D.Day

Like My Photo!

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:59:00 +0000

Please, "like" my photo by January 13th in the Grand Center's First Night "What's Yout Muse" Photo Contest, and I could win an Art and Life Gift Pack!

Reiki Training with Christine McKenna

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 05:08:00 +0000

Christine is once again offering her wonderful Reiki classes! If you have ever been interested in stress reduction, alternative healing, or simply getting in tune with yourself and others than Christine is the perfect teacher for you! I have taken Reiki levels 1-3 trainings with Christine, and feel as if I have become a stronger, more integrated person by allowing myself to be open to this training and Christine's instruction. I initially took Reiki 1 as a means to learn self-healing techniques, but through Christine's nurturing and giving spirit felt that I too could serve others through Reiki. Through the course of Christine's trainings, communing with like minded individuals, and self-training I came to a greater understanding of what gifts I had to offer the world around me. So, if you are able to make the journey to Bloomington, Indiana don't hesitate, just say, yes to becominga brighter you in 2012!

Registration is now OPEN for Reiki Levels 1, 2, and 3 Trainings in early 2012 with Christine McKenna!

These trainings are experiential journeys, filled with deeply meaningful connections (with yourself and others), an abundance of inspiration and new tools, and unforgettable personal transformations...all while getting to know YOUR healing hands and learn this amazing and life-lasting technique for deep relaxation, pain relief, healing gracefully and naturally from the root cause of any ailment, creative and spiritual awakening, release of toxins, balancing, emotional peace, and so much more. Reiki is a marvelous gift you can offer yourself, friends, family, clients, animals, plants,and much more! Receive practitioner certification, energetic attunement and comprehensive manual at each level.

Christine is again offering the special opportunity to sign up with a friend for $249 for BOTH of you for the entire Reiki Levels 1/2 weekend (just in case there is someone your heart feels moved to share this very special experience with!).

More information available by clicking here.

****GIFT CERTIFICATES AVAILABLE****

What is Reiki?

Reiki is a simple, effective, non-invasive, and powerful form of energy healing. Reiki involves a practitioner placing his or her hands directly above or lightly on the body (client remains fully clothed), typically for 1-5 minutes in each position. Reiki accelerates the body’s innate healing abilities, strengthens the immune system, relieves pain, creates balance, clears toxins, enhances personal awareness, relaxes, promotes creativity, opens the heart, treats both symptoms and causes of illness, facilitates emotional cleansing and renewal, aids spiritual practice, and much more. Reiki is used in prestigious hospitals throughout the world. It originated in Japan in the late 1800’s.

EVERYONE is fully capable and equipped to powerfully offer Reiki. Absolutely no prior experience is necessary.

More information available by clicking here.

Dates, Location, and Healing Investment

Saturday, February 25 (Level 1)

Sunday, February 26 (Level 2)

Saturday-Sunday March 24-25 (Level 3)

9:30-5:30 each day

Held at retreat setting by Lake Griffy, Bloomington, IN.

Space limited to 18 per training. Can attend any or all dates.

Level 1: $95 by February 11th/$110 regular

Level 2: $115 by February 11th/$130 regular

Levels 1 & 2: $195 by February 11th/$215 regular

Levels 1 & 2 with a friend: $124.50 each

Level 3: $225 by March 9th/$250 regular

Payment plans available.

Recommended to take Levels 1 and 2 together if possible (but not necessary).

Special Offers!

25% off if already certified by another teacher

50% off if already certified by Christine

More information available by clicking here.

Recycling 101

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 02:37:00 +0000

One Day in December

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 23:57:00 +0000

The Skinker DeBaliviere Wintermarkt

This past Saturday, a group of friends and I ventured out to the Skinker DeBaliviere Neighborhood'sWintermarkt and the Cherokee Street Print League's Holiday Sale. It was a chance for those of us who were not as familiar with the city to explore two of it's unique areas. The Wintermarkt was near the McPherson Community Garden, which was originally a two-lot site left vacant by the demolition of abandoned apartment buildings. The lots were initially rented by the community garden. Subsequently, the Skinker DeBaliviere Community Council purchased the lots and gave them to the community garden under the condition that the land be maintained as green space.

McPherson Community Garden

The Cherokee neighborhood stands on the old St.Louis Commons, an area of about 2,000 acres south of the city proper, that was established in the 1790's as a public resource for the city. Landowners could use the land to pasture animals or cut wood, etc., but in reality it was an under-used area and it soon became a No-man's land - a pretty wild place. In 1836, the decision was made by the city to privatize this public land just as a new wave of immigrant populations settled across the US, including St. Louis. It's an interesting neighborhood, with a long history. If you want to read more about this neighborhood's history, and how it became an art center in St. Louis you should check out this link.

Also, look at all of the photos from that day on my website! I love all comments, so shoot me a note :o)

A Holiday Sale Poster on the Fort Gondo's Window

Below are a list of the different artists and shops that were part of the holiday sale.

Bob Hartzell, Augratin Press https://www.facebook.com/pages/Augratin-Press/190064173816?sk=wall
Mary Mosblech http://www.mosblechart.com/
underWAREs https://sites.google.com/site/underwarestl/dinner-party
Megan Frauenhoffer http://meganfrau.com/
STyLe House http://www.stl-style.com/
Narcise http://www.narcise.net/
Xiphoid Process http://www.etsy.com/shop/xiphoidprocess
Dan Zettwoch http://www.danzettwoch.com/
Lauren Ratcliff http://www.laurenratcliff.com/f
Steven J. Davis http://fatesealed.com/
All Along Press http://allalongpress.com/
Aisle One Gallery www.aisle1gallery.com
Foam Coffee and Beer www.foamstl.com
Fort Gondo Compound for the Arts www.fortgondo.com
Paper Boat Studios www.paperboatstudios.com
Porter Teleo www.porterteleo.com
Snowflake City Stock www.snowflakecitystock.com
The Firecracker Press www.firecrackerpress.com
The Archive http://www.archivescribe.com/theArchive/

Flowers to the People http://www.flowerstothepeople.biz/

Drew & Henry Salon http://drewhenrysalon.wordpress.com/

STL Curio Shoppe http://www.stlcurioshoppe.com/

I am also copy below a list of artists from this year's Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis 3rd Annual Etsy Art Sale & Holiday Open House.

Emily's Escape, www.emilysescape.etsy.com
Ravyn's Cache, www.Ravyncrow.etsy.com
DownZipper, www.downzipper.etsy.com
Souvenirs From Wonderland, www.314wonderland.etsy.com
Stick to Your Knittin' Kitten, www.sticktoyourknittin.etsy.com
AngelsGourden, www.AngelsGourden.etsy.com
Everlasting Crafty Creations, www.Everlastingcraftycre.etsy.com
Anna Ourth Jewelry, www.annasinspirations.etsy.com
Zenbot Baby, www.zenbotbaby.etsy.com
Lovewell Embroidery, www.Loveewellembroidery.etsy.com
Color ME Crazy LLC, www.KokomoLady.etsy.com
Sew Good and Trendy, www.sewgoodandtrendy.com
South City Studio, www.southcitystudio.etsy.com
Rare Bird Creations, www.rarebirdcreations.etsy.com
Parsimonia, www.parsimonia.etsy.com
EAK Design, www.eakdesign.etsy.com
Jill Giordano Photography, www.jillgior.etsy.com
Little Bits by Abbie, www.littlebitsbyabbie.com
My Lovies, www.mylovies.etsy.com
Bubble Lab, www.soapbubblelab.etsy.com
Binx Creations, www.binxceramic.etsy.com
Pasties by Michelle, www.pastiesbymichelle.etsy.com
Scarlett and Maria, www.scarlettandmaria.etsy.com
Beqi Clothing, www.beqi.etsy.com
Sprouted Designs, www.sprouteddesigns.etsy.com
Handmade Family, www.handmadefamily.etsy.com
Pupiolas Hand Knit Fashions, www.pupiolas.etsy.com
Shenandoah Soaps, www.kellymarieb.etsy.com
Art in Heart, ebergman.deviantart.com/gallery/
Essly, www.essly.etsy.com
farmhaus, www.farmhaus.etsy.com
City Peas, www.citypeas.wordpress.com

Check Out Lindy Gruger's Website!

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:30:00 +0000

I stumbled across this website, and I love both Lindy's message and paintings. This particular post touched me, and I am guessing you'll all know why ;o) ;

"Prayers Spoken on the Breathe of the Wind"

On the Right Path, Right Now

I believe our Life Path is leading us to where we need to go. Our choices surely have an effect on where life will lead us but I also believe things happen exactly when they are supposed to happen and last exactly as long as they are supposed to last and we learn from these experiences exactly what we are supposed to learn. It is something I am reminding myself of often and so those paths show up in my paintings as another reminder I am on the right path, right now.

Facing Life's Blessings

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 02:15:00 +0000

The last time I wrote on my personal life I was looking at the fork in the road, and waiting for life to unfold. Would I be offered the dream job at the Buddhist retreat center, or would I remain in St. Louis to spend a year as an AmeriCorps volunteer? It was a decision that was haunted me, as the position in St. Louis felt like a great fit with an organization, where the position at the retreat center would not only place me in an environment that would allow me to pursue my spiritual path, but it was also in the mountains of northern California.

After nearly 2 months of going back and forth with questions and answers, and trying to stay open regardless of the outcome, the answer came one Thursday evening a few weeks ago. I had told myself that I just wanted to know where I was headed, and at this point I didn’t care which direction it was, so it was surprising when the retreat center chose the other candidate how badly it hurt. I took to the mat in an effort not to have a fit, silently crying through a hatha yoga class, as I stretched out my dashed hopes and dreams. I wanted to cry, ask why, and curl into a ball for a while. Of course, those things don’t tend to help, so I spent a few days down, determined not to publicly cry again (though I swear no one saw me!), trying to believe that staying in St. Louis was where I was meant to be. It’s not what I wanted, to turn 30 (2 weeks y’all!!) sleeping on the floor of my mom’s craft room, with the miscellanies of my life in boxes. So in the end, I did cry, ask why, tell myself that doing these things made no difference, only to do it all over again.

It’s really amazingly difficult to believe there’s a plan when everything falls apart around you. I just spent 3 months working as a photographer for a local St. Louis portrait group that was abusive beyond belief, because that was the only job I could find. Now after 300+ job applications over 8 months I’m left with the only position being offered to me as one that prides themselves on serving America’s poverty stricken masses, and only paying their workers 110% of the national poverty rate. In principal, I get it, but in actuality it kinda sucks y’all. I have a MA, and a slew of other degrees and certifications, and it comes down to this. I don’t know if you’ve seen this thing floating around Facebook, but it’s so true:

Also, along those same lines you should read this amazing blog entry from cracked.com.

So this is where my mind and emotions sat for the past few weeks, torn between this innate knowledge that for some cosmic reason beyond my limited understanding this is where I am meant to be, and this bitterness for my situation. Petty, yes, but also very human.

At about the apex of this chaotic flurry of emotions and thoughts I took a trip to Bloomington, IN to attend a blessing ceremony at the monastery I attended there. It was exactly what I needed, not just because it pulled me out of that stream of negativity I was in, but because it gave me perspective. During a break, I received an email from a friend I was supposed to meet after the ceremony that informed me he could not make it, because he would be assisting a friend who had just dealt with the loss of their spouse after a long illness. At that moment, I saw that while one cannot compare pain and suffering, I was blessed beyond compare and had no reason to complain. Sure my life hadn’t gone the way I wanted, and I hadn’t gotten what I wanted, but that’s life. As the ceremony came to a close I dedicated all the merit I may have received during this ceremony to my friend and his friends. My life has had it’s ups and down, but it has always been blessed.

A week passed, and I read a statement by His Holiness the Dalai Lama that solidified my thoughts and feelings from the previous weekend;

“When everything goes smoothly in life, you can pretend everything is ok. But when you face a difficult period, then there is no way you can pretend. You have to accept reality. And through difficulties you gain more courage, more patience – and that’s very important in one’s life.”

-HH Dalai Lama, from the book Reincarnation: The Boy Lama, by Vickie Mackenzie, p. 144

I was laying on my pallet on the floor at the time, and after rereading the quote I wanted to jump up and dance. There it was, this was my chance to accept reality as it was, and take stock of my life.

Later that week I randomly chose a podcast for my workout, and it was an NPR On Being episode entitled, “The Pursuit of Happiness.” It was exactly what I needed to hear, and solidified all of the lessons I had been learning. I am pasting the portions of the transcript that stood out to me below, but if you’d like to check out the webpage for this episode please visit this link.

The Dalai Lama: Of course, my life not easy. That is clear. I think perhaps — I think firstly when I see some problem, some tragedy, I always look from different angle and sometimes a tragedy, one aspect tragedy, but that same event may also may have some positive thing. So when I look more holistically, then that event not 100 percent so negative. There are also part of positive. Now one example, I usually telling people we lost our own country, itself sad, but that brings different and new opportunity, just there's benefit, sort of like that there's one thing. Second, when we face some sort of sad thing, if you look very closely and it looks unbearable, look from distance. There's not that much that's unbearable, one thing.

Then another thing, as one Buddhist monastery — eighth century — mentioned, when we face some problem, think or analyze the problem, situation. If the situation can overcome eventually, then no need worry. Make effort. So these things I usually do.

Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks: The definition of a Jew, Israel is at it says in Genesis 34, one who struggles, wrestles, with God and with humanity and prevails. And Jacob says something very profound to the angel. He says, "I will not let you go until you bless me." And that I feel about suffering. When something bad happens, I will not let go of that bad thing until I have discovered the blessing that lies within it.

When my late father died — now I'm in mourning for my late mother — that sense of grief and bereavement suddenly taught me that so many things that I thought were important, externals, etc., all of that is irrelevant. You lose a parent, you suddenly realize what a slender thing life is, how easily you can lose those you love. Then out of that comes a new simplicity and that is why sometimes all the pain and the tears lift you to a much higher and deeper joy when you say to the bad times, "I will not let you go until you bless me." Thank you.

Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori: There's the particular piece of Christianity that insists that sometimes suffering is a root to happiness for the larger community. That kind of suffering may not be chosen, but it contains blessing within it. The sense that our goal is this fully restored creation at right relationship with all that is and sometimes the journey there requires us to enter into suffering and to demand, to insist, that there is blessing in the midst of that, wrestling with the angel. It must be there. You have created us to be happy, you have created us to be good, now show us. Show us the way through this. Show us the possibility for which all that is is created.

Lord Sacks: I'd like just to reflect on one other word, which is "pursuit." Finding happiness doesn't necessarily follow from pursuing it. Sometimes the deepest happiness comes when you're least expecting it. And there is a wonderful story about an 18th-century rabbi, Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, who is looking at people rushing to and fro in the town square. And he wonders why they're all running so frenetically. He stops one and he says, "Why are you running?" and the man says, "I'm running to make a living." And the rabbi says to him, "How come you're so sure that the living is in front of you and you have to run to catch it up. Maybe it's behind you and you got to stop and let it catch up with you." Now which bits of contemporary culture do we stop and let our blessings catch up with us? Now that is called the Sabbath, which we all share […] Sometimes we don't need to pursue happiness. We just need to pause and let it catch up with us.

Professor Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr: Of course, in Islamic tradition, the five daily prayers themselves [generate calmness of mind]. You pull yourself out of the flow of time in a space that is sacralized, and ablution itself in a sense washes the soul as well as the body. And for a few minutes, even if your mind is running like that, you have to force yourself to pull yourself out of that context. Of course, only the saints succeed completely. But nevertheless, the exercise has a tremendous effect upon our having at least certain punctuations put upon this sentence of our life every day that goes faster and faster.

The Dalai Lama: One of my Muslim friend explained to me one interpretation of Jihad, not only sort of attack on other, but real meaning is combative attack your own wrongdoing or negativities.

Dr. Nasr: The greater Jihad, the bigger Jihad, is to combat your own negative forces within you. Yes, yes.

The Dalai Lama: So in that sentence, the whole Buddhist practice is practice of Jihad. [laugh]

Dr. Nasr: Exactly, absolutely.

[Note: Jihad it divided into the greater jihad and the lesser jihad. The struggle with humanity, one’s passions, and the wish to serve God is the greater jihad, while the more commonly known lesser jihad refers to holy war. “The essential meaning of Jihad is the spiritual, psychological, and physical effort we exert to be close to God and thus achieve a just and harmonious society. Jihad literally means ‘striving’ or ‘struggle’ and is shorthand for Jihad fi Sabeel Allah (struggle for God's cause). In a sense, every Muslim is a Mujahid, one who strives for God and justice.

Al-Ghazali captured the essence of Jihad when he said: ‘The real Jihad is the warfare against (one's own) passions.’ Dr. Ibrahim Abu-Rabi calls Jihad ‘the execution of effort against evil in the self and every manifestation of evil in society.’ In a way, Jihad is the Muslim's purest sacrifice: a struggle to live a perfect life and completely submit to God.

Another form of Jihad is the striving to translate the Word of God into action. If one has experienced God and received guidance from the Qur'an, one struggles to apply that guidance in daily life. So the larger, more prevalent meaning of Jihad is the spiritual struggle of the soul. In this case, Jihad is always present for the believer whether there is an external enemy or not. We should never reduce Jihad to violence.

For more information check out David Cook’s book, UnderstandingJihad for an explanation that delves into history, the Qur’an, politics, and more.]

After listening to this program I had more to chew on than before. From His Holiness’ perspective one should analyze a situation and find the positive aspects in that situation, because everything is unbearable up close, but once we place distance (mental and emotional rather than physical in many cases) between ourselves and what ails us we can see the good, as well as the bad.

Rabbi Sacks reminds us that we must wrestle with our situation until it blesses us. “Then out of that comes a new simplicity and that is why sometimes all the pain and the tears lift you to a much higher and deeper joy when you say to the bad times, ‘I will not let you go until you bless me.’ Thank you.” Rev. Schori noted the same emphasis in Christianity, and perhaps our personal suffering is for the benefit of the greater community, so we have to demand ‘You have created us to be happy, you have created us to be good, now show us. Show us the way through this. Show us the possibility for which all that is is created.’

Lastly, the wonderful message from Rabbi Sacks that “finding happiness doesn't necessarily follow from pursuing it […] Sometimes we don't need to pursue happiness. We just need to pause and let it catch up with us.” In this digital age, where we are perpetually connected to the world it is difficult to find those moments to pause. More than that, we in the West have been trained to want everything now, so to pause and wait for happiness to catch us goes against everything that has been pounded into our heads and habitual existence. We feel obligated to act, to even force happiness onto ourselves, but it eludes us. I feel more and more that this is because we do not stop to simply exist and allow what will happen to happen. As I have heard over and over again from friends and spiritual teachers, we tend to stand in the way of our own blessings.

Along these lines, I have been reading off and on Lama Surya Das’ new book, Buddha Standard Time: Awakening to the InfinitePossibilities of Now; the main premise of which is that, “we can spend our time feeling hurried and harried, overwhelmed by chores and demands, distracted and burned out . . . or we can awaken to Buddha Standard Time, the realm of timelessness where every choice, every action, and every breath can be one of renewal and infinite possibilities.” The book offers suggestions and meditations that allow us to let in a bit of this timelessness each day.

At this point, that about sums up my life. I’m currently in Denver for the week doing pre-orientation for my new job, and next week it all begins for real back in St. Louis. Wish me luck as I attempt to stay focused on the blessings within my life.

The view from my hotel room in Denver :o)

Adventures in the Missouri Boot Heel

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 01:51:00 +0000

Chances are you haven't heard of New Madrid County, Missouri, and if you have it is most likely the New Madrid Fault Line that has left it's mark in your memory. I grew up in Missouri, and besides knowing that New Madrid is in the far southeast of Missouri, in the portion known as the Boot Heel, I didn't know much else. It was a big surprise to find that of Missouri's 114 counties, New Madrid County ranks

First in soybean production (199,000 Acres)
Second in cotton production (81,000 Acres)
Third in rice production (30,300 Acres)
Fourth in sorghum production (2,900 Acres)
Fifth in wheat production (38,100 Acres) Seventh in corn production (74,600 Acres)

I don't know about you, but I had never seen cotton before. Soy's pretty common in the Midwest with all of the brouhaha over biofuel. I think I even have a coffee mug made out of "local Indiana corn," so all in all I'm familiar with the local agriculture, but the cotton blew me away! Driving away from the New Madrid County High School I was struck by these fields of dark green and white lowlying plants about the height of soy plants. I was so curious, I wanted to pull over and wade through the endless field. Possessing some manners, and not wanting to look like a complete Yankee, my colleague and I waited until we found an isolated county road to do some investigating. The fields were amazing in their variety of color, ranging from dark green, to brown, to the burgandy reds that graced the pods, which would late become the cotton. These seemingly endless acres couldn't help but lead the mind towards slavery, and the countless hands that were scarred by these harsh plants. It's amazing what is at once soft to the touch is surrounded by the sharp dried husks of the pod they had broken free from, as well as being filled with the pointed seeds within. Even standing there it was hard to imagine plucking these white buds. What would it be like to stand looking at this vast field, knowing every day would be filled with nothing, but it's produce until the field had been harvested? I'm sure like most insurmountable tasks it is something you don't ponder too closely, instead thinking of the plant directly in front of you until it has been denuded of it's bounty, and only then moving on to the next.

This feeling of being followed by the South's infamous past followed us through our week in the Scott County and New Madrid County area. Each school we visited had their yearbook photos proudly displayed, and it was with interested we plotted the progression of desegregation throughout the area. In New Madrid the school was segregated until 1966, but the African American seniors in the Senior Class Composite remained at the very bottom until 1970 when they were represented in the top row, and throughout the composite. It wasn't until 1976 that an African American senior was appointed as a class officer. In Matthews, this story was slightly different, as in 1966 the school was segregated, but immediately had an African American senior class officer. This was the only time from 1966 until 1983 when these composites ended that an African American student was represented among the officers. They were also slower to rise from the bottom of the composites, and in some composites only white students were represented. Lilbourn was the only school with composites from both segregated schools before 1966, as the others had only shown the white high school seniors until desegregation became law. It was interesting to note that in the three schools we visited both New Madrid and Lilbourn had a fairly large African American demographic, but in Matthews there was not a single African American student. According to the U.S. Census Data Tables for 2010 African Americans persons make up 15.8% of the population in New Madrid County, while Hispanic populations make up 1.1%, and persons of two or more races only make up 1.5%. It was surprising to find that the majority of the population did posses a high school diploma (72.8%), though very few possessed a bachelor’s degree (11%). New Madrid, the county seat, had an 81.1% to 17.7% white to black race demographic, while Lilbourn was more evenly distributed at 55.3% to 44.2%. The surprising statistic comes from Matthews, which consists of 96.2% white persons and 1.4% black persons. This statistic was surprising, considering the other statistics within New Madrid County, and the very similar statistics in neighboring Scott County where we stayed in Sikeston. So what happened in Mathews' history? It could very well be that Mathews is a very small town, with less than 1,000 inhabitants, so the African American population moved to the county seats where there are more jobs. Maybe the population has been predominately white since it was founded? It is easy to jump to the most tantalizing conclusions, but isn't the simplest answer usually the correct one? There isn't anything easily found online, so it leaves the questions to be answered at a later time.

In a seemingly appropriate move we saw The Help at the Sikeston Cinema. It is an amazingly well done movie that is both touching and funny, while addressing an important part of our history that is commonly ignored. We both left wondering who among all those we met had help that raised them, how many of the African American ladies grew up watching their mothers and grandmothers care for white children? It's all so interesting, and I think more so for the both of us, as it is an environment we were not raised in. Sure there was prejudice, and I certainly wasn't raised with friends of other races or beliefs, but nothing so set in stone, in tradition.

This area is full of history that is well recorded in local museums, state parks, and state historic sites. Simply driving down country roads looking at the architecture of bygone days, the neatly laid out acres of crops, the Mississippi River, and the massive trees that have survived hundreds of years is all a treat. It's hard to imagine that this entire area was a swamp, but it was until legislation began to make this land inhabitable in 1850. It would take 64 years for the Little Drainage District project to officially begin, but when it did it became the largest drainage engineering project in the world. In fact, it cleared more dirt than the Panama Canal project!!!

"In Southeast Missouri there were over 500,000 acres in an area ninety miles in length and ten to twenty miles wide. The swamp was a nearly impenetrable morass of trees, bogs, and standing water with only a few road and railroad crossings. The possible draining of the swamp was the subject of the Congressional Swampland Act of 1850, which transferred ownership of the swamp and overflowed lands to the states in which they were located. In Missouri, the state transferred ownership to several counties with the same charge, ‘do something with it.’ The counties were stuck because no one wanted to pay taxes on something so unproductive, and there was no one or no other entity to take the land.

Additionally, reptiles had the perfect environment in the ancient lowland swamp, but were hunted and hauled out by the wagon load before loggers came to cut the forests as the land was cleared.

The story of reclaiming the land and the part that Little River Drainage District played is unique. The drainage was accomplished from 1914 to 1928 through construction of 957.8 miles of ditches and 304.43 miles of levees, the same facilities the district now operates and maintains with assistance, since 1931 from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The total cost of construction of the many facilities was $11.1 million, which was borne by landowners in the district. Although setbacks were encountered, in the end most of the Little River Valley of Missouri was rid of water and the LRDD proved to be a sound, public corporation which has stood the test of time" (Taken from the Depot National Historic Site in Sikeston, MO, and the free booklet on the Little River Drainage District of Southeast Missouri).

If you have the chance take a little trip down to the Missouri Boot Heel, check out the history, meet the friendly locals, and grab a tossed roll from Lambert's Cafe. To see all of the pictures from this trip visit my Smugmug Album.

Beautiful Day

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 03:48:00 +0000

I love India.Arie! I was listening to her on my way home today, and I had forgotten how inspiring her lyrics truly are. Enjoy!

Life is a journey,
Not a destination,
There are no mistakes,
Just chances we’ve taken
Lay down your regrets cause all we have is now

Wake up in the morning
And get out of bed
Start making a mental list in my head
Of all of the things that I am grateful for

Early in the morning
It’s the dawn of a new day
New hopes new dreams new ways
I open up my eyes and
I open up my mind and
I wonder how life will surprise me today
Early in the morning
It’s the dawn of a new day
New hopes new dreams new ways
I open up my heart and
I’m gon’ do my part and
Make this a positively beautiful day

La la la la la la la la la [x3]
It’s a Beautiful Day [x3]

Life is a challenge not a competition
You can still smell the roses and be on a mission
Just take a moment to get in touch with your heart
Sometimes you feel like you’ve got something to prove
Remind yourself that there’s only one you
Just take a moment to give thanks for who you are
Early in the morning
It’s the dawn of a new day
New hopes, new dreams, new ways
I open up my eyes and
I open up my mind and
I wonder how life will surprise me today

Early in the morning
It’s the dawn of a new day
New hopes, new dreams, new ways
I open up my heart and
I’m gon’ do my part and
Make this a positively beautiful day

La la la la la la la la la [x3]
It’s a Beautiful Day [x2]

Let’s make this a wonderful
Let’s make this a powerful
Let’s make this a Beautiful Day
It’s a Beautiful Day

Life is a journey,
Not a destination,
There are no mistakes,
Just chances we’ve taken
Lay down your regrets cause all we have is now

Positive Conundrums

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:10:00 +0000

There are times I wish my here and now were a different age… Of course, then I would have to be a different me for this to work. I would not want to be a woman who was ruled by elders or men from day one, with little choice in her circumstances. Yes, since this is make believe I could wish to be born in a different age to enlightened parents, yet this seems to be pushing my luck, and straying from the current reason for this wish. I simply wish that coming of age and settling into a profession were simpler, like it once was. The situation of one’s family was often the deciding factor, so there was no need for the internal angst of today’s young professionals. People didn’t normally have to worry about what they would do, or where they would live, as all of this was more or less decided from the day of their birth, perhaps even earlier.

The modern age has made us believe that we truly desire innumerable choices. If you can dream it, you can have it, no matter how implausible that dream may be. Grow up in the slums, but want to be a doctor with a six figure income, why not?!?! All you have to do is want it badly enough, and work your butt off to get there, and it’s yours.

I often feel though that this world without limitations glosses over the very real limitations of life, leaving us bitter and disappointed; that should have been mine! I wanted it so badly, but their living the life I dreamed, while I’m still struggling to get by. I see this day in and out from people who spent thousands of dollars on an education they now can’t use, the souls who have lived their entire lives for a company that downsized them without a thought, those who simply didn’t have what it took to cut it, and the rest of us who let go of various passions, simply because it was no longer realistic to hold onto them. How do we live without these regrets that have the potential to turn us into bitter old hags?

This is where I currently find myself. I know better than to look at the world as something that revolves around me, and I have been tested with this over the past month or so. My sister recently returned from living three years in Japan, so she could begin the educational process of becoming a veterinarian. She has been seeking a part-time position, and really applying herself to getting a job. I have applauded her willingness to do what it takes to find a job, work a crappy job until what she wants comes along. It has paid off, as she has just landed a part-time vet tech position that will allow her to gain hands on experience, while she is getting her education. Despite all of my joy over her good fortune, I have still battled that tiny voice in the back of my mind that says, what about me?!?!? She’s been called in for positions with organizations I have applied for countless times, and never received any interest from. She’s also had to turn all of these positions down, because they did not work with her school schedule. Now, on her first application to a veterinarian’s office, she has gotten the position. It truly makes the jealousy rear it’s head!

This reminds me of the praise to Buddha Tara written by Gyalwa Gendun Drubpa, the first Dalai Lama, who lived between 1391-1475. In the praise, “A Crown of Ornament for the Wise” His Holiness describes the Eight Dangers that Buddha Tara protects us from (pride, ignorance, anger, jealousy, distorted views, miserliness, attachment, and doubt). The verse on jealousy goes as follows;

“Lurking in its pit of ignorance,

Unable to bear the wealth and excellence of others,

It swiftly injects them with its cruel poison:

The snake of jealousy – please protect us from this danger!”

The abbess of Sravasti Abbey, Thubten Chödrön, wrote the following commentary on this verse in her book “How to Free Your Mind: Tara the Liberator;”

“Jealousy, like other disturbing emotions, stems from ignorance of the nature of reality. Jealousy ignorantly makes us think we’ll be happy if we destroy others’ happiness. Like a vicious snake whose venom kills a healthy person, jealousy poisons the happiness and goodness of both ourselves and others. While we say, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself’ and “May all beings be happy,’ when someone else has good fortune that we don’t – even if we didn’t have to lift a finger to hring about their happiness – our jealousy cannot endure their prosperity, ability, or virtue.

Overcome by jealousy we try to demolish others’ happiness and success. Such behaviour is self-defeating, because even if we succeed, we do not feel good about ourselves when we undermine others’ well-being. Spiteful jealousy not only lessens our own self-respect; it also keeps us bound in pain. Like a snake killing its victim by constriction, jealousy wrings the life out of our mental peace. Sometimes only the pain of the jealousy itself stimulates us to seek out its antidote.

Rejoicing in the happiness, talents, fortune, and good qualities of others is that antidote. When others are happy, we might as well join in! When others act wisely and kindly, why not rejoice in their virtue? There is so much suffering in our world that to wish others to be deprived of the happiness they have is foolish.

Rejoicing is regarded as the lazy person’s way to create great positive potential. When we rejoice at others’ virtues – their kindness, generosity, ethical discipline, patience, joyous effort, concentration, wisdom, and so forth – we accumulate positive potential as if we had the admirable attitude or had done that beneficial action ourselves. Since we need to accumulate great positive potential to progress along the path, rejoicing at others’ goodness and happiness is definitely worthwhile. It spurs us along the path to enlightenment and also makes us happy right now” (pp. 47-48).

Thankfully, I have not allowed myself to be quite so poisonous to sabotage my sister’s happiness! The little negative voice in the back of my head has been enough for me to reprimand myself with the proclamation, wrong view! and go on with my day. We all watched My Best Friend’s Wedding last night, and all I could think was, now here is a truly terrible example of jealousy gone array!

So this leads me to my positive conundrum (I know, finally, right?). I have applied to roughly 300 jobs since I first began the process back in March. It has been a very tedious journey, but I’ve certainly learned a lot along the way! The only application that is still current from those first days is my Peace Corps application. Have you ever gone through this process? I mean, you’d think volunteering 2 years of your time would be a little easier, but if things work out it’ll be about a year between initial electronic application and departure. For some people it can be as little as 3 months, but I think the average is 6 months. For me it has taken so long for a number of reasons. For one I was not a good fit for a number of programs, so they want to have me do their NGO work, and those departure dates are around the beginning of 2012. For another thing, I have quite an extensive medical background. I have gone back and forth with forms, tests, vaccines, oral surgery, and they are still trying to make a decision on whether or not it would be safe for me to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Now, I’d understand there being an issue if they wanted to send me out into the bush, being allergic to Penicillin and Sulfa would be a major problem! Yet, they want to send me to Eastern Europe, where the risks aren’t quite so grave.

Therein lies the other problem, they want to send me to Eastern Europe! I’ve spent 2 years studying the Middle East and Arabic, so I’d like to get the chance to use that knowledge!! Yet, they only serve in Morocco and Jordan, so the options are very very limited, and I get that. Looking at things realistically I know that this is not their fault, and it’s not like their out to make my life miserable, or something ridiculous! On the other hand, my placement in Eastern Europe is not official until I pass the medical evaluation, and I get my official letter of invitation, which I would then accept or decline.

Speaking of medical issues, I have to seriously consider whether or not this would be the best decision for me with my medical issues. Yes, I can get by and survive with very little, but it isn’t an optimal existence. Could I survive for 2 whole years? I mean, I would, cause I’d sign a contract and I am a real stickler on going back on such things. Is it the right decision though?

Another possibility that has been looming on the horizon, becoming much clearer this past weekend, is a position with a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center in California. I applied for an IT position around the beginning of August, and I simply didn’t have adequate knowledge for the position. I did receive the positive response though;

“However, you also appear to be a very valuable applicant in general, one that would fit very well with our community. To that effect, I've recommended that some of our other departments review you as a candidate for some positions that have yet to be made public. I don't often see someone that seems such a good fit, so it's worth seeing what else could be possible.”

A month has passed, so I had placed this opportunity from my mind, but I also decided that I was taking a break from all of the time spent futilely applying for jobs. I can’t do it anymore at this point. I’m burnt out, and maybe all this effort is for nothing, and I really am meant to go volunteer for the Peace Corps? Just as I had decided this I was contacted for 2 interviews with AmeriCorps organizations. One was in Monterey, California, and I totally bombed the interview. I had been fighting a migraine all day, so the telephone interview was disastrously vague on my part. Yeah, I’m a professional, take my word for it, cause I’m too wiped out to give you examples, lol.

The following week I interviewed with an organization here in St. Louis who was looking for a AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer for a PR position. The job description was immediately exciting, and I knew that I could do this job well, but they received more than 100 applications, so I wasn’t too optimistic! The interview between the program director and the current VISTA went amazingly well, and I left feeling optimistic. They told me that they would make a decision by September 1st, but I didn’t hear anything, so I wrote them off as well.

This past Saturday I received a follow up email from the Buddhist retreat center, which read as follows;

“Thank you for your application materials. You have a good background in marketing, communications, and event coordination that could be a good fit. Your desire to serve and help others is clear. While you do not qualify for the IT Assistant portion part of the "IT Assistant/Project Assistant" position, our "Community Relations Coordinator" position may work better for you. Please see the attached job description. If interested, please submit a brief cover letter (no more than 1 page) tailored for the position. Your resume and application do not need to be re-submitted.”

I excitedly wrote my cover letter and submitted it on Monday. I have spent the past few days excited about the possible potential of this job! I had had a dream before I ever found this position where I was supplicating Lama Yeshe for assistance. The stark reality of the dream had freaked me out, as I only have the most basic knowledge of Lama Yeshe, and vague connections to him through Dharma friends. Another reason I know so little about him is that he passed away in 1984, his reincarnation being fairly young, and having also decided to not spend his life as a monastic. Simply put, Lama Yeshe is the generation before my friends and teachers, i.e. the teacher of my teachers. He did found the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) with Lama Zopa, which is the umbrella organization the Buddhist retreat center is under. It made everything seem somehow auspicious! This is the direction I was meant to go, I’d asked for help, and it was given to me, so on and so forth.

I was buoyed by this general good feeling over the past few days, and then yesterday afternoon I received a phone call. It was the director of the St. Louis AmeriCorps position I had interviewed for, and they wanted to offer me the position. WTF!?!?! I was simultaneously overjoyed and anxious with this news. What about this path that had been illuminated for me? Was it all for nothing? And for that matter, what about the Peace Corps? I would gladly decline the Peace Corps for a long-term position with the Buddhist retreat center… I mean, it’s the kind of work I want to do, it’s indefinite in length, it would allow me to continue with my Tibetan Buddhist development (Here in STL it’s near impossible), and shit, it’d be perfect. AmeriCorps and Peace Corps though are basically interchangeable. The only difference being that one’s two years and overseas, and the other is one year and here in the US. Obviously, I’d prefer the two years spent gaining field experience!

Today, I wrote the director of the retreat center, with my conundrum. I would prefer the position with them, but after all these months of searching, my funds running out, and the general bad economy I can’t write off this job on the chance they might want me. Of course, I was a bit more polite than that, but basically I said, let me know something.

So, yeah… Now I have to make a decision… I’m trying to fight the feeling that says, WHY does everything have to be SO complicated!?!?!?!? Why can’t I just have one purely happy and delightful thing happen? Bitte schön…

NYT Article: Generation Limbo

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 01:44:00 +0000

A very accurate post from the New York Times. I'm trying to be more laissez-faire about the entire situation myself. I stressed for about 6 months, applying to roughly 300 jobs, but at this point I can't do that anymore. Life is short, and I'm going to enjoy what freedom I have right now, trusting that the right job will open up!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/fashion/recent-college-graduates-wait-for-their-real-careers-to-begin.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=generation&st=cse

Emotional Healing Program

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 03:48:00 +0000

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Hol(e)y

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 20:20:00 +0000

I’ve become one of those people who wears holey t-shirts. If you would have told me that 5 years ago I would have wrinkled my nose up in disgust, and shook my head in an emphatic no. Yet, as I was changing into my favorite t-shirt after a nice hot shower at the gym I noticed that I had become just that person.

When I moved back in with my parents after graduating from grad school I found myself living on the floor of my mother’s craft room, with “Margie’s Nest” emblazoned on the wall above me. Moving from a two-story townhouse to half of a room in my parent’s house meant I had to greatly reduce the possessions that daily surrounded me. I had sold 90% of my furniture before I moved, along with all household products I hadn't used in years, clothes that no longer fit, and knick-knacks I could stand to part with. After months of searching for a job, hundreds of job applications, and countless hours spent worrying I packed a small moving van and the cats and I moved back in with my parents.

Once I’d unpacked everything I still had to reduce my wardrobe to half a closet, and a few plastic totes, which meant most of my clothes went into storage. Over the years I’ve collected t-shirts from art exhibits, museums, bars, and Hot Topic 50% off clearance price sales, along with tons of those t-shirts with tiny pockets over the left breast (what are they for anyway? Condoms? Quarters? Cat treats? a 1/3 of a granola bar? 2 or 3 grapes? Or a quarter of an apple?). Lady Gaga, Paramore, Muse, Watchmen, and most other themed and tiny-pocketed t-shirts went into storage, but there were a few I couldn’t part with, despite their raggedy condition. Land of the Lost (the original tv show, not the Will Ferrell movie, though that was hilarious, and remains one of my favorite Ferrell movies), Optimus Prime, and Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons had to remain in use, as did my bright yellow, purple, and turquoise tiny pocket t-shirts.

This particular night I was changing into my “Everything is Separated by Water” t-shirt, which I have two of, since I loved it from the moment it was given to me when I worked at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Campos-Pons' “work of the last 20 years covers an extended range of visual language investigations. Campos-Pons' work emerges from the early 1980s focus on painting and the discussion of sexuality in the crossroads of Cuban mixed cultural heritage to incisive questioning, critique and insertion of the black body in the contemporary narratives of the present. Installation art, performative photography and cultural activism define the core of Campos-Pons' practice of the last two decades. A cross collaboration with musician composer and husband, Neil Leonard, that started in 1988, has complemented and enriched the scope of Campos-Pons' work. Together they founded GASP, a lab and studio for the 21st century. She has lectured from the Tate Modern to the Brooklyn Museum and the School of Art in Dakar” (SMFA Boston).

In this exhibit Campos-Pons’ work was a commentary on her separation from her ancestral African roots, as well as her life as a Cuban exile living in the United States. Her work has strong links to her female relatives, and speaks of the link between grandmother, mother, and daughter.

Though, I couldn’t been any less of an exile, living the life of a white Midwesterner, I have always deeply understood separation. I never quite fit into rural Missouri society, and my heart was always a million miles away from this life in other lands and cultures. After pursuing degrees that befit this sentiment I found myself (gulp) jobless. I had been employed in one fashion or another for the past 15 years, and it wasn’t something I could quite fathom. Even scarier was the prospect of moving back to Missouri , the epitome of bland, and dare I say, white. Of course, when I say this I’m not speaking of race per say, but more so the boring and mundane. A life filled with a day to day schedule that rarely alternates outside of work, sleep, and TV schedules. What would I do without the Tibetan Buddhist ceremonies, lessons, and retreats? Without my community of alternative healers? My Reiki family? All of my Middle Eastern friends, and those who study this region? What would it be like not to have Ramadan influence my life in any way whatsoever for a month each year? No Arabic interspersed within conversations? Say what? How would I survive this life?

So one could say that perhaps the inability to part with these particular t-shirts was my one nostalgic attempt to hold onto these cultures and rituals that had come to define the parameters of my life. I could almost see the ocean that separated me from what I loved, everything is separated by water, indeed. So I wore my holey t-shirt to the gym, and every time I caught my reflection in a mirror I could sense the tenuous link between me and the things I loved and missed – Those things that had come to be the sacred within my life.

On most days, I find that I am fine with this distance… Life is a lesson in impermanence, and after receiving countless blessings over the past two years it was my time to take a step back and practice patience. These parts of my life had been gifted to me when I needed them the most through a series of auspicious events, and now I had to trust that process to bring me to where I belong next, because right now this is exactly where I am supposed to be. And in all honesty, it is nice to have this time to relax, read things that are not academic (only fun), sleep, and well… I guess see the world around me. I had become so accustomed to running from one task or event to the next that I had forgotten to simply stop and breathe. I collapsed into bed at night, so tired I rarely dreamed, only awaking to the clang of my alarm to begin another day of running.

In this life, on those mornings I am allowed to sleep past dawn, I awake to a room full of tiny rainbows that the crystal I hung at my window casts around my room. I marvel in the colors it’s prisms cast all over my recently awakened form, stretching my arms to encompass my sleeping purring kitties. In the living room I watch the tiny hummingbirds flit from feeder to feeder, and I am mesmerized by them. They are some of the loudest creatures I have heard in the US. They make this buzzing, whizzing sound that is interspersed with their chatting and chirping. I sit on the porch listening to them as they whiz by my head, not caring that I am there - This is their world afterall, and I'm the interloper here. I had been told in the past that due to the rapid beat of their hearts they live very short lives, but actually these amazing little birds can live for more than a decade, but on average 3-4 years. What’s more, each year they fly to South America for the winter, only to return in the summer to the United States. It’s a journey I’d love to witness!

In short, I’m coming to terms with the life that’s been given me in the here and now, and trying to enjoy the small and myriad abundances in my life. Yes, I miss any number of things, but despite the distance I feel from these communities that gave me so much, I have been blessed with a wealth of knowledge that allows me to continue practicing here in Missouri.

Heart Spirals Reiki I & II This Summer

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:11:00 +0000

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Plastic: Too Good to Throw Away

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 03:39:00 +0000

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/opinion/18freinkel.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

By SUSAN FREINKEL

Published: March 17, 2011

SINCE the 1930s, when the product first hit the market, there has been a plastic toothbrush in every American bathroom. But if you are one of the growing number of people seeking to purge plastic from their lives, you can now buy a wooden toothbrush with boar’s-hair bristles, along with other such back-to-the-future products as cloth sandwich wrappers, metal storage containers and leather fly swatters.
The urge to avoid plastic is understandable, given reports of toxic toys and baby bottles, seabirds choking on bottle caps and vast patches of ocean swirling with everlasting synthetic debris. Countless bloggers write about striving — in vain, most discover — to eradicate plastic from their lives. “Eliminating plastic is one of the greenest actions you can do to lower your eco-footprint,” one noted while participating in a recent online challenge to be plastic-free.
Is this true? Shunning plastic may seem key to the ethic of living lightly, but the environmental reality is more complex.
Originally, plastic was hailed for its potential to reduce humankind’s heavy environmental footprint. The earliest plastics were invented as substitutes for dwindling supplies of natural materials like ivory or tortoiseshell. When the American John Wesley Hyatt patented celluloid in 1869, his company pledged that the new manmade material, used in jewelry, combs, buttons and other items, would bring “respite” to the elephant and tortoise because it would “no longer be necessary to ransack the earth in pursuit of substances which are constantly growing scarcer.” Bakelite, the first true synthetic plastic, was developed a few decades later to replace shellac, then in high demand as an electrical insulator. The lac bugs that produced the sticky resin couldn’t keep up with the country’s rapid electrification.
Today, plastic is perceived as nature’s nemesis. But a generic distaste for plastic can muddy our thinking about the trade-offs involved when we replace plastic with other materials. Take plastic bags, the emblem for all bad things plastic. They clog storm drains, tangle up recycling equipment, litter parks and beaches and threaten wildlife on land and at sea. A recent expedition researching plastic pollution in the South Atlantic reported that its ship had trouble setting anchor in one site off Brazil because the ocean floor was coated with plastic bags.
Such problems have fueled bans on bags around the world and in more than a dozen American cities. Unfortunately, as the plastics industry incessantly points out, the bans typically lead to a huge increase in the use of paper bags, which also have environmental drawbacks. But the bigger issue is not what the bags are made from, but what they are made for. Both are designed, absurdly, for that brief one-time trip from the store to the front door.
In other words, plastics aren’t necessarily bad for the environment; it’s the way we tend to make and use them that’s the problem.
It’s estimated that half of the nearly 600 billion pounds of plastics produced each year go into single-use products. Some are indisputably valuable, like disposable syringes, which have been a great ally in preventing the spread of infectious diseases like H.I.V., and even plastic water bottles, which, after disasters like the Japanese tsunami, are critical to saving lives. Yet many disposables, like the bags, drinking straws, packaging and lighters commonly found in beach clean-ups, are essentially prefab litter with a heavy environmental cost.
And there’s another cost. Pouring so much plastic into disposable conveniences has helped to diminish our view of a family of materials we once held in high esteem. Plastic has become synonymous with cheap and worthless, when in fact those chains of hydrocarbons ought to be regarded as among the most valuable substances on the planet. If we understood plastic’s true worth, we would stop wasting it on trivial throwaways and take better advantage of what this versatile material can do for us.
In a world of nearly seven billion souls and counting, we are not going to feed, clothe and house ourselves solely from wood, ore and stone; we need plastics. And in an era when we’re concerned about our carbon footprint, we can appreciate that lightweight plastics take less energy to produce and transport than many other materials. Plastics also make possible green technology like solar panels and lighter cars and planes that burn less fuel. These “unnatural” synthetics, intelligently deployed, could turn out be nature’s best ally.
Yet we can’t hope to achieve plastic’s promise for the 21st century if we stick with wasteful 20th-century habits of plastic production and consumption. We have the technology to make better, safer plastics — forged from renewable sources, rather than finite fossil fuels, using chemicals that inflict minimal or no harm on the planet and our health. We have the public policy tools to build better recycling systems and to hold businesses accountable for the products they put into the market. And we can also take a cue from the plastic purgers about how to cut wasteful plastic out of our daily lives.
We need to rethink plastic. The boar’s-hair toothbrush is not our only alternative.

Susan Freinkel is the author of the forthcoming “Plastic: A Toxic Love Story.”

Why We Read Kids' Books

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:59:00 +0000

I'd be lying if I didn't say some of my favorite books are technically kids' books. I grew up as a veracious reader; anything that I could get my hands on I would read! Then as I aged and I exclusively came to read adult books I'd often find myself bored, and not quite believing the plot line. This is a bestseller? In some cases it was obvious that the author had never passed his English grammar classes back in grade school! I was bored and frustrated, and I had gotten to the point where I didn't read as much as I once had. Then like a lightening bolt into my book filled world I stumbled upon the Twilight Saga. I'd fought against all of the crazy Harry Potter fans, but I caved with Twilight, and I was hooked! Since that fateful night (Yes, I read it all in one sitting) I have fallen in love with YA fiction, because there is a heart and passion there that so often is lacking in adult fiction. They have brought back the fun that reading once was, and for that I am eternally grateful! Sure, I still read adult books, tons of them, but when I'm stressed out and I need to chill I always turn to a good YA book, and apparently I'm not alone...

August 6, 2010

The Kids’ Books Are All Right

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/books/review/Paul-t.html?_r=2&src=me

By PAMELA PAUL

While au fait literary types around town await the buzzed-about new novels from Jonathan Franzen and Nicole Krauss, other former English majors have spent the summer trying to get hold of “Mockingjay,” the third book in Suzanne Collins’s dystopian trilogy, so intensely under wraps that not even reviewers have been allowed a glimpse before its airtight Aug. 24 release. What fate will befall our heroine, Katniss Everdeen? My fellow book club members and I are desperate to know. When will the Capitol fall? And how can Collins possibly top the first two installments, “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire”?
Oh, did I mention? “Mockingjay” is for teenagers. I am well into my 30s.
But I am not embarrassed by my, shall we say, immature taste in literature. And I wasn’t much concerned when, barreling through “The Hunger Games” at the hospital after giving birth to my third child, I hardly noticed whether he ate or slept. When will the rebellion begin, I wanted to know. Which suitor will Katniss choose? Nor am I alone. According to David Levithan, editorial director at Scholastic, Collins’s publisher, roughly half of the “Hunger Games” fans on Facebook are full-fledged adults. “The Harry Potter generation has grown up,” he told me.
It isn’t just the kids who graduated with the Hogwarts crowd who are tuning in. After all, the historian Amanda Foreman, a 42-year-old mother of five and author of “Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire,” was honeymooning when she first read Harry. When I asked Foreman about her young adult reading habit, she could hardly contain her enthusiasm. I must, she urged, read Susan Cooper (“incredibly clever”), Eoin Colfer (“a brilliant author”), Rick Riordan (“really, really, really good”). I must! “A lot of adult literature is all art and no heart,” Foreman, who is currently working on a book about British involvement in the American Civil War, said. “But good Y.A. is like good television. There’s a freshness there; it’s engaging. Y.A. authors aren’t writing about middle-aged anomie or disappointed people.”
That may be, in part, why so many middle-aged readers like them. (“They’re also easier to read, and people are tired,” Lizzie Skurnick, author of the anthology “Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading,” suggested. “I’m sure I’ll get in trouble for saying that.”) But big type and short, plot-driven chapters aside, the erosion of age-determined book categories, initiated by Harry Potter, has been hastened along by an influx of crossover authors like Stephenie Meyer and interlopers like Sherman Alexie, James Patterson, Francine Prose, Carl Hiaasen and John Grisham, to name just a few stars from across the spectrum of adult fiction who have turned to writing Y.A. According to surveys by the Codex Group, a consultant to the publishing industry, 47 percent of 18- to 24-year-old women and 24 percent of same-aged men say most of the books they buy are classified as young adult. The percentage of female Y.A. fans between the ages of 25 and 44 has nearly doubled in the past four years. Today, nearly one in five 35- to 44-year-olds say they most frequently buy Y.A. books. For themselves.
When Gretchen Rubin, the author of “The Happiness Project,” started up her Kidlit book club in 2006, it was a furtive, underground pursuit. “I always knew that I loved children’s literature but had shoved it to the side because it didn’t fit my idea of myself as a sophisticated adult,” Rubin, a former clerk for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, told me. “So I read it on the sly, when I was stressed out. If I found myself rereading ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ it meant I was really anxious.”
The idea for Kidlit was hatched at a lunch with Jennifer Joel, a literary agent at I.C.M., in which both tentatively expressed a love that ran deeper than Potter. A few days later, Rubin discovered that another acquaintance, Jonathan Burnham, senior vice president and publisher of Harper, was also a fan. Their first meeting was held shortly thereafter. Its subject was “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” At the end of dessert (Turkish delight), Amy Zilliax, who has a Ph.D. in English, stood up and shouted, “At last, I have found my people!”
Kidlit has now expanded to three groups, which meet every six weeks, alternating between classic and contemporary works. When I joined in 2008, the initial appeal was catch-up. Why had I never read “Bridge to Terabithia”? Shouldn’t I tackle H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, “Where the Red Fern Grows”? But I was also intrigued that Lev Grossman, book critic for Time, and Laura Miller, the book critic for Salon, along with several top agents and editors, were also members. What, I wondered, were such high-powered literary eminences doing in a club devoted to children’s stories?
Arguing, often passionately, about the books, for one thing. “We take these books seriously,” said Grossman, whose latest novel, “The Magicians,” has been described as an R-rated Harry Potter. His group recently devoted two sessions — “among the most contentious and shouty we’ve had” — to “The Hunger Games.” Is Katniss a feminist hero? Is she a tool of the state? Is this a conventional romance or a subversion of the genre? “Everybody had an opinion,” Grossman added.
And none of it feels like homework. The themes are serious and the discussions intense, but the books are fast-paced and fun. “A lot of contemporary adult literature is characterized by a real distrust of plot,” Grossman said. “I think young adult fiction is one of the few areas of literature right now where storytelling really thrives.”
Y.A. may also pierce the jadedness and cynicism of our adult selves. “When you talk to people about the books that have meant a lot to them, it’s usually books they read when they were younger because the books have this wonder in everyday things that isn’t bogged down by excessively grown-up concerns or the need to be subtle or coy,” explained Jesse Sheidlower, an editor at large at the Oxford English Dictionary and member of Kidlit. “When you read these books as an adult, it tends to bring back the sense of newness and discovery that I tend not to get from adult fiction.”
“There’s an immediacy in the prose,” said Darcey Steinke, a novelist who says she reads about one Y.A. book a month (recent favorites: “Elsewhere,” by Gabrielle Zevin — “better than ‘The Lovely Bones’ — and anything by Francesca Lia Block of “Weetzie Bat” fame). “I like the way adolescent emotions are rawer, less canned.”
Caitlin Macy, the author of the story collection “Spoiled” and another Kidlit member, pointed out that the early teens are “a moment in time when you feel that each decision you make — like who you sit next to at lunch — is actually going to have repercussions for the rest of your life.” As Steinke puts it: “There’s a timelessness to the period. These books are far from you, yet are also the same as you.”
Fortunately, it’s a you who need not be embarrassed about still reading kids’ books.

Pamela Paul’s most recent book is “Parenting, Inc.” She writes the Studied column for the Sunday Styles section of The Times.

The Hunger Games Trilogy is coming to an end!

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:53:00 +0000

Mockingjay is the third and final book in Suzanne Collins’s “Hunger Games” Trilogy. To celebrate its release and encourage other people to try out this fantastic series, Wrapped Up in Books will be giving away a copy of the hardcover, which comes out on August 24th. The sign up period starts today and the winner will be announced sometime before 12PM on Monday, August 23rd.

Contest Rules
1. To enter, leave a comment with your name and email address on Wrapped Up in Books' Mocking Jay post before 11PM CST on Saturday, August 21st.
2. Your comment will count as one (1) entry. For additional entries, you can do one, or all, of the following:
-Be a follower of my blog, “Wrapped Up in Books.” (+1)
-Promote this contest on your blog, Facebook, Myspace, LiveJournal, or in a general status update on Goodreads and provide me with a link to said promotion. Every valid link provided will count as one additional entry of your name into the pool.
-Tell me about the last great book you read, including why you liked it so much. (+1)
3. The winner we be chosen by random drawing and announced by 12PM CST on Monday, August 23rd. I will both email the winner and announce it here on the blog. You’ll have 48 hours from that time (until 12PM CST on August 25th) to respond to my email to claim your prize. If I don’t hear from the winner within that time, I will draw again.
4. The book will be mailed by me no later than Monday, August 30th, using the shipping speed of my choice.
5. This contest is open internationally.

Mystical Lit Lounge is also giving away a free copy, so check them out!!

Do not miss out on all of the other kewl Hunger Games events, activities, and giveaways over this coming month. Check out the Hunger Games Official Facebook Page for more information.

Iraqi Official Says Thousands Of Artifacts Recovered

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:52:00 +0000

Check out this article on the return of Iraqi antiquities!

Seedbombing for the Modern Guerilla Gardening Movement

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:07:00 +0000

Check out this great article on seedbombing! Sounds like a lot of fun!!!

Chamber of Secrets

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:33:00 +0000

I just stumbled across a blog that I really like. The author focuses on poetry, but also delves into the different aspects of reality, thought, form, etc. It is interesting, insightful, and full of lovely art! Below is an excerpt:

Form and emptiness

As the Sunday settles I'd like to highlight a quote from Dalai Lama on form and emptiness, a closely knit pair:

"Since form (phenomena) is emptiness and emptiness is form, then instead of a hand grasping at nothing, it is better to grasp at someone´s nose because this is closer to reality." How can anyone not be fond of this man?

And so, the subject matter. Empty and non-empty are two impossible ways of describing, in lack of a better word, emptiness. Form/phenomena and emptiness are viewed to be two sides of a coin, two ways of describing the same thing. One cannot, it seems, describe and name the things that surpass language, that lie beyond the scope of conceptualization. How, then, can one grasp this notion?

One is through paradox. By embracing paradoxical truths, sitting with them, walking with them, bending one's mind to them. 'Can I contain this? How does this make sense? What part of my being is touched by this?' And then to quiet one's mind to linguistic intrusion. Language is not the place to get what lies in the form/emptiness thought. Toss any pair of concept overboard, and concentrate on the direct knowing of reality: "At the still point of the turning world [...] there the dance is" (T.S. Eliot). Or

Not dependent on another, peaceful and
Not fabricated by mental fabrication,
Not thought, without distinctions,
That is the character of reality (that-ness). (Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamakakarika, XVIII, 9. Transl. J. Garfield.)

At the same time: words are needed in order to get our thoughts out there, and of course to learn what other people are thinking. There's obviously a necessity to travel from a non-verbal state as an infant, into the world of concept and language and then to take a few steps (or more) into the wordless, timeless sphere. "Only through time time is conquered" (my friend Eliot again).

In this wilderness of concepts and words and what one really means by the words one speaks, Dalai Lama seems to have a wonderfully pragmatic and playful approach to it all - at least when he is speaking to us laymen. He seems to emanate a wonderful and easy lightheartedness, a true kind of contentment. To me, only a look at his face makes my heart lighten up. And forget about any tight knot of ideas and language and fuzzy thinking. Life can be so light!

Have You Ever Been Interested in Reiki???

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:23:00 +0000

Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered with a light touch, based on the belief that natural energy flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one's energy is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy, healthy, and thus capable of fulfilling our dreams.

Reiki is a simple, natural and safe method of healing and self-improvement that everyone can use. It has been effective in helping any illness and always creates a beneficial effect. It also works in conjunction with all other medical or therapeutic techniques to relieve side effects and promote recovery.

Interested, so far? Then check out Heart Spirals! Christine McKenna believes that we all have the potential to be catalysts for healing far beyond what we realize, and our love matters tremendously. Reiki provides a wonderful conduit for accessing and sharing the innate healer within each of us. If you want to learn powerful and proven ways of helping yourself, friends, family, clients, animals, and others experience relaxation, pain relief, personal and spiritual growth, and holistic healing from the inside out, Reiki workshops are for you!

On the weekend of August 14th and 15th, from 10am to 6pm each day, you have the opportunity to learn Reiki I and II in a retreat setting by Lake Griffy in Bloomington, Indiana.

Reiki I: $85 early bird/$95 reg
Reiki II: $105 early bird/$115 reg
Sign up for both days
and SAVE...
I and II: $169 early bird/
$189 regular

Reiki I
~ Receive Reiki I Certification, a full day of experiential training, an energetic attunement, and a comprehensive manual to take home.
~ Learn an amazing tool for relaxation, pain reduction, spiritual and personal growth, and healing from the root cause.
~ Cultivate a gift of healing that you can offer to friends, family, animals, clients, patients, plants, yourself, and anything else your heart desires.
~ Build community with like-minded friends.
~ Get to know this abundant source of life force energy within and all around us and how you can tap into it to serve the greater good.
~ Develop a powerful tool to use anywhere, anytime, and with anyone.
~ Deepen self awareness.
~ Gain a renewed sense of purpose and meaning.
* No prior training required whatsoever. Reiki is for everyone!

Reiki II
~ Amplify your abilities to powerfully offer pain relief, relaxation,
balancing, and healing (from the root cause) for yourself and others.
~ Learn to use Reiki to heal unresolved issues from the past,
and "empower the future."
~ Offer distance Reiki to individuals living anywhere on the planet.
~ Transform your relationship with your body into one of loving teamwork.
~ Cultivate tools for opening your heart.
~ Better understand the relationship between your body and emotions.
~ Learn 3 Reiki symbols.
~ Learn tools to clear emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual blocks.
~ Meet wonderful new friends.
- Receive Reiki II Certification and a comprehensive manual.
~ Fall in love with Reiki all over again!
*Pre-requisite: Must have completed Reiki I with any certified teacher.

For more information contact Christine McKenna, or visit her website.

Quotes of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 23:15:00 +0000

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
- H. L. Mencken

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before... He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
- Kurt Vonnegut

The Many Voices Of Lauryn Hill

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:57:00 +0000

Remember Lauryn Hill? Anyone who listened to music in the '90s can tell ya something about Lauryn Hill. I think my first exposure to her was in Sister Act with Whoopie Goldberg - Her voice blew me away and I wanted to be her! I watched that movie over and over again so I could here her sing and try to mimic her cadence. What about you?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128149135
by Zoe Chace
June 28, 2010

I interviewed a lot of people for my story about Lauryn Hill's voice. I had to, because I didn't know if I'd be able to speak to her myself. The singer and rapper last released a recording eight years ago. She rarely performs in the U.S., and she almost never gives interviews. But her fans haven't forgotten her — they're still pleading for her to come back. Hill is a fantastic singer, as well as one of the greatest MCs of all time, and the story of her voice is the story of a generation.

It doesn't take much for a group of 30-somethings to get nostalgic about Hill. Put her solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, on at a bar, and it takes the crowd right back to college days or high-school summers. I met Daryl Lutz while he was hanging out with a group of friends on the deck of Marvin's Bar in downtown Washington, D.C.

"We went to school in Hampton, Va., and she came to do a show," he said. "It was one of the best times in my life — I mean, she spoke to me! We snuck backstage and I got her to sign my meal card. She said, 'This is your meal card, brother, you know?' I said, 'That's all I got.' She signed it, 'Eat well — L. Boogie.' That's something I'll never forget. I love her. I love her to death."

I heard tons of stories like Lutz's that night — mostly closed with this plea: "Come back, Lauryn. We need you. Come back!" People spoke directly into the microphone, as if it were a telephone line.

From New Ark To Israel

Hill became a star with the hip-hop trio The Fugees. Their second album, The Score, came out in 1996, and it was an instant classic. The group — Hill, Wyclef Jean and Prakazrel Michel — sounded like they were in perfect sync. On the first single, "Fu-gee-la," Hill sang the hook, rhymed a verse, then sang again. She was the total package, more so than any other rapper, male or female, has been.

She's one of slickest rappers ever: Her rhymes are dexterous, spiritual, hilarious, surprising. Without a doubt, she was the best-looking rapper the world had ever seen. And Hill was a soul singer with a real old-school, almost militant, politic. The second single was Hill's cover of Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly." That recording has never really gone away, and its success built the expectations for Hill's solo record to a fever pitch. Particularly to women and young girls who listened to her then, she was a revelation. There was steel in her voice when she rapped; she sang like she really cared about our hopeless crushes and our impotent rages, like she really loved us. We thought maybe we could grow up to be like her.

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill came out in 1998. It was like LeBron James' rookie year in the NBA. You knew he had the potential to be great after seeing him in high school — and then, right out of the gate, he's one of the best ball players in the league.

Jayson Jackson, part of Hill's management team, described the recording process this way: "The record was already inside her. She would go into the studio, and it would just pour out of her."

Lenesha Randolph sang backing vocals on Miseducation, and she describes herself today as the backing vocals "to all your favorite artists." She's on tour with Lady Gaga right now, but a formative influence on her singing was her work in the studio singing backup for Hill.

"I don't know if people are gonna like this album, because I'm just singing, and nobody wants to hear rappers sing," Hill told Randolph at the time. Randolph says she couldn't believe it. "I was like, 'What are you talking about?' " Randolph says. "I would just stare at her, like, look in her mouth! Because when you hear her sing, and then hear her speak — it had such power and volume and rasp. It was something to strive for."

Everything Is Everything

In 1998, everyone was listening to her sing: mothers, daughters, college students and little kids. As the rapper Nas described his audience, "listeners, bluntheads, fine ladies and prisoners." Miseducation crossed demographics and genres. It made people dance and cry and blast it from their speakers as they drove around with their best friends.

Jay Smooth, a longtime radio DJ, remembers there was a little sadness in the hip-hop community that there was less rhyming on the album than during Hill's time with The Fugees. "We may have missed out on the best rap album of all time," he says. Nevertheless, the album was a note that longtime fans of hip-hop had been craving for someone to hit. Smooth says that for people his age — the same age as Hill, the same age as people like Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls — "we saw our generation create something so powerful and innovative. They were speaking with a love and righteousness that we, perhaps naively, believed could change the world at that time."

Smooth compares the idealism of the hip-hop generation to the hippies before it. But just as the optimism of the '60s gave way to what he describes as "the malaise of the '70s," Smooth says that hip-hop had lost its way. The music grew more commercialized, and consequently more violent and self-involved, culminating in the deaths of Tupac in 1996, and then Biggie Smalls in 1997.

"It was right after that, in 1998, that Lauryn Hill's album came out," Smooth says. "And it seemed that she was that voice inside our soul — coming out and asking all of us, 'How could we have gone so wrong?' and 'Can we have some grown folks talking about loving ourselves, before it's too late? If it's not already too late?' "

'Look At Your Career,' They Said. 'Lauryn, Baby, Use Your Head'

Hill raked in the Grammys, including Album of the Year. But that same year, some of her collaborators filed suit, saying they weren't properly credited on the album. They settled out of court, and the stir over the suit prompted what seemed like a fall from grace for Lauryn Hill.

Shortly after the Grammys, in the winter of 1999, Hill disappeared from public life. For years afterward, her fans traded rumors — the prevailing theory was that she'd had some kind of breakdown. Smooth says he thinks the pressure put on her to save the hip-hop generation from itself might have broken her. She was also a busy mother: Over the past 10 years, she's had five children. Her MTV Unplugged album, which came out in 2002, seemed to reveal a person worn thin.

After Unplugged, those of us who grew up listening to her missed her voice in the same way we missed our hopeful youth. That powerful sound that represented great potential being fulfilled was silent.

"No one ever stops missing her," Smooth says. "Every time you say her name — like, 'Lauryn Hill walked into Home Depot' — you'll be hoping she starts tapping on a table and making a beat and singing."

This could be the year.

After Winter Must Come Spring

Lauryn Hill took the stage at the Harmony Festival in Santa Rosa, Calif., just a few weeks ago. She's barely performed at all in the U.S. in the past 10 years. The band was restless and loud behind her, almost drowning her out at times. She looked completely regal, even in a carnival balloon-style jumpsuit, with her hair blown out and dyed maroon to match. She pranced around the stage in huge heels, shouting directions to the band, as though they were in rehearsal. When she rapped, her words flew by so fast, it seemed she was barely breathing. But when the sound guy brought her mic up and the band would breathe for a moment, her voice soared over the crowd. It was the same voice I'd grown up with, just as raw and present and full of soul as I remembered.

The reputation that surrounds Hill is wild — it's hard to know what to believe, because she does so few interviews. She's got handlers on top of handlers, publicists and managers who, you think, will lead you to her, and then they turn out to be red herrings. My editor and I chased them all down during the weekend of the Harmony Festival. I was told by various people to not touch her, don't look her in the eye; that instead of talking directly to you, she writes on a Post-It note and sticks it to your chest. I've also been told repeatedly not to call her "Lauryn" anything — she goes by Ms. Hill. This is the only rumor that turns out to be true, in my case. Because after her performance in Santa Rosa, when we ask Ms. Hill if we can ride with her back to the hotel and ask her some questions, she tells us to get in the car.

I ask her the question her fans have been asking each other for years: Why did you stop putting out music?

"There were a number of different reasons," she says. "But partly, the support system that I needed was not necessarily in place. There were things about myself, personal-growth things, that I had to go through in order to feel like it was worth it. In fact, as musicians and artists, it's important we have an environment — and I guess when I say environment, I really mean the [music] industry, that really nurtures these gifts. Oftentimes, the machine can overlook the need to take care of the people who produce the sounds that have a lot to do with the health and well-being of society, or at least some aspect of society. And it's important that people be given the time that they need to go through, to grow, so that the consciousness level of the general public is properly affected. Oftentimes, I think people are forced to make decisions prematurely. And then that sound radiates."

This would sound self-important coming from many other artists, especially popular artists. But to someone who grew up with Hill, it makes sense. She did have a hand in shaping how we were feeling, or it seemed that she did. And the disappointment of her disappearance is just one in a catalog of disappointments that we experienced as we grew up.

Her voice sounds just the same: low and raspy, full of intensity and soul. It's no wonder. She tells me she grew up singing along with mostly male soul singers — "the Donny Hathaways, the Stevie Wonders, the Jackie Wilsons." As for her rhyming skills, she says she used to have a rapping voice and a singing voice. But now the voices have to become one, in order for her to get the kind of music mix that she wants in a live performance. It's a work in progress. It's so funny to hear that Hill is still working on her extraordinary voice — holding it out in front of her, waving it like a sheet to see what more she can shake out of it.

"I'm trying to open up my range and really sing more," she says. "With The Fugees initially, and even with Miseducation, it was very hip-hop — always a singing over beats. I don't think people have really heard me sing out. So if I do record again, perhaps it will have an expanded context. Where people can hear a bit more."

How You Gonna Win When You Ain't Right Within?

I ask her what it feels like to sing, and she flips the question on me — "Well, what's it like to hear me?" I tell her listening to her sing makes me feel both happy and sad. It feels like her voice comes from a higher place. I'm paraphrasing all the people I've interviewed about her.

"The feeling that you get," she says, "I get first. I think you have a delayed experience with the feeling that I usually get. When I have a creative insight, there is a high. I think back in the day, I made music as much as I did because it made me feel so good. I think you could argue that there is a creative addiction — but, you know, the healthy kind."

I ask her about having a voice that moves so many people, if there isn't a certain amount of responsibility that comes along with that.

"I think about it, and yet I don't think about it," she says. We pull into the hotel parking lot and she's about to continue, but we're interrupted by one of the festival employees, who comes up to the car to ask if someone-or-other's keys are in the Suburban we're riding in.

"No," Hill says with a laugh. "No one in here has those keys." After all, it's just Hill, me, the driver and my editor in the car. As the man walks away, Hill says, "He looks just like Matthew McConaughey. First, second cousin. He does! ... What I was I saying? Oh, I think if I was created with such power or an ability, then what's also been put in me is the blueprint for the responsibility part, as well. I have to take care of myself in order to take care of this gift, which has affected so many. I don't treat it lightly. It's important to me to be healthy and to be whole."

And Hill seems healthy and whole, squished up next to me in the car, making cracks about ridiculous-looking actors, chin in her hand as she thinks through the answers to my questions. She doesn't tell me to move back, or that she doesn't want to answer something. Watching her perform earlier in the day made me uneasy. I felt like I was watching a captain who had spent a life at sea, then lived on land for 10 years, stumbling a bit her first time back on the deck of a boat. But hearing her steadiness now, I feel hopeful. It's also a reality check: Why did we demand so much of this woman?

"I don't know if you know this, but I have five children," she says. "The youngest is 2 now, so she's old enough that I can leave her for a period of time and know she's going to be OK. That's one reason [Hill is starting to perform again]. And I think it's just time. I'm starting to get excited again. Believe it or not, I think what people are attracted to about me, if anything, is my passion. People got exposed to my passion through music and song first. I think people might realize, you know, 'We love the way she sounds, we love the music, but I think we just love how fearless she is. How boundless she is, when it comes to what she wants to do.' And I think that can be infectious."

This closes the interview. I thank her. She says, "You're welcome," and my editor and I leave the car. We sit on the stairs for a few minutes to catch our breath. We spent all weekend chasing Lauryn Hill, hoping to have this conversation about her voice. I compared it to a video game with infinite levels you didn't even know existed, like when you beat a level and you think you won, but then you go through a door and there's a whole other world you have to conquer. Getting to Lauryn Hill was like that.

Sara Sarasohn, my editor, compared the chase to the Israelites rising up and following the cloud over the Tent of Meeting. In the Torah, when the Israelites are wandering in the desert, there was a cloud over the Tent of Meeting, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. Moses would go to the Tent of Meeting to communicate with God. At night, the cloud looked like fire. When the cloud lifted and moved, the Israelites would see it and know that it was time for them to move as well in their journey through the desert. It was like the presence of Hill was this cloud that we could see in the distance, and we were trying to follow it, and finally, we got to the Tent of Meeting.

Sitting on the stairs together, Sara and I couldn't help but cry, just a little. We talked to Lauryn Hill. And she's doing fine.

Virtual Cat

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:22:00 +0000

Everyone has to check out this amazingly fun virtual cat!!

Funny Quote :o)

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:17:00 +0000

I bought a cactus. A week later it died. And I got depressed, because I thought, Damn. I am less nurturing than a desert.
- Demetri Martin

Seeing Past the BP Spill

noreply@blogger.com (Danie B.) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 21:31:00 +0000

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011286.html
Alex Steffen, 16 Jun 10

We've gotten a few inquiries lately about why we aren't devoting a lot more discussion to the BP Spill. After all, isn't this the "worst environmental disaster in American history?" Shouldn't a site whose purpose is to explore solutions to planetary problems be all over the planet's most visible current problem?

In a word, no. The decision not to cover the BP Spill has been fairly straightforward for us: we don't do problems, unless we're covering them in order to explain how a solution could work, or unless a new analysis of a problem is so telling that it changes the way we understand how it could be solved. The BP Spill is huge, but not particularly unique.

The BP Spill will almost certainly go down as the decade's most visible industrial accident. The BP corporate leaders involved ought probably to go to jail. The wetlands and beaches of the Gulf of Mexico will suffer horrible environmental degradation. Local people will suffer the loss of their ways of life and of places they love, as well as health effects. The impact on the marine life of the Gulf is as yet unknowable.

Yet, while the BP Spill is the biggest single oil spill we here in America have experienced, in terms of overall impact, it's just a drop in our pollution bucket. Thousands of major spills happen around the world each year. Even in terms of oil spilled in North America, this disaster is small compared to business as usual: more than 90% of all the oil spilled in North America comes from oil leaked from cars (or poured down drains) finding its way to the sea, according to a landmark 2002 report; in the Puget Sound region alone, more oil is leaked from cars and home use every two years than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez.

And oil spills are far from the worst environmental disasters we've unleashed and are in the process of unleashing through the routine operation of our economy as currently designed. Climate change will over the next century almost certainly prove far more destructive to the natural systems and human communities of the Gulf than any oil spill ever could, and that's a problem the Deepwater rig would have worsened if it had worked perfectly, as part of its successful operation. And, as we've mentioned here before, climate change is only the largest problem in a set of interconnected problems that stem from transgressing our planetary boundaries, problems that include massive extinctions, marine deadzones, desertification, and ocean acidification. The entire living fabric of our planet is being shredded, and human communities irreparably harmed, by the systems that deliver our prosperity.

The key word here is systems. Unless we understand the problems we face as systemic problems, we don't really understand them at all and can't do much about them. Unless we understand that we need to redesign and rebuild the systems that support modern life on a massive scale, very quickly, we're essentially missing the point, and guaranteeing that the destruction of the planet's biosphere will continue.

Few in the American political landscape are willing to use the oil spill to point to the real nature of our challenges. What the BP Spill tells us is not that we need tougher environmental laws, or a ban of offshore oil exploration, or even a national clean-energy strategy. What the BP Spill tells us, if we're really paying attention, is that the American economy needs systemic change, now. Even with tougher laws, bans on drilling and massive subsidies for wind and solar, the systems we depend upon for our way of life will be violently and cataclysmically destructive: the BP Spill is just a small manifestation of a massively larger problem. We need to be embracing an entirely different set of solutions right now. Political leaders in the US and worldwide need to move beyond short-term thinking and think big, think connected, and think ahead.

In failing to see that the BP Spill is a symptom, we also make it easy to blame the wrong people for the failures of the systems we now use. I've read dozens of pieces parroting the opinion that the BP Spill is all of our faults; that because we all use oil, we've all been responsible for making this happen. That's just stupid. Leaving aside entirely the fact that this particular spill itself appears to be the result of unethical and possibly criminal leadership within BP, the simple fact is that we continue to use so much oil largely because Big Oil, the car companies, the road-building lobby and sprawl developers have engaged in one of the largest sustained political efforts in history to keep us using as much oil as possible by blocking climate legislation and gas taxes, fighting smart growth laws and new public transportation investments, stalling higher mileage standards in new cars, channeling trillions of dollars into new roads and auto infrastructure, gutting water- and air-quality laws, even (arguably) getting a former oil man (George W.) elected, which resulted in a war for oil and general atmosphere of climate denialism. We burn oil in such astonishing quantities because those who profit from selling and using oil have all but run the American political system for the last ten years, and exerted decades of dominant influence before that.

In that light, our personal behaviors are essentially meaningless, especially if they aren't part of a larger effort to identify ways of changing our cities, transportation, agriculture and energy systems to function much more sustainably. If we want to change our impacts, we need to change our systems, on a scope we almost never talk about, stretching through essentially every aspect of our society.

Discussing how we might do that -- how we might find solutions that work at the scope, scale and speed we need -- is what Worldchanging does. We've published more than 11,000 essays, interviews, stories and blog posts about what those sorts of solutions might look like, how they might work, how we might actually begin to implement them. Exploring how we might actually build a bright green future -- one that offers the prosperity we all demand with the sustainability we need -- is what we do every day, day after day, as we have for almost seven years.

So you won't see many pictures of oil-soaked pelicans or congressional hearings here. If you stick around, though, you might find some new ideas about how to build a future that works. Scope, scale and speed is the name of the game now. As we launch into a set of new editorial initiatives over the summer, we'll be doing our best to report on solutions that offer all three.

*D.Day*

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