Friday, February 29, 2008

how silently...how silently....

...the wondrous gift is given...



Marvelous snowfall this morning...huge, relentless flakes. Magical, mystical, miraculous. Along with everything else, the pond is buried in the snow, and the monochromatic landscape has an uber-expansive feel. The island is only defined by the trees...oh, and the cross-country skier, who just - maybe - came from a nearby shore, rather than scraping her way over the bridge.

By Sunday, the ever familiar pendulum swing (locals have never seen such a schizoid winter) will take us to the 40's with rain, and the bare, unattractive ground will be with us...perhaps for a long time.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

babies in the news...


I'm encouraged to see baby health and wholeness issues occasionally featured in the news. Things like...Pediatricians say our children need to be outdoors more. That rolling in the grass, communing with nature are somehow essential to their entire well-being. Imagine that! Maybe nature's green is better that a picture of grass on the computer? Maybe the Baby Channel -- offering programming for 6-month-year-olds and up -- might just be unnecessary - hmm... or even possibly even harmful? That's something we may know, deep down, but I love seeing it featured center-stage.

Then we have some really scary stuff: Container Syndrome -- you know, where you put the baby in a multi-purpose carrier that you rarely have to take them out of. Carry it to the car and it becomes a car seat. Carry it into the house and they can stay in it and play...and watch you from it while you eat dinner...and even sleep in it. Truly, this invention springs from wanting 'the best' for your baby -- offering a seamless existence and minimizing bumps. But the result of overuse of container is not only stunted development (yup - it turns out they really need to squirm and fuss and roll on the floor -- or the grass! -- and try to hold their head up and gain strength from their struggles to crawl), but also grossly misshapen heads that can only be fixed by wearing another container - a helmet. All in all, don't they mostly need the messiness of real interaction? The warmth of human contact? (...maybe even the kind you see in 'underdeveloped countries, where mothers wrap their children in wondrously swathy fabric and tie them to their bodies and then go about their day? Yeah...I know it's possibly harder and perhaps more uncomfortable than we think. But it's both a real and romantic notion that I've always admired. Maybe it would have been worth living in a third world country.)

Then we have a downright evil: Phthalates* -- in the news right now because, in testing the urine of babies who have been recently bathed and shampooed in products like...well, Johnson's baby shampoo, they find a disturbingly high level of phthalates therein. As if our chemically burdened bodies aren't already harming them enough in utero. Perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on our 21st century selves. Even Eskimos and other humans who live in pristine conditions on the 'untouched' poles of our world carry almost the same chemical load as the rest of us. But babies are actually touched by this load before they can even be conceived. Vogue magazine's article An Inconceivable Truth is a powerfully informative article on environmentally instigated infertility - and phthaltes take their rightfully damned place on this list.

But coming back full circle to creative play: NPR recently had a wonderful segment on 'play' (Hear or read it here). It seems there's a frightening lack of creativity in our children's play. And they trace it back to...TV? Yes, but in a more particular and surprising way than our corporate lives of just being blobs in front of the TV. Actually, blame is squarely on the shoulders of 1950's The Mickey Mouse Club. Really. Well, actually, the commercials. Toymaker Mattel seized a golden opportunity to advertise toys year-round... ones that prescribe and control the direction of play activity by their very nature. It turns out 'wasting time ' in 'mindless play' is not only NOT a waste of time -- it's essential.

Now that we're all depressed, let's play:



*There's lots of 'PR' from the phthalates industry online (reminds me of the initial not-so-comforting defense of mercury dental fillings. 'Sure mercury is harmful to humans. But your saliva covers the tooth and you really don't absorb any of it'. Yeah... Methinks they're worried about liability...) NotTooPretty.org has a wealth of information on phthalates and other poisons found in cosmetics.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

love 2008...

The amazing sand artistry of Ilana Yahav:



What strikes me is the transient quality of her work. Doesn't sand - her medium - embody the essence of that most challenging aspect of being human?

Thursday, February 14, 2008

love and death by chocolate this valentine's day...

This Valentine's Day is full of the usual...and a lot of 'extra'. Usual lessons to play for at Grace during the day. The extra part is rehearsing with visiting prospective students (singers) this evening (auditions happen tomorrow), playing for one or two Grace students at their Musical auditions this afternoon. In the middle -- one private piano student at home.

Somewhere, I lost a standing time to rehearse with Don B's wife, who is preparing, studying, singing 20th century cabaret songs for her doctoral dissertation. Did you know Stravinsky, Satie and Britten wrote such?

If you have time, click on the simply gorgeous dessert above, and you'll be transported to heavenly bliss in the form of a recipe on Raspberry Eggplant's blog. If you make it...be sure to send me a piece.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

wisdom according to calvin & hobbes...

I love Calvin and Hobbes - perhaps the most brilliant and clever 'strip' ever to appear in print.

During one of our excessively heavy periods of snow here in America's heartland, Blogless T sent me a link to the most complete line-up I've ever seen of the deliciously demented 'Snowman' series, two of which made guest appearances on Miz Minka's blog. Awesome!

Recently, I was looking for more. An on a quick C&H cruise around the internet, I happened upon a treasure: 25 Great Calvin and Hobbes Strips (subtitled, Why Bill Watterson is our hero). Considering the recently closed 'bow and arrow deer hunting season' - thinning out the beyond generous numbers of deer here in Kawzie County - I lost it over the one below. If it's too small to read, click on it for a hopefully larger version. Or just lose yourself in the aforementioned site.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

that inbetween time...

...and I don't think that alternating between snow and rain, freezing and not, covered and bare earth is what I had in mind for an Indiana winter. Yet...what an ideal icon for Lent...

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

and to dust i shall return...

"Ashes", by Simran Gleason*

It's Ash Wednesday. At the end of the day, my forehead will be adorned with a smudgy, sooty black cross -- the product of the incineration of last year's Palm Sunday palms.

As a child, I was raised Baptist. I barely even knew what Good Friday was for. So, definitely, something as 'connectedly foreign' as Ash Wednesday meant nothing to me. Anyone with smudges on their foreheads were suspect. Strangely, I thought this pushed them out of the true inner circle of the knowledge of our Lord.

We're past the 'incarnation' time of year. The Word has become flesh. But there is certainly something in the incarnational statement 'God with us' that comes to bear on Ash Wednesday ashes...along with a plethora of other earthy things in our liturgies...from marking/covering one's self with the sign of the cross, to bowing at the name of Jesus...acknowledging the holy Gospel with a trinity of crosses on forehead, lips, heart, to letting our prayers go up in incense.

And this is why I'm an a 'Catholic Christian' -- an Anglican one, to be precise. Incarnation is real. I can feel it in my blood and bones. God came to us in a very messy way - by choice. I dive into that mess to meet the One who dove in here first. Every swath of fabric he wore is represented in our vestments. Every breath he takes is Holy Spirit in our lungs, also. Ditto for His blood in our veins.

As we prepare to immerse ourselves in the Paschal mystery, some 40+ days from now, I'm reminding the self I live into, to not see it and other liturgical and theological dressings as an act detached from me -- but rather something that is more a consuming presence within...breathing with me...ever intertwining with my DNA.

So, I'm relishing the thought of wearing dirt...as a reminder that I came from dust and to dust I shall return. I find in that some humbling, but also very good news. It's not all about me, but rather the whole scheme of God with us. I wear it, taste it, breathe it - not merely spiritually, but incarnationally into my very being.

Pardon me while I utter Alleluia.

*From the Artist: "'Ashes' is a series of undeveloped mythologies beginning with a cycle of dissolution and response. Descent into ashes: a chrysalis state where annealing occurs below the surface of awareness. The swirl of emotion, transformation and re-emergence into the body. Stories of entering into that filigreed network of fiber and bone, muscle and membrane. Isolation and relation: situated awareness."

cowboy skipping short film: followup...

Blogless T has proposed a contest: "And the moral of the short film (skipping, part two) is..."

His entry: "Tis better to have skipped and died, than to not have skipped at all..."

And from Unkle Phil's comment, how 'bout: "The secret to getting that 'height' in their skip...eat beans first!"

I'll throw in there, "Better to die with no inner child regrets than to live having slain it."

Any others?

Friday, February 1, 2008

snow greed...

Last night, our county was promised a total accumulation of 11 - 15 inches by the end of today. It's now "9 -13". That better come with a guaranty.

Looking at doppler radar, I think we need to move our town to a more cooperative county, somewhat closer to Michigan.