Abdi on This American Life!

 http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/560/abdi-and-the-golden-ticket

On July 4th our friend and newest family member Abdi Nor was featured on This American Life based on ongoing interviews with Leo Hornak from the BBC.

The story is a wonderful reminder about why people want to live in America, the value of incorruptible police, how difficult life is for refugees, and how much is added to America by it's "outsiders".
The comment section on Twitter and on the Facebook site for TAL are a heartfelt outpouring of goodwill just in case you need a boost for your faith in humanity.

One of my favorite lines is from Hassan Iftin Abdi's big brother, a university student, refugee, and wise fellow. He says "sometimes luck is fair".  It was echoed many times in social media in the days that followed.

Thanks to all who have supported Abdi and Hassan in small and huge ways over time including Dick Gordon, Paul Salopek, Cori Princell, Ben Bellows, Nene Reiley, Margaret Caudill-Slosbeg, Mark Yarnell, John Hiley, and Pamela Gordon. These are just some of the people in our particular Abdi support circle.

Leo reminded me of a message I sent to our Abdi team over a year ago as we were all fretting over his upcoming interview with the US embassy.

Because of the radio …. We met Abdi and started a thing.

What we all have in common is the ear tuned to a good story, a voice over the wire.

I was cleaning the chicken coop today, a job I like better than you might think. It's all real in a chicken coop. All the metaphor is concrete and amusing. I treat these chickens well — not extravagantly but decently. I cannot save the world of suffering chickens through these particular chickens but I can acknowledge that they deserve it and do my part in the ecosystem. One of my parts in the ecosystem.  There is something in how this all adds up in my mind that speaks to why it makes any sense to pick one Somali refugee and say "come" we will try to help". It is not a programme or even a project, it is just one live being that would be better off secure and able to work within his capacities and nature.

Abdi goes to the US embassy tomorrow for a 7:30 am interview. I am restless and alive with anticipation. Can so much and so many people be bound together by one civil servant sitting in an office for a 15 minute "interview"?  If you had 5 or 15 minutes to decide someones fate what would you ask them?

Please listen and enjoy. You may also want to listen to his interviews and shows on BBC and The Story from Dick Gordon "Messages from Mogadishu".

May you feel the love and support of your own circle. 

Say this..."I am not in a hurry"

"It's ok. I am not in a hurry."

Say this to people & time slows down, 

You can hear it.. feel it...there are a few extra beats

&

a bit more air

 Plus

It surprises everyone. 

Try it.

Take Love for instance-- A couple of birds- cardinals

A couple of cardinals -- "We" -- the cardinal couple

Gay Bumgarner prized the cardinal birds for their their flash of red color and their friendliness. She loved photographing them, particularly in winter when their presence seems festive, Christmas-y, brave and romantic. Cardinals became one of her specialties and the depth of her collection is astonishing-- illustrating every type of "emotional" moment especially to those willing to let fancy run free.

Suzanne Rhodes and I created a web-sampler of winter cardinals for the staff at International Animal Welfare to use to select their official holiday card. As we explored and then chose the collection we found ourselves easily spinning stories.

So, here is one for fun, the familiar story of the arc of romance. Its the same the whole world over-- whether we've two feet, four feet, feathers or fur. Join us...add a line or two, suggest a picture or a plot twist.

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It starts with magic. . . Everything is easier. You speak the same language. Your step is lighter and your song is sweeter. You can't get enough of each other.

Your lives intertwine you create a home and revel in the small domestic details-- preparing meals, social gatherings, entertaining the neighbors-- together.

Then come the holidays, with all the decorating and family visits. Something creeps in, you're not on the same page anymore, everything matters and feels effortful.

And then, with the holiday festivities in the past, it breaks down altogether ...... ouch. Foreigners to each other, your eyes don't quite meet.

Things that used to make you laugh aren't funny anymore. You move stiffly past each other and say "FINE!" a lot -- and silence follows.

But then, somehow, something gives. Is it hope, habit, fatigue, or compassion? You forget you're "supposed" to be resisting and in the face of even the smallest opening, you bend towards each other. The efforts of resistance seem to evaporate. You find yourselves softening, leaning in, the roaring has quieted. Its just "us" on our branch here. Relief flows in like fresh air as the normal becomes possible and humor is in reach.

Then, on that cold winter day with snow falling continuously, the photographer came and takes your picture -- the picture up on the mantle -- it's the warmth and connection you share that day that suffuses the picture and everyone comments on. There something in the color-- is it contrast or compliment? -- something companionable, even romantic again.

The well-being and simple pleasure are earned. It's no simple feat; it may be miraculous! Good to remember everything has it season. And if you are lucky you recognize the value of each season and don't panic when it isn't always summer.

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If you have never heard it listen to the song/poem "Take Love for Instance" written and read by Bobbie Louise Hawkins At the Great American Music Hall. Its free to listen once on this site, and definitely worth it. If you have problems with the link let us know.

Meanwhile, inspired by the last cardinal image we have created official holiday postage stamps If you would like to purchase these custom stamps (or others with images by Gay Bumgarner and Mother-Daughter Press) please send an EMAIL request. Same goes for cards or small mounted prints-- give someone an image that makes them smile.

Be well and tell us if you "recommend" the post (it's similar to the "like" on facebook except we could only get the word "recommend". Love to hear just that... did you "like" or enjoy it-- no heavy sign in, no justification, just sign of life response. Thanks!

Poems for Friendship

I found a box of Gay's recently. It was a special box, cardboard with hinges and a bow with  nice paper on the outside. I looked in it and read when was in it trying to figure out its theme?  How did these bits and peices all end up together? It happens like that around my house.... As careful as we tried to be nonetheless much arrived in Vermont



Let me share a few of the contents.  Readers may recognize them or some may not know that your card, picture, or note was in the box too. For some of you I will be mailing you something from the box because I think it speaks to the friendship of so many years and it obviously was something you all shared.          

I found two themes-- Maybe more if I pay attention ----- Do you want to guess?

Variations on the theme of friendship - A. J. Constance

I It was just like old times, as they say except it was better than the old times It was more like the new, new times to come More like what we are and are becoming and will be Than like what we have been and were.	II Whatever I can give you of myself, that you have not already acknowledged as your own What gift is left then to pass between us, but the living out of  that ultimate priceless gift of friendship already given and received and given back again.
III Was ever the wind so gentle on my face? Did sea ever stretch out its arms to such wise horizons? Has the sky ever been so full of peace and promise? Has it been that I have been alive here on this earth through many years, or have i just been born for the first time today, Into this world of inexpressible beauty and tenderness?	IV It occurs to me as I watch the wind move Through these ancient olive trees, that thirty years from now these ties between us will be stronger whatever paths our lives may take and that I shall cherish you then, in that quite different time (so far beyond our present seeing), even more than I do now.

Visual aids to help talk to your medical team when times are tough

Health Through Imagery

Pictures to aid communication

For Bruce Dan

Bruce, perhaps these images can act as communication aids with your care team.  We could give you a whole range of emoto-animals that your team could use to gauge your mood and open-mindedness to things like early morning awakenings and another dose of benadryl.  

The Remarkable and intensely expressive bird on the top is an Egyptian eagle.  She has the look of disapproval down to an art form.  The hair style helps.

The menacing open-mouthed bird below the first bird is a Red Shouldered Hawk.  This is a look that I consider in the category of "baring ones teeth" and may allow some topics to just "poof".... dissipate. "No, no benadryl" or whatever.
If necessary you can ramp it up and do the high pitched screeching noise they make when they look like this. Guaranteed to be taken seriously.

Many Jungian practitioners consider it a good idea for us to practice acting like different animals as a way for to extend our physical and emotional range.   Its not my place to say you should try acting from your inner predator but, who am I to argue with Jung.

On a more positive note, check out our Gallery called  Birds -- yoga, bathing, and fitness

They are funny, earnest, and surprising.  Maybe when you feel a bit better you can try some of the avian aqua yoga too.

But for now we will hold you in the light.  I hope your days are more restful and less dramatic.

Love from all of us Sharon,Gib,Natalya, and the crew in northern Vermont.
PS- got to use some data from TSS case while teaching the other day. We were reviewing epicurves.

For a traveling Friend -- a poem, a picture, some wordplay

Words to live by -  By Louise Erdrich

"I would be converted to a religion of grass.
Sleep the winter away and rise headlong each spring.
Sink deep roots.
Conserve water.
Respect and nourish your neighbors and never let trees gain the upper hand.
Such are the tenets and dogmas.
As for the practice-- Grow lush in order to be devoured or
caressed, stiffen in sweet elegance, invent startling seeds-- these
also make sense.
Bow beneath the arm of fire.
Connect underground.
Provide.
Provide.

Be lovely and do no harm."

For Professor Meg Harper PhD, a wonderful friend and a star on her way to Limerick Ireland.  She is a poet, a scholar, a woman with a high heart that laughs easily.  Here is a poem and a picture connected to some scientific wordplay, great names and a durable metaphor.

Picture: Foxtail species of grass, a type of diaspore, showing the inflorescence (flower head) arranged as two florets made of lemmas, flumes & altogether called a spikelet.  Florets may be arranged on the rachilla (axis) and protected by a second set of scales called glumes.  If the horiztontal stems go underground they are called rhizomes.  As Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes says Rhizome is a metaphor that endures.

Good luck, we love you.

Sharon, Gib, Morgan, Natalya, Lacy, Tigger, Jasmine, Maine, Vermont and Friends

Welcome guest author Jane Flink from Columbia Missouri.   

The "Raging Grannies" Youtube video (see earlier post) and their rollicking response to CBS "right to life" advertising funds inspired Jane.  She mobilized her inspiration and wrote a wee story called "Gods Idea" and I have included it below.  

GOD HAS A GOOD IDEA - By Jane Flink

God is sitting in the Garden of Eden, contemplating all that s/he has made. “I want another experiment with Persons,” God thinks.  S/he wants to create a tiny Person.  S/he will call it a Baby and Adam and Eve will learn about themselves as they watch the Baby grow to be like them.

“Where will I put this Baby I will create?” God wonders.  “I could hide the Baby under a large cabbage leaf in the garden and when the Persons come out to gather food, they will find the baby.  But will they understand what a Baby is if they find it under a cabbage leaf?”  And God says, “That is not a good idea”.

I could drop the baby from the sky, God thinks, perhaps from the beak of some large flying bird.  But the Baby, as I envision it, would not withstand the fall to earth.  “So that,” God says, “ is not a good idea.”

God thinks longer.  “Perhaps I should first create a council of elders, made in the form of Adam, and when they open their council meeting lo, a baby shall be in front of them, and these wise elders can decide what to do with it.  But for all their wisdom, will they understand what a Baby is, and what a Baby needs?  God thinks it likely a council of elders would find a Baby only something more to argue about.

God’s mind roams over his/her creation. “I could give the baby to Adam, but he is always jumping and plunging into streams to swim and climbing tall trees.   Adam might not understand how to grow the Baby to become a Person, male or female, as I have created them.” 

As God is thinking, Eve strolls down a path near the place where God is sitting. She has built a raft to cross a stream to gather berries and along the way she finds a young rabbit, one of God’s newer Creations. Eve is playing with the rabbit, feeding it bits of lettuce from the garden and she and the rabbit roll over together in the soft grass.  When the young rabbit grows tired, Eve nestles it against the hollow of her throat. Carrying the rabbit, Eve finds a soft tussocky place under the shade of a tree and she and the rabbit curl up together, and they sleep.

God loves them all -- s/he loves the cabbages and the high-flying bird, and Adam and the Council of Elders, and Eve and the little rabbit and so it is  hard to know where to put the Baby he is planning to create.  S/he looks again at Eve and the rabbit.  When she found it in need of play and food and sleep and love she gave the rabbit all of them. The Baby God is thinking of would need all those things, not just for an afternoon; not just in cabbage season; not just when high-flying birds cared to carry cargo, or when councils of elders sat down to disagree. For the Baby, God wants love that will never die.

Finally, God decides.  He gives dominion over the animals to Adam.  But he gives dominion over the Baby to Eve, to carry inside her body until it is strong, until God himself can breathe life into its nostrils and make of it a living soul.  When God tells Adam about the animals, Adam leaps with joy. But when he gives the Baby to Eve, her head is full of visions of the blessing of life given and the sadness of life taken and the need for a love that never dies.

The sun closes down the day, casting shadows of blue and gold and God sits quietly, looking with satisfaction over all her/his Creation. “The one about the Baby,” God thinks, musing  –“that was a very good idea,”

The End....

Abortion politics is nasty business and unsteady ground.  It has divided and hurt us for so long.  In the middle of Jane's story I felt suddenly disorientated as if air was rushing into my mind bringing me a sense of space.   Into this space came laughter and its near companion, compassion.  We need all the questions, all the wisdom, and all the humor that we can muster for this collective heart-sore. 

Then, Jane added in our email exchange, "At any rate, God's decision carries everything I believe about how necessary and delightful and strong and needy and merciful and fun-loving and caring women are, and I have thought, since my first pregnancy, that God was a pretty wise old guy to put the Baby where he put it.  And if there are times when Woman finds she cannot give the Baby what it needs, and must part with it, I believe with all my heart that abortion is her decision and hers alone -- not only do I believe that, but I think God believes it, too. All those televangelists can't fool me!"


Thanks for being the inspiration for something i have long wanted to write!"    Love, Jane 

Ah but the honor is mine....Love Sharon 
and
Thanks to the Salonistas in Missouri and to other warm hearted strong minded women who have inspired us to continue to explore, talk, and listen.

A First installment Blog post from Jane Flink

Dear Sharon — Double thanks for the beautiful cards and for the blogosphere direction. I look out my window on a world of white. Unusual for Missouri, we have had snow since Christmas eve and its as if the clouds take naps and the sun comes out and then they wake up, remember what they should be about, and sprinkle more snow crystals on us. Rather nice for us, as we had a very busy Christmas holiday season, and now have the luxury of pushing back in our comfy chairs with good books or catching up on the airline terrorist or watching some silly show (such as “Samantha takes charge”) while
snow drifts down on the other side of cold window panes. It is always a joy to hear from you.

Fondly,

Jane Flink

Jane Flink is Author of "Unmarked Trails: A Memoir". It is available at Amazon and other online and real book stores. The cover photograph by Gay McDonnell Bumgarner. Gay was excited about this book because Jane welcomed her into the creative process. She got to read earlier drafts and she was consulted about decisions such as the book cover photo and the title. She respected Janes' experience and found it energizing to be part of a new creative process.

It is through our friends that we get to learn about whole worlds we would otherwise never know. For example, how to run a small business, practice public health, be a scientist, sell real estate, be a music professor, or write a book.

I am delighted that Jane agreed to let me take her thank you note for photo cards and its wonderful imagery of winter and how the weather can be integrated into our experience of the world and perhaps, sets our pace. The weather personified or humans naturalized. Enjoy!

Over the last 30 years, Jane Flink has been an award-winning reporter, photographer, editor and publisher, and is nationally recognized as a community journalist. Check out her book

We welcome all of you to share your writing and tell us of your connections perhaps newly experienced. We are still floating the question of aging and "how to", see previous post on Indian hornbill. If you want help posting -- just ask but, join the club

Meanwhile, greetings from Valencia Spain. Some stories and pictures to follow. Tomorrow is the parade of kings for the start of Epihany.