Yearly Archives: 2012

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You Know It’s November When…

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The temperature drops 30 degrees overnight.  Oh, but we were warned, so we went out to embrace the front, the wind howling from the south, still warm.  The clouds gathered in the valley, the sky darkened, the weeds shuddered…very gradually, drops began to fall.  It rained all night.  This morning, I went through the house pulling the glass panes down over the screens in all the windows.  The furnace rumbled to life every few minutes.  The trees are mostly bare.  It is late fall at last and winter is just around the corner.  I dearly wish I had a fireplace or woodstove…

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A Peace-lover’s War Hero

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Veterans’ Day.  A very forgettable holiday for me.  If it weren’t for the bloggers who have mentioned it, I might have been altogether oblivious of its passing.  I am unemployed at the moment, so no schedule change would have reminded me — except for the fact that the Post Office is closed tomorrow, so we won’t be preparing packages for Steve’ book business.   The truth is, I don’t really know what to do with Veterans’ Day.  I don’t know any vets.  I don’t have any family members who have been in the service.  And I am absolutely opposed to war.  It seems like we should have figured out an alternative long ago.  I’m truly puzzled that we have computers relaying information from Mars right now while we have yet to find an effective way to live together down here.  Learning should lead to understanding, which ought to lead to compassion.  At least that’s the trajectory I’m hoping for in my life. 

It does occur to me, though, that I have been acquainted with a veteran whom I admire very much.  I have read two of his books and have now embarked on a third.  I’ve also seen a DVD documentary about his journey home from Auschwitz.  His name is Primo Levi.  I was attracted to him first because he’s Italian.  In high school, I was the Vice President of the Italian Club.  I was learning to speak Italian because I love opera, and I wanted to meet Italian guys…or at least Italian-American guys.  I finally married a Galasso.  Now that I’m (ahem!) more mature, my love of the Italian culture is much more broad-minded.  Primo Levi’s writing is truly astounding.  He was a chemist by trade, not a writer, but his experiences during and after WWII compelled him to share the intimate details, disturbing observations, and profound insights he hoped would prevent similar events from ever happening again.  He could not let his story go unrecorded, even though its horrors caused recurring bouts of depression.  I think that makes him a very brave soldier and a heroic humanitarian. 

Here is an example of his extraordinary insight:

“Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable.  The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition which is opposed to everything infinite.  Our ever-insufficient knowledge of the future opposes it: and this is called, in the one instance, hope, and in the other, uncertainty of the following day.  The certainty of death opposes it: for it places a limit on every joy, but also on every grief.  The inevitable material cares oppose it: for as they poison every lasting happiness, they equally assiduously distract us from our misfortunes and make our consciousness of them intermittent and hence supportable.  It was the very discomfort, the blows, the cold, the thirst that kept us aloft in the void of bottomless despair, both during the journey and after.  It was not the will to live, nor a conscious resignation: for few are the men capable of such resolution, and we were but a common sample of humanity.” – from Survival in Auschwitz

Thank you, Signore Levi, for your service to all of us through the horrific war you survived and the work of writing your story.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Renewal

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This prompt complements my previous post for today, I think.  Renewal, new beginnings, evolution, the marvelous process of life.  I have two photos that illustrate this concept, both taken with my old camera (the little Lumix, not the Rebel T3i).

 

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U.S.A. Evolving

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The 2012 presidential election is over, swept up like confetti in the parade of change and movement.  The conservative, religious, wealthy White male was defeated…for the second time.  This seems to be frightening a lot of people.  Our nation was founded and shaped by those types.  Isn’t that what America is supposed to be?  Or is America “The Melting Pot”?  Is evolution, change and movement something to resist, or something to embrace?  Why?

Fear is a powerful agent.  Safety is a motivator.  Primal survival instincts are very active in our social species.  However, the history of the planet shows that species evolve, they change, they adapt to the environment, and they die out.  It’s natural.  Is it acceptable?  Can you accept that your country, your “club” and your family will change?  Elements that may threaten you WILL be introduced.  How do you respond?  How do you want to respond?  Who do you want to be?  The “fighter”?  The “opposer”?  The peacemaker?  The tolerater?  Do you change along with the rest of the Universe…or do you go down stubborn as plastic into the landfill?

You can probably guess my preference.  I want to be mulch.  I believe something beautiful will always grow.

All the best, America!  Be joyful and courageous in change and movement!

Detail: Aldo Leopold’s shack

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Peaceful Sunday

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Placido Domingo.  Quiet, tranquil Sunday.  Ah, me.

Last night, we saw our first Lyric Opera of Chicago performance of the season: Simon Boccanegra by Verdi.  An appropriate story for an election month, dramatic and political.  Two opera megastars were featured in the leading roles: Thomas Hampson and Ferruccio Furlanetto.  The story and the music are captivating.  (This performance was rather a disappointment, stiff and unimaginative.  I much prefer the La Scala production starring Placido Domingo in the title role, even if his voice is not as resonant as a baritone.) The point is that Simon Boccanegra is a man who spends his life and loses his life in the pursuit of peace.  The Italian political scene is characterized by vendetta, family feuds, curses, treason, and rebellion and peopled with villains.  The story shows, though, that everyone is a villain.  We all harm each other in one way or another.  Forgiveness and reconciliation is the only way to make a difference.  How many people must the Doge pardon by the end of Act III in order to die peacefully in his daughter’s arms?

                                                                                       

This morning, I logged on to the internet and began a conversation with my blogger friend, Helen, of 1500 Saturdays.  Her post was about brutal killings in Nigeria, titled “How did humanity get so lost?”.  How do we respond to suffering, to the villainy that surrounds each of us?  Which stories do we listen to; which do we tell?  How do we make a peaceful Sunday in our world?  Please click here to read her post, the links, the comments and spend some time considering your own response.  “May all beings be happy; may all beings be free from suffering.”

 

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Geometry

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I loved Geometry.  As a freshman in High School, I was brand new to California and scared to death.  I sat in the front row of Mr. Duport’s class and paid close attention.  He was young and funny, and his students liked him.  He made the classroom a comfortable place.  He wrote in my yearbook at the end of the year how he enjoyed seeing me change into a sociable girl who talked to her classmates and spent less time with her head down in her proofs.  I met him again at the 20th class reunion, and he remembered me fondly as smart and interesting…although perhaps that enthusiasm was aided by a few drinks.   Anyway, Jim Duport, thanks for the memories.

Playground geometry

 

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My Best Friend’s Birthday

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Yup, today is Steve’s birthday.  He is beginning to get comfortable saying that he is “in his late 40s”.  We are still working on being transparent with ourselves and each other, genuine, authentic.  This morning we talked about how difficult that is for parents to do with their children.  We want to be better people, better role models, especially in front of them.  But we miss the opportunity to be fully present, fully alive, and fully responsive when we hide behind those roles.  That can hurt.  The child may feel like they are not worthy to receive the person they love the most.  I remember how honored I felt when my father asked me to help him with something.  I was the mother of 4 children by then.  He had broken his back and was lying flat in traction in the hospital.  He asked me to help him brush his teeth by catching his spit in a pan when he spouted it straight up.  It was the first time I truly felt that he was volunteering his vulnerability.  I left the hospital in tears, not because I pitied him, but because I was so happy to feel connected to this man I adored for so long. 

A man who had been my spiritual director for years sent me a TED video this week about Vulnerability.  I highly recommend it.  See if you don’t recognize something about yourself here.  It may be a surprise.  Then see if you can find someone to talk to about it.  It may be a pivotal point in your life. 

Today is All Saints’ Day as well.  Here’s to all the truly good friends, the saints in our lives, who allow themselves to be seen, to be vulnerable, to be genuinely available and thereby, help us to find the courage to join them in that important place.  “And I mean, God helping, to be one, too.”

(Steve, dressed up to see the musical “Hair” with me.)

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Sandy

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So, hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast on Monday night.  Yesterday, the waves on Lake Michigan topped 20 feet and many stretches of lakefront were closed.  Today, Steve & I took a walk on the beach at the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center. 

Ironically, I have an Aunt Sandy who lives in NYC.  I’ve been thinking about her a lot, but haven’t heard any reports yet from her perspective.  Here’s a perspective that I find inspiring:  “In wildness is the salvation of the world.”  Henry David Thoreau

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Earth Work…Trip Phase 5

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After a delicious Sunday breakfast buffet and a quick photo walk in downtown Parkersburg, Steve and I headed back into Ohio toward the Hopewell Culture National Historic Park.  Steve has always been drawn to Native American archaeology and has experience working for the National Park Service at Wupatki National Monument.  The information we gathered at the Hopewell site was truly fascinating.  The native Americans in the Scioto River valley constructed enormous earth works, mounds and borders of giant proportions, geometrical shapes duplicated exactly many miles apart.  The burial mounds contained artifacts made with materials from distant regions.  The scope of this culture, the complexity of the ideas they represent, is amazing.  Of course, our conjectures about the meaning of the clues they left behind will never be verified.  Mystery will always surround this place.  The sense of a sacred reverence hangs in the very air, though.  It felt, to me, very similar to what I felt when I visited Chichen Itza in Mexico.  Time, space, geometry, astronomy, mathematics, religion, life and death coming together in physical art.  These were a people who understood the interconnectedness of all things and represented that in a conscientious way.  To say that it’s “primitive” misses the mark completely.   It certainly seems more primitive to plow over the entire area time and time again to plant corn or bulldoze the hill to quarry gravel…which is just what the white settlers did and still are doing.  

We spent the afternoon slowly embracing the place and then drove home in the dark on speedy Interstate highways.  We were back by 11pm.  On Wednesday, we continued our research on Native American mounds and early Wisconsin history by going to Madison and visiting the Historical Museum on Capitol Square and the UW Madison Arboretum (which has an impressive bookstore!).  We are still in the process of discerning how we will contribute to the conservation of this sacred planet on a local level, to what work we will devote our energy, and how we will live in awareness of the impact we make here.   It’s a time to stay open to possibilities and opportunities and to be ready to move with a purpose when a specific vehicle of conveyance appears pointing toward our goal.

 

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Historic Before Pre-historic…Trip Phase 4

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Leaving the National Forest and re-entering the 21st century was a bit of an adjustment.  How ironic that we fled from a generator only to find ourselves in a modern hotel room with no less than 14 electrical appliances to its 60 square feet of space!  I immediately turned off the heater and fan and also a separate air purifier.  I unplugged the refrigerator.  Still, every 15 minutes, something made a punctuated whooshing sound.  Eventually, I figured out it was an air freshener mechanism above the door releasing a neutralizing odor into our “smoking Queen” like clockwork.  I learned how to sleep through it for a few hours. 

Since we had traveled so far north in search of room in the inn, we decided to keep going on into Ohio.  We crossed the Ohio River at Portsmouth and found our way toward Wayne National Forest.  We stopped in at the public library in a light rain to do a bit of research, and there, Steve made a discovery that changed our course.  We had promised ourselves a “splurge” portion on this trip.  Paying more than $100 for a room at a franchised motel off the Interstate did not count.  But now, we were within 2 hours of a bonafide historic hotel in a state that Steve had never visited.   We decided to go east to Parkersburg, West Virginia, to spend the night at the Blennerhassett Hotel and then return to Ohio the next day to visit the Hopewell Culture National Historic Park.  From there, we decided we’d head back home directly.  There comes a time when you know that your adventure has taught you something important and you need to pull back to your interior to focus on that.  It’s like a mythical journey: leaving home, learning, and returning changed.  But every hero needs some time and a place to figure out what he’s learned.  We figured we were close enough to use home base as that place.

Nestled deep in our gear, we found dress shoes, a long skirt for me and a tie for Steve.  We were off to enjoy a dash of historic elegance and some truly fine food, not cooked over  a campfire.  We were not disappointed.

Blannerhasset lantern

Final phase: the Pre-historic.  That’ll be my next post.  Thanks for following so far!