Eleven Minutes

Eleven Minutes is the film documenting Project Runway's Season One Winner Jay McCarroll's first fashion show at Bryant park. McCarroll did not take the prize money form Project Runway, choosing instead to establish himself without the constraints of Project Runway's financial support. Fashion is wacky and crazy and definitely "in the moment" creativity. This was a great film to watch - it was shown on the Style network this weekend, and I am hoping it will be available on DVD soon!

Libby, Montana

Nestled under the spectacular peaks of the Northern Rockies in Montana — as iconic a representation of America's "purple mountain majesties" as one can find — lies one of the country's worst cases of community poisoning from industrial pollution. In the small town of Libby, many hundreds of people are sick or have already died from exposure to asbestos, a notorious industrial toxin that many Americans would consider long banned or under control. "Libby, Montana" takes a working day's journey into a blue-collar community and finds a different reality — one where the American Dream exacts a terrible price.

This was hard to watch, but necessary. Public health and cleaning up our messes and accountability.

This video brought to you by the letter "C"

I'm home today planning for classes for the fall. Compiling music, learning some guitar chords - Maille is playing along to all my music with her rhythm instruments, which is very inspiring and cute. My classes are small enough to be able to do some neat arrangements and games. I am really looking forward to the year!

Health Care

As some of you know, I've over the top angry about this health care thing. Not the well-articulated, thoughtful debate. Just all the lies and propaganda and "mine mine mine" name calling in the face of people dying without care. here's a website I like - and I am glad to read the truths, as well as the fact that I am not the only one who wants to yell "pants on fire"!

Politifact - statements on health

I am not blogging more on the subject at this time because I feel the anger takes me away from family and life responsibilities. I'm deeply concerned, but am reading and studying until such time as I find myself in a place where I can make a difference. I did a lot of thinking about change and growth and "forcing" people to see my way in the past few months. Many studies have shown that often, "forcing" someone to adopt your view merely solidifies their own. What often works best is when individuals come to change because of their own life expereinces. I'm still pondering how this all works for me.

Teacher Discounts!

From this morning's Shelf Awareness:

Notes: Bookstore Educational Competition 101
Borders Group is increasing its discount to educators, including teachers, home schoolers and librarians, for books, music CDs, toys and games for classroom use to 25% from 20%. In addition, during educator appreciation week--September 29-October 7--the discount increases to 30% and can be for personal use too.The company has also established Teaching Zone sections in its superstores, which feature educational workbooks, curriculum development books, inspirational narratives as well as many non-book items such as stickers and classroom decor products. The sections are next to the children's departments.At the same time, Barnes & Noble has added B&N@school, a new section that provides access to educational tools for parents, teachers and librarians at B&N stores and at Barnes & Noble.com. The educator discount program, which gives 20% discounts, now applies at B&N.com, too.

Good to know for the few times I am not using the library - also a great resource for kids songbooks.

Julie and Julia

I was unable to embed the trailer from this film, but this youtube clip of Julia Child and Pepin is great too. I had read both of the books this film was based on and highly recommend them. The film ws surprisingly good too - I htought it might be a little fluffy, but it was fun and they did a very good job with the historical Julia Child facts. You could make an entire film just about Julia Child, her life was so rich and interesting, and I highly suggest My Life In France as interesting reading as well!

update: some more info from Shelf Awareness:

The film Julie & Julia continues to fire up book sales nationally. The Tri-City Herald reported that Richland, Wash., bookstores Adventures Underground and Hastings Books Music Video & Coffee prepared for the reaction, but are still working hard to keep pace with demand."We realized that once the movie came out, we would have to stock up," said Amanda Divine of Adventures Underground. According to the Herald, "both Hastings and Adventures Underground placed book orders anticipating the movie to boost sales, but when Divine received her shipment Thursday, she only received two copies of Child's My Life in France and Powell's book.""Everything else is on back order," she said. [Editor's note: the in-house chief editorial critic says readers MUST go see this, if only to watch Meryl Streep play Julia Child. Best viewed preceding a tasty repast.]

The Film Club: A Memoir

by David Gilmour

In this sensitive memoir, Canadian film critic and novelist Gilmour tells of the bargain he struck with his son, 15-year-old Jesse, who was unhappy at school. Gilmour would allow Jesse to drop out if he would agree to watch three movies a week with his dad. Over the next three years, the two would wrangle over movies that the elder Gilmour thought his son would love but didn’t (A Hard Day’s Night) and experience the irrational thrills of “guilty pleasures” (Showgirls). More important, they edged slantwise, in typical male fashion, into more personal discussions of big topics, such as sexual jealousy (Last Tango in Paris) and alcoholism (Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry). At the same time, Jesse dealt with serious heartbreak, while his father struggled to find steady work and worried incessantly over whether he had made the right decision in allowing his son to drop out of school. (from Booklist)

I really enjoyed this - both for the well written tale of a father and son, and also the great film commentary. There is a list in the back of Gilmour's "must see" films he watches with his son. I will have to add them to my netflix list!

A Movement Model of Social Change

Palmer speaks of Vaclav Havel's address to Congress, which in part says:

At the same time, however unintentionally, of course [the Communist system] has given us something positive: a special capacity to look, from time to time, somewhat further than someone who has not undergone this bitter experience. A person who cannot move and live a normal life because he is pinned under a boulder has more time to think about his hopes than someone who is not trapped in this way.

What I am trying to say is this: We must all learn many things from you, from how to educate our offspring, how to elect our representatives, all the way to how to organize our economic life so that it will lead to prosperity and not poverty. But it doesn't have to be merely assistance from the well-educated, the powerful and the wealthy to someone who has nothing to offer in return.

We too can offer something to you: our experience and the knowledge that has come from it.

This is a subject for books, many of which have already been written and many of which have yet to be written. I shall therefore limit myself to a single idea.

The specific experience I'm talking about has given me one great certainty: Consciousness precedes Being, and not the other way around, as Marxists claim.

For this reason, the salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human humbleness and in human responsibility.

Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better in the sphere of our Being as humans, and the catastrophe toward which this world is headed, whether it be ecological, social, demographic or a general breakdown of civilization, will be unavoidable. If we are no longer threatened by world war or by the danger that the absurd mountains of accumulated nuclear weapons might blow up the world, this does not mean that we have definitively won. We are in fact far from definite victory.

We are still a long way from that "family of man;" in fact, we seem to be receding from the ideal rather than drawing closer to it. Interests of all kinds: personal, selfish, state, national, group and, if you like, company interests still considerably outweigh genuinely common and global interests. We are still under the sway of the destructive and thoroughly vain belief that man is the pinnacle of creation, and not just a part of it, and that therefore everything is permitted. There are still many who say they are concerned not for themselves but for the cause, while they are demonstrably out for themselves and not for the cause at all. We are still destroying the planet that was entrusted to us, and its environment. We still close our eyes to the growing social, ethnic and cultural conflicts in the world. From time to time we say that the anonymous megamachinery we have created for ourselves no longer serves us but rather has enslaved us, yet we still fail to do anything about it.

In other words, we still don't know how to put morality ahead of politics, science and economics. We are still incapable of understanding that the only genuine backbone of all our actions if they are to be moral is responsibility. Responsibility to something higher than my family, my country, my firm, my success. Responsibility to the order of Being, where all our actions are indelibly recorded and where, and only where, they will be properly judged.

Lots to think about in the times we now live in - these words were written in 1990.

Shopping Locally: Follow the Money

"Because you’re shopping at my store, I get a paycheck. What do I do with that paycheck? This week, I ate at the Art Cliff, I shopped at the Down Island Farmer's Market, I bought toothpaste at Leslie's and bought a present at LeRoux. And hopefully, the waitress I tipped, the farmer I bought chicken eggs from, the people working at Leslie's and LeRoux will then use some of that money to buy a book at my store. The same goes for every one of our employees, as well as our owner. We pay taxes in your town . . . our building and our business and our owner. More money that stays in the community, through schools, public works, etc. The sales tax you pay through us goes to your state. Our business, our owner and our employees contribute to your local charities. . . . We would love to promise that we will be here on Main St. forever, but in order to do that, we need people to continue to support us in the amazing way they always have."--Katherine Fergason, from the Bunch of Grapes (Vineyard Haven, Mass.) bookstore blog.

This quote resonated with me today. Yesterday I bought my newest moleskine notebook at Riverrun books in Portsmouth. I don't often buy books, but for the few times a year I am Xmas shopping, etc I try to support the locals. I so appreciate being able to walk through Portsmouth or Exeter or Newburyport and see all the shops with interesting things. I at least always get my greeting cards there. Small things, but it's important not to just buy all those little things at the local big box store, I think.

The Community of Truth

"Truth is an eternal conversation about things that matter, conducted with passion and discipline." Parker Palmer

"We invite DIVERSITY into our community not because it is politically correct but because diverse viewpoints are demanded by the manifold mysteries of great things.

We embrace AMBIGUITY not because we are confused or indecisive but because we understand the inadequacy of our concepts to embrace the vastness of great things.

We welcome CREATIVE CONFLICT not because we are angry or hostile but because conflict is required to correct our biases and prejudices about the nature of great things.

We practice HONESTY not only because we owe it to one another but because to lie about what we have seen would be to betray the truth of great things.

We experience HUMILITY not because we have fought and lost but because humility is the only lens through which great things can be seen - and once we have seen them, humility is the only posture possible.

We have become FREE men and women in the fellowship of community not because we have privileged information but because tyranny in any form can be overcome only by involving the grace of great things."

from The Courage to Teach

I'm headed to school this morning to drop off some boxes, and take a look at my classroom. The room where hopefully, I'll start to allow a community to happen, and embrace all that brings. I've never had my own classroom before in all my years of teaching, and I am looking forward to the ways in which it will make things easier. I am conscious of one other concern - in the past, I was located in different classrooms through my buildings for music - thus, I had to share space and people were able to see what I was teaching, and I was able to see the students in many environments. Luckily, I will have every student in the school weekly as my student. A great opportunity to meet all the members of this school community starting form the bottom up. As the onset of school looms on the horizon, I am doing more thinking than ever before about classroom spaces, safety of opposing ideas, and letting curriculum and learning emerge form the students' honest inquiry.

Whittier Poetry in Amesbury

this Sunday, Aug. 9, at the 11th annual collaborative Reading from the Poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier. Local poets, writers and volunteers devoted to keeping Whittier’s story and work alive for new generations of readers, will share selected poems and passages in the garden of the poet’s Amesbury home.

Link in the Amesbury News

Link to The Whittier Home Association

Busy in Chinese

…The Chinese word for “busy” is composed of two characters: “heart” and “killing”. When we make ourselves [or our kids] so busy that we are always rushing around trying to get this or that “done” or“over-with”, we kill something vital in ourselves, and we smother the quiet wisdom of our heart. When we invest our work with judgment and impatience, always striving for speed and efficiency, we lose the capacity to appreciate the million quiet moments that may bring us peace, beauty, or joy. As we seek salvation through our frantic productivity and accomplishments, we squander the teachings that may be present in this very moment, in the richness of this particular breath.

This little tidbit is found here in a longer essay/sermon. I have some issues with the new-agey trend of finding multiple meanings in Chinese characters - it's often in error as the translation is not grounded in a cultural context. However, I'll remember this one! Good sermon to read as well.

Morning Space

"All work is important. All work is of value. The Amish honor what we would call the process and the product. Both. What I saw among the Amish was the amazing amount of energy available to people who get pleasure from what they are doing and find meaning in the work itself. But they are practical people who want that can of beans at the end of the day and the sixty-six jars of relish. For them it's all connected.
"Since all work is honored, there is no need to rush to get one thing over so you can get on to something more important. The Amish understand that it's not rushing through tasks to achieve a series of goals that is satisfying; it's experiencing each moment along the way."
-- From Plain and Simple: A Woman's Journey to the Amish, by Sue Bender

I spent this morning revisiting Sue Bender's writings with my morning coffee by the sea. I was going to try to summarize her sense of space, of peace, of her conflict with the tasks of the day, but she does it herself here beautifully.

Back to Reality/Forward into Change

"You cannot step into the same river twice." - -- Heraclitus

I am still musing on many things that opened up to me this week, and I am sure they'll emerge here later on....

But I was horribly (?) conscious of a thinking/perception shift last evening. After a week of Quakerly discernment, holding each other in light with some very tough considerations, I returned home to what I can only describe as a jarring introduction to my regular ol' "reality". I attended an organizational meeting for a certainly worthy cause, one that I am only momentarily involved in (the specifics of the endeavor are not really relevant here).

I saw a typical "meeting" where everybody fought to make their point, struggled to be heard, win/lose situations, poor planning that I am convinced will result in loss of revenue, time, and effort. It was VERY hard for me to sit through. And I have done much group training/collaboration work in the past, so I am not new to this phenomenon.

This time it was just more tedious, more draining, more unsettling.

However, I do think I was able to gasp the shift in my perceptions, which helped me to just sit back and watch the process. There were many things that I could have commented on and volunteered to "fix". And yet, I somehow knew already at that moment that this was not my path to be on, I was to sit, to listen for a moment, and then move on.

Later on I handed over some of the work to another member of our own meeting, for the subsequent fair in October. It felt really great to have participated in a true and simple way, and then passed on the burden when I felt it was no longer mine to hold. So yes, I was "back" in a group again, watching mayhem unfold, and yet somehow it was totally different. Not the same river at all!

Praying

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

~ Mary Oliver ~

NEYM - Wednesday (part one)

The blazing discovery which Quakers made, long ago, is rediscovered again and again by individuals and sometimes by groups. The embers flare up, the light becomes glorious. There is no reason why it cannot break out again, today, with blazing power. The world needs it desperately. - Thomas Kelly

I didn't really think the past few days would be glorious at all. A little dim glow would have sufficed. However, I much prefer where I am right now.

There are so many thoughts running through my head, and while I will surely miss my time here, I crave time at home to reflect on what I have learned while back in the context of my own life. I feel spiritually moved, inspired, connected – and yet I am keenly aware that I am in a blissful bubble of sorts, without the outside world pressing upon me. Walking cheerfully comes easily for me here. Too easily? Perhaps. But I suspect I needed to gain a set of spiritual "training wheels" as it were – all this falling into worship with large other groups of like-minded people has helped to deepen my experience easily. I am trying to trust the process for later on when I am not here.

I had a conversation earlier in the week (a continuation of one started months ago) about a seeming division in contemporary Quaker worship - activist or more Christian-grounded, even biblically based. I would expect my leadings to be heavy on the activist side of things. A member of our meeting (who has been at this much longer than me and I am sure knows what he's talking about!) has warned that I must proceed slowly, as not to burn out. Good advice, if I was in this for all the activity...

I am already surrounded by worthy causes. I work in public education, and find myself often serving as an advocate for kids and teachers and creating classrooms of respect and courage and light. Coincidentally, also a Quaker thing. I also have relatives in the mental health system. My own health problems have given me heightened awareness of disability issues of today. I do not have to look far for more good work to do, and there is much to be done.

But still, after a whole year, it's that peace and light that I experience in meeting each week, here with others at Yearly Meeting, and even in my solitary morning walks on the beach that keeps me returning week after week. I leave this week sure that it's not something you "burn out" from. In fact, it may just be the fuel for all the rest of the burnings.

I felt it long ago, when I was much younger. I wanted it to return, but my religious traditions of the time seemed to drive it away from me just when I needed it most. But that deep silence, that sharing with others which I still cannot quite explain, has been remarkably consistent thus far. I look forward to seeing how it continues to manifest itself as I leave. I will depart tommorrow still apprehensive, but hopeful.

A brief break and a weekend reminder...

Scituate Heritage Days is this weekend. All the historic buildings will be open for tours, street fairs, music.... Hoping to get there!

Heritage Days

More NEYM

I have read this blog before, but today it is linked through Martin Kelly - and I had no idea this person was a local! This is a great summary of some points of the week thus far:

http://petersontoscano.wordpress.com/



I am home at rest today - last night I had a nice evening with M and her friend (also M) - pizza, crafts, general toddler mayhem. My walk on the beach this morning was certainly refreshing, and everything seemed all new and shiny. A good reminder for me that what I have experienced this week thus far was in ME, and therefore will continue to travel from Smithfield and beyond within me.



More days of discernment, some great messages shared, some hard work being done. I am happy to see that so far I was indeed able to get out of my own perceptions, and can see the value in the people here even if we all are so different in some ways.



I thought for me the theme of Jubilee would translate into "not pursuing new activities/venues/"busyness". What has emerged for me thus far is the theme of letting go - to old values, perceptions, grudges, things that trap me. What will stick with me first and foremost from this week is what spoke to me - "what do I need to let go of?"

* a definition of "smart" that focuses on my accumulation of college credits, not necessarily experience and true wisdom.
* a need to do everything "right now"
* a fear that my health will fail, that causes me to make poor decisions in the current moment
* a concern that I must be the one to "fix" my family

Only the tip of a very large iceberg. But today I feel a new clarity and wisdom, from watching others grapple with what they need to let go of. Perhaps we're all letting go, but it's moved us to hold on to each other, which is indeed an unintended and lovely aspect of Jubilee.

so THAT'S the way to honor an anniversary...

Two days of Quaker mayhem. Some good, some just so-so, any complaints are only due to my ignorance and youth.

Today's meeting-for-worship-for-business rocked the house, however. Tempers flared, everybody was offended, confusion, bitterness, tears, frustration.....

and yet.......

Spirit moved us to somewhere. I don't know where yet, but I am convinced it is as a group, a whole. It was suggested that we might want to continue in small groups, and we firmly resisted, as so much seemed to be gained in our larger full meeting.

There's so much pain around changes that I personally feel we are being led to. Many have spoken of how we must find the blessing in grappling with these challenges. I am struggling to find a blessing within all these seemingly polar opposites, these views, these trenches we have dug down deep into. Can we see above this, to a greater good for all, perhaps even a new way out?

I have spent the past few months looking towards a split in American Quakerism as I have come to believe it stands now. Perhaps that possibility still remains, and perhaps it is meant to be. However, I now have glimpsed for a moment a brief peace, not of resolution, or even of unity, but of a love for us all to come together and work through our differences. There was a true respect tonight, not because we felt it initially, but because we WANTED it to remain with us.

I am leaving tomorrow, but am hoping to return for at least one more day of discernment. It's now officially "one year" of Quakerdom for me - and what a reintroduction today has been!

August The First (or however you say it in Quaker)

Well....

Headed to New England Yearly Meeting. I have been getting regular updates as to the status of registration, etc on facebook - feels a little like we are all going to summer camp. Except that we are adults, and may still behave as such when we get there.

This is quite a day for me. Application was due for Doctoral program today - not sent, still not sure if the program is "right" for me, so now there's a dream deferred. Perhaps.

It is also the one-year anniversary of the first time I walked into a Quaker meeting. The day my whole spiritual life changed - and a year later I am headed to THE New England Quaker meeting. I am spending most of the week in Quaker worship, and of course trying still to figure out exactly what that is!

Yesterday I also spent some time at the Wampatuck School, a mix of heartache and nostalgia for a job that I know is no longer right for me or my family, but a school family that I will sorely miss.

Our commissioned work for Wind Band arrived (published copy) in the mail this week as well - the final chapter to a hugely magnificent project. What next?

What next indeed? For someone who does not deal with transition and change very well, I sure am pilin' it on this week!

The theme of this week is "jubilee" - a biblical time for rest and renewal, where one should just take what comes, rather than seek to create new experiences directly. A time of reaction, more than mere action. Ironically, we will also debate (I know Quakers don't "debate" - but I surely don't know what else to call all this) the issue of same-sex marriage that has divided so many meetings as of late. We will ask for guidance in creating new policies, supporting our members, doing what is right (once we figure out what that is).

I'm anticipating learning as much about the Quaker structures as the issues themselves. And it does make me nervous that I am headed for a large group of religious-types. In the past, I have thought that can truly only lead to trouble. Lots of "group think" and the like.

I have brought my own spiritual texts (and a worn copy of "Understanding the Bible" - just in case of more academic inquiry) and have committed to making space for thought, meditation, prayer, whatever necessary. I seem to be preoccupied with many "issues" for myself these days - I am hoping to gain a larger perspective that will help with all of them.

Bringing the computer, hopefully will blog of my take on this. Will be interesting to read for myself later.