Pipers at the Gates of Dawn

Basil pesto

2011-08-28T14:50:00.002-04:00

My friends Jan & Bob had a surfeit of basil and brought a a whole bag to our eucharistic community this morning. I made off with most of it! I am busy stripping off the leaves to a heady aroma wafting up. Pesto was one of Bartzy's favorites. I know he is occupied with the delights and challenges of the spiritual world, and yet it is my hope that this evocative aroma reaches him and reminds him of the love we send. In the meantime I plan to freeze some of the pesto for his brother and sister.

Here is the recipe I am jumping off from - using walnuts instead of pine nuts for their Omega 3"s (???) Oh drat, it didn't work. Google "basil pesto walnuts". There is a conspiracy afoot at google, I fear. I am having to do fancy tricks (for me) to bypass the school's google account. Zounds!

Little Lost Lamb

2011-08-08T21:40:00.003-04:00

My son Bartzy loved the Little Lost Lamb. He was my own little lost lamb, kicking up his heels and wandering off. I promised him I would follow him even to Hell if necessary to find him again. Fortunately, I never had to go that far. He was safe in the arms of the Good Shepherd all along.

Today I received in the mail a replacement copy of The Little Lost Lamb, which went missing after my move. How wonderful is that, to receive the book on the anniversary of the day that our Little Lost Lamb transitioned from the physical world into the spiritual world. We love you, Bartzy, our Little Lost Lamb who was Found!

Bartholomew

2011-08-08T14:18:00.003-04:00

Eight years ago today Bartholomew took his leap into Grace. I have worried that this day would be very painful for me. I think of Bartzy every day, but anniversaries have a special punch to them. I lit a candle (not a Jahrzeit candle but a bigger one), and to my astonishment, every time I catch a glimpse of it, I feel joy thinking of Bart.

Just now I came away from seeing a neighbor who has been battling cancer (again) for the last year. Just a month ago she was "given" about a month to live, Chemo was doing nothing for her but tearing her down. Three weeks ago she started going to a doctor of Chinese medicine. Her well-being and stamina took a 180 degree turn in two days.

Somehow it all seems woven together. Keep walking on water with eyes fixed on Jesus.

Elderberry Rosehip

2011-06-09T23:18:00.002-04:00

Today a new little being came into my life.As I move from being primarily with the Kindergarten (although, who knows?), during an "appreciation ceremoniette," I discovered Elderberry Rosehip in a juniper tree, and I was overcome with joy. Now I sense how the kindergarten children feel when Fairy Mother brings them their own Little One, their own Fairy Baby to care for.

Thank you, Fairy Mother!!!!!

Help Along the Way

2011-05-29T08:11:00.004-04:00

I have read three things just this morning, just past dawn, that seem to be helping me either find myself, or not need to. Here is the morning meditation from Richard Rohr:

If Jesus is the archetype of how the divine gift is being given, Mary is the archetype of how the divine gift is always received: it is always totally free and undeserved. The shocking thing is that the Scripture actually says almost nothing about Mary. No credit ratings are stated, no achievements; it doesn’t say she prayed a lot or went to the temple. No talk of heroic deeds, or even love for the poor. She is the poor one herself.

Mary knows how to receive a gift with total freedom, without needing to say “Lord, I am not worthy.” She knows how to be totally vulnerable and humble before Mystery. Mary knows she did not earn anything. It was all mercy, grace, and God’s utterly free and gratuitous choice. (Mary uses the word “mercy” three times in her Magnificat [Luke 1:46-55]). Mary had nothing to do with it, except, of course, saying YES to it!

*******

and then this came for this week's (the 6th week's) Calendar of the Soul reading.:

There has arisen from its narrow limits
My self and finds itself
As revelation of all worlds
Within the sway of time and space;
The world, as archetype divine,
Displays to me at every turn
The truth of my own likeness.
___________________________________

English translation by Ruth and Hans Pusch
___________________________________

Es ist erstanden aus der Eigenheit
Mein Selbst und findet sich
Als Weltenoffenbarung
In Zeit- und Raumeskräften;
Die Welt, sie zeigt mir überall
Als göttlich Urbild
Des eignen Abbilds Wahrheit.

*****

Later: I have already forgotten what the third thing was. Tonight, several days later, I had dinner with old friends who were visiting Santa Fe. One talked about moving to Ann Arbor years ago from Takoma Park and "not knowing who she was anymore...." , she didn't have her friends to hold a mirror up for her anymore. It is comforting to me to hear others express spontaneously what I happen to be feeling.

Hello, let me introduce myself (to myself)

2011-05-23T19:56:00.001-04:00

It has been a very long time since I have written, and I am planning to give this little blog new focus. I don't have time to get into it right now, but stay tuned (to myself).

Babies etc

2010-10-22T23:35:00.002-04:00

Danelle and Chris are on their way to pick up baby Mateo. A week ago they had no idea! In the meantime Leigh is either far more pregnant than she thought, or else she is carrying twins. We shall see.

I have just received my acceptance letter into the Remedial Program at Rudolf Steiner College. Yikes! Too much! But this is what I would like to do, to prepare myself to be of service.

Too many penguins in my life... far too many penguins.

Faeries

2010-08-13T10:09:00.005-04:00

When I began the summer from school, I wanted to delve more deeply into the world of the elementals. I vowed to read about them and to spend more time in "nature" and open myself up. Life has intervened in the form of eye surgeries etc. as well as a short-term job assisting a business manager, as far from the realm of faerie as you might want to roam. Now, coming close to the end of the summer, panic strikes. Another summer flowing by without projects completed.

I went to the Library to pick up some picture books (lots of Francis books, Zelda & Ivy, etc) for the two little girls from the family who are visiting. And I picked up a Patricia McKillip book, Winter Rose, that I thought I had read, but I had not. And now I am being seduced into the rather dangerous world of Faerie once again. I realized that I had never followed who Patirica McKillip is, only wanting to read her books and perhaps enter her world (when I am courageous.)

This quote was in Faces of Fantasy (by Patti Perret):

I write fantasy because it's there. I have no other excuse for sitting down for several hours a day indulging my imagination. Daydreaming. Thinking up imaginary people, impossible places. Imagination is the golden-eyed monster that never sleeps. It must be fed; it cannot be ignored. Making it tell the same tale over and over again makes it thin and whining; its scales begin to fall off; its fiery breath becomes a trickle of smoke. It is best fed by reality, an odd diet for something nonexistent; there are few details of daily life and its broad range of emotional context that can't be transformed into food for the imagination. It must be visited constantly, or else it begins to become restless and emit strange bellows at embarrassing moments; ignoring it only makes it grow larger and noisier. Content, it dreams awake, and spins the fabric of tales. There is really nothing to be done with such imagery except to use it: in writing, in art. Those who fear the imagination condemn it: something childish, they say, something monsterish, misbegotten. Not all of us dream awake. But those of us who do have no choice.
I found this online.
Now I am restless again and want to wear only green and silver and brown flowing garments. And I have found that Brian Froud no longer frightens me the way he used to do.

A Year Gone By

2010-08-06T11:54:00.003-04:00

I have just recently finished reading the book Julie/Julia and suddenly realized that I have not written in my own blog for a very long time. When I returned, I saw that the last entry was on the 6th anniversary of Bartholomew's "crossing the threshold" last year. On Sunday in two days is the 7th anniversary.

It is even now too private to write about very much except that there a memories that are very painful and poignant as well as those which remind me how proud I am of Bartzy.As long as I can keep thinking of him in the Spirit World and not plague myself with regrets, I can keep going.

Now two days have gone by, and it is the anniversary. I have talked with Bart's brother and sister - this day is in some ways no different than any other. I think we all think about him, miss him, deeply, but it is an underground stream that emerges onto the surface here and there at unexpected times.

I did not find a plant like I did before - the nursery I went to was unexpectedly closed. So, at the other nursery, Ricardo bought a peach tree and I bought a stinging nettle. A stinging nettle may hurt you, but it is supposedly outstandingly healthy. Well, maybe that is appropriate.

Bartholomew

2009-08-08T11:59:00.004-04:00

Today is the 6th anniversary of Bartzy's crossing the threshold. What an incredible blessing he has been to me, to his family, and to many others. It is difficult to write very much.

Bartholomew's birthday, May 11, often falls on Mother's Day or occasionally Whitsuntide. Last year on his birthday, which was Pentecost, I found a small plant at Plants of the Southwest. It was called the Holy Ghost plant! How could I resist?

The plant is biennial. I wondered what it would look like. I planted three in slightly different locations, since I did not know where they might take hold. This year one plant bloomed and then turned brown. The other two, planted on either side of the statue of Mary, are blooming with lovely rosy pink trumpets all up and down the stalk. It is beautiful. I only hope it will reseed itself, because there were no more little plants this past year at the nursery.

Well, I might not be able to write about Bart, but at least I wrote two letters this morning to people who have recently lost someone they loved. I wrote another one several days ago. I think Bart helps me try to follow through on my intentions.

Summer Is Almost Past!

2009-07-16T18:52:00.011-04:00

It never fails. It always feels like this. Even before summer vacation starts, it seems that it has slipped by me. Just talked to Rebecca this afternoon. We must make LISTS!

I have lots of reading to do. The conference in Denver re-ignited my growing understanding that movement is foundational to all development. I do want to read Steiner's book on Curative Education, as well as Henning Koehler's Difficult Children: There Is No Such Thing. In the meantime I have picked up Disconnected Kids , a more mainstream book. And by "chance,"thanks to the daily librarians' comic strip "Unshelved," I came across the work of Anat Baniel, which is fascinating and thrilling.

Somewhat in conjunction with all this, I want to develop a few Ellersiek games for the children in the fall. I need to form a circle, something simple and my own, that I could use if Jill M. is out of the classroom. "I CAN DO IT." One of the principles from RS, declared in all humility - say it out loud!

Handwork-wise... finish my sweater and Lucia's sweater. And at least one little forest person. (Why were the directions so verkacked?) And also my own little Fairy Child - named Elderberry Rosehip. And finish the skirt made out of the 65-70 year old cotton sari that Mom brought home from India.

Novels! I am currently reading Lavinia by Ursula LeGuin, and that makes me want to read the Aeneid (in English) and also Ovid's Metamorphoses. Also reading The Lizard Cage . Other novels are tucked around the house.

I want to make headway on the faculty library - processing new books. Forget trying to automate. Who was I kidding? I have just brought home a huge box of supplies and books that have not been processed. More keep coming into the library like refugees that have just discovered that someone will give them safe haven - and food.

Lazuring! I have two areas in the house that I could do. One in the garage and one in the WC, main bathroom.

Reading spiritual/religious books. Right now I am quite excited about Cynthia Bourgeault's The Wisdom Jesus. I recommend it extremely highly.

Write letters!!!!!!!!!

There is more. But enough for now.

2 days later. Aaaaargh. I cannot even get a list finished, let alone accomplish the things on the list. There is MORE to the list. Later for that.

Ohhhhh! It has started to rain. Glory, glory. At long last - and it continue. May it presage a break in the drought that has afflicted those whom I love and who need a helping heart.

Rubicon

2009-06-28T00:32:00.003-04:00

I have sent off my comprehensive exam to Sunbridge. This will determine if I receive my master's or not. I think this is the last great exam I will take until I cross the Threshhold. That is even greater. In the meantime I can chose to read novels and strive toward a Knowledge of Higher Worlds.

I thank all who have helped me, on this side and the Other Side.

Kindergarten with No Children

2009-05-23T10:41:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was chilly and drizzly, yet timeless and heavenly. Our Early Childhood team had a day's retreat at the preschool. We brought lovely snack food and grazed constantly on breads, fresh goat cheese, baba ganoush, salsa and lime chili chips, and lots of fresh fruit.

During the morning we each were paired with one other for a half hour and then switched to another partner (snatching a snack in between.) As we talked we strolled through the neighborhood, peering into gated gardens or walking along the old acequia that the preschoolers play in. We each had a half hour to ourselves, and I spread some sheepskins on the floor and took a nap.

After a lunch of tamales, we drove to the Santa Fe Canyon Nature Preserve. There we walked to the pond that is home to bullrushes, red wing blackbirds, swallows, and a host of other birds. We sat for a good while in silence, just listening to the birds and the water, feeling the breezes, smelling the sweetness, and watching the birdswith their full-throated singing and their exuberant swooping.

Farther on we saw an elegant gopher snake gliding through the vegetation. We came to the beaver dam and saw the lodge. The trees that had been felled were striking, and we noticed that other trees had protective fencing around them.

Back at the preschool we warmed up with hot chai and then painted, made paper and chatted.It was a wonderful day, marred only a bit at the last by a visit from the administrator, reluctantly telling us that we should be thinking of various scenarios to save money if enrollment is down significantly. And also that the offer made to the 1st grade candidate was rejected - she is going to another school.

Nevertheless, it was a wonderfully restorative day.

Easter 2009

2009-04-12T16:02:00.005-04:00

There has been a singular lack of activity here, probably because I finally decided in February that the master's project I had embarked upon was no longer destined to be a project for evaluation but perhaps, instead, a magazine article. At any rate, I could not bear the thought of devising surveys to try to demonstrate or prove something.

In the course of my reading and ponderings, I seemed to have opened a number of doors that enticed me to step in and explore, and perhaps I have been caught in a wonderful maze instead of marching straight-forwardly towards a goal.

Among other books that I have been reading during my morning meditations, I lately have been compelled by Why Julian Now? A Voyage of Discovery, by Sheila Upjohn. Julian of Norwich is one of two of my confirmation saints, the other being the eponymous Melangell.

In the last several days before Easter, I have been waking up in the morning with the Taize song "Jesus, Remember Me" running as a continuous loop through my head and heart. On Friday evening I attended a Taize service at the St Francis Cathedral, and that chant was featured throughout. Yesterday, the day of Our Lady of Solitude, I felt pensive and heavy. But this morning I awoke to "I Am The Bread of Life!"

As I indicated above, I have been reading during my morning meditation/prayers, and I came across this passage, which loses impact because it has been taken out of the context of the prior musings. Nevertheless, I do not want to lose track of it.

She [Julian] understands that the journey through pain and death that is the result of man's choosing to know evil [the Fall] is not punishment for sin, but the inevitable penalty of incarnation. It is a consequence, not a curse. The demonstration of this is that Christ himself, who was wholly sinless, nevertheless had to bear the consequence of sin. His willingness to bear it breaks the chain that links sin and blame. 'And by this our good Lord Jesus has taken all our blame upon him- and therefore the Father neither can, nor wants to, put anymore blame upon us than upon his own son, beloved Christ.' p.44.

Cleaning the Desert Rose Kindergarten

2009-01-24T14:04:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Chris and I took the class on our Friday walk to the arroyo, leaving Jill behind to prepare the room as best she could for the Open House today.

She was feeling quite overwhelmed by all there was to do, but she did exactly what L.T. recommends: when overwhelmed, stand quietly and perceive what corner is calling to you.

When we got back with the class after a couple of hours, Jill worried that we wouldn't see all her hard work. She shoveled out a bunch of stuff (a large trash bag half full) and wiped down surfaces with water only.

But Chris and I could both feel a real difference. The room seemed beautiful again. I am convinced that it is less the actual cleaning that matters and more the "penetrating the surroundings with consciousness."

Beauty, Clutter, Consciousness

2009-01-21T08:24:00.002-05:00

Perhaps something new (for my project) has come out of my cleaning the bookcase on MLK day. It looks so different to me now - sparkling with new life. I touched each book, cleaned off the tops (and the sides, in some cases!) I read in some, and rearranged many, giving them new friends to talk to, exchange ideas with.
And I have a few new books, one by Gendler Notes on the need for Beauty and the other by O'Donahue Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, which have made me begin to think how to reshape my paper a bit. So far it has seemed pedestrian to me, and I want it to be beautiful! To give some sort of inspiration beyond what Linda Thomas has provided, not to outdo her, impossible, but to try to give another angle.
I pondering the role of penetrating clutter with consciousness (as in the bookcase) and how beauty can result, I have been thinking about how so many parents and other adults, when they first see a Waldorf kindergarten, think "how beautiful." But after one works there a while, I wonder how many of us see the room as beautiful? I know in our room, I see clutter and detrius and sheer messiness. And i also realize i can start in the corner where i work and begin to "penetrate it with consciousness."
I think one of the reasons Linda Thomas's workshops have been so inspiring is that she has cleaned off the lenses of our own inner eyes and we can see with new hope and appreciation what it is we do when we clean.

MLK Day

2009-01-19T15:37:00.004-05:00

Today I have an extra day to which I had intended to dedicate to writing on my project. I spent the morning cleaning! It didn't feel right to write about cleaning when there was an area begging to be dusted.

I took all the books and extra stuff off of the bookcase next to my bed. Every home gets dusty, though it seems that in New Mexico we get dust in excess. I do actually dust the bookcase fairly regularly, but I don't take everything off and get into the cracks behind. Whew! The reward was two-fold (at least.) Not only does the bookcase look and feel better (I can't take a good picture of it because my little camera's lens is all scratched up), but I found books that I didn't remember were there.

I have been crying easily in the last couple of days (that is, more readily than usual.) Almost anything can set it off - Obama's train trip to DC, finding a book of dreams and reading in it, the deaths of the children in Gaza - that sort of thing.

I re-found an important book for my project The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World by Rudolf Steiner. In it there is an emphasis on the responsibility for cultivating feelings of devotion, serenity, cheerfulness, and inner contentment. It is thereby we release elementals from their enchantment in lower realms and enable them to return to higher worlds.

When I consider my occasional weeping alongside these observations, I still feel OK. It seems to me that my tears are arising from tenderness rather than sullen discontent.

Speaking of tears. I found a quotation that I had written down from Confessions of a Pagan Nun which delighted me today (during the dusting).

I could put [my tears] in copper cups, but they are like the waters of the sea, vast and deep, but unable to quench any thirst. One can only drown in such waters or take from them fish to eat. The fish in my tears are so small that only a fairy could make a meal of them. p.35

My First Order in Euros

2008-12-14T00:54:00.005-05:00

I have received another generous answer from Linda Thomas, housemother to the Goetheanum. She recommended to me the collection of lectures, Steiner and Nature Spirits. She then mentioned she had an interview published in a book on healing in the Flensburger series, and that it was available in English. Ha! I couldn't find it even in German, let alone English. But I persevered and after several missteps, I found it in German. Heilen: Bekannte und Unbekannte Wege. That left ordering it. Isn't Visa wonderful!

Linda Thomas, Housemother to the Goetheanum

2008-12-03T21:21:00.002-05:00

Linda Thomas has been the inspiration for my master's project in cleaning (ha ha ha ha - I am including the ha-ha's for my daughter and my friends). I have heard that she does not answer emails.

She answered mine, I am so grateful to report. I did not ask for information. I asked only for her blessing, and she gave it to me. Thank you.

Avoiding Working on My Paper

2008-11-28T10:39:00.005-05:00

My paper is about cleaning, right. Ergo, first I must clean (and think about my project as I clean.) De-cluttering is a major step in cleaning. Sort and file those papers!

Plus cooking for the Thanksgiving meal that was yesterday. Trying to get some things done ahead of time. Look what I found as I was sorting! A recipe for Lemon Butter Mousse...sounds great. It will save my baking a pie and be a light and delicious conclusion to the traditional meal.

Halfway into making the mousse, I realized that it involved about four different bowls, whipping heavy cream, whipping egg whites, softening gelatin, squeezing fresh lemons, zesting said lemons (though that was easy, now that I have a posh zester/grater like Alkelda and Bede's). And, I discovered last evening, the mousse is by no means light!

I did not roast the traditional turkey but rather two free-range fresh roasting chickens. And peeling, by hand, the cloves of 5 heads of garlic to make the 40 clove roasting chicken from the Gourmet Cookbook. (We have a whole chicken left, but the clean-up from the one we ate was simple. Bones and grease and scraps were all bundled together. Issa took it all home for her personal coyote .)

Ricardo wondered if all the work was worth it? In one way the evening was a disappointment. Ricardo was tired and Terry's boys were wild and running through the house. They needed to go home. So it was not one of those evening where we just sat around the fire and talked. But I was glad to give the children a place to go for Thanksgiving, and Issa too, though she probably would have been just as happy to stay home because of the snow starting to fall. She is a California girl, after all, and I think most of her round-the-world travels took place in tropical climes.

Maybe today I can start on this project, but of course I will not be able to do my interviews until my little tape recorder arrives -I hope that will work better than taking notes. So far I have not taken notes at all. Sigh.

A Lovely Gardening Blog

2008-11-15T23:12:00.003-05:00

I have just discovered this blog: Nature Abhors a Garden. Wonderful inspiration. Today I wandered about the back garden, spreading a bit more straw and wondering about the winter season and next spring. What will survive? Will anything flourish? What an adventure!

I have been thinking about my master's project. And it has sent me to cleaning a bit. Hmmm. An interesting phenomenon. But Holly Koteen told me I would probably become more conscious of cleaning in my home life as I study it for my project.

I have returned to Rudolf Steiner's Knowledge of Higher Worlds which was required reading for my Foundation studies at Sunbridge. At the time I found it hard going. I have just started rereading it, so I don't know how it will progress, but so far I am finding it amazingly refreshing and understandable. Four years can make quite a difference - can it be only four years?????

Now I understand why Ann Stahl had us choose a plant and observe it daily. My plant was the bronze fennel. I planted bronze fennel summer before last, but it died. This year I had better luck. It is frozen in the garden now, but I am hopeful that it will return next spring. That is a primary exercise - to observe burgeoning life and then decline and death - and rebirth - in Nature. An added insight now is the importance of developing an established root system. (I have also learned via Gail not to cut down perennials in the fall - the cut-off stems will act like straws, drawing any moisture down into the root system and rotting it out.) I hope I am developing established root systems - in a metaphoric sense, of course!

Martinmas: a Lament and a Vow

2008-11-11T23:32:00.003-05:00

OK. How on earth am I going to write a master's paper if it takes me a month even to acknowledge that I have not completed my previous posting?

It is Martinmas. I want to take my little lantern into the world, with whatever light I can shed. I just read in Knowledge of Higher Worlds that an idea must not be sequestered as a treasure for oneself but become an ideal for the benefit of the earth.

I will TRY to do my part. I hereby request the aid of the angels.

I have just returned from Takoma Park. On November 9 was the memorial service for Jillian Raye, who crossed the threshold on November 2, All Soul's Day.

Conversation with Barb

2008-10-09T13:19:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I kept an appointment I had made with Barb Booth, our school administrator, to talk about my cleaning project. This was at her suggestion. I did not take notes, but i do want to record here what I remember. I don't think I could have taken notes, since it was really storytelling.

When Barb was in her mid twenties she joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Sierra Leone. This was in the '70's, before the made influx to the urban areas from the coutryside, and before the terrible years of violence, rape, and pillage.

She toughed it out for a year teaching in a high school, which was a farce that she hated. Then she took another training in agriculture and was sent to a village - aid workers who were women were being allowed to work in agriculture for the first time that year.

Though there were unenlightened practices in the villages (wife-beating, child-beating), there was much about the life of community and simplicity that appealed to Barb, and when she returned to the States, she began looking for a community that embodied or practiced similar virtues. Ultimately she found the Camphill village at Kimberton, Pa. She began a bio-dynamic training. Within weeks, after a houseparent left the community abruptly, she was made a house parent with responsibility of shepherding a number of developmentally-challenged villagers, cooking and cleaning, as well as working in the gardens.

Barb ended up staying on for seven years. She told me that this was toward the end of the heavily European-influenced "co-workers," who had strong opinions about everything from anthroposophy to the correct way to wash a floor.

Despite kicking against the pricks at times, it was here that Barb really experienced a different way of living that turned on its head the customary American way of thinking that elevates product above process (not Barb's words) - that values work according to some sort of hierarchy of importance. And very low on that ordinary, customary way of thinking is the work of cleaning. Custodial work.

But here in the Village where the villagers were able to do what they could, and work that was valued, no matter how slowly it might be achieved, then everyone had the dignity of being able to contribute work of value.

Hey, I'm still here

2008-10-02T00:51:00.002-04:00

Yes, though this evening, for instance, I came home and then, at the encouragement of Ricardo, took an hour or so nap. I was incredibly refreshed - I have been incredibly tired!

Now i fear that getting my cleaning project off the ground is going to be too much. I MUST get on track and devise a plan. I think the main action , at least initially, is going to be the interview.

I am doing so well with interaction and cooperative work in the K, that I am loath to say how difficult it is for me at work to deal with clutter and disorganization.

Where Am I?

2008-09-07T22:21:00.002-04:00

First week of school has gone by - well, we have had the kindergartners three days. Went very well, actually.

The night-time cleaning elves made off with all our brooms and dustpans. Apparently this has become a rueful joke around the school. "How do you know if your classroom was cleaned last night?" "Check to see if all the brooms are missing."

I have now bought a new bamboo broom fro Thailand as well as a blue and a red short broom, also from there (World Market.) Then I bought a beautiful dust pan made by Sweep Dreams at the Tropic of Capricorn.

I still haven't heard from Sunbridge about the guidelines for the master's project.

The grounds of the school are far more verdant than I have ever seen. More flowers, fuller trees. It makes me more eager to pick up the trash I see.

More cleaning connections

2008-08-22T10:24:00.004-04:00

Our mini-bios that we shared on Tuesday at faculty meeting have produced fruit, at least for me. Besides a new relationship to Aaron (who is almost exactly Bartzy's age) and a "Mennonite" connection to Kathy A., there are the cleaning connections and offers I mentioned before. Now Michael O has come to me with questions. He has moved into a neglected house in Seton Village and wanted some insight into elementals etc. Of course I know almost nothing, but I did give him the Linda Thomas article.

Just this mornng I came across a wonderful quotation which might fit into my article. It is a message from the Mock Orange Deva as conveyed by Dorothy Maclean in her book To Honor the Earth, p.20.

What fun life is! For us, to hold each little atom in its pattern is to hold it in joy. We see you humans at times glumly encountering experience, doing things because they have to be done. We marvel that your sparkling life could be so filtered down and disguised. Life is abundant joy. Each little bite of a caterpillar into a leaf is done with more zest than we sometimes feel in you humans. We would love to shake the sluggishness out of you and have you see life as bright and blooming, waxing and waning, eternal and one.

First faculty meeting August 2008

2008-08-19T21:20:00.003-04:00

Well, this was an auspicious meeting. After a rousing get-together with singing and greeting each other, we spent considerable time introducing ourselves to the whole group. The format was - past, present,future - in 2 minutes. Needless to say, not everyone kept it to two minutes, but the self -intros WERE pretty short.

Many were light-hearted or even funny. Mine was not. (I was close to the end, when we were encouraged to be even shorter.)

It was the first time in the whole group that I alluded to Bart's death. And I also made a quasi-announcement that I was going to try to finish my master's project. On cleaning!

It has taken two years, but I am beginning to feel a part of the group.

Jennie Baudhuin (whose birthday is today!) told me that Eugene Schwartz has been VERY BIG on cleaning in the classroom. She will talk to me.

Early Childhood idea - let's get together and do a deep cleaning of each of our classrooms!

The official cleaners seem not to have done a very good job this time around. What to do?

More elementals

2008-08-18T23:11:00.004-04:00

They're popping up everywhere! I have to get serious here.

First day back - a College meeting for 4 hours (my eyes are spinning widdershins) after an early morning meeting with Jill and Jennie. At least I am being treated as an equal, which is vastly interesting. Well, maybe not an equal. It's like there is no precedence for this - two leads and an assistant. Treated with respect, and I am grateful. (And separate but equal. I can buy that.)

At any rate, we all came into the meeting not know what the constellation would be, and we ended in agreement that I would stay with Desert Rose Kindergarten and Annie would join Jennie in Woods Rose (or whatever she might decide to name it.)

There is all sorts of dirt lying around down in the K where malevolent elementals may be brooding. Something must be done.

References to the elementals, and more

2008-08-16T14:55:00.003-04:00

I am really hoping to do reading - and deep experiencing - to begin to have a conscious relationship to the elementals. Holly suggested yesterday in our talk that the insides of cupboards need also to be clean and orderly. When there is a deep sense of order, when the usefulness and purposefulness of the material world are acknowledged with appreciation, then the elemental beings are happy to work with us. (I hope I am not misquoting - I don't have it exactly)

So... longer ago I asked Natale Adams and also Eugene Schwartz about Steiner lectures that referred to the elementals. Natalie mentioned the lecture cycle Man as Symphony of the Creative Word and Eugene refered me to The Spiritual Heirarchies.

Whoa. Every door that I open leads to worlds behind the doors.

OK. Part of keeping a journal (did I say this already?), per suggestion of Holly, is to notice how consciousness at school begins to affect one's awareness at home. (I am glad Holly confessed to me that she has not always been as diligent at home as she has been at school, but that this imbalance has pretty much evened out for her.)

Well, besides buying two new brooms (one for home and one for school) and a red and a blue whisk broom for school, I have been starting to declutter the clothes closet and clean. I have also given the glassed-in portale a good sweep on the floor - lots of cobwebs and woolies and cat hair had collected in corners and on electric cords etc.

Ricardo has given me a good suggestion that I need to ponder. I wonder if I can team up with one of the grade's teachers (Danelle comes to mind) to do some deep cleaning in that classroom. How to observe potential effects would be the trick.

Now i am going to practice adding an image,

Re-embarking on the voyage of my master's project

2008-08-15T16:12:00.003-04:00

I have until the end of July, 2009, to write up my master's project on Cleaning in the Kindergarten. I had decided to bag it, but I have changed my mind.

I talked to Holly today, and she encouraged to me to give it a swing.

She was glad I was familiar with Linda Thomas , whose article was so inspiring to me. She urged me to try to get in touch with her.

Also, I need to read about the elementals, especially in relationship to cleaning.

And she also encouraged me to keep a journal, which I will try to do here. ONWARDS.

Getting Ready for Seattle/Orcas Island

2008-08-02T14:50:00.003-04:00

Filling up the ollas and emptying out the fridge. (Well, I am obviously leaving things in the fridge, but I would rather not have things moldering if I know Ricardo won't cook with them.) Yikes. The time has zoomed passed and now I must go to bed. Our guest and we watched "Becoming Jane " together = quite, quite poignant.

Garden

2008-07-31T11:11:00.003-04:00

Today is Thursday, the one day I can legally water my plants with Eldorado water, not just grey water. I am cautiously pleased that a number of plants seem to be making it, this second summer of my learning to garden in the high desert.

Keys to fragile success: WATER, of course. (I thought xeric plants did not need much water, but that turns out to be maybe after the third year, and even then.....)

Soil amendments - I use a lot of Soil Mender and Yum Yum mix, both developed here in Santa Fe, I understand.

Straw mulch - I have used two bales so far and have two more in reserve. The problem is, when the monsoons come, all the plants are so grateful, including the seeds left in the straw as well as all of the seeds scattered under the birdfeeders.

Big river stones surrounding the plants. These help preserve some of the water, collect miniscule amounts of dew, help me remember where some of these tiny plants are so that I can both water them and avoid stepping on them, and, I hope, will help me with mulching over winter (and know where not to dig!)

Ollas, which preserve the water and let it seep out slowly. A plus which I did not expect - the purslane which I love to eat is fat and succulent around the ollas, so I guess i have a monoculture vegetable garden as well. (I just discovered that purslane is rich in Omega-3's!)

Finally, allowing the large weedy-looking asters to grow tall and shade the young plants. The sun is just too fierce. Eventually I hope I can weed out many of the asters and leave the rest nicely grouped for a wild flower show in the fall.

I am growing primarily plants which are aromatic and attractive to hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, and people. The big three groups I love are agastache, the artemsias, and lavender. There are lavender farms near here, but I have yet to keep any lavenders going to grow big and bushy. Patience.

A vicious hailstorm tool out, or nearly, a special trumpet vine, but we keep watering it and hope it comes back next year. I am also just getting some moonflower vines started after trying multiple times.

I have saved all my receipts for the garden in a jug which is overflowing. Billions of dollars, I fear.

Visitors to Santa Fe

2008-07-30T22:09:00.003-04:00

I had been told that when we moved to Santa Fe, we would have LOTS of people visiting. I did not quite believe it, though I hoped it to be true.

Well, tonight is the first night in a while that I have not thought about supper for anyone else but Ricardo and me. I know the parameters there- life is a good deal simpler.

But what fun I have had! Lots of folk visiting or else coming over for supper while there were other visitors.

The longest and best lot were Alkelda the Gleeful with Lucia, and then Bede as well. Nephews Zack and Lennie. Guest Running Horse. Gary, the guitarist. Rebecca, dear cousin. And then Liz and Aaron for a few days. Whew! And hurrah.

Pray for my Intentions

2008-07-26T11:55:00.003-04:00

I would like to use this space, truly, for reminding myself of my intentions and also for recording things i don't want to forget.

The summer is speeding by. Lucia and Alkelda and Bede were here, and it was lovely. This came on the heels of my visit in Denver - a conference and also spending time with cousins Arlen and Lola. Several things came out of all of the Denver experiences.

1. Intention to read to the Dead. I am using Bart's big notebook to start on keeping a list of those to whom I want to read.

2. Write a "birth" story for Bart eventually, i.e. like a birthday story but going back over the rainbow bridge.

3.meditate on the point/periphery

4.Think about the epileptic/hysteric polarity

5.prepare more spring rolls and also make art (inspired by the Denver art show)

Something that has come up more recently is the encouragement to finish my masters in the next school year. Yikes! This is going to be monumental. More on that later.

I need to do something about the lyre and also the lyre association.

Gear up for the new school year. I have a sneaky suspicion that there will be some change that I am not expecting.

I am finished with this post for now. I will say only that i am currently addicted to Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe books. Very literate and witty, and they make me want to go back to some of the old English Lit classics. (In my spare time, ha ha.)

Martinmas

2007-11-10T03:15:00.000-05:00

OK, I am not really blogging about Martinmas. I am only noting that the last time I wrote, it was before Michaelmas, and here it is, time for Martinmas! Self-flagelation, or however you spell it. And yet I am in a space where I can (relatively) simply give thanks for being involved with work where celebrating the festivals is important . And what a joy that Lucia is being drawn into festival life.

I yearn for "do-overs." I wish I had been able to bring these festivals, this conscious rhythm of life to my own children. Can I learn to accept my deep failings and be grateful for the foundation that my Mennonite upbringing did manage to help root my children in something beyond the personal?

Leaving that aside, what about these first months of this second year in Waldorf-land? I was going to blog almost every day. What a laugh! I am already several weeks behind in the minutes for the College of Teachers. Grrrrrrrr.

Labimmel, Labammal, Laboom.

Laurie Clark (Denver, WECAN) was here this past week. She is adamant that we assistants get a break before naptime. My enforced break led to my going to the school library and checking out a couple of books. The Jeanette Winterson novel regarding Time (I forget the title) is lovely, and I am addicted.

Labimmel, Labammal, Laboom.

I brought leftover soup to the faculty lounge today. This is a loving gesture that is appreciated, I am finding. Terry has been doing this for a while now, and I am grateful for her encouragement. (Our kids have been eating so much of the soup that heretofore I have never had enough to bring. But I will try to make extra to have enough to share.)

First Week (and Birthday)

2007-09-16T00:54:00.000-04:00

Yikes. I understand so much more viscerally now why my Waldorf K buddies rarely answered my emails in a timely fashion, when i was still a librarian. I do not know how anyone has the time to live a satisfying life outside of Waldorf Land.

I was going to write each day .... this year... about daily life in the K. But whoosh! There goes a week, with faculty/COT meetings after school and nothing quite getting accomplished what needs to be accomplished.

Things to do: a partial list.:

Write to Holly Koteen
Write to Jim and Maureen
Practice the lyre
Establish a spiritual practice
Work on my master's project

IMPORTANT

organize my stuff
write minutes for COT - constantly
clean house

aaaargh.

The circle for this week has been from "Movement Journeys and Circle Adventures" by nancy Blanning and Laurie Clark. Jill M. has jumped off from the "Sunflower Circle" on pages 71 ff. It is charming and light, a real winner. I realize that I had elements of this in the circle I wrote for Sunbridge. What I needed to do was SLOW DOWN. Fascinating.

I played the lyre a bit tonight.

First day of school

2007-09-06T08:37:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the 1st day of kindergarten, though two days ago was Rose Ceremony where I saw my erstwhile Kindergartners enter in through the flower gate with nary a backward look (though some were nervous or self-conscious.) I went to COT in the afternoon, such a long day that I wondered if I would survive this year.

The first day of Kindergarten, I was there early and started the millet. It was a bit chaotic and not very reverent in mood, with parents zooming through the K to set up for their tea on the playground. JM was in the hall greeting, and at a certain point she came in with children on the round rug, doing a little fingergame, and I went out in the hall and helped Terry with nap bags. Finally we got most of the parents out of there.

Two parents stayed - Mitch with Leo, and Betsy with John. John is going to be a big challenge, a choleric boy with a loud voice. But i was interested that JM not only allowed Betsy to stay but also gave her instructions on how to be. I realized later that JM was using thistime as a way to start modelling behavior for Betsy.

Actually, it was a good thing she was there. She ended up doing all the dishes when i ended up caring for Sam who threw up and needed to go home.

Our rhythm is different this year. But later for that. I have to get ready. Getting up at %:30 am still doesn't give me enough time! By the way, Chris and I had four sleepers yesterday already!

Sloth

2007-08-11T22:11:00.000-04:00

I realize that sloth is the opposite of a virtue. Sigh. I can see some definite advantages to sloth, I fear. But I am too lazy to figure them out.

I am not at my own computer, so I am resorting to this slothful way of saving an interesting website. I have already forgotten the name of it. But it has some fascinating slothful ways of cooking.

auspiciousdragon.net

Aha! I knew there was a dragon involved!!!! Thank the powers that be for control C and control V.

Nature Spirits and Elemental Beings

2007-08-08T11:14:00.000-04:00

I was able to make inroads into this book, which contains some esoteric material (at least for my limited understanding). The books is written by Marko Pogacnik of Slovania - published in English by Findhorn Press. He is involved with earth healing as a "lithopuncturist," a type of acupuncture for the Earth. I think he came to Santa Fe to give advice on the particulars of our school in relation to its geography. I gather that we have some special issues to grapple with (duh!).

The part I want to note in particular as having relevance to my cleaning studies comes on pages 70 ff. He is discussing the legend of the dwarfs of Cologne. It is a legend reminiscent of the Elves and the Shoemaker. I knew I had read about this somewhere, and when i came across it again in this book, I realized I had better make a note of it. P.71..... "The legend of the dwarfs of Cologne also explains how this wondrous union [between creative people and the elementals] collapsed because of an interfering human mind. [.....] [The elementals}cannot exist on the mental level. And they will never return. The craftspeople must complete all their work by the sweat of their brow."

From Santa Fe to Seattle

2007-08-07T23:58:00.000-04:00

Here I am. After a heart-rending adventure last night with Twitch not coming in, the moon bright, and the coyotes howling and ripping through the arroyo like the Hounds of Hell, and Twitch still not around in the morning, I was quite tired and weepy. I did not sleep after 3 am - I lept from the bed twice and ran out to the deck with my heart pounding. Dave our builder shared his horror story of his beloved cat being taken off by a huge owl.

I prayed and visualized and tried to be philosophical, since the morning newspaper had several stories of human tragedy, but still I was torn between holding out for hope but trying to be realistic. And then - a rattling in the closet in my office. I opened the door and there was a black furry thing who was slightly annoyed and certainly bemused by being covered with kisses. Thank good ness she was found before she was reduced to a skeleton in my closet, since R. does not hear reliably and might never have found her while I was in Seattle.I could leave with a light heart!

An Affirmative Phone Call

2007-08-06T23:45:00.000-04:00

What an unexpected pleasure, to receive a phone call from my Lead, who is on vacation in the East, seduced by water and leafy trees, both of which are in short supply here in the high desert.

She was excited and thrilled and totally inspired by the glimpses she got of the work of some fibre artists. She was on a high and needed to talk to someone who would understand. What an honour to receive this phone call from the East Coast! Sometimes I feel overlooked and rather inessential - my problem, I realize , and it is by no means a predominant theme in my life - but a call like this is invigorating and affirming.

Fie! Poor Me

2007-08-06T16:35:00.000-04:00

Trying to tie up loose ends before the great trek to Seattle. I heaved and ho'ed a couple of bags of steer manure and cotton burr mulch to spread on the back garden here at the house. It had rained yesterday a bit and I wanted to get this all out before the sun hit. I am not sure whether I am burying wild flower seeds which will now have difficulty penetrating the mulch, or whether perhap I am amending the soil so they have a better chance, or even, horrors, am I making the soil TOO rich for some of these desert plants. Is there a metaphor here? Let me give it some thought.

Went to school to finish what I could do in respect to cleaning - without the Lead K teachers there.

It was very discouraging. Years of neglect and stuffing odd things away in a basket and hanging on to everything (except stuff I found in the trash I sometimes hauled out!) I think that part of the horror and ennui is that I have been guilty of similar things (though never this awful, ha ha) and I have some of the zeal of a convert working in me. It is AWFUL and DEPRESSING. Should never be in a Waldorf K.

I know my lead will freak out and think I made things worse. What I did was haul things out of cupboards that no one has looked at. I put them out on the table. I washed shelves and put other things back.

I also got rid of papers and notes that were several years old and totally irrelevant. I have to get out of Dodge. It is just as well that I continue as Assistant and not as Co-Teacher. I have had no energy to work on songs, circles, stories.

Seven Planetary Grains

2007-08-05T18:21:00.000-04:00

One of the things that I cannot seem to get nailed down is the associations of the grains with the different days of the week. Frankly, I would like to tinker with our "snack" menu at school.

Googling does not always come up with good sites as answers to questions. I used Answers.com to get this site.

http://www.alchemycalpages.com/7grains.html

Hmmmmm.

New Resolve

2007-08-05T14:53:00.000-04:00

O ho! No wonder I have not been blogging. My sign-in name had changed and I forgot my password. But here I am now.

Alkelda the Gleeful suggested making this blog my personal struggles with matters of the Waldorf Kindergarten. Good idea, though of course there is a bit of dissonance vibrating between Waldorf K and writing on the computer. On the other hand, I am royally sick of having papers and files all over the place... as well as printing out web pages and juicy posts.

I have recently gone through the struggle of trying to clarify my new position at the school. Technically, I remain "Kindergarten assistant" as well as "Nap teacher", plus supervising early morning drop off, and also the clerical/administrative stuff for licensing, etc. This is to total 40 hours a week and does not include Early Childhood meetings, Faculty Meetings, work on the College of Teachers, festival work, parent evenings, and probably more.

I had thought that I would be more of an Assistant Teacher (semantically, and in my mind, essentially different from teacher assistant), which would mean that I would have an hour or two off in the afternoon to help the teachers with things like parent work and making puppets and buying supplies and all the things that have so often fallen through the cracks.

But i shall not complain right now. I am grateful that they have made this job full time which gives me the recognition and stature actually to be on the COT - as well as giving me medical benefits. Hurrah.

My work this summer at the school is giving me more connection to some of the faculty but especially to the administrative staff. This is all to the good.

So far this summer I am making sure that we have enough nap bags for our expanded program (I have made 8 new bags and have over-dyed the rest with Rit... Fuschia.. so all relate in some way, even though there is a big range in colour intensity and value.) I am also knitting face cloths in cotton yarn - each one different with stripes and simple textures- in yellow, rose, apricot, robin's egg blue, and lavander.

I have bought little pink washcloths to use as serviettes and also simple wooden serviette rings to mark with the children's names and then, perhaps, symbols.

My sister has bought enchanting little cups and bowls from IKEA for the class. The bowls are lined with soft green and the cups with coral.

I have an order in with Lehman's for another "rapid washer" and also a space-saver, Victorian style clothes dryer.

I am also pondering mydormant master's project on cleaning. Do we detect a pattern here?

2007-03-30T00:37:00.000-04:00

Zounds! How much has happened in the intervening time. Ulric visited over Christmas and also Cousin Rebecca. I have travelled to Seattle to visit Alkelda and Bede and little Lucia. And I went to PA for nephew Bernz's wedding, and on to Puerto Rico, which was wonderful. The difficult and challenging part of the intervening time has been moving from Kindergarten Assitant to Lead teacher. I had wanted to post my first pedagogical story (and it was pretty long!) but I guess that will wait.

2006-12-09T11:06:00.000-05:00

Where has the time flown? I thought I would have more leisure in Santa Fe. WRONG!

2006-08-25T01:18:00.000-04:00

Oh fiddle-dee-dee. I wrote a post yesterday and it got lost. I wish I could use language the way Brad the Gorilla does, but NO, I am now a Waldorf kindergarten teacher (assistant), which is even more straight-laced than a children's librarina. Well, just for that, I will NOT tell you that last evening we went to a (free) concert by the Santa Fe Pro Musica sponsored by our bank, First National Bank of Santa Fe, complete with an exquisite buffet supper, totally unparalled by anything we have experienced in the East. There is much to be said for the quality of life here.

This morning i went for a check-up by my new doctor and waited not one whit in the waiting room. The restrooms are clean and un-locked. Everything was there under one roof. The receptionist, the nurse, and the doctor were all wonderfully friendly. I so wish we all could livelike this.

2006-08-25T01:09:00.000-04:00

Yikes. I thought that moving to Santa Fe from Washington DC would be... getting away from the frenetic Eastcoast ratrace to a more civilized way of life. In many ways that is true. This evening we (Ricardo and I) went to a lovely, intimate chamber music evening with the Santa Fe Pro Musica. The bank manager knew us and had issued the invitation.

But earlier in the day a colleague, new, at the Santa Fe Waldorf School , had expressed frustration at the nice-sounding words of fellowship and inclusion, but what for her was the reality fo everyone being too busy for each other. And some other new teachers chimed in with assent. And an old-timer said that the tension upon returning to Santa fe from parts more relaxed was palpable and visceral. Well, well, well. Oy, gewalt. Something to ponder.

2006-08-13T00:33:00.000-04:00

Today is the 3rd anniversary of Bartzy's funeral, which was both wrenching and glorious. A movie was suggested for this evening - we had not been to one together for quite a while - and "World Trade Center " opened today. I agreed to this one with alacrity. Normally I might well avoid it, but to join my sorrow to those who grieved at that time and continue to grieve (and don't we all?) seemed just right.

I am beginning to get my new little workspace cum guest room (at least for one person) in shape.The little shrine to the beloved departed who have gone to the other side of the veil is metamorphizing. But it is coming together. On a related subject, I am beginning to use the dishes which had belonged to my grand mother and great-grandmothers. I understand that the gnomes (or root beings) chortle with glee each time someone breaks a dish.

Just a postscript. I wrote this on the 12th, but it didn't get uploaded until the 13th, which accounts for the discrepancy between the date and the anniversary of Bart's transition into Grace.

2006-08-10T16:17:00.000-04:00

Here I am in Santa Fe. It is hard to believe that a year ago I had never been in Santa Fe, let alone thought about living here. It is a miracle! And I believe that I have a job, which is no small thing when one moves to Santa Fe. It is just what I wanted - to be a kindergarten assistant in the Waldorf School. Deo Gratia!

In looking back at the previous entry, I see that my hopes were not so naive. This landscape supports a different way of being in the world, and I hope that quite soon (after the unpacking) that the elemental life will seep into my very bones.

2006-05-25T21:28:00.000-04:00

Well, blogging once a month is better than not blogging at all (I hope). How can one write, though, in the midst of a vast allergy attack/cold?

Nevertheless, I will say that life is very strange right now. I am living in a rental space. in a sense. We have sold the house we have lived in for seven years, a beloved space, and fortunately have sold it to people who will love it similarly, I trust. Rent back through the end of July. And we have a contract on a high-desert equivalent to this moderate-rain-forest house.

What am I hoping for? A different rhythm to my day. Haiku responses to the surroundings. A ritualized spiritual discipline. Why should it be different? I realize we take ourselves wherever we go. But I also do not underestimate the power of the elementals, the surroundings.

Already I have initiated some things new. Besides the daily exercises for my wrist, I exercise daily on the lyre.

2006-04-30T00:19:00.000-04:00

Aaaaargh! I promise, I promise to blog.... tomorrow!

2005-12-29T19:24:00.000-05:00

OK. In the middle of the night I realized my cunning plan might have a flaw in it. I am so curious about how these blogs work, and I am naive. What would happen if I simply wrote the words "Santa Fe Public Library"? This is another test, at 19:21. Tomorrow I will try hyperlinks, and perhaps the next day, inflammatory language! (Is this just my pain talking?)

2005-12-28T18:05:00.000-05:00

What! Twice in one day. I am going to have to write short posts more frequently in order to get back in the habit, and so I don't get too tired. When I have more two-handed mobility, I will start attempting to put pictures up too. One of my presents for Christmas was a package of rechargeable batteries for the little digital camera that Ulric gave me last year. Fortunately he also gave me a charger. I have a few details to master and then WHAM... you shall be dazzled.

And now, I have a cunning plan, as Baldrick would say. I am going to link to one of the few blogs that I check every day, the library blog that is my model for what a library blog should look like. Here it is, ICARUS.

The cunning plan has to do with ascertaining whether the ICARUS master picks up this reference to the blog and if so, how long will it take for there to be some response. It is about 6:15 Eastern Standard Time, or to be more exact,18:15.

2005-12-28T10:26:00.000-05:00

My last post was on the evening before a big change in my life. I had not a clue as to what the morning would bring. In a nanosecond, a patch of invisible black ice transformed me into a one-handed person. My right wrist, my write hand, had been broken in 5 places. Surgery was on the 19th. Thank goodness for Brigid, my sainted sister, who took me in for surgery. Ivanhoe has been very, very supportive, and my friends and colleagues are truly wonderful. And I am learning to augment the use of my left hand with...teeth, right elbow, and either foot (usually not both at the same time.) I can wash my own hair, but I cannot file my nails easily. I cannot drive, at least not yet. (I have a stick shift.) Why am I writing this? It is hard to write anything nuanced while pecking the words out with three fingers. But I guess there are those who have written whole novels by tapping a keyboard with a stick in their mouth.

But an inspiration for me is one of my favorite illustrators, Glen Rounds. I had noticed that his more recent work was bold, with heavier black outlines than his previous pen-and-ink drawings. And in some illustrations one could detect that elements had been cut out and pasted in. But they were still wonderfully and unmistakably by Glen Rounds. Later I learned that
he had had a stroke and subsequently learned to draw with his non-dominant hand. I think he had been a right-hander, but his illustrations remind me forceably of my father's drawings, and Dad was a lefty. Brigid says my left-handed printing reminds her of Dad's printing, though he had a flowing cursive (usually.)

Right now I wanted to record a different on-line trnslation site which worked a lot better for me than the babelfish site did, at least for German to English.

2005-12-10T21:39:00.000-05:00

I am continuing to have problems with my WILL (as in, motivation to do things, though I also have lacked the will to make a will, I admit.) Nevertheless, though I deserved no reward, I endulged in a movie tonight at the AFI (American Film Institute). I am not sure whether it was a movie or "un film" - Good Night... and Good Luck about Edward R. Murrow. It was obviously very timely ...and very, very sobering. The audience sat in silence at the end, just sitting there watching the credits.

The Ricardo said afterwards "Nobody is saying these things the way Edward R. Murrow said them -with simple eloquence." But then we remembered Bill Moyers.

2005-12-05T22:08:00.000-05:00

OK - third attempt today to write something.

It is snowing here and thus we needed to cancel our library program tonight. Not that the weather was insurmountable, but enough people wussed out that we postponed it.

Life was rather slow in the library this evening and I actually resorted to playing solitaire ( I had forgotten how) in between chapters of a book which is actually quite good, but whose title I have forgotten. What a mess am I!

There was a message on my work machine today, from the children's librarian in Santa Fe, giving me the name of their director. It seems rather odd that when one goes to the library website, there is no place for finding out who the staff are or if there is a human resources division. But with some careful sleuthing and extrapolation from my own situation, I realized that the library is a division of the city government and probably all job postings and hirings get filtered through the city HR department. At least I know now that they have a new library director, Patricia Hodapp, who (I think) used to be with the Denver Public Library. She is also an artist and is on the board of Pandas International. I can relate to this since one of my young colleagues is totally obsessed with the new panda cub at the National Zoo. The baby's live cam is bookmarked on the toolbar of our Library's reference computer.

2005-12-04T21:28:00.000-05:00

What should I report first? This is the second Sunday of Advent. I cannot find my most precious box of Christmas things, though I have put up the large Creche (inn, etc with lots of camels from the East}.

This afternoon I participated in the Advent/Midwinter Garden at our Waldorf nursery school. We filed into a dark and hushed room with only lyre music playing softly and one candle burning in the middle of a spiral path outlined by evergreens. We adults watched with glistening eyes as each child walked the path into the center, lit his/her candle (mounted in an apple) from the center candle, and placed it somewhere on a silver star along the spiral. I am sure the parents were a bit tense ... "Will my child know what to do? Oh, agony, her candle went out and she is going back to re-light it!" We teachers, on the other hand, apart from our eagle gaze that no-one set himself ablaze, etc.. watched each time to see how this particular child is incarnating. How does he or she move toward the light? What happens after the candle is lit? How confidently/slowly/ thoughtfully/ impetuously/ does this child bring the apple cum candle home to its star, and where on the spiral does the child place the apple? It is not that one analyzes all of this.... just noticing!

And then old friends over for supper, some of it left-overs (or carry-forwards, a useful concept from the Trinidadians). What a jolly evening. Lynn and I hardly mentio9ned politics (what a change from our customary conspiracy theories, perhaps because it all is so over the top these days) but she did Totally Agree that living in Washington is NO WAY TO LIVE.

2005-12-03T22:56:00.000-05:00

Aha. Two postings in one day. I have decided currently to go for quantity, not quality. Mozart is blaring in the background as my house-mate tries to recreate the score of the 2005 movie version of Pride & Prejudice,which stubbornly refuses to reveal the originals of the soaring music in the background. Ahhh. I love each and every Mr. Darcy. Am I so fickle - or am I so very, very loyal?

OK. So now I need a link in this posting to make it worth your while, dear accidental reader. Today at work I was busy (totally busy work, believe me) translating the computer-use policy into German. Aaaaargh. Finally I was introduced to a short-cut. You still need a decent conversance with the language into which you are translating. But this is a nifty aid, believe me. The trick is to write the English into straight-forward, non-slangish language before pressing the button to translate.

The Mozart swells in the background as I reveal this wonderfully powerful tool to you, gentle reader.

http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Voila! Mozart sublime.

2005-12-03T18:05:00.000-05:00

I just got home from a day at work. 8 hours of serving "the public." Among "the public," however, were old friends - a wonderful poet, craigy-faced and handsome, who looks like he could be a cowboy but has a passionate soul (though I guess some cowboys are of the poetic passionate soul genre); a old friend/journalist who has recently adopted a teen-aged girl who was a child/soldier in Sierra Leone and who is now flourishing in the barren soil of Blair High School - so perhaps it is not totally barren; etc etc. Those were the two connections that come instantly to mind from the 8 hours of manning the Desk. There were more. A few frustrating encounters, but that is to be expected. I am so fortunate... and so exhausted.

2005-10-20T21:20:00.000-04:00

I will just wiggle my fingers on the keyboard to keep the dust from settling. ho, ho.

2005-10-18T21:34:00.000-04:00

I am desperate. I have not blogged for a very long time. I need to say something, even if it is not edifying, just to blow the dust off of Pipers. I have been in New Mexico for a little while, and it is beautiful. I have seen and experienced art. I have heard coyotes in the night. The full moon was still in the sky yesterday morning. I smelled the creosote bushes. I could "do" all sorts of links here, but I will rest my case until tomorrow.

2005-09-17T21:20:00.000-04:00

Ho ho ho. Melangell is distracted by this weekend's events (something about a wedding), so I have hacked into her blog. I am unstoppable!

--Brad the Gorilla (pictured with Filbert, his pet mouse)

2005-09-06T11:41:00.000-04:00

This old story is posted here in response to Alkelda the Gleeful's suggestion that stories are more important than the physical objects that remind us of them. Maybe I will even figure out how to take a picture to illustrate the story.

Think of Me

Life in the southern coalfields of West Virginia was very hard. I was lonely, living at the head of a “holler,” with a small child for whom I had to care without benefit of nearby friends, family, or even neighbors, and without the comforts of hot running water, indoor bathrooms, or central heating. My marriage was not happy. Every day I cried.

My parents were faithful visitors several times a year, and it was my father who helped me cope with the winter cold in a practical way. He fashioned a door into the concrete block pump house so that I could still haul water when the pipes froze. He screened in the back porch and then put up plastic to cut the cold winds that would whip down the mountain side. But he couldn’t change the hideously mis-named “Warm Morning” coal stove that spewed forth its tarry smoke until settling down to warm the little house from the living room, blasting out heat at first but then through the night, dying down to pitiful little embers by the cold, very cold, morning.

Mom, on the other hand, told me horror stories of her own early days of marriage and motherhood. I remember how she waited for Dad to get home from the little country school he taught in rural Nebraska when my brother Jim was an infant. She too was cold, and the coal stove was burning low. But when Dad got home, he had a sprained ankle. She still had to struggle out to the coal shed to fetch coal for the stove. At least Dad was there to watch the baby. And, I thought wistfully, at least she was glad that he was home. I think that was the Nebraska winter when there were 40 straight days without the temperature rising above 0 degrees Fahrenheit. That sounded so Biblical, and so depressing!

The stories of my parents’ suffering didn’t really alleviate my current travail. Nor did meditations on the unimaginable hardships of women and children in 3rd world countries make my own troubles seem small. Rather, they all seemed to join together into a dumb, hopeless morass of anguish at the lot of so many on this poor Earth, whatever the time period, wherever the location. On those cold, cold mornings, when the “Warm Morning” glumly sulked and I stayed curled up with my baby in under three massive comforters, I would chant litanies of prayer for all the suffering of the world, but I rarely felt blessed in comparison.

Other than visits from my parents, my sister, or from close friends, my primary comforts were music, reading, and (in warmer weather) the Great Outdoors. And it was in reading that I discovered in the theological thrillers of Charles Williams, the Doctrine of Substituted Love. This was to become an unusual source of strength to me. In the book Descent Into Hell Williams suggests that one person might literally bear another’s burdens (as the Apostle Paul exhorts) and that this act might not be beholden to time or place. In this book, for instance, a descendant of a person put to death for his faith by fire and torture actually takes on much of the suffering of her forebearer out of compassion, and that willingness to do so not only alleviated his suffering centuries before, but her suffering was less than his would have been because it had been taken on willingly and upon another’s behalf.

This Doctrine of Substituted Love really captured my imagination. Maybe the suffering that I felt each day could actually be joined to someone else’s suffering and made meaningful. As it was, I was heartily bored with my own suffering which seemed to have no purpose. It was just there, always and always, and I was tired of my own tears.

The opportunity for Substituted Love which thrust itself to me upon me was the story of my Great-grandmother Maggie. My mother’s mother, Grandma Viola Cooprider, was the oldest child of Grandma Maggie. In the later part of the 1800's, my Grandma Maggie and Grandpa Reuben, along with a number of other family members, had travelled to Kansas by covered wagon and had settled there. On day, when my own Grandma Viola was 6 , Grandpa Reuben and another member of the family (my Mom would know who though I have forgotten) went into town, McPherson, to purchase supplies. They tied up the horses for the day at an establishment where there was reported illness, though “only measles” was the reassurance. The measles sadly turned out to be the dreaded smallpox.

All of the family contracted smallpox, and Grandma Maggie, though sick herself, nursed them all. Neighbors, of course, made a big detour around the farmhouse, afraid of contracting the disease themselves. What seems unimaginable to me, both then and now, was that Grandma Maggie not only nursed her husband, Viola, and Celesta (age 4), but also a 2-year old little boy who died. Grandma Maggie gave birth during this terrible period to another little boy who also dies, so she was faced with the heartbreaking task of burying two babies while sick herself and in the aftermath of having given birth. She must have been able to go on only because of having the two little girls to care for. But years later, all she would allow herself was the wistfulness of having lost the smoothness of her beautiful skin. The other must have been too difficult to touch upon.

Every day after taking the vow to take on some of Grandma Maggie’s suffering, I prayed for her, though this was close to a century later. Could prayer work retroactively through time? It was a matter for faith. The prayers had helped me, but I earnestly hoped that they had helped Grandma Maggie as well. I would never really know.

Years later, after my Aunt Eva died - Eva, who was the caretaker and dispenser of many of the artifacts and memorabilia of the family - I was given several boxes of linens and china that had been earmarked for me. All of the nieces and nephews were given their carefully thought-out portions.

Amongst the newspaper-wrapped treasures that I carefully examined, I came upon a solitary, ruby-colored glass cup, which I later realized came from the Civil War era.. Inside was a paper in my Aunt Eva’s hand. “This is for Jill. It belonged to Maggie and was given to her by her father when she was a young girl.” Etched on the side of the cup was my answer.... “Think of Me.”

2005-09-05T19:57:00.000-04:00

Well, I am too tired to write anything especially inspiring. This is a hodge-podge of some of the thoughts running through my head. Though I have wanted this blog to be a place where I could keep up my spirits, it seems weird and artificial to make no mention of Katrina, the hurricane of mega-impact, and the heartbreak and horror of what is really going on.

This is not a re-hash of what I know only from news accounts and opinions. I cannot imagine, I refuse to imagine, how it would feel not to know where my child, my mother or father, my friend, my cat was in the aftermath of that storm. I have been thinking, though, what would it be like, to lose everything material in my life? My father's paintings, my mother's quilts (i.e., the grandmother's and great-grandmother's.) What would it be to lose the books, the letters, the photographs?

I remember my Mother telling me that HER father (Grandpa T.J.) told her , "Better a fire than a flood." It was cleaner!

After my aunt died, my Mother worried that we girls would feel that certain things might have been unfair, how things were divided up. She worried that after she died that the same thing might happen. I think that my sister and I both felt that we were very fortunate that have good, solid, loving memories. So many do not have that! Material things are prompts to memories, but they are not the thing themselves. (I suddenly think of what I wrote about Haiku.)

So many of the physical, material things I value are actually more "of the spirit." Like Dad's paintings. But still... how devastating would it be to lose everything? I don't know. It is something to ponder.

Well, I know what it is like to lose someone incredibly dear. But The Dear One is not lost, not in a profound sense. That is something different.

The other thing is... those things that I have treasured as part of my heritage, that I would weep to lose - are they not lost already? Do my children know why they are significant? Would they have any inkling why this dish or that cup is important? I have already lost several layers of meaning in the "stuff" that I have kept.... is there any meaning left for my children????

Ho boy - I need some comments to redeem this sad posting, to restore it to Hope.

2005-09-01T21:33:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was thinking about this little blog. My friend Alkelda the Gleeful had set it up for me, even naming it, with her spot-on ability to find the mot juste. (Does that have an "e" on the end of it????) But I had been wondering... why "Pipers" and not "Piper"? I sense there is a reason for it, but I cannot articulate it.

At any rate, I decided to go to Wind in the Willows and re-read that chapter . There I stood, in the Library where I work, and wept with both joy and longing.

This morning I awoke from a dream with a song running through my mind. This happens to me alot. This morning it was a hymn. #307 in the current Blue Mennonite hymnal.

Will you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you?
Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.

I will hold the Christ-light for you in the nighttime of your fear.
I will hold my hand out to you, speak the peace you long to hear.

Today is the 2nd anniversary of my mother's passing into New Life. I derive some comfort in thinking that my Mom will be quietly ministering to those who have newly passed over - from Iraq,the horrific bridge tragedy - and from New Orleans and the rest of the south, especially those who were neglected because they were poor (and maybe Black?) I am trying to walk the tightrope between being non-judgmental and open, but on the other hand, "speaking truth to power" (even if only on this little personal blog.)

2005-08-31T12:03:00.000-04:00

Moon Haiku photograph by Michael Wood.

Yesterday I had several experiences of grace. Maybe I used up my quota for the week? No! Of course not. But I do want to mention the book I have started to read called Writing and Enjoying Haiku by Jane Reichhold. Of course, haiku as a form is not new to me or anyone probably, but I became excited about exploring it as a writing/meditation form at the Poetry Therapy Intensive in early August.

Sometimes I can write in my journal; but I don't get much enjoyment out of it. And I am dismal at writing poetry. But haiku!

Haiku act as doors to our past. Years after you have written a haiku, you can read it and mentally return to that one spot in the meadow where you saw the purple thistle glistening with dew, or heard the long curling cry of a bird on a summer morning.

2005-08-30T14:08:00.000-04:00

My dear friend Alkelda the Gleeful suggested that I think through the focus of this blog. It should not be just a place randomly to try out blogging, but it should be useful, at least to myself.

Early this morning I was reading a passage in the book The Esoteric Background of Waldorf Education by Rene M. Querido. I shall quote some of what he wrote that struck me so forcefully.

Since the fearful two world wars that shook the globe, dozens of conflicts in different parts of the world have erupted, bringing suffering and tragedy to millions.These have been brought about by a withdrawal of the benevolent guiding powers and an increased activity of the Ahrimanic forces that seek to enslave humanity.[Sounds like Mordor to me!] These conflicts show clearly that we have to overcome our racial, national, ethnic prejudices in order to find out what is truly human in each one of us.

But also the individual soul finds an ever greater tension arising in his own being. Many people at an early age become aware that two souls live within each one of us; one that aspires to the lofitiest heights of humanity, while the other seeks to fetter us ever more strongly to material existence. This crossing of the threshold is experienced to begin with as a split in our normal consciousness. We need to learn not only to face the evil in others but also in ourselves. This struggle needs to be taken up with courage and determination. To imagine that it can be circumvented or over looked is simply an illusion.

This places the task of the Waldorf teacher in a new light. Each one of us is centrally involved in the Michaelic battle against the forces of darkness for the sake of the children and youngsters in our care.

As someone who tends to melancholia, I found this passage to be an important exhortation to keep the faith, to fight against despair, to nourish courage. And I have now decided that I will use this blog not to cry out in anguish at the ills of this world but rather to recognize and celebrate those flashes of grace that I encounter each day. But of course - Pipers at the Gates of Dawn!

2005-07-07T21:04:00.000-04:00

This is a new post. It is for practice. If you don't like it, you can read elsewhere. For starters, check out this storytelling blog. It's quite good.