medicine wheel song

sound is necesarry, the picture does not move at all


Song of the day: circle game- joni mitchell

wolf creek III

the herd
rojo, raven, be, spirit, and thunderheart (thunder was previously known as tony the painting horse, if anyone remembers that)


this is Be (the one with the white stripe) and her wild teenage son, raven

Song of the day:

conversations in the dark

on saturday afternoon, we had our first vision quest...looking at the schedule for the weekend, i thought, well that will be my chance to have a moment with the professor....ill just take 20 minutes at the beginning and have it out with her, find out what is real, because i dont believe either of us were rational at the time, and i thought, maybe she will be upfront in person more so than email

it did not turn out that way, as the vision quest was to be done in silence....and i will tell you more about that at another time

anyhow, saturday night, i found opportunity to talk with her, in the dark, which worked much better for me....there is something about the dark that lowers the intensity for me.

ive been doing alot of work aroun energy, and am learning that i often become overwhelmed by energy, like i have no way to protect myself from an overload, a surge...it was going out to camp wise that showed me that...there i was with oneof my closest friends, in a place that was full of love and comfort for me, and still i was so overwhelmed by the energy- the love, the excitement, the reconnecting, the sounds the smells, that it took me well over twenty minutes to acclimate to this high energy and become an active part of the shabbat celebration.

anyhow, so i found an opportunity, walking the half mile up to the outhouses from the camp site (there was a little tent with a whole right at the site, but i suck at squatting and whats a half mile anyhow), she was heading back down on her own, so i abandoned my co-walkers, who called after me "molly?! where are you going?! what are you doing?! hey! molly?!" and caught up with her

and i told her i wanted to talk about what happened and she was confused at first, thought i wanted to address something that had happened that weekend, but i caught her up to where i was, and in the dark, we had our first real conversation....where i wasnt overwhelmed and we were able to complete a topic in real time, not seperated across emails.

so there we were, and we sat with the misunderstandings, not just the confusion over romantic feelings....and we did not agree on everything, she says everything she said was rational, her truth in the moment (and i believe it was the moments truth, but i still dont think it is rational), and i csan still feel that she didnt tell me her truth, but instead told me about myself (and it has alot to do tith her not using "i" ststements and instead saying "you" are needy "you arent special)...

somethings were surprising to me as well as to her. i told her about my disappointment when i found out she wasnt gouing to be teaching my gestalt...she was surprised by that, and told me how she cant imagine tat she has anything else to teach me, i am so competent, which surprised me, because i see these huge holes (wholes) in who i am that will cause great problems in my work

one theme over the weekend was that something must be knowcked down (a structure, a relationship) in order for something new to grow up, and os we make a fragile attempt at starting over, from our ashes

wolf creek II

its hard to pick where to start....should i be linear and start at the beginning, pulling in the driveway, stepping out of the car onto weak knees....could i start at the end where my memory is freshest, with the medicine wheel and a spider on my right big toe?

...i feel like i should get the news of the majickal professor out first maybe, because it was such a dramatic experience for me, the past few months....but really, the focus of the weekend was self, so maybe that is the priority

or maybe ill just leaveyou with this picture of my feet, dirty and bare...and happy, if feet cna be happy, mine were the happiest of all

Song of the day: the medicine wheel- wolf creek song (i dont know much about it yet)

sincerity in polotics?

from Top candidates profit from book deals By CHRISTINE SIMMONS, Associated Press Writer
Mon Aug 20, 3:20 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The top-tier presidential candidates have some personal finance numbers in common — six- or seven-figure book deals.

Writing a book has become a prerequisite to running for president....Hillary Rodham Clinton made an $8 million book deal for "Living History," published in 2003. In the last two years, the New York senator chalked up about $1.2 million in book royalties.

Though his campaign may be in a financial rut, Sen. John McCain's book ...made $80,390 in 2006 from Random House book royalties and about $255,000 in book profits the year before.

Also finding literary success was Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who received a $425,000 advance against royalties for "The Audacity of Hope," published last October....

But not every candidate low in the polls is destined for literary obscurity. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has written five books, made $148,750 in book royalties from Margaret McBride Literary Agency last year. ...

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., ...received an $112,000 advance in 2005 for "Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics," which was released last month. According to his financial disclosure forms, he was to receive another installment of $112,000 when he finished the book's manuscript.
Timing also counts. Republican Rudy Giuliani published "Leadership" about a year after Sept. 11, 2001. It has sold 665,000 copies in hardcover and garnered the former New York mayor $146,092 in royalties last year.

but then notice the write up they give for john edwards

HarperCollins paid former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., a $500,000 advance for "Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives," a collection of mini-memoirs he edited.
Edwards donated his royalties to charity — something politicians sometimes do with a portion of their book proceeds.

somehow, i feel like they are down playing his giving to charity, when all else in his cohort are not....that speaks alot to me, and i think that maybe a little more benifit of the doubt should be given, as maybe he is sincere in his giving and truly deserves some credit for it...i wish that the posotive could be focused on more often in this world

...but we are so cynical as to not believe in sincerity and goodness anymore, and so we create a lack of sincerity and goodness

wolf creek part I

with the weekend over, and having gotten a full nights sleep last night, i will take a few minutes to give a quick synopsis, and when i have a larger chunk of free time, i will begin to lay out the story...

the weekend was good...i will start by saying that i did have opportunity to talk with the majickal professor, and certainly there was some resolution...

but better, it was a weekend of spirit, going in with an intention of finding, creating ruach...it was a weekend of animal messages, Spider came to me strongly, each day, and feathers were drawn to me, hawk, and pidgeon and blue jay

and it felt wonderful to just stay outside...all the toime (all though, i learned i need to buy an air mattress because i barely slept a wink on the sleeping pad, it was two feet shorter then me, and too thin for stmache sleeping)

Song of the day: country roads- john denver

gone camping

gone camping, be back monday....

Song of the day: cedar tree- indigo girls

necrotizing fasciitis

my god-father (for lack of a better term, since he is of no blood relation to me, but the most important father figure in my life), my god-father, andy, he has necrotizing fasciitis.

the simpler term for this condition is flesh-eating bacteria, and andy was at risk due to his diabetes, chronic steroid use and a recent bedsore that just did not want to heal.

he will be in the hospital for atleast a month....it is bringing up an awful lot for me, around health and illness and death

andy has been giving me my weekly avonex injections (all drugs to help slow the progresion of multiple sclerosis are injectables at this point)for close to ten years now, and i will be taking over that role until he is well again (i WILL NOT think about the 30% mortality rate that comes with necrotizing fasciitis, or about his poor health in general)...

i hate the wird "pray", i feel like it is too attached to religion and cannot do a good job of representing me and how i feel, but i recently read that praying is equal to helping, and in that case, i will pray for andy's recovery and do my best to support his wife through this

Song of the day: shed your skin- indigo girls

wolf creek is finally here

and i am sooooooooooooo nervous and unsure!

in some ways, i am real young emotionally, and this is one o those places where my pride and ego make me want to lash out or defend myself...

i used to really trust the majickal professor, but now, i am all twisted and tied up inside, and unsure how i can make this weekend (and the four still yet ahead)a learnign and growing experienc ewhen i am still angry and embarrased

im scared the professor will stare at me from the side again, as she has always done, because i dont want her looking at me, she gave such an ugly point of view on who i am

but then im scared she wont be looking at all- or even worse, that i will be just like everyone else...

this first weekend is about relationships, and i am supposed to take time and journal on what relationships it is time to end, which i want to nurture and give energy too, how i can be in right relationship...and i just want to hide hide hide- as i feel like i am a relationship that has been ended, and it leaves me feeling sour...

breathe in, breathe out, i am waiting until the end of this weekend to make a decision on the rest of the program, and this time i gave her no warning on my thinking, as before, i let her know where i was (i thought i was being respectful) and it is not what she wanted (she acted like i thought it was her reponsibility to fix it, or change my mind)...

i guess ill can do is embrace my ambivilance and let be what will be

Song of the day:

jose padilla- you could be him!

ive spent the night in jail (for a bench warrent on a failure to appear in court, as i had gotten a ticket for expired tags in northern georgia, and then moved out of where i was living on not so good terms, so the ex-roomates didnt get my mil to me, and i had totally forgotten about the ticket entirely), and i, as a soft soul, found myself awake the entire night, pacing back and forth across my cell( i was alone, they kept me seperated from gen-pop, as i was a 19 year old white girl with a bench warrant from forsythe county, a very white county, and most all the inmates were black.... atleast that was my take.

i know that i have trust issues, but i think that for everyone, there is something about being locked behind bars, as its hard to trust that some people you have never met and who get paid to keep the public in line will remember that you are there and make sure you are cared for.

now the concern is even larger..... just for writing this post, the u.s. govenment can label me an "enemy combatant", say that i am sympathetic to the terrorist movement, arrest me and place me in a brig for years on end with no discernable legal representation or a clear understanding of why i am being contained- this is not an exaggeration, this is reality....it really could be me, and you!!

now i dont think its likely. it is no longer the '50's and there is no longer a "get the communist jew", such as when what is happening to padilla happened to the rosenbergs (also held -and convicted and electrocuted- on shaky grounds that did not really meet the burden of proof) but at the same time, does anyone remember john walker lindh anymore?

john walker linhd after arrest...reminds me of abu grahb-i see no wya in which this typr of treatment will increase real answers


the only thing that keeps the american governmental system working is that americans have been willing to risk their lives for their freedoms

Song of the day:welcome to the jungle- guns and roses

water!!

it is world water week in sweden this week, and i wanted to possibly increase awareness of this, as well as begin to bring katrina into conciousness (since its 2 weeks before the second anniversary)....

this is the 17th year that sweden has taken initiative to address the state of water in the world, and could be a good role model for the rest of the world in the future

living in america the cleanliness and availability of water is not very high on our priority list, i know, as all we need to do is go to the supermarket and by bottled water....and while we bitch about this current issue of "what is spring and what is purified and why am i paying for something that i can get for free from the sink", we rarely take the time to think about the state of this most needed natural resource.

as we read more and more about the extreme weahter that has been affecting the u.s. as well as the rest of the world, its time to consider what drastic climate change would mean for us

living on the great lakes, fresh water is a given in my world, but natural disasters have become increasingly severe, and the cost of aid and recovery has increased

i know that it is scary and uncomfortable to think about the ways weather change our world, but if nothing else makes you think, the amount of money the changing gulf stream will cost us should make you wnat to help change this trend of waste and non-responsibility!

Song of the day: the water is wide- traditional

heron

Song of the day: free bird- lynyrd skynyrd

have you got that spirit?

i want so much to be able to share the energy spending the evening at camp broughbt to me
we were invited to participate in the shabbat spirit circle, and so some of my old staff members brought back an old song "owadeya-owadum" and shared it with todays campers (and yes, back in the day, we all would spin around in circles with our pointer fingers in the air)... its nice to know we can still party for shabbat like a twelve year old.. anyhow, thats robin leading in the center and the two men leading with her are john, another drama specialist, and "apps" (the one in yellow)...really, i dont remember camp with out any of these wonderful people's energy , without their ruach...and im glad i got to share this with them as well

and there is no other way to say how i felt about camp then this quick vid i shot on robins camera


it is this energy that makes me want to study energy medicine...and as we showed our spirit (ruach) at camp by saying shalom, i show my spirit by passing on this moment of joy

Song of the day: have you got that spirit- a traditional cheer?

"have you got that spirit? yeah man
gonna keep that spirit? yeah man
have you got that spirit? yeah man
then show it with shalom!
shalom shalom, shalom, shalom shalom,"

a camp wise moment

just a quick camp wise moment, just to show that for all life changes, somethings never really change- from robin's camera of the noar moadone, which was the meetin place in the village for 8+9th graders
july 27,2007
and from my camera many moons ago, also known as some friday night during session I, 1990 (and those were my counselors, orna- an israeli scout- and jodi b. sitting in front of the noar shower house...only now they built showers into each individual cabin so no more noar showerhouse)

Song of the day: not by might - debbie friedman

...speaking of which, where are the videos robin?

energy medicine

i have recently become interested in "energy medicine". its strange since ive never been one for the new age movement,or mandalas and auras and chakras and crystals....but the more i read about energy, the less flakey it sounds and the more i am understanding that the eastern philosphies are very subtle and take time to work....everything anti-american, so its not surprising the movement gets such a bad rap...and there is nothing magical about it..in fact, its more natural then 85% of the things i spend my time on...

i intend on going deeper, and if it turns me into a new age freak, well, oh well, you know?

...it is after all, just sacred geometry....

energy medicine resources:
NIH
energy medicine institute
wikipedia
innersource

Song of the day: sometimes- michael franti

C.W. shabbat....and for robin, who noticed i havent been posting

this year is the 100th anniversary of camp wise, and to calebrate this milestone, the camp has been havoing alumni weekends, each shabbat getting a decade and this week was the 1980's weekend (i was a cw kid 1986-1993)....i forgot to take my camera, and was going to wait until others sent me their photos to post about it,but dear robin has been saying things to me about my absence (in person and here on my blog) so i took this picture in the jcc parking lot of the name tags we made and will post again when i have more pictures...it was good to be back, at this home away from home, and while some things were different, the core experience was the same, and us old fogies had even more ruach then the current counselors....and as far as that is concerned, i truly cant believe my mother was willing to send me away every summer to be watched by a bunch of children, as really, the staff seemed as young as the older campers (but mom, i am so greatful that you did let me go, it allowed me to have that strong, needed experience....)

Song of the day: bim bam-traditional

my favorite, lake chad (forgive the sarcasm)

Water find 'may end Darfur war'

Getting enough water is a major struggle in Darfur
A huge underground lake has been found in Sudan's Darfur region, scientists say, which they believe could help end the conflict in the arid region.
Some 1,000 wells will be drilled in the region....Analysts say competition for resources between Darfur's Arab nomads and black African farmers is behind the conflict.

"Much of the unrest in Darfur and the misery is due to water shortages," said geologist Farouk El-Baz, director of the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing, according to the AP news agency.

"Access to fresh water is essential for refugee survival, will help the peace process, and provides the necessary resources for the much needed economic development in Darfur," he said.

The team used radar data to find the ancient lake, which was 30,750 km2 - the size of Lake Erie in North America - the 10th largest lake in the world...The discovery is "very significant" Hafiz Muhamad (said)..."The root cause of the conflict is resources - drought and desertification in North Darfur."...He also said that it has long been known there was water in the area but the government had not paid for it to be exploited....

...ive said for over a year that darfur had something to do with lake chad. truly, outside of america and the western world, survival is the biggest motivator, and water is a key factor for survival, in irrigating crops, in keeping clean, in keeping livestock around....

hess posed that sending in digging equipment ten years ago would have averted the ntire conflict and saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and i mentioned to him that i searched for anyone else who thought water was involved in the crisis and found nothing, so im glad it is finally on the table as an option, it gives more to focus the interventions on

some sudanese history
back to lake chad
lake chad again


Song of the day:

Sesame Street - J for Jew - part 2

i have no idea what to think about this...i got it from hess, and he says that someone took old nazi propaganda and matched it up with discolored muppets....he says its not antisemetic, but im not entirely sure about that...there are two more parts that i may post as well

let me know what you think!

7/17/07 check out the next part at havecoffeewillwrite...the more jew hate i hear, the more i feel fear in my gut.l...hess's point is that things like this still happen, like rwanda and darfur, and that byu using "muppets" it shows how ridiculous genocide is and will start conversation

but hearing what my grandparents had to hear when they lived in europe, and what they had to live with day in and out- the fear, the self loathing, the sadness...

song of the day: dona dona (or "Dos Kelbl", the original yiddish title)-author unknown

a wellbutrin story

my neurologist started me on weelbutrin while i was sick...the ms episode had re-escalated, and she felt an anti-depressant would help.

i talked with my favorite psychiatric nurse at work this week, as i dont really feel better on this medication, ive actually become more high strung, and am moving faster then normal even, and elaine, the nurse, says to me "i dont know what your neurologist was thinking, wellbutrin raises the energy level, and you are already a high-energy person molly"

elaine gave me the name of a psychiatrist, and told me to discontinue the wellbutrin and see this doc. at her first available appointment instead...

i already feel a little better, by cutting the dosing in half (though hess says im less tearful, maybe ill just keep things at half dose until i can see the psychiatrist)...

Song of the day: allergies- simon and garfunkel

the prophet jeremiah

The Prophet Jeremiah i dont know why the prophet jeremiah has recently come into my field, beyond a co-worker who is currently taking a theology class and talking of the bible alot....i understand more and more why people are drawn to the stories of religion, as jeremiah, in his extrodanry experience, rings so familiar to me, much as the story of jesus, job, ruth does...its about living and being human

Main article: Jeremiah
The Prophet Jeremiah that the book describes was a priest from Anatot in the land of Benjamin, who lived in the last years of the Kingdom of Judah just prior to, during, and immediately after the siege of Jerusalem, culminating in the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the razing of the city by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.

The book of Jeremiah depicts a remarkably introspective prophet, a prophet struggling with and often overwhelmed by the role into which he has been thrust. Jeremiah alternates efforts to warn the people with pleas for mercy until he is ordered to "pray no more for this people" -- and then sneaks in a few extra pleas between the lines. He engages in extensive performance art, walking about in the streets with a yoke about his neck and engaging in other efforts to attract attention. He is taunted, put in jail, at one point thrown in a pit to die. He is often bitter about his experience, and expresses the anger and frustration he feels. He is not depicted as a man of iron. And yet he continues.

Song of the day: by the waters of babylon- dwight armstrong

"by the waters of babylon, we laid down and wept for the zion"