cats

I have been volunteering at the Kingston, NY SPCA for 4 months now.....I work in the first cat room which has about fifty cats.......

I can't remember when cats were not in my life....

The first day I spent here I felt like I had come home...a cat among cats.....All colors, shapes and sizes...abused, abandoned, but so many are amazingly resilient...The staff here works nonstop...

no time for complaining....

Last Sunday I adopted Holstein...a five year old male cat....he has been adopted before and returned because he is uncomfortable around cats. He has been here close to two years. He is here because his owner died......

Most people come to look at the kittens which are very adoptable........but I have been blessed to witness miracles...people requesting older cats or special needs cats.....

There are at least two other cat rooms....

about 200 cats in residence....

I´m sitting with my cup of tea. After a monday morning where everybody is off to work and kindergarten I´m now getting ready to begin my own week. Sigh.
Part of me wants to go away to a place in the sun. The summer came late here and the fall early so it´s already getting chilly.
This week I´m starting my fall teaching schedule and I am going to teach a lot more classes and workshops that ever. I´m excited and a bit anxious as well.
I will teach a women´s workshop on the practice of feminine principles. It´s the first time and I am very excited. This practice has grown in my own life for the past year. I feel this is my true calling - yoga for the female body. I know that in the years to come this will continue to grow in me. I keep meeting all these wonderful women and I feel deeply connection to them.
This practice rings true for me. i actually feel that it´s another expression of the writing I did with the wise women. It´s a bodily way to express my inner most essence which is rooted in the feminine.

Wise women everywhere

I have been busier than a one-armed paperhanger. I have not been writing, meditating, chanting and yesterday I had a migraine. My body is saying Stop.

Om gam ganapataye namaha...chant 9 times or anythng that can be divided by 9. I must google the 9 bit.

What will help me today: Restorative poses, working on my novel, gardening, eating lightly, being in the sun and of course thinking about my workshop with all my wise women friends this Thursday.

Arrived!!!

Hi Everyone,

I finally figured out (with help) how to get on. Now you'll be hearing from me from time to time.

Namaste ~ Donna

first poem in my new book out next month from Antrim House

Reading will be at Le Shag on the first Sat. of Sept--more to follow, and also at Daniel Berlin's art gallery, at Duck Pond, at Trinity College and elsewhere.

The Sweet and Low Down

Small gestures matter,
and I’m not talking about flipping someone
the bird. I got a note from the principal.
See I can spell that because some teacher
taught me the pneumonic, the principal is
my pal, and he is. He thanked me
in writing for my work with the teachers.
I came home and cleaned my house
lickety split. I was high on a small
gesture. I feel this way in the Midwest.
Last time I visited I was wandering
in the produce section of Hinky Dinky
or was it Piggly Wiggly—so corny out there.
And the clerk yelled, Hi, how are you.
I stepped back in a panic, thought
I was caught squeezing the melons.
But he was sincere. Day two in that market,
I knew the checkout girl’s name
and we exchanged some news of the day.
I know this will sound like some Feel-Good
New-Age advice, but why not smile at a stranger?
I did try that in the supermarket, here in NYC,
but the woman did not smile back,
did not say hello to my hello.
Oh well. I did not take it personally.
That’s the other thing that matters,
don’t take it personally.
No one is out to get you or me.
It’s a matter of being in the path
of hurricanes, earthquakes, the robber,
the suicide bomber, the terrorist.
I have myself panicked now.
My shoulders are up around my ears.
I am worried, not angry, but in need of one
small gesture. Thanks, I would love a cup of coffee,
yes, with one sweet and low.

flash fiction---tell me what you think--the different fonts disappeared

Confessions of a Scrapbooker

Rehab
I decided purple was a good background cover for my first scrapbook, subtle but royal. My husband is a royal pain in the ass. Yes, this first page is Mark exiting rehab. He looks good doesn’t he? The kids said at Christmas, Dad, it’s not funny anymore, your ruff, ruff, dog act and begging for food. Mom invited her teacher and she doesn’t drink a wink and you have to have three martinis, a bottle of wine and then put calamari rings on your ears and nose and bark like you are some cute dog. I called up an expensive rehab center, agreed to pay for it and Mark went. He looks good doesn’t he? I decided this page would be before and after, oh what am I talking about, a double page layout. Do you think the bottle of Jack Daniels from an ad is appropriate? And I don’t know about the sparkles.

From Bad to worse
I am using a bold funky font—Comic Sans MS. Lily is pregnant. We never expected that. I mean she is old enough but she doesn’t have much of a social life. The news sent Mark back to the bottle. That’s him on the left slumped on the couch watching football, holding his precious a six-pack. He says that beer doesn’t count, that in the old days, like really old, like the Middle Ages, everyone drank beer for every meal because it would protect them from the plague. He’s the plague if you ask me. I decided to go with red for this spread. You know—sex, love, Valentines. Lily takes up most of the layout. Before-- on the left—she had a great shape, that girl, and then after on the right. But wait, some of the before pix make her look awful-- her entire body is bloated. Here she is with the babies, all four. We’re advertising them because Mark says that Lily has a pedigree. Like what it is I don’t know. I put the ribbons, right on the photos-- those cute cocker spaniel, terrier, shepherd, poodle bitches.



Omigod.
Can things get worse? Look, here I am in the classroom as a Teacher’s Aid. I love my job and the kids. Yes, those are cut outs of books and I made them from real felt. Felt was expensive so I decided to make leftover scraps into chair protectors. I pasted them to the bottom of all our kitchen chair legs and Mark said, finally something useful for all that cutting and pasting. Speaking of legs, I really need to buy some tanning product for my legs, but wait, I don't want to get distracted from my theme. Pretty soon I will need an Aid. But really, I mean, who will work with all the problem kids. Oh we don’t call them that anymore, challenged. I mean look at Robert. That’s him sitting next to me. He’s autistic and doesn’t look at anyone. I have to sit next to him and explain it all, like I understand geometry?
And I have to keep away the bullies. See that kid snarling. That’s Theo, the biggest bully in the sixth grade. He snarls at Mark. I decided to go with blue for my background color because I do have the blues and my layout is very random to express my confusion. The kids gave me a going away party and that’s all over my second page. I saved some of the cards and tried to do a collage. I think the page is too messy but it’s the feelings that count: We’ll miss you miss martin, ha, ha.

Graduation!
Everyone is graduating except my kids. I went to the high school graduation anyway, and took some photos of their friends. This page is titled: See you could do it too if you just try and don’t cut classes and do your homework and go to finals like you’re suppose to and if you don’t call Ms. Hall a friggin’ asshole. Yes, I decided to be truthful. Here they are the boys: Mark Jr., Matt with their dad preparing, The I-don’t-give-a-shit-barbecue. Well I do. I went to Wanda’s grad party. Wanda used to go with Mark Jr. and then she got wise. I am noticing that my pages have the bad and good news--maybe that’s my theme. I keep changing the font from layout to layout—I don’t think that’s good scrapbooking style. I decided on white for my backgound color for these pages and Impact font, all in bold. It’s dramatic even if blurry. Wanda looks great, but is she pregnant under those robes? I didn’t want to ask. Her parents are quiet and shy and live in a trailer but they are not trailer trash.

Life is Good
I got a new job in the high school kitchen! I love it and Mark has not been drinking and the boys are getting their GEDs and Mark Jr. and Wanda are getting married and they will live next door to Wanda’s parents and everyone is working and we are going to have the best ever barbecue. I bought some hamburgers, frozen patties at Wal-Mart, the best, really, and I told Mark he could get a keg and we invited everyone we know, the whole goddam neighborhood and things are really looking good. The boys are working on a construction crew, thanks to the money given to Kansas to rebuild roads, and we do have health insurance and I do have hopes although my neighbors are still saying that Obama is a socialist. Then I get really pissed and say, you go join your Tea Party and see where it gets you. They just look at me like I’m some hippie or something but we invited them anyway and the color of these pages will be yellow and I want to use lots of ribbons and sparkles and call it Celebration and use some happy font like monotype corsiva because it is so classy oh man life is good.

a revision from Jean McAvoy from our last session

I wish others would post too!

Summer Jean Valla McAvoy 6/26/10

Summer is here. Even now, as a responsible adult, yoked to a job, I can still feel a hint of the freedom and excitement I felt when school was over and all kinds of summer pleasures lay ahead. And they were many: a trip to Playland in Rye to celebrate that we’d all passed to the next grade; neighborhood hunts for black caps or thimbleberries, which we shared out exactly, sometimes even splitting the little berries in two, which gave us purple fingers and a sense of justice served; later raids on Nonna’s raspberry patch, when the thimbleberries were gone by; the Bassi family reunion, full of cousins and torta and bocce and wine and the men singing old Italian songs in solid harmony (some songs they would translate for me and for others…they’d just smile and say little girls didn’t need to know those songs); trips to Saxon Woods, where you’d get a locker key on a stretchy loop to attach to your bathing suit strap before heading out to the pool to pretend you were a Weeki Watchee mermaid until your lips turned blue and your mother made you get out; catching fireflies in the night (one time we used a beer bottle to hold them and watched fascinated as they staggered around drunk when we released them); early morning trips to Jones Beach to beat the traffic, when we’d arrive to a parking lot full of gulls and leave in the heat of the day, weaving our way over the hot sand and pavement through throngs of people and cars).

But one of the most exciting things we did each summer was quite simple and always unexpected. Suddenly, on a particularly hot, sticky night, my mother would announce
“We’re having waffles and ice cream for dinner tonight.”
And we did. She would mix up some batter, heat up her waffle iron and cook them up. The first batch always stuck and then the iron was good to go. The last batch was always a bit skimpy and didn’t fill out the form. But they were all delicious. We’d go outside to eat them with ice cream on top. And that was dinner. Even though there were many hot, sticky nights it would happen once a summer and you never knew when that would be, so it always came as a surprise. I’d feel a bit giddy, like the world had tilted on its axis, and a bit reckless, like the supper police might come and arrest us.

Let me put this in context. In my world, Nonna Paulina ruled the kitchen, and her meals anchored our family with substance and regularity. She would start to cook in early afternoon and dinner would be on the kitchen table at 6 o’clock, without fail. Northern Italian peasant food, with some American standbys mixed in. Slow food. It was wonderful, truly wonderful, and a touchstone of my life, but that’s another story.

Somehow, those times we broke the rules stand out and mean the wonderful freedom of summer to me. When my mother pulled out her waffle iron, you felt like anything might happen.

On stress--from my Kripalu visit

Dr. Susan Lord on Stress—Kripalu 2010

Mindfulness is the tool, not willpower. Awareness changes reality.

What are the thoughts you have that make you unhappy—Look at what you think and feel

Buddhists say—two kinds of suffering:
1.Things happen—suffer
2. How you think about things that are happening—what are the meaning we make of things. –The meaning of things equals stress.

He or she who adopts well to an insane society cannot be well

What to do:
· Cut out what doesn’t serve you, even people. Some people are toxic. Who are the energy vampires—either eliminate or find some other ways of dealing with them, talking to them. Have good boundaries
· More nervous cells are in our guts than in our heads
· If you are under stress, you are in flight or freeze state. This can lead to chronic physical problems. The immune system is on alert!

Mindfulness: this all works with biochemistry and the brain changes
1. Aware—notice what is bothering you
2. Express it! Talk to friends, dance, shake your body, keep a journal—Exercise—no matter what it is… When the lion chases the gazelle and the gazelle gets away it shakes!
3. Be in the present—not in the past or future. Accept the present. It doesn’t mean that you can’t plan, but be in the moment. If you are too future oriented than you can’t relax.
4. Patterns—what are the thoughts you have that make you unhappy—just notice what you are thinking and feeling
5. Suspend judgments

With the energy vampires. How can we make this relationship into something else? What is your part in it? You are doing a dance with them. Be honest and kind, even about boundaries and your needs. Keep on examining and noticing where you are on this spectrum of being in the present and relaxed with the opposite end--- flight or freezing. Just notice. We can only make shifts. Change is not going to happen over night

Image explosion

We used this wonderful poem last week to insert our own writings as a conversation with the poem, with mary Oliver and with each other. I invite you to post your writings in the comments, also including the line that you chose.

Mockingbirds

This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing

the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothing

better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.

In Greece,
a long time ago,
an old couple
opened their door

to two strangers
who were,
it soon appeared,
not men at all,

but gods.
It is my favorite story--
how the old couple
had almost nothing to give

but their willingness
to be attentive--
but for this alone
the gods loved them

and blessed them--
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water

from a fountain,
the light
swept into all the corners
of the cottage,

and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down--
but still they asked for nothing

but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.

Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning--
whatever it was I said

I would be doing--
I was standing
at the edge of the field--
I was hurrying

through my own soul,
opening its dark doors--
I was leaning out;
I was listening.

Copyright © 1994 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; February 1994; Mockingbirds; Volume 273, No. 2; page 80. Online Source

news and blues

In ten parts
1. great solstice workshop this Monday at 6:45 at the lofts--good group have already said yes!
2: Free poetry workshop at Donna's studio, next Sunday, the 28th, right after her 10:30 class and it's free
3. Loved the cleanse at Mudita and still doing the anti-inflammatory diet; no sugar, dairy, red meat and alchohol--I will indulge in really good wine or proseco or campari but limited.
4. My neck pain is not a herniated disc but only arthritis
5. Subscribing to the yoga insight newsletter--some good stuff: am chanting more
6.Kripalu next week with a friend--taking it slow and light. Yoga light, Yoga Zero.
7. My own writing--oh dear, does this count.
8.please don't lurk, write something, say something, maybe in ten parts
9. Sending ten parts of love---
10. Namaste

June 21--The Solstice

I can't wait to see many of you on the solstice which is a week from this Monday and then I am off to Kripalu for a couple of days. I need the R and R and steady yoga but even more to develop moving from my heart and fine tuning my intution. Sometimes I wish I had a GPS for my internal guide.

Lately the body has been ruling--first the hairline fracture in the foot and wearing Das Boot and now the reoccurrence of neck pain and today's MRI. I might have a herniated disc. I want to pay attention but not pay attention.

Also, I am looking for some strong writings about Iraq and Afghanistan for the anthology at Simon's Rock and maybe some eyestopping, stomping poetry by women. Any suggestions?

Deer observations

For the last two nights the deer around my house have been having secret meetings...
and avoiding me...
If you think people are fickle, deer are far worse...
This is the tribe I fed apples to all winter.....

Are they angry about the big brown bear that has been coming around at night ?
no answers only questions..
mulling it over, I think it's the bear issue...
maybe he's a Republican
and they think I've switched parties...

Can't figure people out
Now deer !!!!!!

I think I'll stick with squirrels
as long as you overfeed them they are ever faithful..

Lana G.

New Revision

Let Us Touch Your Sword

The five of us fish
in Micronesia. But we are one:
We have
Marilyn’s’ lipsticked face
her breezy sex appeal

We have
become her multiplied-- five sirens
stamped and printed,
Saying See Us Please


Andy Warhol printed Marilyn Monroe’s
face in silkscreen over and over and we
are that That Icon


We lean over the boat
Pose like pinups.
letting the breeze
carry skirts and scarves

letting it all
float and hum over the warm sea.


Marilyn sang Happy Birthday to Jack,
and we sing to the sailfish,
King of the Ocean

love you, love, come here, love you mighty sail fish, let us touch, your sword

The Sailfish hears us, swims to us, we lure him up, we pull him in, lift him over!


Let it be stamped on silk

Let it be said---We five, We sexy sirens lipsticked up

That one, this one, that one, this one, And We

Caught
The biggest fish ever in these South Seas!
.

Going Bonkers while wearing Das Boot

Entering week two of the healing process. Trying to be one with slowing down, with reading, with my writing.

Managed to get posion ivy from my 8 foot garden..at first I could not believe it was poison ivy; Where had I been, nowhere; it must be an allergy--the blueberries in my pomeganate juice; peanuts, wheat, the boot! And then I saw it..some horror music please. the dreaded three leaves peeking out of a chrysanthemum plant--Aha!

So another lesson: slow down, be more vigilant, but don't become overly cautious, don't become your parents.

Helping in my wisdom journey: FRom Shawn Harrison, Yoga teacher

Chant:Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha

As you know – invoking the energy of removing obstacles and protecting new beginnings. Set an intention in relation to this before chanting (ex. removing the obstacle of pain in your foot and accepting that this is a cocoon period for a wonderful new beginning when the healing is done). Chant 9, 18, 27… anything divisible by 9 or 108 times.

So yesterday, I chanted 72 times--try it. It's cool.

Dreams

Dreams are born, dreams die, a new dream is birthing...

Where did they go

the heroes of the sixties


and their band of ragtag followers ?


hunted animals
panting to survive


surrounded by nigger bodies

hanging lifeless
from southern trees



they succumbed

to well aimed bullets



guns loaded carefully

sights aimed at their targets

by professional sharpshooters



enter the love assassins


how many bullets did it take

per hero all told

to kill the dream

for JFK ?

brain splattered over Jackie's designer suit


for Martin ?

bleeding from the head onto the motel floorboards

for Bobby ?

lying on the kitchen floor lifeless

for John Lennon ?

stilled forever in the grimy blood spattered street



so many bullets

yet the first one sealed their fate


a motorcade in Dallas

a motel in Memphis

a restaurant kitchen in San Francisco

a street in New York City


war zones

I like to think they died in peace..

Jack in triumph

Martin with friends...

Bobby having just won the nomination

John off for a nice walk...



all fell victim to the element

of surprise and

bullets perfectly aimed



Yet I will not surrender

to the tsunami of fear in my brain....

I cling to the life raft of hope

like a passenger on the Titanic


Lana G

Ridng bikes in high heels - part 2

Riding bikes in high heels

When I get out in the morning I hop on my bike. And I go. I love being back on the bike. In Copenhagen biking is integrated into everyday life and it defines people to a great extend. People of all ages and backgrounds bike to and from work and social activities. I feel so free and connected to people when I´m on the bike. I feel I have wings. Like a bird close to the earth. I didn´t realize until I actually was back on my bike how much biking is integrated in me. For most of my life in the US I traveled by car. Or sometimes bus. Like pretty much everyone else there. The thing I have noticed about biking versus 4 wheels is that you travel at your own speed since you are the engine. I´ve notices that I notice more and that my conscience feels more expanded because I take in more slowly all the things that I see. I get to where I need to in time and I feel calm. On the bike I never get agitated because I´m never stuck in traffic. There is a continuous flow that I believe flows along with my consciousness. So in a way I´m doing a mindfulness practice when I´m biking. I also feel very supported in my daily tasks because the collective consciousness is embracing biking. Bike lanes everywhere, you can take your bike on the train for free. It´s all about encouraging biking. And what I really love is that women get in their high heels and hop on the bike. So you can be stylish and ride your bike at the same time. Sweet.

Flying Pen

Spent a long time with the journal under a stack of books. No courage to catch the pen and soar with it to a place of easy breath. Now the flight is emerging and it clears up the mind and soul. The ink is flowing and the sight is blinding. Finally a place to examine all the levels of grey matter twirling in a mass. It begins. It is all about me.

On Mothers Day

It was Mothers Day lunch, at Donna's house, a group of women, none really young. She spoke of her own mother, dead a long, long time, yet still a comforting presence, regularly giving advice and reassurance. Charlotte told of how when she was young, her Grandmother, dead just a few weeks, came to her in a dream to tell her how to find a family ring her own mother desperately wanted. I thought of my mother, gone for seventeen years—can it possibly be seventeen? She was born in 1911 so this July, she would have been 99. She doesn't talk to me or come in my dreams. I wish she would but perhaps it is I who blocks the gate. Maybe I don't let her come. Possibly, I haven't wanted to hear what she would say.
She died old, ill and shriveled, husband and son gone before, taking something of her essence with them but I could still make her laugh. Aphasia troubled her: when words refused to be found and meaning got lost we would take a long elliptical word-journey together, laughing at this absurdity of talking around and around a mystery thought before we could swoop down like a crow to peck the right word out of the dusty jumble of references to things remembered, people long gone, dogs, cars, clothes and scents. Triumph! A right word pulled the meaning together and Mother knew what she meant: she wasn't actually lost. It was just that expressing herself had become tangled and elusive but when I could help her, it was a pleasure. Together we wandered through her life, remembering and revisiting. Today I find want to look forward but I didn't mind that then and I seldom felt stifled by looking back. Perhaps I knew that soon enough, the need would be gone and this was something I could do for her. Her memories, or my version of them, are now mine. They are what I have left but I think I'm ready to hear what she has to say. I hope she comes.

Thanks, Donna and Charlotte.

The movie

here's the concept: We will start with our writings re first interviews, jobs, classroom bits...moments we were not seemingly in power or had some inner power or...We will set it up as a documentary and maybe even get a young actress to do the Cindy Sherman thing...play all the parts while we read and narrate.

I have someone in mind to play the parts and her husband is a musician and so we could have some song, songs. We need a camera--hmm, very crucial. And I am thinking of no longer than a half hour film.

I know Brenda wants to do this and anybody else?

We will put it on You Tube?

Yesterday's Words

I'd like to make a movie
except...
I don't have much to say
and until I see what I'm saying, with passionate eyes,
a frenzy of color and texture, melting into the descending twilight
willing captive of the right-now,
I don't have much to say.
It would be a movie to stop time.
Who was I?
I love paying attention to details...
...connection is the word that shimmers
but I don't have much to say.

(With thanks to those whose words these were, yesterday at the Lofts: Donna, Mary, Lana, Annie, Roberta

Feeding on everything today

At first we thought this poem wold be depressing but after discussing it together we realized that it was circling cycles, and drawing on the heats in the body and the brain. The writings were different but the same as if we all put our hands in the same print. I hope that some will post here.


Burning Oneself Out


We can look into the stove tonight
as into a mirror, yes,

the serrated log, the yellow-blue gaseous core

the crimson-flittered grey ash, yes.
I know inside my eyelids
and underneath my skin

Time takes hold of us like a draft
upward, drawing at the heats
in the belly, in the brain

You told me of setting your hand
into the print of a long-dead Indian
and for a moment, I knew that hand,

that print, that rock,
the sun producing powerful dreams
A word can do this

or, as tonight, the mirror of the fire
of my mind, burning as if it could go on
burning itself, burning down

feeding on everything
till there is nothing in life
that has not fed that fire

Adrienne Rich

Inside/Outside

I just read Charles Blow on diversity in a tea pary rally in Dallas. It scared me. As Blow said, it was a farce. I know I have to do something more besides write here and go omigod! But what. Maybe just meditation for now. But also something thru writing and or a trip to DC in the fall.

The last time we were writing about women and power. I am interested in that question. I know-- first--power over self: our bodies, minds, souls. To be explored.

We are writing this week at the Lofts...will send emails to those I think might be coming.

But remember this is free space, free writing--anything you want and it is safe.

where are you?

Anna is my wise woman today!
I went to the Marina Abramovic exhibit at MOMA and was amazed but I did not get it. Why a woman impaled on a screen nude and forever not moving? I need to read about this. MOma was a circus.

I felt comfortable looking at the Henri Cartier Bresson photos--amazing and he understood women's bodies. I did not feel as if his gaze was intrusive.

Even though he was a photo-journalist, most of his photos were daringly beautiful in content and form.

Marie gave me this website today--an interesting woman who runs seminars.

http://arieldaunay.com/.

Testing this out--the script is yet to come

Have you received invites? Who wants to help with a humorous film re women of a certain age? any song writers?

Wise Women

Hello all--I am hoping that many of you might want to publish your writings here and then we can respond whenever we want. Of course we will meet face to face but any time you want to write and post you can. This will also give us an opportunity to hear from Marie who is now in Copenhagen.

I like the direction of our last writing--who are we as women today. I think it might be important to recognize our stories from today but also from the past--to clear the air.

I will post my writings from last week here and maybe a draft of a short-short film script I am trying based around the riffs of Pat, Lana, and Brenda.