/3530178278_fd981f39b7_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2291/3530178278_fd981f39b7_o.jpg" height="320" width="193" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharonkearns/3530178278/">Sharon Flowers</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The phrase is a title of a book by <a href="http://www.sylviaboorstein.com/index.html">Sylvia Boorstein</a>, a Buddhist teacher I first heard through <a href="http://www.onbeing.org/program/what-we-nurture-with-sylvia-boorstein/242">Krista Tippet's amazing interview with her</a>. It is a joke, a play on words, a phrase that always makes me chuckle and smile wryly. You're right, you're right, I know you're right I mutter as the phrase pops into my head. In the last few years I have cultivated my doing self and have learned so much from that, but as I continued doing and did not feel any better about my life it became more frantic and obsessive. In a particularly dark moment of this last autumn I was on a date with a gentleman caller, drinking beer, talking about politics, looking forward to our adult sleepover, when my internal commentator noted, "Dang, girlfriend, you got this doing-and-not-feeling thing down to a science!" That frantic doing has metastasized into uncontrollable worry and anxiety this winter and I feel miserable much of the time. And it is all so boring. It is the same stupid patterns I've had for years but now that I see them they are achey and dull, not even succeeding at what they were designed to do. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I did draw a tarot spread this winter (and will talk more about it below) but this year my theme came a lot from listening for resonance with words and images. The blue heron, a patient and stealthy hunter, will be my theme animal for this </span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm1.staticflickr.com/21/27420524_232c5783d1_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm1.staticflickr.com/21/27420524_232c5783d1_b.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jodotorg/27420524/in/photolist-3qxaE-6PZnru-bVp6Y6-5oLoV4-8BNYoF-4Y18iA-4XVVHR-4XVQDp/">David Jakes</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">year. Herons sit still as a tree waiting for their prey to forget they're there. They work hard to not spook off the good stuff that will surely come their way. Like herons, chicory flowers have been making themselves known to me for years. They are the weediest of the weedy plants and will grow out of sidwalks, along highways, in gravel drives and on the edges of lawns. It is used for salad greens, livestock forage, a coffee subsitute and a medicine for all sorts of ailments. The gorgeous blue flowers are said to be able to open locked doors. Powerful allies to have in this year of bravely facing the habits of mind and heart that rear their head in physical and mental stillness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Other symbols of stillness and introspection have come to work with me. The first was an unlikely and ancient copper Buddha found in Helgo, a Viking town dating to about 800 C.E. The small, beautifully worked statue appears to have been made about two to three hundred years earlier in northern India and then worked its way through trade and capture this important center of Viking trade. 1500 years after it was made and thousands of miles away, the Buddha continues to be a visual representation of the ability of humans to achieve some kind of peace. This Buddha is a conundrum,</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://members.bib-arch.org/bswb_graphics/BSBA/31/02/BSBA310207220L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://members.bib-arch.org/bswb_graphics/BSBA/31/02/BSBA310207220L.jpg" height="320" width="234" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=31&Issue=2&ArticleID=17">The Helgo Buddha</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> though, because this statue has traveled so far away from where it started. Like the heron who can spread its 7 foot wing span to find a better pond or stream and the weedy chicory that has hitched rides with humans to all ends of the earth, the Helgo Buddha has traveled but not lost it's stillness. My tarot card for the year is the Hermit, another character travels with stillness. This Hermit card came at the end of a spread full of winged hearts, this is the cups suit in my Fairy Tale Tarot deck. This suit is correlated with emotions, dreams and the moon and the winged heart itself is a Sufi symbol for unconditional love and
devotion. My spread indicated that work must be done finding or giving
support and unity in this realm before connection and healing can
happen. Then those powers of love can be used to help others, fight for
what is right and increase the true wealth of love in this world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>2014 will be green like old copper and healthy trees, grey like heron
feathers, carved stones and a hermit-wizard's cloak, blue like summer
skies and weedy chicory flowers. </i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>2014 will be a year of answering the phone with "What fresh hell is
this?" and hoping it really is a new problem rather than the reheated
boring problems I have seen before.</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>2014 will be a year of knowing what to keep and what to let go. It will
be a year of cultivating Right Memory (seeing the patterns but facing
the world fresh), of Right Heart (Finding new ways of love while
releasing obsessive and painful habits) and Right Attention (now that I
don't have to be perfect, I can be good). </i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>2014 will be a year of attending to my people, building patterns of connection and of swirling round and round with others who want to dance. It will be a time of building the world I want; don't just sit there, do something. </i></span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This last gwish is based on my Sabian symbol for 2014, Gemini 22: Dancing Couples Crowd the Barn in a Harvest Festival. The first part of my theme for this year is all about finding peace and joy in stillness, introspection and changing my own patterns of thought and feeling about the world. This symbol and gwish provide the other side of this coin, that of cultivating peace and joy through healthy connection with other people. My best friends and I are working out plans for a game night of sorts, an attempt to build our friend community back up into fruitful health, a project streaming directly out of my work at calling my allies last year. The allies have been called, now they need to connect with each other into a true caring community. This symbol brings to mind ceremonial times out of the daily grind of work to connect, enjoy and celebrate the turning of the seasons. In addition to our game night, I think this image is calling me to </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1551462_10152124202106280_1644501874_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1551462_10152124202106280_1644501874_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New Years Day 2014</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">find ways to connect in my church and school communities as well as rekindle my connection to the wheel of the year through blogging and celebrations. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Many of my friends found 2013 to be an exceptionally challenging year. Some have much more painful horror stories from this year than I do but my year was hard. I was sick, I was heartbroken and I struggled a lot with uncovering truths about who I am and how I operate. I did have moments of pure bliss, wild adventures and times of deep connection. 2014 will be a year of more discernment, more stillness, more interesting problems and more dancing joyfully in the stream of the cosmos. I for one am looking forward to it. </span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">* Full text of Gemini 22: <span class="style2 style7"><span class="style6"><span class="style8">DANCING COUPLES CROWD THE BARN IN A HARVEST FESTIVAL
</span>
</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="style4" style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When
achievements have been made and there is a sense of security and
'Harvest' in the air, it is time to celebrate with one another. There is
a need to get back to a simple, conservative level of enjoyment.
There's a sense of being in tune with seasonal rhythms. The feeling of a
healthy heart and a healthy mind, while taking a break from the
struggles of providing, can bring joy to everyone involved. See if you
can take time out to celebrate and to enjoy your environment. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><em>Celebrating
the warmth and providence of the Earth. The joy of nature's harvest.
Joining with others to celebrate. The reality of rhythmical or seasonal
adjustments. Dancing. Barns and dance halls. </em></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The
Caution: Being the wallflower, not participating. Waiting for a special
invitation rather than responding to the openness of the situation.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">**** **** **** **** **** **** **** </span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
New Milk Moon 2009: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2008/12/new-milk-moon.html">New Milk Moon</a></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
New Milk Moon 2010: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/01/42-with-seventy-percent-chance-of-rain.html">Forty Two with a Seventy Percent Chance of Rain</a></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
New Milk Moon 2011: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/01/quaker-year.html">The Quaker Year</a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">New Milk Moon 2012: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/01/year-of-dragon.html">Year of the Dragon</a> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This post is a New Year's Gwishing post. Be sure to check out previous year's posts: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/01/quaker-year.html">2011 Building a Better Teacher</a>, <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/01/grabbing-tiger-by-tail.html">2012 Grabbing the Tiger By the Tail</a> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2013/01/engaging-my-superpowers-calling-my.html">2013 Engaging My Superpowers, Calling My Allies</a>. There are older and other New Years day posts under the label <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Year">New Year</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-43808349828157639312013-11-25T14:22:00.000-08:002013-11-25T20:42:10.839-08:00Changing our Stories<style>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">This is a <span style="font-size: small;">First Word I presented to my Quaker community, West Hills Friend<span style="font-size: small;">s. A <span style="font-size: small;">First Word is a time to share a story of how G<span style="font-size: small;">od's spirit is moving in your life and through sharing these stories we can <span style="font-size: small;">more fully und<span style="font-size: small;">erstand the world of the sp<span style="font-size: small;">irit in the world. I hope this s<span style="font-size: small;">tory <span style="font-size: small;">can shed some light on thi<span style="font-size: small;">s big crazy world for you. Writing it <span style="font-size: small;">helped me. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span></span> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Hi, my name is Alyss and I am a middle school teacher. As
far as I can see, the only thing on earth harder than being a middle school
teacher is being a middle school student. Some of my students come into my
cramped but well appointed classroom with worried faces, and folded, tight body
language of those trying to be unobtrusive. Others show up with manic grins,
big bouncing steps, drawing attention to themselves with wild gestures and loud
words. Not a single one of them is sure of themselves or how they fit in this
world and in that, I feel a great kinship with them. Being twelve is really,
really hard… but it turns out being an adult is almost just as hard. Actually,
I think it’s just hard to be a people. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://josecarilloforum.com/imgs/copernicusmugshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://josecarilloforum.com/imgs/copernicusmugshot.jpg" height="264" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I teach science and my main objectives as a science educator
are to introduce kids to great minds that have come before them and to give
their minds the tools they need to see the great world in front of them. We
just started a unit on the Solar System and so, fittingly, we started with an
introduction to how astronomers have viewed the solar system throughout the
history of western civilization. I should not have been so surprised at their
eagerness for these stories – stories of men who looked and saw, were confused
and then made sense. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">One of their favorites and mine is that well-known Polish
astronomer Copernicus. 500 years ago he spent his life watching the stars
trying to understand what was going on in this big crazy world. My sixth
graders love it when I tell them that the world is crazy and we’re all just
trying to understand it…. Copernicus, me and them in the same boat of having no
idea what is going on. After years of dedicated watching, Copernicus realized
that the observations he was making about the heavens did not fit with story he
had been taught about how the solar system worked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For over 1000 years western culture had been
sure that the earth stood still in the center of the solar system and the rest
of the heavenly bodies moved around it. But Copernicus’ data just wouldn’t fit
that model. He had to change his story to make sense of his observations. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">He had to change his story to make sense of his
observations. I probably said that 25 times this week and at some point it
dawned on me – I’m not just talking about astronomy, or science even. When
Copernicus realized that his new information didn’t fit this old story he most
likely felt the excitement of discovery but I suspect he also felt confused,
insecure, anxious and maybe even more intense emotions like fear, dread,
sadness or grief. Or maybe I’m just projecting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1208614_10201987548467450_1856052601_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1208614_10201987548467450_1856052601_n.jpg" width="319" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">We have to change our story to make sense of our
observations. We tell ourselves lots of stories about how the world works –
that the earth stands still, that God created heaven and earth in 6 days, that
those people are taking our jobs, that that person will always act like this,
or I will always do this or someday my prince will come. So many of these
stories were built on outdated information but humans are meaning making
machines and we hold onto our narratives like a drowning man, even when we know
how to swim. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">We have to change our story to make sense of our new
observations. Hah, if only it were so easy. The child psychologist Piaget
recognized that when humans get new information they can either ignore it,
assimilate it seamlessly into their old story or reshape their understanding.
Fundamentalists, hack scientists and addicts of all kinds are prime examples of
the ignoring strategy, but we are all guilty. Piaget called the reshaping
strategy disequilibrium, recognizing how uncomfortable and complex this process
is. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Disequilibrium. Yeah, I know about that. Feeling like the
ground is shifting under your feet. Like nothing makes sense anymore. Like all
the old rules and old stories are a bunch of garbage and you are left with….
Well, you have no idea what you are left with. Anxiety and fear, sadness and
grief are marking my disequilibrium. I see confusion and distress in the
disequilibrium that my students are going through – because what is middle
school if not a time when you are learning new things that don’t make sense in
your old world order. Their bodies are changing, their brains are changing,
their social networks are changing and nothing makes sense anymore. Yep, I know
all about disequilibrium.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Piaget says that disequilibrium is a motivator for
intellectual growth and creating schema, understandings, that are ever more
adequate for dealing with reality. The astronomers we studied eventually came
to a schema about the solar system that has allowed us to send men to the moon
and probes to the worlds throughout our solar system. I have faith that my 6<sup>th</sup>
graders will some day be generally functional adults and I’m sure I will come
to an “ever more adequate schema” though I have no idea what that will look
like. And none of these disequilibrium events are easy or comfortable. But as
my Zen Buddhist friend says, with that very serious look Zen Buddhists so often
have – what’s wrong with being uncomfortable? You just want to tell them to
shut it, but he’s probably right. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I have to change my story to make sense of my observations. I’m
anxious, uncomfortable, upset scared and sad these days. I’m in a state of
disequilibrium. I’m not miserable, though… a new thing is rising or else I
would still be happy in my old understanding. Its hard, it’s not fun, there are
a lot of tears. But I guess one of those stories that doesn’t really work is
the one that says life will be simple, comfortable and pleasant at all times. </span></div>
Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-62189444806941823682013-08-05T21:31:00.000-07:002013-11-25T22:08:33.896-08:00Ramadan Heroes<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span>The Fathers Moon<br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">My
evening walk was lit by the new crescent moon of the month of Ramadan.
All over the world Muslims are fasting from food, water and other sins
like lying and thinking badly of others. I was thinking about everyone
everywhere who is going without, either because they must or because it
will make them better. Blessed Ramadan!</span></span></span> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Like years past, I have been collecting and sharing stories about Muslim people and culture this Ramadan month. This year, in keeping with my theme of Claiming My Super Powers and Calling My Allies, I focused on Muslim heroes. I found some really interesting stories about people from all over the Muslim world and throughout time who embody the ideals of being a hero - being the best they can be in service of others. I hope you are as inspired as I have been.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">No
list of Muslim heroes can start anywhere except with the prophet
Muhammad. Muslims will all agree that Muhammad is a hero because he is
the seal of the prophets, the last voice of god on earth. Islam, no
matter what fundamentalists may do in it's name, is a religion of
equality, justice and compassion. Muhammad was very clear that his
followers should treat women fairly in matters of inheritance and daily
life and that a percentage of all wealth should go to the poor. He was
revered, even in his early life, for his trustworthiness in business and
gentleness with children. Ramadan mubarak!</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.pbs.org/muhammad/timeline_html.shtml">A Timeline of the Prophet Muhammad by PBS</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://circlegroup.org/the-prophet-muhammad-sal-as-a-hero/"><br /></a></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><a href="http://circlegroup.org/the-prophet-muhammad-sal-as-a-hero/">An American Sufi take on the Prophet Muhammad as a Hero</a></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">"What
ever I know, I owe solely to my assiduous reading of books of the
ancients, to my desire to understand them and to appropriate this
science; then I have added the observation and experience of my whole
life." <a href="http://lostislamichistory.com/al-zahrawi/">Abu al-Quasim al-Zahrawi</a> was a physician who lived and worked in
Al-Andalus, the medieval Islamic civilization in Spain. His encyclopedia
of medical knowledge was the first to describe <span class="text_exposed_show">many
surgical techniques including delicate procedures to remove tonsils,
extract bladder stones, using catgut for stitches and techniques to
reduce mortality rate during childbirth. <a href="http://muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=223">The Latin translations of his work, usually with the name Albucasis</a>, were influential well into the
modern age. He blended thorough study of ancient texts with scientific
observation of patients and a deep respect for human life to change the
face of medicine in the Western world forever. He is one heck of a
Muslim hero.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></span> <span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://d13uygpm1enfng.cloudfront.net/article-imgs/en/2013/06/10/AJ201306100010/AJ201306100011M.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://d13uygpm1enfng.cloudfront.net/article-imgs/en/2013/06/10/AJ201306100010/AJ201306100011M.jpg" width="164" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">What
do you call a 6'2" tall, 320lb Egyptian man competing at high levels in
Japanese sumo? <a href="http://pri.org/stories/2013-07-10/egyptian-sumo-wrestler-osunaarashi-still-top-his-game-despite-ramadan-fast">Osunaarashi, or “Great Sandstorm.”</a> Abdel Rahman Ahmed
Shaalan moved to Japan to be a world class sumo competitor two years ago
and his dreams seem to be coming true. Following his authentic and
quirky dreams makes him a hero in many ways, but his team mates and
coaches are heroes too for adapting their ancient traditions to his
Muslim faith. The traditional pork stew eaten by sumo wrestlers is made
with chicken and fish for his team, and his coaches are helping him
compete in a big tournament this month despite the fact that he is
observing the Ramadan fast. Best of luck, Osunaarashi!</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></span> <span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">"My
aim is to show that those governments that violate the rights of people
by invoking the name of Islam have been misusing Islam." In 1969 Shirin
Ebadi became the first woman to become a judge in an Iranian court. She
served as a judge in various courts in Tehran until the Islamic
revolution in 1979 when she, along with all other women judges who had
come after her, were made clerks in the court<span class="text_exposed_show">s
they had previous presided over. She began writing about her opposition
to these so called Islamic laws and when she regained her law license
in 1992 she began representing disenfranchised women, children and other
victims. Threats to her life sent her into exile but she continued
working for human rights in Iran and in 2008 was awarded with a Nobel
Peace Prize for her work. She has inspired growing human rights
movements in Iran and continues to speak against the despotic government
she says is using Islam against people. <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/the-new-suffragettes-shirin-ebadi--the-campaigner-who-has-become-an-international-figurehead-for-womens-rights-8638504.html">Ms. Ebadi's story shows me how even something we think of as monolithic like "Iran" has a past, a future and a diversity of ideas and values.</a> She's a hero to me!</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[3d48y].[1][4][1]{comment10201351110796906_6862370}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2]"><span data-reactid=".r[3d48y].[1][4][1]{comment10201351110796906_6862370}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[3d48y].[1][4][1]{comment10201351110796906_6862370}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0].[0]">Dr Ebadi was once asked if she had a message for Muslim women. “Yes,” she replied. “Keep on fighting.” </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">In
late 2009 <a href="http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/2012/10/world-cup-qualifier-battle-for-iranian.html">Fatma Iktasari and Shabnam Kazimi dressed up as men</a> and snuck
into Tehran's Azadi stadium to cheer on their national team as they
played a World Cup qualifying match. In Iran, women may watch women play
in all women audiences, but are not allowed to watch men play. The
movie Offsides showed a fictionalized account of just such an act of
political dissidence but I couldn't find any news of what actually
happened to Fatma and Shabnam. I hope they are safe and cheering on Iran
as they head to the Brazil for the world cup next summer.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0SF0PTtUxamVNZwTPgNuAPsiwPDnfAjqI3XrTg1x-YtvpQCUbPVlZUBEQVQB0BT6f7II5uW4uc7hTBC71lBFRp5WAWHD16mlfgtp8wGSw2lNd-nu8lSgY1jgHV5EYwfSeYa_9lzKxvak/s1600/IranWom19102012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0SF0PTtUxamVNZwTPgNuAPsiwPDnfAjqI3XrTg1x-YtvpQCUbPVlZUBEQVQB0BT6f7II5uW4uc7hTBC71lBFRp5WAWHD16mlfgtp8wGSw2lNd-nu8lSgY1jgHV5EYwfSeYa_9lzKxvak/s1600/IranWom19102012.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[3zgsg].[1][4][1]{comment10201358841790176_6868725}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2]"><span data-reactid=".r[3zgsg].[1][4][1]{comment10201358841790176_6868725}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[3zgsg].[1][4][1]{comment10201358841790176_6868725}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0].[0]">This
is the best part: "The state—and especially many clerics—argue that
soccer stadiums are no place for women because male soccer fans are
crude and shout phrases that are offensive to the ears of gentle women.
There are also concerns that women might be touched by men in the
crowded mass of a stadium. " I whole heartedly agree... and that's the
best part of being a soccer fan </span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></span><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">Can
you name a world queen fought and vanquished many foes to protect her
homeland's economic and trade interests? Who never married but ruled
under her own power for decades? Built earthen fortifications that
protected her people and are still in use today? Earned the honorific "A
woman as capable as a man"? Became the inspiration for Xena Warrior
Princess? <a href="http://www.historyandwomen.com/2010/08/amina-of-zaria.html">The correct answer is Queen Amina, a 16th century leader of the Islamic Hausa people of Northern Nigeria</a>. Legends are still told of
her today and multiple universities bear her name. She is a national
hero in modern Nigeria and kinda kick-ass all around.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></span></span></span> <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">On
July 20th, 1969 the crew of the Apollo 11 became the first humans to
walk on the moon. When <a href="http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/singaporescene/pore-aerospace-hub-space-tourism-091816434.html">Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor was a 9 years old his father showed him a poster of Neil Armstrong to motivate the young Malaysian to literally reach for the stars.</a> "He was a remarkable person
who opened the pathway to space exploration" says the man who became the
first Malaysian in space when he spent 11 days <span class="text_exposed_show">aboard
the ISS in 2007. When people dismissed his dream of becoming an
astronaut due to his nationality, he studied to become an orthopedic
surgeon, knowing science was the key to space travel. While aboard the
ISS he performed experiments on cancer cells, bacteria and lipid crystallization. Like so many astronauts, he saw the earth differently
from space "Seeing how small and how tiny the Earth is from space made
me realise that we are actually insignificant. There are millions and
millions of galaxies out there, and it saddens me that people are
killing each other and destroying the earth and killing the
environment." He has spent the years since his spaceflight working to
inspire young Asians to study science and space. "You must dream big,
believe in yourself and be very vocal."</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.wired.com/images/article/full/2007/09/Shukor_250x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.wired.com/images/article/full/2007/09/Shukor_250x.jpg" height="200" width="176" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[14c0v].[1][4][1]{comment10201409918027050_6901736}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".r[14c0v].[1][4][1]{comment10201409918027050_6901736}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[14c0v].[1][4][1]{comment10201409918027050_6901736}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[14c0v].[1][4][1]{comment10201409918027050_6901736}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0].[0].[0]">As
a Muslim, Shukor's trip presented some challenges to the expectations
that he pray towards Mecca five times a day, and that he fast during
Ramadan (when the trip occurred). The Malaysian government convened a
council to figure out what he should do </span></span><span data-reactid=".r[14c0v].[1][4][1]{comment10201409918027050_6901736}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0].[3]"><span data-reactid=".r[14c0v].[1][4][1]{comment10201409918027050_6901736}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0].[3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[14c0v].[1][4][1]{comment10201409918027050_6901736}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0].[3].[0].[0]">and
how he should do it. "During my time in space, I heard the azaan
(Islamic call to prayer) and it was the most magical sound I've heard in
my life." He added that "In space, you just feel closer to the
Creator". </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">"I
think Afghanistan is not a jungle, with lions everywhere to scare
people. There are human beings living in this country. The people of
Afghanistan are braver than the rest of the world." There are brave
people everywhere but <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/09/sosan-firooz-afghanistan-female-rapper_n_1951707.html">Sosan Firooz is one of the bravest I've heard of</a>.
The 23 year old Afghani woman raps about her beloved homeland and the
tragedies her people have faced in recent years. It <span class="text_exposed_show">is
very frowned upon in Afghani culture for women to sing, especially in
western clothes and sans headscarf as Sosan does in her YouTube video
and her uncle has cut ties with the family. Her father, however, acts as
her secretary and bodyguard whenever she leaves the house. Her ultimate
goal? To help her family out of poverty and see her country get back on
its feet. I wish I were half so brave! Sosan is a hero of mine </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show">Watch the<a href="http://www.upworthy.com/if-they-think-they-can-silence-this-female-rapper-just-look-at-what-she-does-to-defy-them"> Upworthy video here!</a> </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">"It’s
a good thing that we have people from all faiths and all cultures that
come here. And we all support one Constitution, one Constitution that
upholds our right to equal protection, one Constitution that guarantees
us due process under the law, one Constitution which says that there is
no religious test for elected office in America" said <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Ellison">Keith Ellison when
he became the first Muslim elected t</a><span class="text_exposed_show"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Ellison">o the US Congress </a>and made it clear that he would take his oath of office
on a Koran rather than a Bible. In the years since he made that oath (on
Jefferson's own Koran, no less) he has worked to protect the rights of
Americans (staunchly pro-choice, active in credit reform legislation,
support of American Muslims and environmental issues) and of people all
over the world. He is one of the first congressmen to visit Gaza, has
spoken openly against the war in Iraq and was arrested for publicly
speaking out against the Sudanese government's actions in Darfur. <a href="http://4and20blackbirds.wordpress.com/2006/12/27/hero-keith-ellison/">Keith Ellison is an American Muslim hero</a> who loves his country, works hard on
progressive issues and believes in the values of tolerance and
diversity.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[h65r].[1][4][1]{comment10201436260685600_6919982}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".r[h65r].[1][4][1]{comment10201436260685600_6919982}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[h65r].[1][4][1]{comment10201436260685600_6919982}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[h65r].[1][4][1]{comment10201436260685600_6919982}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0].[0].[0]">Mr
Ellison converted to Islam in college. "I can't claim that I was the
most observant Catholic at the time [of my conversion]. I had begun to
really look around and ask myself about the social circumstances of the
country, issues of justice, issues of</span></span><span data-reactid=".r[h65r].[1][4][1]{comment10201436260685600_6919982}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0].[3]"><span data-reactid=".r[h65r].[1][4][1]{comment10201436260685600_6919982}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0].[3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[h65r].[1][4][1]{comment10201436260685600_6919982}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0].[3].[0].[0]">
change. When I looked at my spiritual life, and I looked at what might
inform social change, justice in society... I found Islam."</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://danwymanbooks.com/hag/sarajevo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://danwymanbooks.com/hag/sarajevo.jpg" height="320" width="246" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">"Anti-Semitism
is only the lightning rod used to draw the people’s attention away from
their real problems." wrote <a href="http://www.readthespirit.com/interfaith-heroes/2nd-annual-interfaith-heroes-month-no-23-dervis-korkut/">Dervis Korkut, the Muslim Bosniak curator of books at the Sarajevo library in 1941</a>. He was writing a position
paper to the Nazi puppet government set up after the invasion of
Yugoslavia that year insisting that the native Muslim population had
always embraced pluralism. During the ens<span class="text_exposed_show">uing
occupation and fighting, Korkut lived this belief by risking his and
his family's safety to protect Jewish treasures; the Sarajevo Haggadah
and a woman named Mira Papo. Mira had escaped the round up of the Jews
of Sarajevo spent months disguised as a Muslim servant in the Korkut
household. <a href="http://www.haggadah.ba/?x=1">The Haggadah, a book used in Passover services that originated in Spain in the 14th century</a>, was demanded out of the museum
by a Nazi officer and Korkut used wit and deception to smuggle it to
safety in the mountains. Legend says it spent much of the rest of the
war hidden under the floor boards of a small mosque. Korkuk spent six
years in prison after the war on false charges of participating in a
Muslim Fascist militia but testimony by his Jewish friends saved him
from a death sentence. Standing up for the values of diversity and human
dignity is one of the most heroic things I can think of a person doing.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">It
might be said that almost all violence is caused by a lack of love.
Ameena Matthews saw this when she made her own reputation as a young
gang member in Chicago, driven there by poverty and violence in her own
family, and she sees it now as a <a href="http://www.earthheartfoundation.org/story/meet-a-violence-interupter-with-cease-fire/">Violence Interrupter working with Ceasefire, a non profit in those same Chicago neighborhoods.</a> Every day
she steps into violent conflicts, “I get in and I <span class="text_exposed_show">stop
the transmission of violence from one person to another. May it be
through conversation, may it be through taking that person out of the
conflict, maybe off the block, going to get them something to eat, and
then talk about the conflict. And how to address it in a different
manner so it won’t result in a homicide, so it won’t result into some
jail time, so it won’t result into an innocent mother, baby sister being
shot or killed." In other words, she loves them. Matthews' faith is a
cornerstone of her life, giving her the strength to go out on the
streets and love the young people so in need, to love her own children
and family and to love herself enough to do this painful and difficult
work. Her love isn't a gooey, saccharine kind, but a tough, demanding,
expecting kind of love and she is a hero of mine. And <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/407605/february-01-2012/ameena-matthew">she totally told off Stephen Colbert</a>... how heroic!</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent">Some Hafiz for your Saturday: </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent">Out of a great
need, </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent">we are holding hands and climbing. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent">Not loving is letting go. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent">Listen, </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent">the terrain around here </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent">is far too dangerous </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent">for that.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[10q89].[1][4][1]{comment10201455103356655_6935319}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2]"><span data-reactid=".r[10q89].[1][4][1]{comment10201455103356655_6935319}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[10q89].[1][4][1]{comment10201455103356655_6935319}.[0].[right].[0].[left].[0].[0].[0][2].[0].[0]">Hafiz
is a 14th century Persian poet out of the Sufi tradition. His poems
continue to be well known, memorized and recited throughout the world.
Go, <a href="http://www.poetseers.org/the-poetseers/hafiz/">read more here.</a></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">"I
have decided that I am free, independent, self-reliant, and that no one
can have control over my life and what I do. I am not going to allow
anyone to bring me down or simply tell me that "I can't", because I can
and I will, Just watch me! "
says <a href="http://yementimes.com/en/1693/report/2606/Yemenis-to-watch.htm">23 year old Alaa Al-Eryani, a Yemeni who studied film and television in Malaysia before coming back to her home country to work with Save the Children</a><span class="text_exposed_show">. She is a staunch
feminist who writes and works tirelessly to free herself and other
women from societal norms that "teach us to not get harassed instead of
teaching men not to harass us." She shines light on the plight of child
brides, of women oppressed by their own expectations and the societal
tragedy of failing to educate half the population. What makes Alaa a
hero of mine is her positive spin on feminism and radical self
determination. <a href="http://alaaaleryani.blogspot.com/">She insists that she will do what she wants</a>, not that
others should stop doing what they are doing. "I'm going to walk down
the street and no matter how many men throw awful words at me, I won't
care. I'm going to make my own decisions and choices without the
permission of a man.... I am free, and I will fight for women's freedom
until we are equal to men."</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">*** *** ***</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/files/2011/09/The-99-Group-small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/files/2011/09/The-99-Group-small.jpg" height="242" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">No
collection of Muslim Heroes would be complete without a nod to <a href="http://www.the99.org/">The 99, a group of comic book super heroes that are rooted in Islamic culture</a> the
way Superman and Batman are rooted in Western culture. The 99 gather
their powers from ancient knowledge encapsulated in special noor stones
and mirror the ninety nine attributes of Allah, including generosity,
faithfulness, wisdom, and strength. The y<span class="text_exposed_show">oung
people who find the stones are from all over the world and each learn
to use their powers for good - the protection of others and promoting
diversity and tolerance. The creator of the series, <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/naif_al_mutawa_superheroes_inspired_by_islam.html">Naif Al-Mutawa, explicitly draws parallels</a> between traditional superheroes fights
against fascism in 20th century Europe and how The 99 preset role models
for a fight against extremism in the 21st century. Check out the
website, check out the preview video and see The 99 in action. They're
pretty awesome.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">Ramadan mubarak! </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black; font-size: small;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span><br />
<br />
<br />
Read more! Read all my <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/search/label/Father%27s%20Moon">Father's Moon</a> posts from late summers past, and check out <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/search/label/Ramadan">all my writings on Ramadan</a>, too. <br />
<br />
<br />Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-47084051622546770792013-06-24T21:38:00.001-07:002013-06-24T21:38:34.343-07:00Practicing Community<div id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2526">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">Mother's Moon</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span> </div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524"> </span><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">This piece was written and presented as a "First Word" at my Quaker meeting. A First Word is a time to share with the community how god moves in your life so that we may more fully understand god's workings in the world. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">This is a topic I have been mulling over since at least last October (<a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/10/outdoor-school-harvests.html">this post</a> is what came out of those initial mullings) but between the time I agreed to give a First Word and the time I actually did get a chance to speak my life got turned pretty much on it's head. I contracted a serious bacterial infection in my ankle that landed me in the hospital for seven days, not walking for another week and still managing the physical and emotional recovery a month later. As I came through that trauma I realized I hadn't written out my thoughts and wondered if this was really what I wanted to speak about. I worried for a bit as I tried mightily to get thoughts to paper but then remembered - hey, I'm a Quaker. Words will come as words are meant to come. I got something down and trusted that the message that actually got shared would be the right message for the moment. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">What I present here is mostly "what I got down." I edited it lightly post ipso facto, but those of you who were in Meeting that morning will have to remember the sparkle as you saw it. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524"><br />*** *** ***</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524">As much as we
instant gratification, 21<sup>st</sup> century technology natives hate to admit
it, it turns out, you gotta practice to get good at something. I was on a
kickball team last spring and we lost every game we played. We had fun, but no
one got any better at kicking or catching because we never practiced. I failed
calculus three times in college before I figured out that doing the homework
was the way to go. It helped that that last teacher was easy on the eyes, but
the real key to success was practicing the work every day. Anything we want to
get better at requires practice, from Stephen King writing every morning to things like friendship and
relationships. I watch kids practice relationship with every awkward embrace in
a high school hallway and every timid “can I play?” at day camp. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2524"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.worcesterart.org/Images/Collection/Photos/American/1934.65.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.worcesterart.org/Images/Collection/Photos/American/1934.65.jpg" height="238" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.worcesterart.org/Collection/American/1934.65.html">Edward Hick's Peaceable Kingdom</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2570">Here at West
Hills we do a lot of practicing, too; practicing how to be a community. Living
in community with other people is hard, way harder than kickball and so the
practice is that much more intense. We practice living in community with each
birthday song and potluck, every dinner group and play date. I see us
practicing the harder work of being vulnerable with each sharing of genuine joy
or deep scary concern and I see us practicing caring for each other with every
word of support or note of condolence. As a Quaker community we have a whole
special set of skills to practice, from listening inwardly and outwardly in
Meetings for Worship to learning to see that of god in every person. We
practice discernment together and practice waiting for ways to open to lead us
to win-win-win solutions. These are important skills that, through developing
and practicing here, we have the opportunity to share with other communities we
belong to. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2570"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2574">All this
practice has paid off in my life. In recent hard times I have felt both the
comforting refuge of a caring community and applied skills practiced here to
other communities I am a part of. When I was in those dark days of finishing a
master’s in teaching program I felt the support coming from this community and
wondered why my group of girlfriends wasn’t doing the same for me. When I
realized that this community includes explicit times to share concerns and
encourages each other explicitly to meet each other’s expressed needs I was
able to help my friends know what I needed. They stepped up and we grew closer
as a community.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2574"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2578">Recent events
have tested my ability to give and receive support from my community again.
Being in the hospital was overwhelmingly difficult in many ways. I have gotten tangible, physical support from members of this community as well as a flood of prayers, well wishes and more cat videos than I can shake a stick at. More importantly, though, this community has been a place for me to practiced asking for and receiving and giving
support of all kinds so that when I really needed it, I could figure out what to ask for and how to ask it. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span></span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.welcomingcongregations.org/images/WHF-Benedictine-Cross-250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.welcomingcongregations.org/images/WHF-Benedictine-Cross-250.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.westhillsfriends.org/">West Hills Friends</a> is a community of peacemakers</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2588">A trusting,
genuine, loving community is a basic human need that is hard to come by in our
time and place in history. Here at West Hills Friends we have a special jewel
worth nurturing and learning from. We have done the practice, put in the work
to develop a community that, through our trusting relationships with each other
and with the Spirit, allows people to be vulnerable, ask for help, receive help
and celebrate joys. We have fun with each other, we do hard work together and
we take care of each other. It is a safe and caring refuge for each of us in a
world that can be scary, painful or cold. But it is also a training field for
us to learn and practice skills we can bring to our other communities, our
families, our work places, our other groups of friends. Learning to listen, to
wait, to explicitly ask for help and cheerfully give what help we can, to
subvert the power hierarchies of the culture by valuing people and
relationships. These skills that we practice here at West Hills can be applied
in all aspects of our lives. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2588"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2588">We have a lot to offer the world here, and the
only way to get good enough to get noticed is to keep practicing. </span></span></span></div>
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**** **** **** **** **** **** ****<br />
<br />
Note: The topic of this post does not have much to do with the Mother's Moon. It's really much more a Journey Moon or a Father's Moon topic. But the fact of the matter is it got written and spoken during the Mother's Moon so that's where it falls in the blog. Things are getting a bit wacky around here. To understand the Mother's Moon energies, check out past posts, please.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="color: black;">Mother's Moon 2012:</span> <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/07/nothing-but-good-can-come-of-this.html">Nothing but Good Can Come of This </a></span> </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Mother's Moon 2011: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/07/freedom.html">Freedom</a>, <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/07/july.html">July</a> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/07/krishna-and-gopis.html">Krishna and the Gopis</a><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="color: #333333;"> Mother's Moon </span><span style="color: #333333;">2010: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/06/you-are-mothers-beloved-child.html">You Are the Mother's Beloved Child</a> and <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/06/motherlove-and-caring-for-environment.html">Motherlove and Caring for the Environment</a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="color: #333333;">Mother's Moon 2009: </span><a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/06/gifts-from-mother.html">Gifts from the Mother</a></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372131685536_2588"> </span></span></span></div>
</div>
Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-12484505627963141682013-05-18T10:13:00.003-07:002013-05-18T10:19:25.626-07:00Hedonism and Big Juicy Good<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">New Journey Moon</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1368894074219_3944"> </span><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1368894074219_3944"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1368894074219_3944">God<br />
and I have become<br />
like two giant fat people living<br />
in a tiny<br />
boat.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1368894074219_3948">We<br />
keep bumping into<br />
each other<br />
and laughing<br />
-Hafiz</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1368894074219_3951">I joke that I gave up vegetarianism after college to become a hedonist. Little did I know how fruitful of a spiritual path hedonism could actually become. Over the last year or so I have allowed myself to indulge in all manner of earthly pleasures gastronomic, aesthetic, carnal and ecological. To my surprise and delight, I have found that these joys are not a diversion from spiritual pursuits but have been a yellow brick road leading directly to the Divine Wow.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3692/8751246796_78e7a29225.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3692/8751246796_78e7a29225.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1368894074219_3953">Ascetic traditions ask followers to rise above the sea of emotion and physical sensation that are a leading cause of suffering. “Suffering rises from attachment to impermanent things,” the Buddha says. Monks and seekers from traditions Eastern and Western have been encouraged to abstain from certain foods, intoxicating beverages, the entanglements of romantic relationships and even the sensual pleasures of art and music for fear that they will dull or distract the soul from its journey towards God With a Capital G. In my experience, the unencumbered mind can soar to intellectual heights in this kind of pursuit. But there’s not much laughing there. Or ice cream. Or roasted duck, champagne cocktails and two hour make out sessions. And honestly, who wants to live in a world or go to a heaven without those thing? </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1368894074219_3955">Indeed, those things have not stopped or distracted me from my connection with The Eternal Bliss. As my focus shifted a few chakras down over the last year the realizations are no less real or even less abundant, they are just of a different kind. Just the other night, while lounging contentedly, I said to the gentleman sharing my bed, “The Buddhists say Namaste – the divine in me greets the divine in you. Right now I wish there were a word for ‘the loving in me greets the lover in you.’” But there are no words for that kind of thing, just a squeeze, a kiss, a smile and knowing that this is All Good. My experience mirrors that of the Sufi understanding that all love, all pleasure, is a practice run for the love and pleasure we find with God. </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1368894074219_3957">The renunciate’s ideal of detachment offers one path to the Kingdom of Heaven where we hurt no more. Radically deep connection is another way. In nature there is individual tragedy – the mouse must die for the owl to survive – but the web of connection keeps the mouse, the owl, the Fir tree, the fungus and everything else in Harmony. Rather than floating above the waves of emotions and physical sensation that are the root of hurt, this body and connection based search for That Which Is Wonder, invites me to dive into the ocean of life. There is pain and grief there; water up your nose and sand in your shorts. Feeling certainly causes a lot more tears than thinking, but that can’t get in the way of experiencing Big Juicy Good. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said to me once. “Well, there’s heartbreak at the end of this no matter what,” I replied, “’tis the human condition. Let’s not be afraid of that, ok?” The only way to feel ocean currents on your skin, to feel your heart ready to burst at the beauty of an azalea bush the size of your bedroom, or to experience the pleasure of a salumi plate and a crisp pinot gris on a warm spring evening is to dive in rather than float above. At least get in the boat with us<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1368894074219_3961"> </span></span>:)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">*** *** ***</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Yes, it has been a long time since I've posted. My life has been very full of doing and not so full of writing. But I try. And so here is a piece I wrote recently that shares a little of what my life is like these days. Hope you enjoy it, but more than that, I hope you are enjoying your own journey. </span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">New Journey Moon 2011: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/06/perseus-and-journey-moon.html">Perseus and the Journey Moon</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">New Journey Moon 2010: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/05/journey-moon-is-new.html">Journey Moon is New</a><a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/03/to-everything-there-is-season.html"><br />
</a></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">New Journey Moon 2009: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/05/journey-moon.html">Journey Moon</a></span></span>Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-7458855461035298082013-04-27T20:37:00.000-07:002014-06-12T09:16:26.469-07:00National Poetry Month 2013<br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The Full Mating Moon</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">April is National Poetry Month and as <span style="font-size: small;">has been my habit these last few years I made an effort to find and share new poetry on my Facebook page. Last year I found <span style="font-size: small;">a number of poe<span style="font-size: small;">ms that <span style="font-size: small;">spoke to my theme for 201<span style="font-size: small;">2, Grabbing the Tiger By the Tail. This year,<span style="font-size: small;"> some of my favorite poems of Natio<span style="font-size: small;">nal Poetry Month illuminated this year's theme - <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2013/01/engaging-my-superpowers-calling-my.html">Claiming My Superpowers, Calling My Allies</a>. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAQ1XRLu4nWisDUS-cffRWsyvtL251q9JnmSl_uBLUyzcqpnfHGsmkx_jEGBoK-8pE7Y9a8Sfe6_c8ybG1YBpeA_mJZnemafwzwQZsGkt4FgJqt-43z1TlydS6zTsO3D5dGzu85Wjpx4E/s1600/074Dickenson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAQ1XRLu4nWisDUS-cffRWsyvtL251q9JnmSl_uBLUyzcqpnfHGsmkx_jEGBoK-8pE7Y9a8Sfe6_c8ybG1YBpeA_mJZnemafwzwQZsGkt4FgJqt-43z1TlydS6zTsO3D5dGzu85Wjpx4E/s1600/074Dickenson.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssssyla/8992759274/">By Emily Dickenson</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">This year's theme is still fleshing out in my mind and my life, but I have been enjoying the FEELINGS the poems have brought me. I think one of the elements of my superpowers that I am called to explore has to do with the shift away from THINKING into that place of FEELING. Feeling joy and sorrow, love and frustration. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig-dqnDstuNLVFF1j1PUgvl6G8EKXn4o8J3pFHU2aKbJY2VXoCQXpwHbNyCjXkhDRWqktLLpgH9iBaIRMRoqJ80K6j9STQDF3vWPSV0uR41c7qDJ-jLfIssrgM3cTrq5IEr-pPWR4sXJ8/s1600/75cummings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig-dqnDstuNLVFF1j1PUgvl6G8EKXn4o8J3pFHU2aKbJY2VXoCQXpwHbNyCjXkhDRWqktLLpgH9iBaIRMRoqJ80K6j9STQDF3vWPSV0uR41c7qDJ-jLfIssrgM3cTrq5IEr-pPWR4sXJ8/s1600/75cummings.jpg" height="261" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssssyla/8993411382/">By e.e. cummings</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">I read so much new poetry this month and all of it added to my life. Every year I find more and more poetry that speaks so clearly to me. I didn't grow up reading or hearing poetry. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
my culture, middle class, white, late 20th century American culture,
poetry has been seen as something elite and academic. It is not
something "we" do in our daily lives, it is something to be <a href="http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rich/progressive.htm">pondered and studied, kept clean and pure</a>. But the reality is, poetry is as complex, grounded, interesting, dirty and real as the human experience. <a href="http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=1384&fulltext=1">It is an egalitarian art</a> that can be created in stolen moments between the endless work of women, working class people, incarcerated people or others without much in the way of resources to put towards art. It doesn't require lots of equipment, in fact, much great poetry has been created with nothing more than the human facility for language and memory. And poetry is a way to speak truth, the kinds of Truth </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">that can not be adequately described with prose, or math or even visual art. Poetry is one helluva super power. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJWaXrjqeFE9x7iyIuXhyphenhyphenyqhKyVCWTr5r9DrgGK_JONimi7dUn21YDB8-e5M2KVUhMp0WqWSWDesEvknBf2SRowiNszgiHTqJXnPcO4i879VqnxhQ4z5Htkmwruq-DaIDOS-LT2fV7HVQ/s1600/76broughton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJWaXrjqeFE9x7iyIuXhyphenhyphenyqhKyVCWTr5r9DrgGK_JONimi7dUn21YDB8-e5M2KVUhMp0WqWSWDesEvknBf2SRowiNszgiHTqJXnPcO4i879VqnxhQ4z5Htkmwruq-DaIDOS-LT2fV7HVQ/s1600/76broughton.jpg" height="640" width="371" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssssyla/8993719844/">By James Broughton</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
**** **** **** **** **** **** ****<br />
<br />
Full Mating Moon 2012: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/05/happy-hours-and-pirate-queens.html">Happy Hours and Pirate Queens </a></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Full Mating Moon 2011: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/06/green-month.html">The Green Month</a></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Full Mating Moon 2010: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/04/mercurial.html">Mercurial</a></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Full Mating Moon 2009: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/05/flower-moon.html">The Flower Moon</a><br />
<br />
Also, be sure to check out all my other <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/search/label/National%20Poetry%20Month">National Poetry Month</a> postings, and <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/search/label/poem">all my other posts with poetry! </a></div>
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<br />Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-90910744926832791162013-02-03T23:35:00.000-08:002014-06-12T09:16:44.387-07:00Brigit<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">February First</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">February First has come and gone. I didn't make <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/02/brigid-red-soup.html">Red Soup</a>. I didn't go for a <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/02/february-first.html">walk around the neighborhood</a>. Things are busy and complicated again this spring. But good. Really good.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I offer you a repost of my most favorite story on this blog. The story of <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/02/lovely-luz-and-sweet-bridget.html">Lovely Luz and Sweet Brigit</a>. I originally wrote this in February of 2010 and I still love it. I hope you do too. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">*** *** ***</span><br />
<div align="left">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Once upon a time there was a little girl named Luz
who lived with her sickly mother in a small cabin near the woods. Her
mother had been weak for a long time and Luz had to take care of herself
and her mother. Luz cleaned the houses of other families in their
village, collected firewood and tended a small flock of chickens and two
pretty nanny goats in the yard behind the cabin, so there was always
something to put on the table but never much extra.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In
the autumn, as the leaves were falling and the days were getting
shorter, Luz’s mother helped her light a candle in a little glass
lantern. Her mother was able to come to the door and watch Luz as she
paraded around the yard singing songs to the nanny goats and chickens.
“Remember,” her mother said “as the light of the sun fades in the
autumn, we can keep the light in our lantern through the winter.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/32351566@N08/4270173458/"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJhDPDqotawftLxKCzMjR5mF5ynO6Vlr9v3CX8Hp3rq-jZCem2BsM7NBzi5t7Q7DQv5QOiV2aNDyrBA12oM-Muk038tzC8GN8sAA2EQAD79elFF-lYZxt7TOCK-mreXRpvR0gfmqjGzv8/s320/lantern.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433813030123020978" style="display: block; height: 223px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 283px;" /> </a></span><br />
<div align="center">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 78%;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/32351566@N08/">calynde</a></span></span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Winter
was always hard for Luz and her mother. The days were cold and snowy
but Luz needed to go out most days to collect more firewood. The nanny
goats stopped giving milk and eventually even the chickens stopped
laying eggs, but the cold left Luz and her mother hungry for those
nourishing foods. There was one wonderful thing that happened in the
winter, though. Every evening, after the wood had been stacked by the
fireplace and the chickens had been shut in their coops, the goats had
been given fresh hay and the dinner dishes washed and put away, Luz’s
mother would tell her stories about the beautiful Goddess Brigit. Brigit
was always good to the poor and people who were like her always had
good things happen to them.<br /><br />One day just before Christmas, Luz
was out along the edge of the forest by her cabin collecting firewood.
She had a good armload and was about to turn back seeing as it was
getting dark when she saw a man huddled around a tiny campfire. Despite
the cold air he was dressed in rags, working hard to warm his fingers
which were turning blue. Luz remembered the story her mother told the
night before where Brigit gave away a precious silver necklace to a poor
woman in need. Brigit’s sisters were angry, but the next day they found
a sliver necklace to replace the one given away. Well, Luz thought,
whether she found another pile of wood or not, this man needs my
firewood, as well as the hardboiled egg and small wedge of cheese my
mother sent with me, more than I do.<br /><br />“Here you go, sir.” Said Luz, setting her gifts down near him. “I don’t have much, but you need it more.”<br /><br />“Thank
you, child.” He said. “I am almost home, and your gifts and kindness
will warm me until I get there. Bless you, child, bless you.”<br /><br />Luz
hurried home, for it was getting dark, but just as she reached the path
back to her own cabin she came across a large pile of dry, good
firewood. She picked it up and hurried home.<br /><br />“Oh mama!” she
cried. “I left the wood I had gathered with a poor man near the forest,
but look! There’s a pile of dry, good firewood here!”<br /><br />“What a
lovely girl you are, Luz.” Her mother said. “Just like Brigit you give
more than what you can spare. But look, Brigit left this wood for you as
a gift. Those who keep the sun’s light strong and care for others are
always taken care of.”<br /><br />A few weeks later a neighbor had taken
Luz’s mother on a visit to a friend’s house in the village and Luz was
home alone, tending the chickens and nanny goats. Luz went out and
collected the last few eggs the chickens would lay that winter and went
inside to make a small lunch for herself. Just then an old woman walked
up the path by their house and asked if Luz had any bread to spare. The
woman looked like she needed more than just a slice of bread to get her
home and Luz remembered the story of the old woman who gave Brigit
shelter one cold night. The woman tore down a piece of her house and
killed her only calf to feed and warm Brigit, but in the morning her cow
had another calf and her house was whole and warm. Well, thought, Luz, I
don’t have to tear down our cabin to give this woman a warm lunch so
she invited her in.<br /><br />Luz prepared the last of the eggs with the
last of the goat milk and a few slices of bread to make a warm meal for
the woman, and let her sit by the warm fire for as long as she needed.<br /><br />“Thank
you, child.” she said. “I am on my way to visit my daughter, and your
gifts and kindness will warm me until I get there. Bless you, child,
bless you.”<br /><br />When Luz’s mother came home Luz rushed to find the
last food in the cupboard to make her dinner, but instead of a crust of
bread she found a full egg basket and two whole wheels of cheese.<br /><br />“Oh mama!” she cried. “I fed a poor woman the last of our eggs this afternoon, but look! There’s a dozen eggs here!”<br /><br />“What
a lovely girl you are, Luz.” Her mother said. “Just like Brigit you
give more than what you can spare. But look, Brigit left those eggs for
you as a gift. Those who keep the sun’s light strong and care for others
are always taken care of.”<br /><br />Late in the winter, after Christmas
but while the days are still dark and cold Luz’s mother, who had always
been weak, got terribly sick. Luz was so worried, especially when her
mother couldn’t even get out of bed. She kept her mother warm and the
fire strong, and prayed to Brigit for help. </span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">After
three nights of this, when it felt like winter will never end and her
mother would never be well, Luz fell asleep by the fire. She dreamed she
heard an old woman walking by the window of their little cabin
chanting.<br /><br />Moving rightways with the sun<br />My blessings weave and bend<br />Weave and bend<br /><br />All winter you did keep the light<br />Spring blessing soon will rise<br />Soon will rise<br /><br />Luz
rose from her seat by the fire and wrapped her shawl around her
shoulders. She grabbed her Martinmas lantern and headed out to follow
the sound. Ahead of her she saw a woman dressed all in black, with hair
white as the snow and a face dark like old wood walking slowly through
the woods. Luz followed her quietly, sure the old woman must know she’s
there, but the old woman never turned around or stopped chanting. She
just kept walking into the woods. Luz followed the woman further into
the woods than she had ever been before but she wasn’t afraid, the old
woman seemed to have a light and warmth that made Luz feel safe.<br /><br />Moving rightways with the sun<br />My blessings weave and bend<br />Weave and bend<br /><br />All winter you did keep the light<br />Spring blessing soon will rise<br />Soon will rise<br /><br />Eventually,
as the sky started to lighten in the east, the old woman, with Luz
following behind, came to a clearing with an old stone well in it. The
old woman stood by the well and finally spoke, “Come closer child. Do
you know who I am?” Luz shook her head, too afraid to say what she knew
must be true.<br /><br />“I know I don’t look like the beautiful woman in
the stories your mother tells you, but I am her, I am Brigit. This night
is my night, this morning my dawn. You carry with you the light you
have nurtured all winter with good deeds and warm stories. Because you
have done so well at caring for that light through the long dark winter
you may have a wish. What do you wish for, child?”<br /><br />“I wish for my Mother to be well again.. and.. and for this winter to be over! I am so sick of it being cold all the time.”<br /><br />Brigit laughed, “Granted one wish and you ask for two. No matter, it can be arranged.”<br /><br />Just
then, the first morning bird sang out, and the first ray of dawn’s
light broke over the horizon. The old crone Brigit pulled the bucket out
of the well, dipped her hands into the cold, clear water, and splashed
her face. Her robes instantly turned to red, and her hair to a speckled
grey and black, and her face to that of a matronly woman of middle age.
In just another moment, the disk of the sun broke above the horizon,
spilling full sunlight into the clearing with the well. The mother
Brigit dipped her hands into the bucket again, and once more splashed a
handful of water onto her face. In the blink of an eye her robes turned
to pure white, her hair to a deep auburn red and her face fair as that
of a young maiden.<br /><br />“Come, bring your lamp here,” said the maiden
Brigit and Luz did as she was asked. Brigit took the lantern from her
hands and blew the candle out, but the light didn’t go away. It seemed
to Luz that the light from the candle, instead of being kept inside the
small lantern, spread throughout the whole forest. The morning dew
sparkled on swelling buds and the sun seemed even brighter than it had
been the day before. The snow was still deep and the air cold, but Luz
could tell spring would be on its way soon.<br /><br />The maiden Brigit
pulled a small tin cup out of her cloak and filled it with water from
the well. “Take this to your Mother and have her drink it. She will be
well soon, and spring is on its way. Keep my memory alive, Luz, tell
stories about my good deeds and live them out in your own life. Blessed
be.”</span></div>
<div align="center">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/girl-inchoate/2060640147/"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpR88H5SKfyXgnRIDVIIOC5xycPqiaw9R-z8VfHU6EFuoUcaeSs95rMDl2KxNUTGtr9Dj43TDrlGgYequF0FLRu-xJTMBkkb-OVqky_02fGJKsTDV9CPCwaDjPFP85r6EiJ654z99k5cU/s320/cup.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433818303223786418" style="display: block; height: 218px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 289px;" /></a></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <span style="font-size: 78%;">Photo by </span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/girl-inchoate/"><span style="font-size: 78%;">dawn m. armfield</span></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Luz
took the cup and her lantern and hurried home, as quickly as she could,
but careful to not spill a drop of the precious water Brigit pulled
from the sacred well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Oh mama!” she cried, when she
got home. “I met sweet Brigit at the well and she gave me this magic
water to make you well! Oh, mama! You will be well again!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“What
a lovely girl you are, Luz.” Her mother said. “Brigit found you who are
so like herself and has blessed us all. Those who keep the sun’s light
strong and care for others are always taken care of.”</span><br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">**** **** **** **** **** **** **** </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">February First 2009: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/02/february-first.html">February the First</a><br />
<br />
February First 2010: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/02/lovely-luz-and-sweet-bridget.html">Lovely Luz and Sweet Bridgit </a></span><span style="font-size: small;">This happens to be my all time favorite post from all</span><span style="font-size: small;"> two plus years of blogging. Please go check it out. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Feburary First 2011: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/02/brigid-goddess-of-poetry.html">Brigid - The Goddess of Poetry</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">February First 2012: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/02/brigid-red-soup.html">Brigid's Red Soup</a><span style="font-size: small;"> and <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/02/magic.html">Magic</a></span></span></span>Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-14402312430150659222013-01-05T22:46:00.000-08:002014-01-03T02:06:09.767-08:00Engaging My Superpowers, Calling my Allies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Full Birth Moon</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">**** **** **** **** **** **** **** </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="style2 style7"><span class="style6"><span class="style8">Welcome to 2013! I hope your 2012 wrapped up with joy, fun and enough time in the dark to be ready for the growing light. I was happy to get a couple days of work at the Nature Park over winter break, which is always fun and fulfilling as well as an adventure. Two of the days over break were snowshoe adventures on Mt. Hood that were sublime and painful in all the ways taking kids into the woods can be. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="style2 style7"><span class="style6"><span class="style8">Like last year, I spent much of the time between Christmas and New Year's Day reflecting on last year and looking forward to this upcoming one. My theme for 2012 was Grabbing the Tiger by the Tail and one of the biggest lesson I learned is to be careful what I wish for, I just might get it. As I reread my New Year's post from last year I chuckled. Yep, pulled all of that into my life, didn't I? The 2012 Tiger roared into my life and chased me round and round all year. I think I came out on top and have some awesome stories to tell from the year, like <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/05/happy-hours-and-pirate-queens.html">this one</a>, and<a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/10/outdoor-school-harvests.html"> this one</a>... and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/08/portland-boys.html">OMG this one</a>. It was a crazy year, one of outward focus, of <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/06/splendiferous-adventures.html">splendiferous adventures</a> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/09/discerning-no.html">of saying yes</a>, just like I said I wanted. By the time this autumn was coming to a close I felt ragged and overused, but also like I had learned many lessons along with those great stories. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="style2 style7"><span class="style6"><span class="style8">I employed many of my traditional gwishing techniques these last few weeks to help cast my magic spell for 2013. I have heard many people compliment me recently on things both mundane and sublime and that started my thought process in the direction of looking at my gifts. I'm good at many things, and have much to offer the world but a year of chasing a tiger around didn't get me very far in using many of them. A peek into the <a href="http://www.sabiansymbols.com/">Sabian Symbols</a> brought me the images of crowds coming down the mountain to listen to one inspired man and of a group of people entering a large canoe for a journey. Taking what I have learned and sharing it with others, bringing it into the physical, daily realm. Joining with others on a journey of discovery and action. A tarot spread with my Fairy Tale Tarot deck brought me the Seeker/Knight of Wands as the symbol for the whole year. Traditionally the Knight of Wands is a fair haired youth full of inspiration and action, kind of an act first, think later kind of guy. Ambition and desire to do good in the world are his driving motivations. In my fairy tale deck this card is </span></span></span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/good_day/124254851/in/photostream/">Peacock by Today is a good day</a></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="style2 style7"><span class="style6"><span class="style8">Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, a character who moves forward towards her destiny and her adventure despite challenges that plague her. Sounds like a theme for the year is shaping up!</span></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="style2 style7"><span class="style6"><span class="style8"><br />2013 will be:</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="style2 style7"><span class="style6"><span class="style8">Peacock blue, vibrant green and shimmering purple. Or a super suit and cape in bright, primary colors. </span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="style2 style7"><span class="style6"><span class="style8">It will sound like footsteps on gravel, like a pen scratching on paper and the chatter and clinks of a happy dinner party. </span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="style2 style7"><span class="style6"><span class="style8">It will smell like sweat and leather and dusty horse after a hard day's riding, freshly tilled still cold earth in the spring and a roast beast dinner that took hours to prepare for my friends and family. </span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="style2 style7"><span class="style6"><span class="style8">It will include <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0o4Bzl2rx0">Bruce reminding me</a> that I deserve to work for and have it all or nothing at all, the <a href="http://www.lonerangerfanclub.com/loneranger.html">Lone Ranger reminding me</a> that "God put the firewood there, but every man must gather it and light it himself", and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4kffzT9ImI">The Doctor reminding me</a> that I'm bigger on the inside. </span></span></span></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="style2 style7"><span class="style6"><span class="style8">I will remember that a goal without a plan is just a wish. That I am too good for half assed. That other people can be my allies on this trip, but they have their own stories and are not just my "sidekick". </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Last year, 2012, was all about gathering experience. I said yes to everything and I think it changed me. It made me less scared of some things and certainly gained me lots of experience doing lots of other things. The theme for 2013 is shaping up to be about discernment, about engagement and about connection. It is </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmoCk0c6HuJh8XZtgaTmYRyQwrKkJTEO2uhTJtFlOEebto81ZaLLvN-TBs1_ambnopt-JmFTfkzKnLWuFQA2re7TbEebjKRBAVIvKQuX3_mZUJsuzbK28b6swikOaZ6kLX9AXuvrGy_QE/s1600/proverb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmoCk0c6HuJh8XZtgaTmYRyQwrKkJTEO2uhTJtFlOEebto81ZaLLvN-TBs1_ambnopt-JmFTfkzKnLWuFQA2re7TbEebjKRBAVIvKQuX3_mZUJsuzbK28b6swikOaZ6kLX9AXuvrGy_QE/s320/proverb.jpg" height="236" width="320" /></a>not enough to do stuff, it has to be the right stuff. When taking a journey in a canoe or to Oz you need to have the right companions and the right supplies, not just any companions and supplies. The people I gather for my companions are the heroes in their own stories and their time spent with me should be as helpful to them as it is to helpful to me to have them. I
think the theme of companions, allies and community will come to be an
important one for me. I've been thinking about this a lot over the last
year or more and it is time to put some concerted effort into building
my community into the community I really want. I know a lot, I'm good at a lot, it's time to step up to the plate and do the work requires to reap that harvest, rather than just letting the fruit fall as it may. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I don't know what this year will bring, but it will be hard work and good work if I play my cards right. If I Engage My Super Powers and Call My Allies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">How have you gwished, set intentions or discovered themes for your upcoming year? What do you need to work on as 2013 rolls through the door and sets up shop? What are your superpowers and who are your allies? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Happy New Year!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="style2 style7"><span class="style6"><span class="style8">SCORPIO 24 <br />
CROWDS COMING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN TO LISTEN TO ONE INSPIRED MAN
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #330000;">You
may feel that you have had some wonderful realisations after hearing an
inspired message and now you need to bring these understandings down
and integrate them into everyday life. People will have many different
responses to the messages being given. Not all will be responsive, but
the message will resonate with some. What will be done with this new
information? </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="color: #330000;">Power to sway the feelings and thoughts of many. Having a large audience. Holding the floor. </span></i></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #330000;">The
Caution: Naivete, gullibility Feeling like someone else holds all the
answers. Wanting everyone to listen regardless of their needs.</span></span></span></div>
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CAPRICORN 4<br />
A GROUP OF PEOPLE ENTERING A LARGE CANOE FOR A JOURNEY BY WATER
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #330000;">To
embark on a journey with a number of people is to embark on an
emotional discovery. With cooperation, there can be great success. You
may also find this to be a time when different and separate aspects of
your personality come together to explore an emotional situation. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #330000;"><i>Cooperation.
People coming together with a shared goal in sight. Feeling like you're
on a journey of destiny. Travelling or living together.</i> </span></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #330000;">The Caution: Uncoordinated energies. Not wanting to go along with anybody.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-size: small;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;">Full Birth Moon 2008: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2008/12/outer-darkness-and-inner-hope.html">Outer Darkness and Inner Hope</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br />Full Birth Moon 2009:<a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-year.html"> New Year!</a> and <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/01/story-for-birth-moon.html">A Story for the Birth Moon</a> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;">Full Birth Moon 2010: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/12/dark-of-dark.html">The Dark of the Dark</a>.</span></span><br />
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Full Birth Moon 2011: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/01/columber.html">The Columber</a> and </span><a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/01/grabbing-tiger-by-tail.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Grabbing the Tiger by the Tail </span> </a><br />
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Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-85822649768540261332012-12-25T18:45:00.000-08:002012-12-25T18:45:31.468-08:00Solstice Celebration<div style="color: black;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Winter Solstice</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">One year, the wind blew down the mountain fiercer than it ever had before. The wind screamed so loud sometimes that Lucia could not hear her mother humming as she rocked the baby by the fire. Frost covered the nail heads in the walls, and the wind that sneaked in through the cracks tossed the last of the flour in the barrel around, so that it seemed to snow inside the house as well as out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">One day, the sun did not rise over the mountaintop. And the next day and the next and the next, not a glimmer of sun shown, no matter how long Lucia watched for sunrise. Dark roosted on the land.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Where has the light gone?" Lucia asked. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"I don't know," her mother replied. "Even the oldest tales never told of this darkness." She wrapped Lucia in her arms. "We will be each others' sun until the real sun returns," she said. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Today is Winter Solstice, the day with the shortest sunlight hours here in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the height of winter, the darkest time of the dark season. Starting tomorrow, the sun will stay in the sky just a little longer. And that is more than enough reason to celebrate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8219/8309385018_260b19257e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8219/8309385018_260b19257e.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I spent the day at the Nature Park doing a day off camp with elementary school aged kids. We spent the morning reading the wonderful story Lucia and the Light by Phyllis Root, which I have exerpted here, hiking in the woods and seeing what was growing and what was not out there. We found some awesome newts and an amazing fungus forest, with six or seven varieties growing out of a single pile of logs. Of course, we sent arms full of leaves and twigs over the railing of the bridge and down the swollen Beaverton Creek, an all time favorite activity for kids of every age. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In the afternoon we made lanterns to celebrate the returning of the sun. We talked about the science of the solstice and how the days will begin to get stronger with each passing day and then provided them with colored tissue paper and plastic lantern forms. As the dusk came on we lit them with electric tea lights and paraded around the office building, welcoming back the sun. Later, ask evening came on for real, the kids asked if we could turn off the lights in the room and they proceeded to leap over their lit lanterns. Screams of laughter greeted the gathering darkness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3stbtK0Q6aAOCfuP1wOpdhEtnr0cmr82sw5IM6N8Y6gA4TBpa_xTmYb4-U4jA5QrnUOG9PRUxth3J8KJXXrrlSo0Hh-_j95lHJ0tsk68qYIi1awjBmZ_q2pL_f-iYXCc8QGo5HjNhpDg/s1600/lantern.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3stbtK0Q6aAOCfuP1wOpdhEtnr0cmr82sw5IM6N8Y6gA4TBpa_xTmYb4-U4jA5QrnUOG9PRUxth3J8KJXXrrlSo0Hh-_j95lHJ0tsk68qYIi1awjBmZ_q2pL_f-iYXCc8QGo5HjNhpDg/s320/lantern.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Sunlight followed Lucia through the front door and poured across the floor, warm and sweet as honey. A fire blazed and the hearth and the baby cooed and clapped to see Lucia. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"I thought I had lost you," her mother cried, sweeping Lucia into a hug."and then the sun came up, and I knew you would come home. My brave child!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Lucia's mother held her close. "My sunshine," she whispered. "Light of my heart."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">How do you celebrate the darkest day of the year? How did you welcome the dark, or greet the growing light? When was the last time you heard children howling and screaming with laughter? Happy Solstice!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia; font-size: 100%;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"> </span> <br />
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<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Winter Solstice 2008: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2008/12/good-morning-sun.html">Good Morning Sun!</a> and also <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2008/12/solstice-creche.html">Solstice Creche</a></div>
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Winter Solstice 2009: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/12/christmas.html">Christmas</a> and <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/12/advent-awaiting-birth.html">Advent, Awaiting the Birth</a> </div>
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<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Winter Solstice 2010: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-2010.html">Christmas, 2010</a>, <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/12/solstice-story.html">Solstice Story</a>, and <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/12/dark-of-dark.html">The Dark of the Dark </a><br />
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<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Winter Solstice 2011: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/12/advent_11.html">Advent</a> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/12/long-nights-of-winter.html">The Long Nights of Winter</a> and<a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas.html"> It's Christmas</a><br />
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Winter Solstice 2012: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/12/city-and-sky-advent.html">City and Sky Advent</a></div>
<br />Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-24116217388896108732012-12-18T16:49:00.001-08:002013-01-15T21:57:32.502-08:00The PB&J Mix<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">New Birth Moon</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">**** **** **** **** **** **** **** </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I'm incubating. The new year is coming, my new plan, my <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/search/label/gwishing">new gwish</a>. It is dark, it is wet and I'm not doing too much but thinking. And listening to music. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Now, the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many
do's and don'ts. First of all you're using someone else's poetry to
express how you feel. <a href="http://chiliching.tumblr.com/post/3666928310/top-10-high-fidelity-quotes-now-the-making-of-a">This is a delicate thing.</a>"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Here's my Winter PB & J <a href="http://thepaintedman.brookiellen.com/the-lost-art-of-the-mixtape/"> mix tape</a>. That stands for power, beauty and joy... or peanut butter and jelly. Both make me smile. Enjoy!</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g4d-rnhuSg">We are Star Dust - Symphony of Science</a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I recently discovered this amazing musician, John D Boswell, who is using auto tune software to turn spoken audio clips into songs. He takes the words of well known scientists like Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Stephen Hawkings and David Attenborough and sets them to music creating inspirational and beautiful music. This one is possibly my favorite, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson reminding us that "we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, the universe is in us."</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.musictory.com/music/Dave+Carter+And+Tracy+Grammer/Happytown+%28All+Right+With+Me%29">Happytown (All Right With Me) - Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer</a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Before he died in 2002 Dave Carter collaborated with Tracy Grammer to produce three albums of folk singer songwriter music that are often called Buddhist Cowboy music. His mystical experiences and study of psychology, myth and mysticism show clearly in his music. I heard it said that no one could fit more words into a song than Dave Carter and this song is an excellent example of all of that. "I walk the occam razor way through priests and circus clowns. Am I a missoner of faith or grace or vision or another grinning prisoner of Happytown?"</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=YLO7tCdBVrA">Happy Little Clouds - Remixes for the Soul </a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The guy who did Symphony of Science has turned his talents to turning other celebrities to rock stars with his Remixes for the Soul compilation. This one stars Bob Ross from the PBS show Joy of Painting and makes my heart sing. Anyone who has ever watched an episode of the show has seen just how full of love and encouragment Bob Ross is and how it radiates through the TV screen right at you. It feels like spending an hour with a beatific nun or the Dalai Lama, only with painting instead. "You can almost paint with anything, all you have to do is practice. There are no limits here, start out by believing here." Thanks Bob Ross, I will believe!</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAGMATHlSK4">Gentle Arms of Eden - Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer</a></span></li>
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<a href="http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/gallery/db/hcards/hc026/thumb_lg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/gallery/db/hcards/hc026/thumb_lg.jpg" width="213" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The first time I heard this song was at Winterfest, a folk benefit for <a href="http://sistersoftheroad.org/">Sisters of the Road Cafe</a>, in maybe 2001 or 2002. I cried as Dave and Tracy performed it on stage at the Aladdin. It has remained an important song ever since... "On a sleepy endless ocean when the world lay in a dream, There was rhythm in the splash and roll, but not a voice to sing. So the moon shone on the breakers and the morning warmed the waves, till a single cell did jump and hum for joy as though to say...
This is my home! This is my only home. This is the only sacred ground that I have ever known. Should I stray in th dark night alone Rock me goddess in the gentle arms of Eden.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk">We are All Connected - Symphony of Science</a></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Featuring Richard Feynman on the bongos, Bill Nye thinking about the vast emptiness of space, Carl Sagan waxing poetic about star stuff and Neil deGrasse Tyson's statement that "we are all connected; To each other, biologically, to the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically." One of the most popular Symphony of Science videos for a reason. </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://videos.sapo.pt/EMgqHJeedK09dMHO9cVt">Shelter from the Storm - Bob Dylan</a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The apartment I lived in for three years in college was called Shelter from the Storm. "Not a word was spoke between us there was little risk involved, everything up to that point had been left unresolved. Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm, "Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm" The link above is to the album version that I love most, but <a href="http://www.jukebo.com/bob-dylan/music-clip,shelter-from-the-storm,s0rzq.html">this live performance is amazing</a>. Harder, harsher, but Dylan at his best.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5Jp1AwIBJY">Peace Train - Dolly Parton and Ladysmith Black Mambazo</a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I first knew Ladysmith Black Mambazo from their work with Paul Simon on Graceland. This version of Cat Stevens' song combines their haunting harmonic style with Dolly's clear voice and makes me just wanna get on that train. Check out Ladysmith Black Mambazo's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vZsCuFX2JY">Amazing Grace</a>.</span>
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akek6cFRZfY">Onward to the Edge - Symphony of Science </a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Possibly my very favorite of the Symphony of Science tracks. "There is a powerful recognition that stirs within us, when we see our own little blue ocean planet in the skies of other worlds... onward to the edge, we're moving onward to the edge. Here we are together on this fragile little world."</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZKDMhf9JrM">Road Goes on Forever - Joe Ely</a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">A truly pronoic tale of adventure, trial and redemption. The road goes on forever, and the party never ends. I like the Joe Ely version above best, but <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiK4OcQj3-0">here's another one with Joe featuring Joel Guzman</a> (who makes the accoridan seem like the sexiest instrument ever), <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMjWV2lqlqQ">here's one by Robert Earl Keen</a> - the guy who wrote the song, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3zSp_uhjcI">here's the Highwaymen's version</a> (ya know, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, et al). It's a good song.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-_ajp3u4EU">Mud on the Tires - Brad Paisley</a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">A truly unironic celebration of the simple pleasures in life - a new truck, the moon and stars, a campfire and a pretty lady. It makes me smile. </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roe2KG1IVwI">Mysterious Ways - U2</a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When I was in high school I was bona fide obsessed with U2. I listened to the Achtung Baby cassette tape on my Walkman on the bus to school, during passing periods, spent the afternoon watching the concert footage on VHS tape and fell asleep listening to the tape again. Some U2 songs send me into that weird place you find yourself when you look at your high school year book, awkward and embarrassed and emotional. This song, though, has stood the test of time and is still in regular rotation. </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcjzHMhBtf0">Don't Stop Believin' - Journey</a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When this came on at the bar the other night, my friend said "I feel like I only hear this song at Goodwill." I said, he isn't living life right then. "Some will win, some will lose. Some were born to sing the blues. Oh, the movie never ends it goes on and on and on and on..... don't stop believing. HOLD ON TO THAT FIEEELLAAAYING!"</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v1esiP0w6c">My City of Ruins - Bruce Springsteen </a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I think it is curious that I chose to end my PB and J mix with such an intense song. It is sad, yes, but not dark. It brings tears to my eyes, but not always tears of grief. In August of 2003 I watched a full moon ruse over the Oakland Hills as Bruce entreated us to rise up. In November of that same year I visited<a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0209/st_pauls/online_extra.html"> St. Paul's Chapel in lower Manhattan </a>and cried as the words ran through my head... my city of ruins. I sang this song to my puppy years later, the emotions still fresh but her wagging tail and excited cuddling adding a new layer of association. And of course, any Bruce is all mixed up with my dad, <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/11/day-of-dead.html">an "it's complicated" relationship</a> if there ever was one. But the take home message is not one of sadness, it is the pronoic belief that every experience allows you to grow, even the painful, terrible and horrific ones. "With these hands, lord, with these hands, I pray for the strength... I pray for your love, lord, with these hands."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What are you listening to in this dark time of the year? What plans are you making, what are you incubating? What PB&J is rocking your world? The photos are images from the Hubble Telescope turned into holiday cards. View all of them at <a href="http://hubblesite.org/gallery/holiday/">Hubblesite.org</a> and download your own for spreading holiday PB&J. Blessed winter! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">New Birth Moon 2008: </span><a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2008/11/waiting.html" style="font-family: georgia;">Waiting</a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">New Birth Moon 2009: </span><a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/12/advent-awaiting-birth.html" style="font-family: georgia;">Advent, Awaiting the Birth</a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">New Birth Moon 2010: </span><a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/12/winter-is-dark-yet-each-tiny-spark.html" style="font-family: georgia;">Winter is Dark, Yet Each Tiny Spark</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">New Birth Moon 2011: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/12/wolves-at-gate.html">Wolves at the Gate</a></span> </span>Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-53654982275764407572012-12-01T17:26:00.000-08:002012-12-25T18:46:25.691-08:00City and Sky Advent<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This is a special note to let you know about my other writing project for the month of December. I am making an online Advent calendar of sorts and publishing a short piece every day this month. My regular readers here will probably not be too shocked at what they find - Pagan Quaker Hippy Scientist Nerdilicious goodness. I hope you will stop by and check it out!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://cityandskyadvent.blogspot.com/">http://cityandskyadvent.blogspot.com</a></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://cityandskyadvent.blogspot.com/">Winter</a></span></td></tr>
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<br />Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-59054314951626068302012-11-30T20:53:00.000-08:002013-01-15T21:54:45.810-08:00Mushroom Season<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Death Moon</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It is distinctly winter here in Portland. I spent these weeks around Thanksgiving dog sitting for a number of families and have been very busy getting a whole pack of dogs tired, work that means hiking in the woods and fields every day. The days have been cold and wet, but some more cold and more wet than others. Some even sunny lately. They say if you don't like the weather in Oregon just wait a few minutes. With about five weeks of rainy weather behind us, the ground is getting saturated and the trails are starting to get muddy - muddy trail season is a distinct time of year in my lived calendar. The days are short with the sun coming up just after 7 and it being quite dark by 5pm but my "work" has had me outside about as much as I want each day, a real luxury this time of year. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssssyla/3062262485/in/photostream/">Hoyt Arboretum Mushrooms</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The cool and wet weather is bringing out a special kind of wildlife in the woods of Western Oregon - the mushroom. Every walk this last week has brought me strange and amazing visions of the fungal world. Tall and skinny mushrooms, fat little toadstools, shelf fungus firm, frilly, white and brown, entire logs covered in mushrooms and mushrooms shooting out of the leaf litter under the trees. Some logs have patches of fungus growing on them that seem to ooze a deep red liquid and others collect drops of water like a jeweled crown. The diversity of forms is really mind blowing even just in the small areas and single ecosystem I have been exploring. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What we call mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungus that live in soil, rotting wood or some other substrate. Fungus is one of the five major categories of life (the others being bacteria, protists, plants and animals) and despite their outward similarity with plants, they are actually more closely related to animals in many ways. Mushrooms, a specific kind of fungus, can be found in an astonishing array of habitats and are vitally important parts of their ecosystems. They are decomposers, breaking down plant and animal material to get at the nutrients inside and in the process release those nutrients back into the environment for other plants and animals to use. The mushrooms we see sprouting out of logs and forest duff are actually just a tiny part of a huge organism that impregnates the wood or soil. The mycelium, the internal filament like structure of the fungus, spreads out and eats away at the material the fungus is growing in and only creates the fruiting body for a couple days or a couple weeks at most. </span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5255/5472626728_064dab882a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5255/5472626728_064dab882a.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssssyla/5472626728/in/photostream/">Shelf Fungus in Forest Park</a></td></tr>
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Mushrooms fascinate me. They are mysterious and unlike other living creatures I know in really fundamental ways. Many of the websites I've checked out recently to learn about them use the word cryptic to discuss their life cycle and habits. They inhabit the deep part of the forest but create these amazing and beautiful bodies that push out into the light and they do that so quickly that the English language uses their name, mushroom, to describe something that multiplies almost too fast to be measured. They are an important part of cleaning up the detritus of a forest, making sure nutrients are recycled for reuse and many are eaten by other forest creatures. Some species are even eaten by humans while others are important medicines, some are so poisonous they kill almost instantly and some do other crazy things to our brain chemistry. They are deep, dark forest magic. Not like us at all, but vital members of their communities.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />Mushrooms Berkeley </span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />A classic recipe from the Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas. Described as such "The mushrooms and peppers will be very dark and evil looking, but irresistible in flavor and aroma." </span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />1 lb mushrooms, halved</span>
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1 medium bell peppers, cut in
1-inch squares<br />
1 onion, peeled and chopped<br />
1/2 c butter
<i><br /></i><br /><i>Sauce</i></span><br />
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2 T Dijon mustard<br />
2 T Worcestershire sauce<br />
1/2 c brown sugar (or less)<br />
3/4 c mellow red table wine<br />
Fresh ground black pepper<br />
Seasoned salt<br /><br />
Melt butter and saute onions till clear.
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While sauteing make sauce. Mix together mustard, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce till perfectly smooth. Add the wine, season with
lots of fresh ground pepper, seasoned salt to taste. Stir well
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When onion is clear, add the mushrooms and peppers and saute. As the mushrooms begin to brown and reduce in size, add the sauce.
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Now simmer at medium for about 45 minutes or till sauce is reduced and thickened. Serve over steak, polenta, pasta or as a vegetable side dish. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Mushrooms remind us of the hidden and dark parts of life. They grow in the dark, sometimes literally but always the figurative dark of wet forests and short days. The mycelium remind me that even when things look dead, like the spongy rotting logs that litter my beloved temperate rain forests, there is often much going on under the surface. The fruit will pop up only when it is ready and then it might just "mushroom" out, being so prolific we can't even believe that was just a pile of dry leaves three weeks ago. Mushrooms have completely unusual and fantastical shapes, colors, uses and jobs. They are, in short, simply unexpected and simply amazing. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8350/8225696920_f92eeff541.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8350/8225696920_f92eeff541.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssssyla/8225696920/in/photostream/"><span style="color: #0000ee;"><u>Forest Park Mushrooms</u></span></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What unexpected and amazing things are popping up in your life right now? Are there mushrooms sprouting in your yard or some other neat natural growth in these dark days of winter? Do you have a favorite mushroom recipe or do you generally stay away from the fungus? Is this a time of hidden growth deep inside the rotting log of your life or are ideas or projects ready to mushroom out? Happy winter!</span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />Death Moon 2011: </span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/11/end-of-year.html">The End of the Year</a>, <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/12/birth-moon-ive-always-had-favorite.html">Favorites</a> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/12/living-in-relationship.html">Living in Relationship</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />Death Moon 2010: </span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/11/night-and-day.html"> Night and Day </a></span>, <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/11/wear-it-as-long-as-thou-canst.html">Wear it As Long as Thou Canst</a>, and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/10/doggy-heaven.html">Doggy Heaven</a> (still makes me cry years later) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />Death Moon 2009: </span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/11/soldier-and-death.html">The Soldier and Death</a></span> (one of my all time favorite posts!) and <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/12/moving-from-season-of-dead.html">Moving From the Season of the Dead</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Death Moon 2008: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2008/11/full-moon-in-taurus.html">Full Moon in Taurus</a> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2008/10/when-you-start-looking-at-time-as.html">Time is a Circle</a></span>Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-31256479796589672342012-11-18T23:49:00.000-08:002012-11-18T23:53:04.194-08:00The Year Ends<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Old Sorting Moon</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br />**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I always like it when my human affairs line up nicely with natural cycles and seasonal change. There was a full moon on October 29th that marked the height of the Sorting Moon, the last month of the lunar year, and also happened to fall right at the end of my Outdoor School session. As the last week of the Sorting Moon came and went so did the last week of Outdoor School and right as I was packing and getting ready to leave the coast for the last time, winter showed up. I honestly felt like I left the coast in the autumn and arrived in Portland in the winter with cold air, cold rain and bare trees. </span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8056/8137323626_5062c4cd15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8056/8137323626_5062c4cd15.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssssyla/8137323626/in/photostream/">Smith Lake during the last week of camp</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Daylight savings that week made the transition all that much more abrupt. It is now the dark, cold, wet time of the year. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The end of the Sorting Moon also the end of my fourth year of blogging at The Wheel and the Disk. Holy cow! Really, four years? As I look back over my work this year I see that the 2011-2012 lunar year was a busy (er, totally crazy) one, but there is a lot here that I am very proud of.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">At the beginning of the year I was struggling heavily with my work as a student teacher. I struggled with that <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/11/its-hard.html">hard work</a> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/12/living-in-relationship.html">other hard work</a> that came up over the winter. At the beginning of the lunar year, I set the goal of working with material from Jessica Prentice's book Full Moon Feast and some of my best writing this year came out of my engagement with that material. The posts about the <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/12/wolves-at-gate.html">Wolf Moon</a> and the <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/03/sap-moon.html">Sap Moon</a> are shining examples of the kind of writing I do best - an eclectic mix of explanation, spiritual musing and connection making. In the deep winter I did some gwishing and set a theme for 2012 - <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/01/grabbing-tiger-by-tail.html">Grabbing the Tiger By the Tail </a>- which has manifested itself in all sorts of ways I didn't even imagine were possible. The craziness of the rest of the year was foreshadowed by my messing up on the naming of my moons in the winter and having to <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/02/realigning.html">realign the posts</a> and dates months later. As the spring waxed my focus shifted outward and my posts tended to get shorter, more <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/05/national-poetry-month.html">full of poetry</a>, and more full of <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/07/nothing-but-good-can-come-of-this.html">pronoic epiphanies</a>. It simply was not a season for digestion or self reflection. It was a time for adventures! In the summer I told you about my adventures in <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/06/splendiferous-adventures.html">dogs</a>, <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/05/happy-hours-and-pirate-queens.html">men</a>, <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/08/portland-boys.html">soccer</a> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/09/discerning-no.html">theme parties</a>. Man, I sure had fun this summer. The fun didn't end, though, as I moved to <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2012/10/outdoor-school-harvests.html">Outdoor School</a> and enjoyed autumn </span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8190/8137293381_4196dedf90.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8190/8137293381_4196dedf90.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssssyla/8137293381/in/photostream/">Wondering what tha?</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">on the Oregon coast. I may not have posted twice for each month, but I did post once for every moon and considering how much else got pushed aside this year I consider that an accomplishment. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I'm not sure what I see in the future of this blog. It is clearly a very important tool for me in my self reflection and continued spiritual practice. I look forward to spending the winter really digesting the work (and play!) that I engaged in over this last warm season. I would like to continue to incorporate stories and poetry to help illuminate my findings as well as to highlight the science of the seasons as they come and go. I expect to have another very fruitful winter of blogging and hope that I can sustain that into the spring and summer next year. Again, I promise to post for every moon and every festival. That commitment keeps me on track in a very real way. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I have been enjoying this change in the season and the beginnings of this season of dark. This soli-lunar calendar that I follow allows for a generous season of end before the birth of the new year and I have grown accustomed to using it for all it is worth. Reviewing, putting things to rest, sorting through and making ready to let go or spend the winter working of what needs to stay. It is a fruitful season for inner work and I need some of that brand of medicine right now. How is the year winding down for you? What have you accomplished since last fall? What of that is worth keeping and what of that is ready to be transformed into something worth keeping? How is winter beginning to show itself where you live?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 100%;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 100%;">This post is labeled Old Sorting Moon because it was written so late in the month. Here are previous Full Sorting Moon posts. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;">Full Sorting Moon 2011: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/11/snow-moon-connecting-with-our-food.html">Snow Moon: Connecting with our Food</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Sorting Moon 2010: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/10/rains-have-come.html">The Rains Have Come</a> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/11/year-two-complete.html">Year Two Complete</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Full Sorting Moon 2009: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/11/full-sorting-moon.html">Full Sorting Moon </a></span><br />
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<br />Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-49224905670508050422012-11-04T22:31:00.000-08:002012-11-18T23:53:34.036-08:00How Can I Help You?<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;">Halloween</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">**** **** **** **** **** **** **** </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">About a week ago we marked the last autumn festival day and began our move into winter. In American culture that festival day is usually called Halloween, but it is similar in nature to the Celtic Sahmain and the Catholic All Saint's/All Soul's day festivals. It is the end of the year, the last harvest of animals, the time when the veil between the land of the living and the dead is thin and the beginning of the cold and dark winter season. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I marked the holiday during my last week of Outdoor School in both festive secular and a more religious manner. On October 31st we had a really fun Halloween party that included carving pumpkins, searching for beads in bowls of gross "guts", a haunted house and costumes. The four of us Field Instructors made capes out of space blankets and were Super Field Instructors all day. Too much fun. The next day the classes, all from Catholic schools, invited a priest to come and conduct an All Saint's Day mass. I made the time to attend that as well.</span></span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2473/4004660257_bee9d03cd7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2473/4004660257_bee9d03cd7.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/amioascension/4004660257">Taking the communion by amioascension</a></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I have only attended Catholic mass one other time in my life, in the spring of 2005 when Pope John Paul II died. That was at the Catholic church in Ashland, Oregon and I remember the feeling of awe in looking at the program realizing that people all over the world were saying the same words, hearing the same scriptures, engaging in the same rituals as I was and that the older gentleman next to me had been doing these same things for decades. That kind of ritual and continuity are so very attractive to me, but that's another story for another time. This mass was different because it was in a lodge at a camp and the other attenders were 12 year olds. The nun who was their teacher actually did a really good job of reviewing some of the important parts of the mass which was helpful to me. I knew that mass was a reenactment of the last supper, but she explained it very clearly. She also introduced the topic of saints and how they become saints. During the scripture reading portion of the service a number of kids participated by reading singly or by being a part of a chorus of readers. It was interesting to see how into the whole process some of the kids were and how "along for the ride" others were.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It being an All Saints Day mass, the priest gave a homily about saints who are not yet canonized and the priest read a story about a man in a homeless shelter who acted as a saint, even as he was so in need himself. The priest was a bit of a doddering old man, but he asked the kids to share examples of people they know who are unrecognized saints and many of them had wonderful things to say about neighbors and grandparents. In summary, the priest reminded us that Jesus didn't ask us how smart we are, or how perfect we are, he only asked us to help each other. That was how he lived, and that is how he asks us to live. </span></span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4111/5095427404_df49b6d5fc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4111/5095427404_df49b6d5fc.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/annarborfreeskool/5095427404">Food Not Bombs by Ann Arbor Free Skool</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">There is a flip side to this idea of generosity and assistance. There are times when we are the ones who need to be helped, and it can be even harder to accept help than it is to give it. I saw this in action a couple days later when I was at the Food Basket, the little grocery store in the town near camp in the early morning. A woman, buying family groceries and struggling with her cart and walker, was terribly embarrassed that her card wouldn't go through. The checker was trying to be helpful but a line was building up behind the woman. The man directly behind her was a bicyclest, one of the many who do medium to long distance trips along the coastal highway, and clearly better off than the woman buying groceries. He tried to offer to pay for her things, handing the checker the cash but the woman just wouldn't accept his help. She insisted that there was money on the card and finally ended up not getting everything she had picked out so that she could afford it with the money in her purse. This interaction reminded me that it is not enough to help, but we must also come to terms with being helped in the winter. The woman could have graciously accepted the gift and been able to use her grocery money for other things, or even buy groceries for someone else next week. Instead, she got caught in her insecurity and shame and could not allow the bicyclist's generosity to flow into her life.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">BIG RIVER</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">(one of my very favorite camp songs, sung this week at camp) </span></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">There's a big river flowing, it'll be there tomorrow</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It's time we should be going, there's no time for sorrow</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The stars will light the way back home, the song will keep the fire</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Remembering the days we've roamed, the song will lift you higher </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So sing for the river, and sing for the stars</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sing for the friends you've made, wherever they are</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sing to bring you back again or to take you away</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sing a song for me my friend, sing for today </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">There's a big river flowing, and it's always in motion</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It carves out its journey, on down to the ocean</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now you can choose your path alone, and take it to the sea</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Remembering the song's your own, the song will set you free</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So sing for the river, and sing for the stars</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sing for the friends you've made, wherever they are</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sing to bring you back again or to take you away</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sing a song for me my friend, sing for today</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">*** *** ***<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6240/6296294246_9b66e93509.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6240/6296294246_9b66e93509.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pyth0ns/6296294246">Trick or treat by Mark J P</a></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It is now winter, the cold dark time of the year when resources begin to
run short. Thinking about how to help and how to be helped is natural
at this time of year and one of my favorite parts of the Waldorf autumn
and winter festivals is how they ritualize and make concrete this
impulse to help. The autumn festivals begin with Michaelmas, at the
Autumn equinox, when we receive a spark of heavenly light from God's own
warrior. At Martinmas, in early November, we nurture that spark in
lanterns and honor a man who cut his own cloak in half to help a person
in need. As we get closer to Christmas, we light more lights, spend more
energy giving gifts and energy to help each other through the dark time
until the cosmic light is reborn at solstice and Christmas. By St.
Brigid's day, or Candlemas, in early February our own lights are feeling
weak and worn, but the light is taken up by the earth again as spring
begins it's rebirth. Honoring this feeling of needing to help and
encouraging us to take steps to actually help are important reasons for
these winter festivals.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">How did you celebrate this Autumn-turning-to-Winter festival? Do you have a tradition of jack-o-lanterns and trick or treating or do you do a different celebration? Have you been feeling the pull of the season of giving? Do you have trouble letting generosity into your life? Happy All Saint's Day, Halloween, Sahmain and winter! </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 100%;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Halloween 2011: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/11/day-of-dead.html">Day of the Dead</a><span style="font-size: 100%;"> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/10/dia-de-los-muertos-altara.html">Dia de los Muertos Altara</a> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/11/nurturing-warmth-at-martinmas.html">Nurturing Warmth at Martinmas</a>. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;">Halloween 2010: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/10/doggy-heaven.html">Doggy Heaven</a> (still chokes me up, years later) and <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/10/power-of-dog.html">The Power of the Dog</a> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/11/martinmas.html">Martinmas</a>. </span><span style="font-size: 100%;"> </span></span></div>
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<div id="yui_3_4_0_3_1323654331280_1655">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;">Halloween 2009: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-do-you-really-want-to-be.html">What Do You Really Want to Be?</a> and <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/12/moving-from-season-of-dead.html">Moving from the Season of the Dead</a>. </span></span></div>
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<div id="yui_3_4_0_3_1323654331280_1655">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;">Halloween 2008: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2008/11/when-veil-between-world-is-thin.html">When the Veil Between the Worlds is Thin</a></span></span></div>
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Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886118714451451014.post-69600931269643059802012-10-22T09:12:00.000-07:002012-10-22T09:15:13.178-07:00I Make Bad Decisions<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;">New Sorting Moon<span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span> <span style="color: #333333;"><br />**** **** **** **** **** **** **** </span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hlship/7116809691">Oswald West State Park by Tapestry Dude</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">At the beginning of each week at camp we have a staff meeting where everyone does a body, mind and spirit check in. We get to report on how we are doing in the different aspects of our lives, and how we are feeling about the upcoming week. It is a fun and meaningful way to debrief from our weekend away, keep in touch with each other and share the things about our lives that are so important to share when living and working together so closely. Often people say things like "I had a great weekend, I got so much sleep" or "I had fun on the beach/in town/reading". Not me, though. It has become a bit of a running joke that I start my check in with a "I made a lot of bad decisions this weekend." We all laugh, I tell my tale and we move on with our morning.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Over the years I have learned that when a phrase comes to me often in a period of time it is probably important. Yes, "I make bad decisions" is a joke, but the fact that it keeps coming up means I should probably examine the sentiment a bit more closely. This week is the start of the Sorting Moon, the last month in Annette Hinshaw's calendar. It is the end of the cycle and the time to look at what we have done, make choices about what to keep and what to let go of, and get ready for the beginning of the next cycle. As I read through the Sorting Moon chapter in Earth Time, Moon Time I noticed that she talks a lot about decision making style during that chapter. Ultimately, the Sorting Moon is asking us to look at not just what we are making decisions about, but about how we make those decisions at all.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/deadair/4110606967/">About the Trees by Dead Air</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">My work schedule is grueling these days and my weekends are short. In my 24 or 48 hours off I have to fit in seeing my friends, walking my dog, doing my laundry and taking care of my self care needs for sleep, alone time and reflection. There is literally no time during the week for any of these activities. The "bad decisions" keep coming in the form of choosing the seeing friends portion of the to-do list over the self care portion of the list, and that usually involves alcohol, late nights and other debauchery. When you add in the 2 hour drive from camp to town, that has turned into short nights and busy days when my body and spirit really need the rest. That being said, I don't regret the time spent with my friends or the fun we've had. Last weekend I went to a rock n' roll show, ate amazing Egyptian food at a late night cart and laughed with friends new and old. These memories are the mortar that holds the bricks of friendship together, and as I am spending so much energy here at camp I realize just how important having those strong friendships is to me. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gcmenezes/6248601665">Incoming Surfy by surfonaut</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">So maybe I'm not making bad decisions. I'm just making a decision. I am valuing my friendships and the (admittedly debaucherous) fun we have over self care. I am quite confident that these decisions will have impacts on my future choices and maybe even my future abilities or health - you can only burn the candle at both ends for so long. But what decisions don't? One of Annette Hinshaw's questions for consideration during the Sorting Moon is "what decision do you feel was most important in getting you where you are today?" I suspect it is rarely a lack of options that makes that question so thought provoking. Every decision we make puts us on the path that leads us to the current moment and into one of an infinite number of futures. I think, like is the case with so many things in life, it is not what you actually do but how you do it that is most important. How am I going about making these decisions? Maybe I'm just justifying gut level decisions, but I think I'm doing some thinking, too. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As the autumn season builds to a crescendo here in Western Oregon the days are getting wet and dark. We begin to honor the seasonal impetus to turn inwards and to reflect on our choices. What have we done this year we like? What decisions do we regret? Were we able to gather the resources, physical and emotional, necessary for the coming winter? When have you made bad decisions, and how did that turn out for you? What process do you like for making decisions? What does deep autumn look like where you are? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 100%;">**** **** **** **** **** **** ****</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">New Sorting Moon 2011: <a href="http://www.thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2011/10/sorting-it-all-out.html">Sorting it All Out</a><span style="font-size: 100%;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 100%;">New Sorting Moon 2010: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/10/useful-beautiful-or-loved.html">Useful, Beautiful or Loved</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">New Sorting Moon 2009: <a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2009/10/new-sorting-moon.html">New Sorting Moon</a></span><br /><br /><a href="http://thewheelandthedisk.blogspot.com/2010/10/useful-beautiful-or-loved.html" style="font-family: georgia;"></a></span><br />
<br />Alysshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04820396354932192545noreply@blogger.com0