Human Exchange

Ok, so if this is about human exchange, why the animals? Read on.

It’s been a tough week for me in some ways. I’m nearing the end of week 2 of something called The Presence Process (a book by Michael Brown) that takes 10 weeks, one week for each session. It’s not a complicated process at all but is meant to help you see how and why you react to things with upset, stalking them and really looking at them to understand yourself and how you react to things out of past experiences. The point is to learn to respond (implies responsibility) instead of react.

Well, just as the author forewarned, things have popped up and seemed exaggerated while going through this process. When you’re really paying attention to the things that get your goat, you realize how uncomfortable you become when your ego is bruised. That woman who was rude to me on the phone, who does she think she is? That comment I left on a blog post seemed to be totally misunderstood – how can I communicate it better, and how could he have thought that of me?

This Thanksgiving week, having a relatively compact house full of 10 adults, one baby and two dogs for four days stretched me to my limits energetically. When others don’t “do it” just the way you do (and why the hell not?), first you get that internal upset, and then you say “and why does this bother me?”

Thankfully we had a gorgeous week with temps in the 50s, very unusual for this time of year. This meant we could go outside and play. Don and the kids played ping pong in the garage, basketball and foursquare on the driveway, and we all went for a lovely walk Friday (but no Lesley, how we missed her). We wandered through the barn (where we found kitty Bishop in her secret hiding place), took Rusty the Brittany Spaniel for a walk through the woods and by the pond. (Above may be one of the last photos of Rusty, a 14-year old who is now blind.)

Animals are consistently faithful, responsive, loving, forgiving. They don’t have egos. They have personalities, but not egos (although some domesticated animals do seem to take on human emotions).

Watching Rusty romp on the path made my heart long to be that free. Free from previous hurts that make me see new experiences through a projecting lens that need not be there.

You, Darkness

You, Darkness

You, darkness, that I come from

I love you more than all the fires

that fence in the world,

for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone

and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything-

shapes and fires, animals and myself,

how easily it gathers them!

-powers and people-

and it is possible a great presence is moving near me.

I have faith in nights.

Original language: German

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926 /Germany)

Snowflake reflections

Snowflakes were 2 inches across today briefly, now it's stopped. Click on image for larger view.

"And may the melting snow drop like tears
From my motionless bronze eyelids,

And the prison pigeons coo above me
And the ships sail slowly down the Neva"

- Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), excerpt from "Requiem"

Please go to the embedded link "Requiem" and read this poem about Stalinist prison camp life in Russia. This was part of the reality of Akhmatova's world which she did not fear to write about. Her husband was killed in one of the camps. This poem was not published in Russia until after her death, and of course after Stalin's death.

This was part of our world in the 20th century, one of the most horrible centuries in human history.

I don't publish this to depress you or me. I don't live in the past. I just don't want to forget how hard life has been for some.

Be sure to check in at Paris Deconstructed, where I publish a new post once or twice a week. (I had taken a hiatus but decided I couldn't stay away!)

Fall flavors

Is there anything better than yogurt with:

• blueberries
• black raspberries
• mandarin oranges
• grapefruit
• and just a wee bit of Don's blackberry sauce?

Crazy Wisdom

Tea Room in the Crazy Wisdom bookstore in Ann Arbor (can you see the snowflakes outside the window? Click on pic to enlarge.)

I played hookie yesterday with my friend Inge. Nothing like the luxury of taking a day off in Ann Arbor:

• Drove the beautiful country roads for an hour each way
• Drank coffee in Crazy Wisdom bookstore second floor tea room, scanning a stack of books for potential puchase (most interesting: The Presence Process by Michael Brown -- thanks Healing Room; 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck; Ask Your Guides: Connecting to Your Divine Support System by Sonia Choquette)
• Ate curry and naan at Shalimar Indian restaurant
• Window shopped on Main Street

• Saw "The Queen" with Helen Mirren. I highly recommend it! (photo from NPR web site in link)

And now I still have two days off before going back to work. Mmm, 3-day weekend.

Where is the sun?

In these gloomy autumn days I have to remember that the sun is always there. I may not see it, but it's there all the same.

Langston Hughes wrote a wonderful poem about the sun (his dream) being blocked by the wall of his black-ness.

As I Grew Older

It was a long time ago.

I have almost forgotten my dream.

But it was there then,

In front of me,

Bright like a sun--

My dream.

And then the wall rose,

Rose slowly,

Slowly,

Between me and my dream.

Rose until it touched the sky--

The wall.

Shadow.

I am black.

I lie down in the shadow.

No longer the light of my dream before me,

Above me.

Only the thick wall.

Only the shadow.

My hands!

My dark hands!

Break through the wall!

Find my dream!

Help me to shatter this darkness,

To smash this night,

To break this shadow

Into a thousand lights of sun,

Into a thousand whirling dreams

Of sun!

- Langston Hughes

I need Shakespeare

Linda Condlin, left, in black, and Sean Arbuckle in the foreground, with students

Sometimes we need a reminder that our job is great. My job as an academic adviser can get cumbersome, dry, overwhelming, you name the negative description. Just when I needed it, the Stratford Festival partnership with my university happened. Here two actors are doing an acting workshop with the English department's Shakespeare class. It was dynamic and fun, and I could see the humor and drama of Shakespeare's genius being expressed through Laura Condlin and Sean Arbuckle. You can see their artist bios here.

I listened to the Artistic Director of the Stratford Festival, Richard Monette, at a lecture Monday. I loved what he had to say about performing arts: We don't need to justify them or defend their worth of our funding any more than we need to justify eating. We need the arts, we want the arts. It's part of who we are.

There's a new post at Paris Deconstructed.