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AS THE WEST-COAST BURNS. . .

For three days we haven’t been able to walk outside. We open the door quickly to let the dog out for a pee. It smells like a campfire lit in a small room, all doors closed. I masked up several days ago to water some flowers and pick tomatoes. Today I’ll do the same. We’re lucky to have a well-sealed home and make-shift fans equipped with serious air filters, but the city hosts hundreds of homeless who live in tents, and many houses are filled will hazardous air by now.

Trapper Creek on Sept. 6, 2020–now threatened by wildfire.

Outside of our city, fires have decimated towns and homes, and forests burn–including an area north, along Trapper Creek in Washington where we had been camping with friends only one week ago. It has been our refuge for years.

As I write, 28 wildfires burn in Oregon alone. Until Monday, September 7th, the problem was manageable, but that’s when unusual winds from the east blew in–powering the flames. More than a million acres have burned in Oregon alone.

From so much loss all around us, I ache. And I am grateful to firefighters working all hours to keep flames from destroying our city and more. We hope for rain, but it’s not in our control.

I dream also of when we will realize together we’re guest on this planet–and stop blaming and get moving toward kinder, productive action.

In California today, our president’s message is scolding rather than compassion, You need to manage your forests better, he says. He also argues against science.

While employing men and women toward service to clean up the forests would have been a great way to put people to work on federal lands over the past months and years, support and action is what we need now–not looking backward.

Firefighters are exhausted—and we will need more people to join the efforts. A hurricane in Louisiana is now on its way, too. More troubled lands in our nation. We need collaboration, cooperation–and less talk toward re-election. Show us, don’t tell!

We also need respect for science and to teach the masses to think more critically.

Scientists are people of all sorts, but their business is to ask questions. A scientist makes a hypothesis—an educated guess about what is what—and then works to determine if his or her thinking can be supported.

Continue reading “AS THE WEST-COAST BURNS. . .”
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No More Silence

I Want to Be a Part of the Change

June 14, 2020

It’s tough to figure out what to write and post. I know I need to listen, yet I also need to write and act—even when I’m not certain about what is the right thing to do or say.

Along with many, I’ve felt fear and a collective ache and grief since the murder of George Floyd by a policeman in Minneapolis. I’m sorry it’s taken until now for me to really wake up to the degree of ongoing injustice in the United States—for Black Americans. I regret my complacency.

The struggle for justice goes on.

 I’m no political analyst nor historian, but my grandfather flew airplanes for the German army during WWII. My great-grandmother, a house-cleaner and not well-educated—had tried to warn her daughter. She knew Hitler was dangerous. But my grandmother, her daughter, was swept up in the years, Nazi-youth, and didn’t listen to her mother’s warning. Hitler lead the country into the worst of human behavior, and he did it by instilling hatred between groups of people.

I felt shame for decades, knowing this history in my blood. But I grew up with the stories: Desperate people followed a crazy man, listened to a leader who lead them into darkness. He cradled their fears. He promised more wealth and power to those who wanted more for themselves and their children at the expense of the “others”.

So many died, and I’m sorry for these losses. The best I can do now is to keep alive awareness and to speak out and take part in action.

 Like so many people I know, a deep unease grew when the current president moved into the White House. Throughout his campaign he had spread hatred and demonstrated himself a bigot, misogynist, and clearly a man more interested in division than in unity or justice for all.

Continue reading “No More Silence”
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Let’s Stay Strong & Find Joy in the Moments!

This includes supporting our body’s Immune System!

Welcome back to LIT ― Live(s) Inspiring Today! If you haven’t been here before, THANKS for sharing some moments now!

Our first Portland snow fell this morning, in mid-March; a friend was in town for a conference this past week and sent home after hundreds had arrived to Portland from as far away as Chile; people all over the world feel worried in new ways. YET, I feel a lovely surprise of “free time” to do what I often don’t do―such as blogging.

Given the challenges of now, let’s talk about the wondrous human body―and immunity. We want to stay healthy and strong. I might even bring poetry into this conversation!

Mostly, I what to remind you and me what we can do any moment of our lives to grow and remain resilient. Not that we control much, yet even when stuck at home, even as plans go berserk and we miss our usual workouts and events are canceled, even when our livelihood feels at stake―on our own time, in our own homes, phone calls and webinars–we can make small decisions that will help not only ourselves but neighbors we’ve never met.

Self-care is good for everyone!

Growing scientific evidence shows that stress reduces the ability of our bodies to fight off ALL diseases and illnesses.

Fantastic if none of these suggestions are new to you! Here goes:

1. Food First: We are what we eat, and when it comes to staying healthy, a colorful plate is an image to behold. While there is no one best diet for all of us, we each need a balance of all three macro-nutrients (fats, protein & carbohydrates).

We need good fat to utilize the protein we consume, and we need protein in our diet in order to digest fat. Carbs are everywhere, and getting enough of those is not a worry for most of us. Don’t forget the greens–lots of them!

Keep in mind that constant snacking is a drain on the body: If always busy breaking down and absorbing food, the body can’t complete its other essential functions―such as detoxification―imperative to a strong immune system and our vital organs working well.  Continue reading “Let’s Stay Strong & Find Joy in the Moments!”

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Colleen Bunker’s Journey: Nutrition, Needles, Ease & Flow

“We live in a vastly complex society which has been able to provide us with a multitude of material things, and this is good, but people are beginning to suspect we have paid a high spiritual price for our plenty.”
Euell Gibbons

When I first met Colleen Bunker, LAC, with her needles and certification as a Nutritional Therapist, I was waking up at 2 or 3am many mornings and lying restless for hours. I suffered a chronic hip pain and hoped acupuncture might help me to hike the mountains and snooze through the night. Almost 50, enrolled in massage school, and learningg to use my brain, body and hands in new ways, I felt stressed.

Colleen had begun acupuncture school at age 45, after years of managing a whole-food co-op in Maine. Before that she had an acre market-garden, three green houses and grew food for the store and elsewhere.

While working at the co-op, her father fell terminally ill and moved into her home. She still had two teenage boys around, and a man on the board of the co-op noticed her distress: “You need to come see me,” he said, and those visits were her introduction to acupuncture.

She also met her now-husband, Joe, at the co-op, also a board member. They eventually moved to Vermont where he studied Meditation and Conflict Resolution. She continued to receive acupuncture treatments, and several years later they moved to Portland, Oregon where she enrolled at OCOM (Oregon School of Oriental Medicine). Continue reading “Colleen Bunker’s Journey: Nutrition, Needles, Ease & Flow”

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Paris with Renee

“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that something deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”

e.e. cummings

September’s gift comes from Rosemary Powelson, once a colleague at Lower Columbia College. She taught art for many years, tap dances, acts in plays, and is a joyful soul living it up in the world. I think you’ll enjoy this travel story: She took her granddaughter to Paris–and it’s a lovely tale of how we can love each other well.

Thank you, Rosemary. I’ve fallen behind on my own blog-entries, but more will come. For now, how fun to share Rosemary’s story. When she told me about their time in Europe, I said, “Would you write that for us?”

*          *          *

metro-mademiselles
Metro mademiselles

One summer afternoon, some years back, my 10 year old granddaughter, Renée sat on the couch reading The Little House on the Prairie. Out of the blue she announced, “I want to go to Paris.”

“Sure, I said, when you’re 16.” I didn’t think much more about it, but soon I noticed her “Paris” t-shirts and the Eiffel Tower key chains hanging from her back pack. She had a big dream and trusted me to make it come true. I opened a savings account and started dreaming with her.

On her 14th birthday she looked me in the eye and asked, “Are we really going to Paris?”

“Yes,” I replied–and felt the train leave the station. Continue reading “Paris with Renee”

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Kinesiology, Shakespeare & Dog Training

sternocleidomastoid from Quizlet.com

Please forgive me for neglecting my blog–and choosing instead to focus on kinesiology!

Studying the muscles of the human body, memorizing where they originate and where they attach isn’t something I’d ever imagined myself doing. I am comparing this course of study to when I first began to read Shakespeare: It made no sense. As You Like It required translation. Before I could appreciate Orlando and Rosalind’s story, I bought a little red paperback–an American-English translation of this Shakespearean play.

As time went by, I took many more Shakespeare courses before earning my B.A. King Lear was my favorite–but the language of all the plays became natural to read and understand. My vision: Let it be so with kinesiology!

Rather than write to you about muscles and the miracle of the human body, I’d like to introduce you to one of the students I’ve met: Continue reading “Kinesiology, Shakespeare & Dog Training”