The Late Bloomer: Myths and Stories of the Wise Woman Archetype

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Live in six weekly sessions online beginning September 21, 2011

Return once again to the “fireside” and join with women (and honorary women) from all over the world to hear Dr CPE present the latest from her masterwork on the Dangerous Old Woman.
 

Dr. E is living medicine

In this new program there are more original stories, poems, and psychological commentary exploring the cycles of “burgeoning, blooming New Life.  In the topic list there are such compelling topics as: "Aunt Edna on How to Misbehave", "Possession by the Overculture: Stockholm Syndrome and the Creative Force" and here is one "“The Woman Who Was Eaten by Her Relatives” 

Follow this link to The Late-Bloomer at Sounds True for the details and course topics.  All sessions can be downloaded to listen and share again later. 

 

You will be very glad you came in whatever way you can

Alarming Cost cutting measures-- UGH-- make a fuss

UGH!  Now what will they feed us?

Linda Hanson (Photographer San Francisco) who shared a link to a NYT article ( "Governments go to extremes as downturns wears on") and a follow up editorial in Calitics by Robert Cruickshank that
describe bone-chilling measures to cut costs in various states -- reducing school days, turning off street lights, cutting community policing-- just to name a few. After I shout at the computer and stomp around the house I wear a look on my face much like the turtle above. UGH....

The buildings, institutions, and infrastructure that we inherited from our grandparents and their grandparents rose from the urge to create the future and demonstrated their belief in a national society.  But, we have re-framed their investments and  accomplishments -- making them admirable and relevant for those days but not these.  The view of joint action and shared costs as efficient, as a sign of wealth and civilization, as a gift to our children, the same force that created firehouses, libraries, and laboratories, is now spoken of with distrust and cast as oppression -- Big Government, socialism and taxation as over-burdensome.

The long run of good fortune and global economic dominance that was the the hope then the reality for the US during most of the 20th century was a byproduct not a birthright.  The optimism that characterized Americans, and for which we were belittled and beloved, has been replaced by magical thinking and denial. I am puzzled and alarmed by our willingness to abdicate the strategies and products of our national optimism and power.  Have we really decided that well proven solutions and critical investments are not important anymore or will not benefit us or those we care about? 

It seems we no longer consider our society or community as a valuable commodity that can be created and inherited.  I want to be proud of what we have contributed.  We cannot afford to do less or to back away.  Our national security is tightly bound to much much more than military spending and selling arms.  We must not be fooled, by these "cost cutting" steps and the situation that made it necessary was constructed, partly designed, and it is not simply to be accepted.  Make a fuss.
Or, at least make a face.
Sharon

The Help- Kathryn Stockett Audio on Amazon

This is a great read but, even better, it is a fantastic listen.  It was heartily recommended by a friend with the specific instructions that I should get the audio version.  Part way through the book she had to buy the audio version so she could keep "reading" while she drove cross country.   She recommended that I go directly to that version and, she was right, as usual.   I do not think my imagination could have done justice to the richness of the voices that these women, the readers and the author have created. Natalya and I have been listening to it over and over as we drive back and forth and back and forth and back and.... well, you get the idea, to Maine.  We are working on respectable imitations of the voices we have heard.

One of the rewards is the chance through the story to talk deep history with my daughter.  Another is to remember those years-- to feel, again, the nuanced but unyielding divisions that existed; maintained through thousands of tiny gestures and unspoken supports.  At the risk of playing into some horrible cultural gaffe let me say that my ears were hungry for the timbre, rhythm, and resonance of a black woman's voice.  

It is a kind book, one that makes me stop short when I realize I cannot talk about it with my mother. A heart stopping realization. There was such pleasure in finding things that I knew down to the marrow  of my bones would make her laugh or cry.   There is so much to it and savoring all that is in it, even the hard parts, is a pleasure.  We would have, my mother and I, talked about all the invisible lines, the guy wires that support a terrible injustice making it huge, impossible to ignore, and obscenely invisible.  A society spends enormous energy pretending not to see large injustices. There is a next wave of the civil rights movement that belongs to those of us that are of "mostly-European-American" race.

There is much to be said about race and class. Regrettably, it has become difficult to talk about and therefore to learn. I believe Ms. Stockett has contributed to the possibility of conversation. 

Have you read the book?
Sharon

Ah, a gift, for you.
A little electro-magno-neuro-cardio-web-based cosmic gift for you whether you be girl or boy (aka honorary girl).   Its a story called "embrace your inner girl" by Eve Ensler


But, first, before you push play to start this brief but stirring video, riddle me this....

What sorts of things might you be doing that if someone said "you do that like a girl" that you would experience this comment as a compliment?

Fill in the blanks....You are  _____ or, do  _____  like a girl.

Enjoy the video, I think you will.



Namaste, salaam, and hallelujah

Sharon