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...on the boundless bonds of thanksgiving...

Here in Indiana (ironically, mere hours away from my mother's birthplace in a neighboring state), I'm mystically pondering the two-sided coin of separation and unity...having been absent for a third year in a row from my side of the family's California Thanksgiving celebration. There I am the 'baby' of four sisters...yet my role in the central time zone is as the eldest among siblings/mates at the Chicago Martins festivities.

Having promised the Kingdom of Chocolate as my contribution to dinner, I brought pie to the festivities here - the 'derby' variety (pecan with chocolate chips) that is my California brother-in-law's favorite (I remember leaving the inevitable extra one in the Los Altos freezer on more than one thanksgiving), along with a chili chocolate torte that none of my family yet knows exists. This year, I made fresh cranberry relish - almost, but perhaps not quite as good as what has become the California favorite...while my inlaws here bemoan the lack of my mother's traditional cranberry sherbet I would usually bring to accompany the feast. Yet, the smell of my grandmother's onion dressing baking in both kitchens most certainly crossed the country's atmospheric borders of two time zones.

We ate gratefully and heartily in Palatine...wine glasses and coffee cups sang in our hands as, I imagined, my family continued their tradition of grabbing theirs after dinner to walk through the neighborhood, over an enchanted bridge, to a school playground, where grandchildren - and some adults - have been known to swing and climb until almost too dark to get home. We frolicked in hamlet of Woodstock here today. And I couldn't help musing on how all four of us Ormsbee sisters might be unanimous in wishing to have been present at the festival of the same name!

These past two days, I held and made eyes at my granddaughter...while in California, my sister Susan's newest grandchild was welcomed and properly photographed through the keen eyes of a niece. Sister-in-law Susan was the only sibling missing here, but was somewhat 'nearby' with a FaceBook pre-comment. Here and there, most of the main cousins (a newly coined phrase here!) are present for the main event. But this time, NY Sarah was missing from our arms and my heart ached.

The spectre of our mothers' aging, heart-aching lives looms large for both families. My fragile mother has not made the trip from the central California valley to the bay area Thanksgiving for a handful of years or more. Dan's mother is always present here, but shares with my mother the pressing weight of the lack of a co-host and a capable and supportive companion at such events. Both Maynard and Elson died with Alzheimers. But, in and through their lives, they both graced their precious families with humor and a love of life together...and the amazing gift of being able to fix or build anything needed for the benefit of such, with their mantles taken up by the next generations, including willing sons-in-law, grandchildren as well. But the hole these two men have left in spousal hearts and at festive table is, most definitely, unfixable. 'Mind the gap' comes to my mind, not to avoid falling in it, but to be tenderly mindful...and perhaps even respectful of it.

Also missing this year's feast here were our son Jordan and his wife Angela...who, at this moment are closing gaps, forging links during a two week trip to Brazil. Elson Martins - the patriarch of the U.S. clan - was the only one of his family to leave that homeland...and not return for any Thanksgiving equivalents. From Rio to Sao Paulo to Bahia, Jordan & Angela will sit at table with the Brazilian family they became part of during his master's studies there a few years ago. They have before and will again eat, hug, laugh, kiss, converse. I wonder - can they smell the mystical onion dressing from there?

Love happens in spite of and even through distance. Life cycles and swirls around us, making us one and making us miss being one. The being and the missing are all part of the whole. And I suppose it's meant to be that way.

Saith a Reviewer: " See this film. It will remind you of how thrilling it is to be an active thinking, feeling member of the human race."

Ten minutes ago, I entered a dream...via the TV remote and Independent Film Channel. So...while utter and completely transfixed, I saw the last ten minutes of bloody brilliance in 'Waking Life'. AND - the tango music interlaced throughout is based on scores of the master - Astor Piazzolla.

Got 98 minutes?



TV info: A young vagabond listens to such varied subjects as existentialism, evolution, alienation, dreaming and the media. (Rated R)

Here, you can see a worthy review and fascinating info on the making of a masterpiece.

the oh so Lovely 'A Chloris...'

Utterly hypnotic art song by Reynaldo Hahn. Sung sublimely by French sensation, Philippe Jaroussky. Piano accompaniment puts me into a trance.

While packing in California less than 18 months ago, I went through binder after binder of accompaniments I had played in a concentrated year - looking for one two-page pearl: A Chloris. I did not find it. (Unwisely, I discarded almost everything else, thinking I would never need them. Surprise: by grace, vocal accompanying fell into my lap here.)

the most beautiful face in the world....

Charlotte, one day old.

life in death and death in life...

My mother's most fascinating life story is of her near death experience. She was an older teen, living at home...perhaps 17 or 18 years of age. She remembers being in the kitchen and saying to her mother, 'My heart has stopped beating'. Her mother insisted that was a ridiculous statement. But to Susanne, it was true: She began floating upward into the sky, irresistibly drawn towards the Light. Smelling salts and slaps brought her back to earth. I asked how she felt: 'Disappointed' was her reply. She had been happy and safe in the warmth and peace of the interrupted journey, and wished it could continue.

Recently, I received a long, poignant email from a friend who was heavy laden with the loneliness of loss...four friends, from near and far, having passed recently. 'Driving through a waterfall of tears' is how the grief fell on him. I feel that time in my life coming at me like a train - hijacking my intentional journey and slapping me with an about face. Tonight, news of another death from our California church family. Surely, this lovely lady is in a crystal place of light in God's love...light years from earth's sod.

But, what of us - those in the middle...between our making and our remaking? The juxtaposition of 'here' and 'there' is often too much to comprehend or bear. At times I rail, Why is it that we are left here...sometimes with lead footed heaviness... weary of being encapsulated in the imperfect state that traps us - a state perhaps most accurately defined by the unknowns of our exit details.

When my father died, I rejoiced for his separation from his painfully ailing body, so that he could be the radiant person he was made to be. So perhaps tonight I weep not for beautiful Dorothy, but for someone left behind who loves her. And for us, also left behind in a place we were not made for...in a life that we love and live, but that seems, sadly, light years from my mother's interrupted flight to freedom in the heart of God.

fall leaves...

"Nature is, above all, profligate. Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place? This deciduous business alone is a radical scheme, the brainchild of a deranged manic-depressive with limitless capital. Extravagance!"

-- Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

video d'resistance...

Fr C is soft on Lucy...but it doesn't turn out quite as he expected:

by popular demand...

The latest video of Lucy and Bat Girl. (She does have circles with the bat symbol on both sides of her body - very fitting, we think.)

Note the starting position, with the little trouble maker draped across Lucy's jugular.

good work...

My mother always encouraged her four daughters to 'put your shoulders back' - a vehicle for lauding the importance of good posture. I couldn't do it. It never felt natural or right at all. Later, I would hear from others, 'hold your chest high'. Ditto there, for what seemed to me to be artificially manipulating the human body and perhaps the human spirit as well. Then there was 'Picture a string pulling you up from the top of your head'. Well, perhaps we're getting closer here.

Our daughters model good posture for the rest of us, a result of vocal studies. There is a lifting of their torsos out of that place of bodily solidity - the hips/abdomen - that naturally aligns everything in its path as it grows and stretches into proper position. To me, this technique doesn't artificial but rather very organic and natural in its action and result. I do it, when I remember to! And it just feels right.

When our children were young, I walked an inner tightrope between wanting them to know how wonderful and amazing they are - and not overly praising them for good work done or stressing how proud I was as if it is the latter that makes them the former. "I'm so happy for you" would sometimes be on my lips after an accomplishment. I'm sure I didn't balance the implied tension very well at all. But I didn't want them to think of the performing parts of life (from school work to recitals to degrees...dinners prepared and fabrics & paints, sewn and applied) as something that was to impress others or define their worth, but rather as some good work from and for them. Something to relish, enjoy and be grateful for. And also to ponder in that, in the mystery of how it interlaces with life. Something natural. "You're wonderful" was always in my heart because it's true - but in a much more cosmic sense than we know.

Wendell Berry's 'Good Work', (from What Are People For), offers a somewhat spiritual interpretation of good works that puts the natural back into a what is sometime an artificial concept in life:

Good work finds the way between pride and despair. It graces with health. It heals with grace. It preserves the given so that it remains a gift. By it, we lose loneliness: we clasp the hands of those who go before us, and the hands of those who come after us; we enter the little circle of each other's arms, and the larger circle of lovers whose hands are joined in a dance, and the larger circle of all creatures, passing and out of life, who also move in a dance, to a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it except in fragments.

weeping for wonder...

The spiritually profound O Magnum Mysterium by Morton Lauridsen.

UST Alumni Singers, both incredibly able and obviously popular (over 80,000 views).

Below, proof that a group can be seamlessly one, even when comprised of solo quality voices, one of which is deliciously featured here in Unusual Way (from the musical Nine, Maury Yeston, composer). Arrangement by their director.

saving fuel in Wonderful W...

I just loved the serendipitous proximity of the high gas prices news header and the photo above it!

overheard this morning...

"What was I saying when I so rudely interrupted myself?"*

- from an interminable ENFP

Oooo, I found a website that not only links to prayers for each Myers-Briggs personality type (ENFP: "Oh, Lord, help me to keep my mind on one thing at a....OH! Look at the birdie!!!"), but also suggests a style of prayer best-suited for the types. Augustinian, for NT's.

*Fr C isn't allowed to comment...as he already did.

somewhere... there's a beam down there to land on...

How is this humanly possible???

UNCONSCIONABLE

Just read in Yahoo news that - growingly persistent warnings aside - the known estrogen mimicker/hormone disrupter BPA is actually just peachy-fine for lining our food cans (including infant formula) and hardening our babies' bottles. This in stark contrast to other studies done by...you guessed it: scientists who are not in bed with the government agency or the chemistry council.

You may read an opposing and illuminating view here. Or, perhaps better yet: download/read the PDF of a thorough and riveting Vogue magazine article - 'An Inconceivable Truth'*.

If there is any question of risk - especially for babies, something should be BANNED until the safety can be 100% proven (pardon me while I seethe: 'Are any of these cr*$$* chemicals 100% provably safe???'). Unfortunately, while protecting big business, 'we' seem to approve things that are not acceptable with greater ease (and some bribes/bucks) than it takes to question or dislodge them later. It's all about money and CYA. (Cases in point: aspartame, mercury fillings & vaccines.)

Before I use some words that will ban this blog from the 'sphere, let me just say: I am not a sheeple and I refuse to go back to any regularly scheduled programming.

*This IS a magazine article. Therefore, there are bits of other articles on some of the pages.

Addendum: As standard news goes, the Washington Post's article is superior, IMHO. Their articles are not always accessible online, so here it is:

WASHINGTON — A chemical commonly found in can linings, baby bottles and other household products does not pose a health hazard when used in food containers, according to a draft assessment released Friday by the Food and Drug Administration.

The report stands in contrast to more than 100 studies performed by government scientists and university laboratories that have found health concerns associated with bisphenol A, or BPA. Some have linked the chemical to prostate and breast cancers, diabetes, behavioral disorders such as hyperactivity and reproductive problems in laboratory animals.

Exposure to the small amounts of BPA that migrate from the containers into the food they hold are not dangerous to infants or adults, the draft said.

"FDA has concluded that an adequate margin of safety exists for BPA at current levels of exposure from food contact uses," regulators wrote in the draft report, which will be reviewed Sept. 16 at a meeting of members of an FDA advisory committee studying the safety of the chemical.

The chemical industry and the agencies that regulate the use of BPA, the FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency, have deemed the chemical safe, largely on the strength of two industry-funded studies that found no problems. The American Chemistry Council welcomed the findings of the new report.

"FDA is the premier agency responsible for the safety of our food," Steven Hentges, an executive of the group, said in a statement. "FDA’s thorough analysis confirms that food contact materials containing BPA can continue to be used safely."

FDA critic Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women and Families, said the agency lacks sufficient data to declare the chemical safe.

"Clearly their effort was to minimize people being concerned about this," Zuckerman said. "It just seems that whenever there is an opportunity to look at a new important issue, they just seem to be siding with industry’s point of view."

BPA, in commercial use since the 1950s, is in many everyday items, including compact discs and automobiles. One federal study estimated that it is present in the urine of 93 percent of the population.

c'est moi...!

BORG QUEEN'S COSTUME

This coming weekend, we'll be attending a significant anniversary celebration for Fr C's sister and her husband. Star Trek costumes required...at least if you want to have fun. Lucy can even come...if she's in costume.

So, ever clever BLT found this one for me. C'est partfait!!!

Christie's auction house description of it: A biomechanical body suit made from cast latex, painted as metallic cyborg hardware, with a pair of Borg gloves -- designed by Deborah Everton and worn by Alice Kriege as the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact and subsequently by Kriege and by Susanna Thompson in Star Trek: Voyager (3).

Oooo Laaaaaa!!!!

Looks like it did already sell for $6K. Drat.

Former choir sojourners will know that an accoutremental surplice overlay is obviously obligatory...for 'other uses'. Demonstrating that 'Anglican Borg sound' has never been so fashionably commanding.



This.... ....plus this.... ....equals this!

christian the lion...

This amazing 1970 reunion has resurfaced, thanks to a spot on 'The View'. Christian's journey from his sheltered life in England (after having been born in a Rotterdam zoo) to being truly 'Born Free' in his ancestral Kenya was an arduous one, glossed over in the above video. If you have time and patience, the story of "Christian, the Lion Who Thought He was People" is told in depth in a series of fascinating and oftentimes unbelievable, black and white videos - beginning here. Intertwined is the story of "Boy", one of the 'Born Free' lions, who is an integral part of it all. There are ten parts to the series. The next video link is always to the right of the one you're watching -- under where it says 'info'. Or, click on the links below.

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10 (short)

the dynamic duo...

Having some morning fun

Play among equals. Equally fond of each other. Both mouths wide open.

Kitten ends up quite damp from being 'guided' by The Mouth. Lucy's nose hopefully not the worse for wear from Muffmeister's Claws.

the right brain???...

Auditory : 40%
Visual : 60%
Left : 46%
Right : 53%

Damsianne, you possess an interesting balance of hemispheric and sensory characteristics, with a slight right-brain dominance and a slight preference for visual processing.

Since neither of these is completely centered, you lack the indecision and second-guessing associated with other patterns. You have a distinct preference for creativity and intuition with seemingly sufficient verbal skills to be able to translate in any meaningful way to yourself and others.

You tend to see things in "wholes" without surrendering the ability to attend to details. You can give them sufficient notice to be able to utilize and incorporate them as part of an overall pattern.

In the same way, while you are active and process information simultaneously, you demonstrate a capacity for sequencing as well as reflection which allows for some "inner dialogue."

All in all, you are likely to be quite content with yourself and your style although at times it will not necessarily be appreciated by others. You have sufficient confidence to not second-guess yourself, but rather to use your critical faculties in a way that enhances, rather than limits, your creativity.

You can learn in either mode although far more efficiently within the visual mode. It is likely that in listening to conversations or lecture materials you simultaneously translate into pictures which enhance and elaborate on the meaning.

It is most likely that you will gravitate towards those endeavors which are predominantly visual but include some logic or structuring. You may either work particularly hard at cultivating your auditory skills or risk "missing out" on being able to efficiently process what you learn. Your own intuitive skills will at times interfere with your capacity to listen to others, which is something else you may need to take into account

Test courtesy of Brainworks.

prescribing some hammock time for my left brain...

For the past few decades, the growing awareness of my inability to view something with the right side of my brain without my left side sidelining it has both surprised and troubled me. Surprised, because I am an iNFp (Myers-Briggs) musician who values creativity and beauty more than anything. Troubled, because I simply can't shut off the analytical tape that's playing.

So, for example, when I look at a magnificent live oak tree with magical moss dripping from every limb, I can't seem to lose myself in the wordless wonder of it all. My left brain's tour guide analysis insists on bestowing meaning from its standpoint. That's OK...but it won't shut up.

When I was young and started studying piano, the perfectionist in me figured out every note on the page, painstakingly carefully. Once. It would be instantly translated to the 'ballet on the keys' where my eyes would find patterns and meaning that melded with the sound - and the result was almost instant memorization in the right side of the brain. Later, I grew more balanced. By young adulthood, I became an analytical, killer sight reader, by necessity. And, gradually, memorizing dropped to second place.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain teaches a fascinating method for activating the most core creative process in the brain. Imagine taping a piece of blank paper to a table...setting a pencil point in the center...and then looking away at your subject - perhaps a carrot or your hand - and never looking away from it, while on paper your pencil traces what you actually see in your subject. If your end-result drawing looks remotely like the shape of a carrot or a hand, then you cheated. The goal of the technique is not to draw what we think we should, but what we actually see with our ('mind's) right eye'.

An accurate drawing of a drawing of a hand

Drawings of the real thing.
Note the complexities denoted by the hand positions.
Such is of great interest to the right brain.

Even now, though I place my body in a hammock...and begin to enjoy the intricate weavings of threads and colors, I will find myself wanting to describe the patterns, rather than wrapping my brain in their beauty. I'm committed to letting go or that. I know I'll get sidetracked by the left brain's geometric discourses. Or maybe even some worthy speculatings about our children being set up for weary, demented, aged brains because reading and math are emphasized so strongly over art and music in our schools... musing about whether their gray matter is being pushed into a painful pencil sharpener - rather than enjoying the inhalation of invigorating oxygen into their right brains. All of which is what took me out of the hammock after a few minutes in it this morning in order to blog about it.

But, that's for another day or time when I've earned some analytical time.