Happy music & Goat Rodeos

Bluegrass music & Yo Yo Ma? Someone isn't sticking to their genre and then you know what happens? ...... Something cool and creative. 

Here is a leap up and dance song called "here and heaven"

The group is called "Goat Rodeo" and they explain the term as follows--

A Goat Rodeo aka Goat Rope, is a term worth knowing.  It is the most polite term used by aviation people (those in high risk situations) to describe a scenario that requires about 100 things to go right simultaneously if you intend to walk away from it.  As in "that workshop was a goat rodeo" 

 It speaks to the miraculous alignments that can happen occasionally when things work-- the music sounds good, the paper reads itself, the people all smile, the pilot doesn't die, the food is fresh and tasty, and more. When we are part of creating these miracles it may look/feel a lot more like a Goat rodeo than a symphony.

The chorus...
"have we all forgotten that we’re getting old"

Speaking of a Goat Rodeo, well aging is a lot like that.  Lets get old dancing, way outside our boxes and comfort zones. Try something different!

Have something like-minded or like-manifested to share?

Stand by me - There is hope

I must respond. There is a wonderful inspiration started by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes on her facebook page (a very rich place to hang around).. A kerfuffule -- a communal gasp-- a rise of energy around the song 'Stand by Me'.

Dr. CPE says "South African Yvonne Chaka Chaka sang this song a cappela to an audience after she warned Batswana to quit sitting around shaking one's head, and instead to be alert and to guard in every way possible, against increasingly devastating child pornography and human trafficking in all of Africa.
 She sang this POWERFUL song afterward."

It is a marching song, a question, a fearful longing, and an answer. My favorite version is from "Playing for Change"-- Musicians from all over the world are recorded and one by one brought into the shared space of the message in the music. In the end it is a joyful awakening --to the answer of many voices joining together --- and it lets us throw back our heads to sing louder and more fearlessly and to move our bodies.   An accompaniment to the work of many hands reaching out to make sure others know, "I am here".

Today I send this good medicine to Abdi and Hassan Nur Iftin in Nairobi (see Abdi flies Somalia from March 2011)  because we feel that there is now real hope that their dream of being college students in the US may happen.

As Dr. E says "we can make mere 'light' into Lightning!....¡Relampago!"

In April when I was sick nearly to death in the ICU, Hassan and Abdi found a phone line that reached all the way into that room in St. Johnsbury Vermont from Nairobi.  In my fog of grace and darkness a nurse said "Abdi called and his mother is praying for you".  I was felled.  This mother of mothers living in a Somali refugee camp, whose boys are not safe with her, who has no certainty of food still stops and offers me her prayers and stands by me.  This song is for her too.

I met Abdi and then Hassan through his stories on the radio. Listen as Abdi tells of life in Somalia as more and more people move to the restless rhythm of drought and lack of food, again.
Be reminded, he is a good storyteller and we can stand it. The Story: Abdi talks of Somalia now

If we are lucky these young men will soon get to open a course catalog and begin to choose -- feeding their hearts and their brains. Medicine for the murders they witnessed, the sister they lost to starvation, the threats, and the nightmares born in hiding caves, hopes lost in refugee life.  Its not perfect medicine but it is strong and it will help,

To pull this off we may have to ask for help but today there is real hope. Wahooo!
Sharon y familia

To Stories from Mogadishu and responses from Vermont

We have been enriched by a conversation with new friends in Africa and one of the topics has been snow. They live at the equator and have an idea of snow that has charmed us here and made us laugh. So this video is for them to give them a sense of snow.



If you haven't heard it yet check out "The story" and Messages from Mogadishu.  This is citizen journalism at its best.  Our response back via this lighthearted video may seem trivial in light of the difficulties there. How can we laugh or complain about the snow when their lives are so constrained and difficult? I don't know how to balance these things, I just know that all I can offer are authentic responses and images of my life.  Sometimes "help" comes as humor, sometimes as questions and always listening.

The reporter, a young man called Abdi, encouraged by Dick Gordon from the radio program "The Story", has gained a voice, an audience, and in our case friends and supporters. This affection and concern has spread and includes his family spread far and wide who worry for him and help him. Abdi, through Dick Gordon and Paul Salopek, an award-winning journalist from Chicago, has begun a conversation with our family, friends and a community of public radio listeners, that makes the far-flung country of Somalia much more pressing and real. Everyday we try to cast a net of safety and connectedness over him. This type of reporting is amazing and life-changing.

Listen. If you want to support The Story or Abdi please do.

Peace

Sharon

Stor: The lost cat and the graphics artist --humor rich & dark

This "story" presents an exchange between "Shannon" mistress of a lost cat and "David" the graphic artist that she is hoping will help her design a poster to find her cat. This is a tale of passive-aggressive co-workers, using art and words to obscure communication, and a moral tale -- albeit at the expense of a fictional kitty-- that is too good not to share.  What happens is dark delicious humor.  Enjoy enjoy.

lost cats and if graphic artists were in charge 

Want more memorable humor?  It is winter and it gets dark early.  This kitty-tale reminds me of my all time favorite Youtube video called "herding cats." It is a hilarious short piece that we posted before.  If you missed it run, do not walk, to watch it.  See Herding cats

Kitten with an attitude, "Who are you calling cute?"

If you like these tell us by clicking "like" or add a comment-- even anonymously. We thrive on your good humor. 

Best wishes Sharon and Natalya.

Girl Math: Try this a word problem for your heart and frontal lobes

Watch this! A short clip from by William Ury the masterful negotiator and
peacemaker from a recent TED talk. It features a word problem using "Girl Math"
It is a story about transformation


Finding the 18th camel.
In this story the wise woman elder takes the long view and
by cleverly using math and intuition she creates
surprising and practical Magic
Magic that heals and in some cases
may cause laughter and a heart full of breath

This is what we hope to do and to encourage in our work via
Mother-Daughter Press

Sorry for the need to re-post. All the linking pieces didn't... but, hopefully I have a better sense of the process. Please let me know if what comes doesn't work

Sharon

Rant for Booming-- mitigating the damage from oil blowout

Why O why aren’t we really Booming? Mitigating the oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico

I heard this as an audio and was galvanized.

There are things I know well, like Afghanistan, and disaster response (like refugee camps, post hurricane response) & on those subject I fing that watching people (us) do them poorly is an outrage, a pain, & a catastrophe. Like Katrina or the Afhgan war-- I shout at the television is despair and disbelief. The pain and frustration is unbearable. In fact, on those subjects I sound a lot like Ms. Fishgrease.




What I want to know is if it is too late to do good booming and if not what exactly is being done.

In case the suggestions or questions I have go past too fast in the video I have restated them here. Let me know if you have suggestions. I can only imagine how heartbreaking it would be to watch NOTHING happening as the oil rises on the gulf.

Based on what we hear here from this video, it sounds like there is a job we can do:
a. Get the experts to tell us what to do at this stage about booming & any other ways to mitigate the exposure to and effects of oil on the living things in the water and on shore.
b. Get boom made and delivered. If it really matters we can get the women and the equipment. Can we make more of it with sewing machines, a standard pattern, and the right “material”? If it is money-- get money and then watch it like a hawk.
c. Help in whatever way to get it in place, keep it right and use every means possible to monitor the process. Use google earth, airplanes, boats, word of mouth, radios, and real science.
d. Best I’ve found so far is called "skytruth”  Follow the oil catastrophe via Gulf Oil Tracker 
e. Maybe this is nuts and its too late. If so, tell us. But, tell us if there are other ways we can chip and do things that matter.
f. The Coast Guard is meant to guard our coasts. They should do that, we should demand that.

Our hearts go to all lives connected to the gulf of Mexico.  I've made a gallery of photos from there and add it it every day.  Hearts to the gulf

I for one would be willing to be a boom-tender.  Hopefully I would be better at it than making videos but, in both cases I am trying to improve.

Sharon

Education revolution from TED series

This is an entertaining and activating talk on education that may resonate with you. He offers some useful and powerful mental images to help illustrate his points.



As we work with some incredible people to create/design tailored education for our daughter the term "community-based" education seems apt.

Sharon

Health promotion

 

Activities to promote and produce health among individuals and populations

Here is an example of a health promoton activity 

 Amazing seat belt Ad

This is the type of the thing BEST HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD would make.

Gorgeous and riveting.  It is from the UK and the Sussex Safer-roads Partnership.   Nothing like a group of average citizens with fire in their belly and something important at stake + support. In the US we call them a) public service announcements and show them at 2am since they don't sell anything important or, b) A pharmaceutical commercial and then apply our best minds and science into promoting the idea that we are sick and that one can buy(do) something about it.

Note recent CDC reported that despite the increase in "health related" activities such as exercise and diet change (jogging or guilt about jogging and diet coke) that the proportion of Americans that say they are in excellent or good health is falling.  The question, called "self-reported health", asks people who they would describe their health words such as: Excellent, good, fair, poor".  The question has been asked for over 30 years on national surveys and it is a robust little bugger that predict future health problems and death more reliably than almost any lab test or risk behavior.  Tis a little eerie but fascinating.

The ideas we promote the stories we tell ourselves matter.

If you want to know more there is more to tell. If you have thoughts or ideas do tell.

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

Salonistas, I am trying to learn to put things on the blog for you (and others). This is for all who love language and wondered where the question marks have come from as people talk.