Tuesday, August 29, 2006

anger about the way things are

Today is the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I spent days just glued to CNN last year, watching with growing horror and then anger over what was happening especially in New Orleans.

This morning I was watching CNN where they were showing pictures of New Orleans again. You'd think the storm was yesterday. Its so sad to see the hugh piles of trash and row upon row of empty houses, their broken windows like dead open eyes looking out without seeing on vacant streets.

And the people who "survived" this past year are still recovering too. Some of them still suffering badly with post traumatic stress, and all of the unbelievable financial burdens caused by a government's broken promises and the absolutely unbelievably immoral behaviour of insurance companies that will do anything to avoid paying these people.

As I watched, I felt still that seeing red, screaming at the top of my lungs, anger that I felt when I watched all of that nightmare unfold last year. A country that claims to be the best in the world has to do better.

I'm also angry because I feel helpless to do very much to make any change in this situation. At least now I am participating in a group that makes afghans to give to survivors of the storm. Its not much, but it is something that I can do from where I am with what I have. I hope that somehow that little bit of caring will touch the lives of some of the survivors and give them hope and a sense that someone out here DOES care.

If you knit or crochet and would like to participate in this group's activity, you can go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/squares4survivors/ and sign up to join us. If you don't knit or crochet and would like to help out, they also accept donations of yarn for other's to do the work with.

And so tonight I close with a prayer for all of those who are struggling with surviving after the storm and a prayer for the souls of all those that lost their lives in it.

Good night and God bless.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

The cycle of nature....



Last weekend the art show we participated in was in a park in St Joseph, MO.

Our booth was in the shade of a lovely old hickory tree. During the weekend we had time to really see that tree, and I took these pictures.

Looking up into the tree, you see the leaves creating the lovely shady canopy that we enjoyed all weekend.




I know that went we visit St Joseph again this lovely tree will be gone. The city has already marked it for removal before it topples over and hurts someone.

At the base of the tree, the circle of life is playing out as the carpenter ants have taken over, feasting on the sweet sap of the tree, eating away at it, hollowing it out.

The tree is dying, but it is fighting on to the last.

Nature is cruel, but it is also brave.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

about leaping.....

A while back I had begun looking for some way to bring in some extra money without going back to the whole 8 to 5 grind.

Well, I believe I have found it!

Thursday morning as I was just "recovering" from a visit to my doctor, I got a phone call from a local potter that needs someone to help him set up a new system to keep track of his customers, inventory, etc.

Evidently, he had found my phone number on a local website where I had posted it at least 2 years ago. Amazing!

So, having met with him on Friday to talk about generalities, today I will meet with him and his wife (who has been doing the book work) to review what they are doing right now....then we can figure out what to do next.

This is truly a case of what Julia Cameron calls "asking the universe for what you need". By whatever word you choose to use, in this case it is an answer to prayer, now I will continue to pray that I will be able to know the right things to do so my client will be pleased with my work.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

growing up in the Fun House

I've been reading Julia Cameron's book titled Supplies and thinking especially about her chapter on growing up in the Fun House. Its actually a very good description.

So what do we see in those Fun House mirrors? Certainly not a true reflection of who we are, but a sort of wavey, almost underwater, blurry form reflected through the filters of what others expect us to be.

Perhaps we need to spend some time in front of truly reflective mirrors telling ourselves that we can be whatever we want to be beginning now.

Slaying the dragons of self doubt needs lots of work at reprogramming.

So here is my positive thought for today: I forgive myself for what ever real or imagined bad thing I have done, and I deserve to move on to what I want to do.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

collecting information and wondering how to start

For quite a number of years I've had this idea for a story (novel?) that I have been collecting information for. I have folders and pictures and notes, but no idea how to get this started. So, I'm thinking I'll just start in the middle and work my way out to the edge....I'm thinking this will be the writing equivalant of dropping a pebble in a pond -- you never know how wide the ripples will spread!

So, today's assignment for myself: Description of a character for the story, so here it is:

Character Description – “Tildi”

She was tall for a woman of her time, nearly 5’5”, and thin for a woman with four children. When she was young, she might have been called willowy, now she was just a thin woman with lines around her eyes from working in the sun.

Perhaps her strongest feature was her hair. Long, of course, for no Christian lady would cut her hair off except in severe illness, it was thick, heavy and a deep auburn color. Now there were a few strands of silver among the dark as well. She wore it parted in the center, pulled into a snug braid that was then pinned into a knot at the base of her neck.

Her eyes were light, not blue or gray or green or brown, but a mixture of blue and green with golden brown flecks. When she was angry or had been crying they appeared very green.

After years of working to keep a home, her hands were still slim with long fingers, but they were strong and had the callous of splitting firewood, tending a garden and wringing out laundered clothing.

As a woman on the plains of Arkansas in 1860, she was a rarity of another sort, she could read and write. Her mother had seen to it that she and all her brothers and sisters had learned to read early on, and now she was teaching her own children out of the Bible her father had given she and her husband as a wedding gift. That Bible was her family’s record book as well, where each birth and death and marriage was carefully recorded.