Grateful....It is the Little Things...

About Love....

"Love is a fabric which never fades, no matter how often it is washed in the water of adversity and grief."~~ Unkown

Reflexology...and Accupressure....( Hand Diagram)

Love For All....

Love has no desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving. ~Kahlil Gibran // #Love4All....across the whole country...#BringItOn

Meditation Chant and Music....and some yoga

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yoga and Meditation.....(Yin Yoga , floor yoga and poses to soothe muscles and nerves)

I have tried to pick poses that can be held for 3-5 minutes and will soothe muscles not cause pain or heat, as this does not help those with arthritis or MS or Muscle ailments, I am still working on the proper order....but the poses of Corpse,Cobra,Lotus, Cat, Fish, and others can be done on the floor and with support and breathing can also provide relief from spasms or pain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blue Lake
*Deborah Martin "Blue Lake" music
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Making Changes...to Create Changes....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay so spent most of January making some needed changes, MS wise things are not where I want them to be. I am preparing for a big Move in the Spring and I need to be in better shape. And between immune issues ( back to back ear infections and an eye bleed) and more muscle issues, I decided come changes were in order.

(1) The hot bathes in the morning are really not helping the muscles, in a way they make things worse. ( it seemed logical, as I am in unheated attic and bathroom, but really it just makes the spasms worse, I personally think living somewhere with Heat in my bedroom will really help).

(2) Changed back to Yoga in morning. 30 Minutes, I call it floor yoga, I have spent weeks trying to assess which poses feel good and sooth muscles. ( it is actually Yin Yoga, or cold yoga, it does not cause any of the "Burn" of hot yoga or Yang Yoga).I also added 8-10 minutes of Meditation to it.

(3) In after afternoon treadmill for as long as I can tolerate it, this ranges from 15-20 minutes, but if I do this twice a day, I think I will have less spasms at night. ( I still walk dog twice day for long walks, but it is a lot of stopping and starting and in the cold, it really causes spasms). The rule on the treadmill is that I MUST make it through atleast 4 songs, and 6 on days that I don't walk far outside. ( AND treadmill must be set to 3 for speed....)

(5) MAJOR DIET CHANGES.....
No More Dairy...Period.
No More Wheat..Period.
Egg Wise ONLY One Per Week
Vegan diet for now combined with Gluten free SWANK diet
Occasional FISH ( but only if craving really badly and only certain White fish, and NO salt)
NO SALT at all...period ( between chest pain and headaches it 's just too much trouble all around).
Smoothies daily ( might help heal Gut and GERD too) ( add Hemp Protein Powder)
Sugar wise, only Raw or Brown allowed
Fruits and Vegi's pretty freely exploring....cooked and raw
No Bread esp White Bread
Peanut Butter ( found some with NO sugar and no added salt or oil-good on bananas's)
Rice Cheese is really pretty good

** Photo is Smoothie and lunch...red peppers with basil /cilantro spread ( made from my garden and frozen) and rice cheese shredded, and smidge of No Fat Raspberry Pecan dressing.....really good)

More Soulfood.....Music to take us to another time, another place...

Blue Lake
Deborah Martin " Blue Lake"

Thursday Meditation...Rain, A Garden, some music

I made this garden at our old place....Summer 2008...No Money...Just Plants saved from Foreclosed homes and rocks that I found and pots and planters from the Curbs on Sunday Evening. ( I call it Curbside Shopping...I collect pots and planters all winter, cleaning and fixing and painting them....and when spring comes I am ready....) This garden was under 10 dollars....but I loved it, I loved standing at the back window in the Kitchen and watching the rabbits and squirrels and birds at the makeshift Birdbath. I would stand humming when it rained drying dishes, but transported....I loved that it made my heart sing...and that it was like a hidden secret...

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.~~Langston Hughes

Reflections on Haiti 2 years since Quake...

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."~~
Mother Teresa

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This school is the only completed school, it is a Middle School, for 750, it is completely rebuilt since the Quake, it is the Academy of Peace and Justice, rebuilt and funds raised by artists and the film community..... APJ worked with the St.Luke Organization to create this school.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the work of Artists for Peace and Justice...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the School that APJ built...

2011 New Wing Opening Ceremony from bryn mooser on Vimeo.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?"~~
Mother Teresa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's been 2 years since the devastating Quake in Haiti, so much destruction and so much death, and yet the word gave and came together after that quake, and it yet it is still on many levels broken, shattered, undone....250,000 lives lost and still over 500,000 homeless and living in rubble. It bothers me that all of us gave and sent money...yet I see children still in the camps, schools still not rebuilt, and children with no shoes walking by debris piles...It is the one place my heart still goes easily and I dream of it at night and can hear creole...The streets there are so familiar and I can't explain it , but I do think my future is tied to this place....It's odd how Creole and Thai, my heart and brain understand...The only two places that have tugged at my heart...my dreams...my soul...And the world in many ways has moved on, I watched the news this morn, and Haiti was not mentioned....and that is why there are still piles of rubble there....We are so good at "Moving On" that we are not good at "Showing Up and Seeing it Through"....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one."~~
Mother Teresa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This Eddie Vedder song ...about Ruins is what comes to mind about Haiti...not sure why...

Remembering Martin Luther King...

[This was originally posted on Watergate Summer 2006/2007 , in honor of MLK I am reposting and honoring those of us that grew up in the Sixties and remember having Leaders violently taken....Remembering how we as children had Dreams.]

Whenever I think of the year that Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were taken from us, I also think of my Aunts. In particular my Aunt May. She lived in downtown Baltimore on Eutaw Street in a mammoth old brownstone during the 1960's, her last decade.

She was my great great Aunt. Her real name was Margaret May , her stage name was Margeurite.She had lived quite a life by the time I stumbled band aids and chewing gum, into her historic living room. Her house was like a museum, full of trinkets and precious relics from around the world and a lifetime of adventures and secrets. She was born after the Civil War in Kentucky. She spent her early years wandering with her dad, from Virginia to DC to Kentucky. And as she grew older she would help carry his supplies. Her mother died when she was small, and she was always blaming that for a lack of ladylike manners.

Her dad was one of Lincoln's photographers, he traveled with the Brady Pack. He didn't make alot of money, but he did get to keep the rejected plates and the faulted pictures. ( And in case you are wondering- Lincoln was NOT photogenic, and he really did have a good side, and a not so good side). The old photographs were kept up on the 3rd floor, lined up around the walls. They told of a Lincoln that we never saw in the History books. They showed him dozing in a chair, playing cards in a tent with Union troops, and hugging one of his sons. There were none with his wife "And Don't that about say IT All, although I heard she didn't photograph so well." Aunt May used to say. There were also photographs of battle scenes, bloody carnage and singed buildings that remained stained with blood , even though they were not in color.These graphic pictures fascinated me. Even shots from surgery tents."Whelp, she is fascinated with the bloody medical stuff, she will be a surgeon or a Killer" Aunt May would joke to my grandmother. Flo would tell her to shush.

I would go to visit my Aunt May with my grandmother ,especially that particular April as my mom's Dad was in the hospital at Hopkins that spring, and we had just moved back from Indiana that winter, and she needed my sister and I out of her hair. Aunt May 's museum was my first choice, my sister went to a friend's house. Aunt May had pictures from around the world, places she had traveled and sang.Her house was big lumbering Brownstone it was a Museum that you could smell and touch the past. When you opened the door it hit you in waves, the aromas , dusty books,Strong Black Tea, French Perfume, Myr and Patchouli from India,and Okra Gumbo steeping on the back stove. She was an Opera Singer and Actress in the early 1900's. Her stage name had been Marguerite. Her old programs were also in a box in the 3rd floor. She was a beauty, she sang, danced, acted and did Vaudeville. She had long flowing hair and beautiful eyes. She was even painted by some pretty famous painters in Europe, in some very interesting outfits.And yet when she spoke she still had a Kentucky lilt. She told amazing stories that were all her own.

She would come up to the 3rd floor with me and sit on an old velvet stool and show me the old photos from all over that her dad had taken, of the South after the war, freed slaves, and coal miners, and also urban pictures of life in downtown Baltimore in the Victorian Era, and even of the Baltimore Fire ( when her dad ran out to get the pictures and almost lost his house in his own fiery enthusiasm. ). She had saved them all, the plates were carefully separated with felt and tissue. She also had her Entire collection of National Geographic, she had been one of the First Women to join the "Society", and she was proud of that. She also was one of the first women to vote in Baltimore. She gave me my first Brownie camera and said I was going to be a photojournalist.( I used to wonder if she knew I became a nurse, and was she disappointed.) She and my grandmother would give me little notebooks and I would question people at the family events and write down their stories. ( My pictures never quite turned out).

Now the funny thing was that some of the other peripheral Aunties , that I was not close to , but who did come to the Family events used to say that she was a "Lesbian", in that loud hushed falsetto whisper that would make any one cringe. She used to laugh about it. One day we were cleaning her room and she said with a bold "Do you want to meet my men?" I of course said "sure".
She brought out a huge old hat box, inside were photos and love letters and it was pretty full. My grandmother walked in , right when I was asking " But Granny Ethel says that you like Women better than Men ?" She and my grandmother both laughed.

" Well, I have never been able to know what to do about That, I guess I should have told the truth. Ethel is my cousin and she is a good godfearing Christian, and I was afraid if she knew that I had had affairs with quite a few married men, that all my holidays would have been spent listening to how fast I was going to Hell. And for some reason the Women story was just easier, it rendered her speechless.She had Jesus and I had my men."

We were at her house the night that Martin Luther King was shot dead and Robert Kennedy spoke about it, and the radio replayed it. (At this point in my life I always picture the video we see of Bobby Kennedy speaking on the back of the truck to the crowds in Indianapolis). Aunt May said " Now the Trouble will Begin." I didn't know what she meant, and I didn't know why she was so upset, I only knew that I had chills and a deep emptiness. She hustled into the Kitchen and began making soup, this she did whenever she was troubled. She would chop, dump and stir, and the pot would boil and hiss. Flo said " Now May you don't know that...for certain". "Oh, Yes I do." Flo didn't say another word. She used to say that May had a way of Knowing Things. I asked her was it like fortune telling.I needed to Know. She said it was more like predicting weather, and that of all the Aunties , May always Knew things first. Things that Mattered.

I remember Robert Kennedy that night, and I asked" Aunt May if he was Hated too? ""or did people fear him? "She shook her head and cried as she stirred the soup witb rage, angst and sorrow. She was 90 years old. I was almost eight, just days away. And that night there was singing outside, hymns and gospel songs and Aunt May went and got candles to put in the windows.She was too upset to sing. We stayed and then went home late.It rained as we drove home. Flo said "Maybe God was crying with us". I remember hearing the wipers squeak and handing her Kleenex and lifesavers out of the box on the seat. It was a sad rain. And the lifesavers tasted salty.

Later that spring as summer came Aunt May explained that she had had voice pupils that now were grown and that she taught in Boston and that they told her about Coretta Scott King, and how she went to Boston, and that she had the Voice of an Angel. And that she fell in love with Martin in the early 1950's and he fell in love with her. Aunt May talked about how they loved each other and how they Believed in each other. She said, now that isn't Romance, that is true Love. They Marched together. They shared a Cause. She said" Now , yes, if I had found That, I would have been married." She also explained that she Knew that Coretta would Never remarry. She talked about their Love, and trying to raise children with bombs and threats and Martin being taken to Jail. She used to talk to me about it, because she said she was worried that I wasn't get "Taught Right at school. They keep everything too Damn Polite".

Aunt May lived in an all Black section of downtown Baltimore, but she had lived in the house, and owned it herself for over 30 years.My grandmother was always trying to talk her into moving uptown with her and Ted, but she would shush her pretty fast. She was very stubborn. "This is MY Home and these are my neighbors, and we all know each other. They don't treat me like some fragile old person, they treat me with respect. They don't care what color I am. You go home and tell Ted that." ( Ted was granny Ethel's eldest son and he had some strong feelings about the eccentric old aunt that refused to leave downtown ). And later that summer The Riots happened after Robert Kennedy was killed and we came to her house one day and found Baseball bats behind her door. Flo was not happy about this find. "May???". Aunt May shook her head. " Please , please think about coming Uptown with us?"
" They are grieving, angry. They are my neighbors. I will not abandon my neighbors during times of Trouble.This is my Home."

It turned out that each evening the Men of the neighborhood would come and sit with Missy May, and guard her house. And yes, they were black, and it didn't matter to her, and it didn't matter to them. They were neighbors.She would serve them soup and they would talk as Downtown Burned. And yes a bottle of best bourbon was shared for strength and they sat there in the dark with baseball bats. And she would sing softly. She got through the Baltimore Riots with not so much as a broken window.

She used to sing "This Old Man" and "Where Have all the Flowers Gone"," Amazing Grace" and brush my hair, and later when I had a baby of my own I realized how grateful I was that she taught me that lullabies are for Troubled Times and Troubled Souls.Once again we are living in Troubled Times.

May Coretta be remembered as the Brave Wise Woman that Marched with Martin by his side, and sang to his Soul, and carried on his Work and his Love, and The Dream.