Helen, So High

Helen, So High

On a late September Thursday, 2005, within the definition of a balmy, still fetid kind of "when is this humidity going to end?" indian summer, my mother in law, Helen Hanna flew to Norfolk from her sunny, two hundred year old Connecticut farm house to attend the opening night performance of Virginia Stage Company’s production of Crowns. Helen was 84 at the time and, having arranged meticulously for the elaborate elder care details of her ailing husband of 50 years, she set off on a solo adventure. A gracious Russian immigrant arrived in a Lincoln Town car to drive her to LaGuardia: her sole purpose to support and enjoy, for probably the sixty seventh time in 25 years, the imaginative mind of her beloved son Christopher, artistic director of Virginia Stage Co. Helen, (a young ingenue in her Barnard days) was a life long devotee of the stage, in fact, she met George Hanna, her husband of over fifty years, working in community theatre in Westchester, New York.

The moment I greeted her at Norfolk International Airport she began to regal me with the high points of her bumpy trip down the mid-atlantic coast, specifically, the kindness of a stranger who assisted her navigation of the labyrinthine machinations of Dulles Airport, Washington D.C. Arriving upon the arm of a quintissential southern gentleman, to the gate that would bridge her journey to Norfolk, a fellow passenger informed her that her compatriot had been none other than U.S. Senator John Warner, that dashing and eternal U.S. Senator of Virginia, perhaps more widely known as husband number 4 or 6 or 8 of Elizabeth Taylor. Senator Warner, with his undeniable charisma had won her over and inflated her spirit to such a degree that she was emboldened to flirt I think, just a little. For a few moments, she returned to the ingenue of her college years, Helen Phillips Hanna, ever demure and thoroughly engaged in the presence of chivalry and the attentions of a kind and generous man. For these brief moments, gently led by a man of integrity, glamour, beauty and intelligence, she escaped the role of dutiful daughter turned wife, procurer of tired rattan trays set with tin flatware, applesauce, rice pudding and milky tea, delivered diligently three times a day to a husband, diminished for years by weakening lung capacity, unable, though perhaps unwilling, to lift up off a dusty and ancient sofa to meet the dignity of a table well laid.

I deposited Helen at her winter home, two doors down from the love nest Chris and I have created over our 14 years on East Severn Road. We would share five winters with her in this manner, she and George summering in their diminutive Connecticut farm house, wintering in the milder temperatures of Tidewater, Virginia. For Helen to make this time for herself to enjoy her river cottage south of the Mason Dixon line, was a respite she courageously carved out for herself and in perfect health and mood, I left her to her thoughts.


On Friday, at about 5:30pm , driving home from my jewelry studio, my cell phone rang. Answering, I heard the ominously anxious voice of my beloved, asking me to come to DePaul's emergency room, where he'd taken his mother who thought she was having a heart attack or a stroke. Being asked to arrive at an emergency room is tantamount to blowing a cosmic dog whistle that only I can hear. There is a Saint Bernard with a life-giving cask of brandy around her neck who took up residence in my heart when I was ten years old and I relish being called into service in times of drama, trepidation, worry or imminent death. Adrenaline kicks in and my sense of purpose on the planet is completely engaged. Actualized in my fullest potential, I am Florence Nightengale in a dog suit, ready and on the spot to save the day or die in the attempt. Say what you will, I bring a certain undeniable confidence to the impending death scenario. Fascinated by the process? You betcha! Energized by the beauty of the leaving, absolutely! I just LOVE being in the presence of the peacfully departing.

I arrived to fetid ambulance exhaust wafting into the cloying heat and humidity of a drab hospital emergency room, where the notion of functioning air conditioning has apparently been usurped by an automatic door that refused to close. Among the hurt and ailing gathered in their gloom of pain, there sat Chris with his mother, saying his goodbyes, while Helen slumped in the shabby blue wheelchair she'd been put into, her blouse asymetrically buttoned, unable to keep her eyes open. Her speech was slow, she had difficulty connecting the dots of her thoughts and she said she "just didn't feel like herself, almost as if she were outside of her self". I knew fairly quickly what the problem was.

Shortly, she asked me to help her to the bathroom and there was born the dynamic of helping my mother in law onto the toilet. This moment is important, for there now exists between us a humbling and loving intimacy that we had not, til now, had the opportunity to show one another. While she tinkles, so softly into the bowl, I ask what she has eaten today. She inventoried her breakfast of peanut butter toast, her lunch of soup and a pear, and then uttered the statement I assumed would be next: "oh and I found those little brownies you left for me in the freezer and I had THREE!"

Yes, I had left little chocolate cupcake shaped brownies in Helen's freezer because in her absence, it was her kitchen where I baked medicinal marijuana brownies for a friend of mine with brain cancer. I baked at Helen's to avoid Jesse's inevitable "mom, what is that funky smell?" inquiry. It had been several days since I'd made them and I kept reminding myself that I needed to get them out of her freezer.

When I pulled Chris aside and told him what I knew to be the truth he was furious! Not many people have seen my husband angry because it just doesn't happen very often...but believe me, he was mad enough that my first question was, "are you going to divorce me? " He said, "No, I'm going to go open my show while you deal with this situation you've created." So he and Jesse said goodbye and I sat down to wait for Helen to be seen by a doctor. By the time we did move back to cubicle three her nausea had passed, and she was beginning to feel a little better.

Now, I doubt that many of you have pondered what you'd do in my situation: You've inadvertently gotten your 85 year old mother in law very, very high on the active ingredient in cannabis...THC. You are so very relieved that A., she’s not dying and B., you know what the problem is. But what of the ethical dilemma? In all honesty, you can't make a bad situation worse by adding the cost of unnecessary tests to what is quickly becoming a laughable situation. If you are like me, which is to say somewhat of a coward, you can't even tell her what's going on because it's just too complicated to explain to a very stoned elderly person that your belief in the healing and soothing power of marijuana for medicinal purposes is something you are willing to break the law over. But the real truth is that I'm afraid of being judged and so I cop out and don't tell her what's going on.
And then we proceed to have the sweetest, most intimate time of our nearly 20 year relationship. The beautiful thing about Helen is the way she mirrors the love and compassion we are each capable of. She tells me how much I've meant to her, I tell her how much she's been the good mother to me. When she tries to go philosophical she can't make her thoughts connect into sentences, is frustrated and incredulous at her inability to think in a straight line! Over and over I tell her "let it go, it will come back around." Asking Helen Hanna to let go of something she's after, like coherent thought, is tantamount to asking her to give up chocolate. Or brownies for that matter!

Finally, about 9pm, 5 or 6 hours after she's ingested enough THC to last a cancer patient about a week, a tall, kind and compassionate doctor arrives and begins to interview her. She is still speaking slowly: and challenged to hold onto a conversational thread but this woman is DETERMINED to be understood and given the God-like status she bestows on male physicians and her almost flirtatious manner toward doctors in general, it is just an awe-inspiring sight to see her engage fully with this man asking her to follow his finger as he creates an arc in the air, her determination to touch that hand when instructed as it moves slowly in front of her, her own ability to count backwards and forwards with her own fingers. In other words, she passes the basic neurological tests with flying colors. And let me tell you, she is darned proud of herself and so am I! When the doctor completes his exam and turns to go order scans and blood work and x-rays and what have you, I follow him out and ask for a private audience.

I ask if I may speak off the record, he says,

"Yes, of course."

"I have a friend with brain cancer and sometimes all she can eat is brownies and sometimes those brownies have THC in them and sometimes they don't and I believe my mother in law has ingested THC. "

"Well, that is something we would normally check for."

"And I don't want to go to jail."

"Well, it won't be because of me".

THANK YOU DOCTOR~ THANK YOU SO MUCH!

So, blood work is done and ultimately the doctor comes back to privately tell me that THC is "on board" and that given how strong her vitals are and that she is in my care, they would like to release her and send her home. Don't you love that? "In the care of " the daughter in law who left marijuana brownies in her freezer. I wish I could adequately describe the thrill and collective smirk of the emergency room personnel as, one by one, they heard this story. "hey, did you hear about cubicle three?? 85 years old and high as a kite."

I took my dear mother in law home, put her to bed, removed the brownies from her freezer and went home gratified and humbled to have dodged a bullet that hours before Chris and Helen had briefly thought might kill her. The next morning she was amazed to feel absolutely wonderful and her old self. The treasure of this entire ordeal/experience was her sincere gratitude at being alive to live one more day. And that she didn't miss Crowns! She saw it Saturday night and loved it~
The story would end here if I hadn’t shared the story with my friend Sonja. She’s a brilliant radiation-oncologist and she said adamantly, “you have to tell her”. And why hadn’t I told Helen that she wasn’t dying? The truth is I was so guilt ridden and ashamed that it took me almost a month to gather my courage to call her and tell her what had really happened that night. My fear was that she would judge me, but no, that would be my own reflection looking back at me. My mother in law, Helen? She laughed out loud and said,
“My goodness, I’ve had my first slice of pizza this year, you introduced me to sushi and now I’ve taken marijuana!”

Helen Hanna died on April 2, 2008.

May she rest in peace with lots of chocolate and brownies and tall handsome doctors.

Helen Hanna 8-29-1921 to 4-2-2008

On Monday afternoon, my mother in law, Helen Hanna set out on her dining room table, all important information and papers that would be required in the event of her death. She then stripped her bed, got her purse, locked the front door and drove herself to DePaul Hospital. While crossing from the parking lot to DePaul’s entrance she fell and hit her head on the curb. She was taken to the emergency room, Chris was called and he arrived in plenty of time to say goodbye. Her last words were, “oh, this is so bad!”, the nurse said, “what’s so bad,honey?”. Helen replied, “I’m so happy”. Those were her final words and for this we are grateful.

She was transferred to Sentara’s Trauma unit where it was determined that she had been having a stroke. The fall resulted in the brain hemorrhage that would take her life, which ended peacefully at about 1:15pm on Wed., April 2. I was fortunate to be with her at her end, in fact I was taking her pulse when her heart beat its last.

God is so very merciful. If we live as we die, my mother in law is a shining example of this! She was the Energizer Bunny! At 86, she kept going and going until she no longer did. She was happy up until the last moments of coherent thought and I cannot imagine a more fitting end to an extraordinary life of love and service to her family, friends and the children she taught professionally for twenty years. Helen was a beloved kindred spirit who experienced great joy from seeing people happy, especially her sons, Kevin and Chris, and her grandchildren, Liam, Nora and Jesse.

Helen had an exquisitely sharp mind. A life long writer, she often recorded for others her perceptions and impressions of their situations; to receive a birthday letter from Helen was an envelope thick with eloquent remembrances, and andecdotes, thoroughly infused with love and sincere caring. Helen Phillips Hanna was a woman of great faith and of great wisdom. She was tenacious, frugal, hard working and uncomplaining in the discomfort and pain she experienced later in life as her body began to deteriorate while her mind continued to sharpen!

For those of you who had the honor and joy of knowing Helen, I offer you my sincere condolences on the loss of your beloved friend. Chris and Jesse and I are most grateful to have spent her last months with her here in Norfolk. She was looking forward to returning to summer in Connecticut, spending time with Kevin and Mary, Liam and Nora. Her plan was to take it easy and write. Since George’s death 28 months ago, she afforded herself the luxury of a little more time writing in her spiral bound notebooks, with a blue Bic pen, medium point.

Her memoirs complete, she was ready to take on her first novel.

Namaste` Helen,
May You Rest in Peace

Caladonia Public Profile

Caldadonia March was born in 1866 in Madison, AL. She was the first in her family to become literate, thanks to the beneficence of a man called Holmes.

Caladonia was a source of undying inspiration to her community, in her capacity to see the light in every tunnel, the warmth in every cave, the blessings of a loving heart.

Alternately, she was not afraid to speak her mind and is a source of great wisdom and spiritual guidance. To be called out by Caladonia is an unforgettable and humbling experience!


Caladonia lived a quiet, dignified life as a southern woman born into freedom. She was particularly gifted at handwork which included stitchery of all kinds, silhouette, abel skever breakfasts and precision knitting. Her lineage can be traced back to the Lucy, from the Paleolithic Age, who started this entire bead journey.

In grace, Caladonia passed over in 1935. In 2000 she returned to speak.

She speaks through Jewelry Artist Connie Hanna
Etsy Store: CaladoniaMarch.etsy.com

Introducing: Caladonia March

For several years now, since the turn of the century, I'd guess, I've been guided in all things truthful by a woman named Caladonia March. We opened a bead store on Etsy in March of 2008 and things are going well.

Recently, I found us seeking a face for her to wear. Introducing, my beloved spirit guide, Caladonia March (whose image I purchased on iStock photo).

Bhagavad Gita

Where I think I'm going:

"He who is free from selfish attachments, who has mastered himself and his passions, attains the supreme perfection
of freedom from action. Listen now, Arjuna, and I will describe how one who has attained perfection also attains Brahman, the supreme consummation of wisdom...(18:49-50)

Heading for perfection? Perhaps a thousand thousand life times from now, such a goal is achieved and in the same moment the truth of only now exists . Embrace the perfection that exists, perfection without words, perfection of truth. Perfection of the one truth. Love.

Augustine: "Love, then do as you like"; nothing will come out of you but goodness".

Namaste` Arjuna, Dalai Lama, Augustine, Caladonia

MUKTI

Mukti=Liberation for Tibet

Dream Journal

In my dream, my friend Sonja and I arrive at an opulent, mosaic encrusted hotel on par with the Plaza in NYC, or the  Ritz? in Paris? Or the equivalent in Seattle, Wa.  We are there as co-hosts of a grand affair, a dinner party/celebration with china, cut crystal and green glass water goblets. 

We arrive before the celebration is to begin.  Service employee bustle about.  Soon it becomes clear that the tables will not be set in time and I begin to "pitch in" to help so that the party can begin as scheduled.  A multitude of tables must be set.  There are floors above and floors below...the green goblets are racked along the stair case.  I take some and begin to place them with the table settings.  

Soon, guests are arriving, the wait staff is clearly not prepared and I am crammed into kitchen and service space with the guests, looking for a way out.  I attempt to go downstairs in order to find stairs to come up and transcend this level. Some one says there are no stairs down.  And no elevator.  There is a stage and from where I'm standing?  The only way out is across the stage and out the curtains.

HMOG!

Priority Box Art Project

Click title to check this out when you get a minute! 

Painter Franck De Las Mercedes has taken upon the task of sending thought-provoking painted boxes with intangibles such as Peace, Freedom and Justice.  Franck sends his painted boxes to anyone, anywhere in the world "for free".   How cool is that??

I love you Franck, where ever you are tonite.

How Hera Cured my Snake Phobia

I've had a snake phobia all my life. I don't know how to explain phobias, given their irrational nature. Phobias weren't meant to be rationalized, were they?  It makes perfect sense that a good number of the people on the planet at any given time are really, really scared of slithering, limbless reptiles that can move really, really fast and scare the hell out of me just like that with the whip of their tail. And most of them don't even give a  warning! In the reptilian world of Beauty Contests, the rattlesnake would snag the Miss Congeniality prize  everytime for the simple truth that she has the decency to let you know that she's THERE!

I'm curious about the demographics of snake phobia. On an evolutionary level it made sense to avoid them and like, not make your bed in a nest of them, but they are accustomed to lying, coiled and  immobile so as not to be detected.  Snakes are silent observers and it's not like they enjoy the company of humans, or any other species for that matter. Snakes are very solitary creatures that hang out in the sun trying to stay warm from what I can tell. 

Early on in my Virginia residency, I read an article of a girl in Chesapeake who was bitten on the neck by a snake with fangs of some sort. As I recall the story, which was published in the Virginian Pilot Ledger Star back in 80's, the girl was riding her bike and must have run over it, but by some freak accident the snake went flying in the air, landed around her neck and bit her. I'm not making this up! I wish to hell I was making it up because , THAT particular image is certainly the Mother of the Ophidiophobe Nightmare!

My fourteen year old, Jesse has been telling me about Hera, the 8th grade Biology teacher's ALBINO CORN SNAKE, since school started in Aug. I've always loved Biology teachers and have great respect for the women who have snakes as pets. My friend Marge, twenty years ago, had me work on my Ophidiophobia by hanging out in the same room with her boa, Squeeze, first with him IN his tank/home and finally, after any number of bong hits and who knows how much vodka, out of his tank. I'd be sitting on the sofa, look over at the rubber tree plant and there was a green boa, tongue darting and inching toward my ear. If you don't think that every muscle in my body was contracted, then you are out of your mind. Once, I even managed to hold that snake but NEVER did I feel safe or relaxed. I did learn though that it's true what they say:
Snakes are not wet, cold or slimy but soft, supple, warm and dry.

I was at Jesse's school the other day and the math teacher, Deb Miflin, took me into see Hera, the biology teacher's beloved albino Corn Snake. (I have come to appreciate constrictors...I like the green ones especially...the black and brown snakes? Not for me! and to people like me, Steve Irwin was just a big SNAKE HANDLING SHOW OFF! ) While Ms. Mifflin lifted Hera out of her tank, she told me how in assembly that morning, she was "wearing" Hera under her clothes because Hera's warming light had burned out overnight and she was cold. Hera, not Debbie. Debbie was trying to be cool and discreet in the assembly, keeping Hera inside her clothes so as not to freak out all the little Ophidiophobes in the room, but at one point Hera rose up out from behind Ms. Mifflin's head and oh my god, can you imagine the response? MS. MIFFLIN!!! THERE'S A SNAKE IN YOUR HAIR!!

So, Debbie, this amazing spirit of an angel-woman-math-teacher-extraordinaire, reaches into the tank and pulls Hera out and just offers her to me. I love Debbie because it didn't occur to her that holding a tame snake was something I wouldn't do for whatever irrational reason I might have. And I was proud of me for not getting into the drama of my phobia. Here I was being presented with an opportunity to GET OVER a fear I'd carried with me from the womb. So, I sat down, and reached out my hands to accept this gift that I was being given. I call it a gift because until recently, I wasn't always awake enough to hear the call of those fear based opportunities to be re-created into new realities.

Now, if you know anything about me, you should know that I am heart led on this spiritual path, so the next thing I know, I'm falling in love with this beautiful, mysterious animal who is wrapping herself around me, seeking my warmth and comfort; moving effortlessly, sliding, worming her way into my vest, out the armhole. Debbie and Hera have become such heroes to me! She was the perfect snake to experience without fear and Debbie knew that. There was nothing TO fear, for Hera is a gentle, living, breathing, silky smooth mass of cells, just like me: just warmth and firm muscle moving over my mass of skin cells, with all their millions of nerves that have never known the pleasurable touch, til now, of silky scales sliding, wrapping, enveloping and recreating a new version of a timeless, sacred sensation, a new version of communing with one of God's OTHER creatures.

Thank you Hera, Thank You Debbie!

For this I am very Grateful!

Connie

baby you can drive my car but

age is a state of mind and I ain't goin' through that particular territory.

SATCHIDANANDA WISDOM

“A Healthy Ego” “"Don't try to get rid of your ego. Without ego, there's no incentive. Even God has a super-ego, otherwise why would God create the universe? Just change your ego. Make it healthy. If you get rid of it, you will be useless. But if you purify it by changing 'I' to 'we' and 'mine' to 'our,' then you have gone to the root cause and transformed it. Then you can develop a strong, healthy ego. After all, what is ego? It's just the individual feeling, which eventually disappears in the universality of God. Until then, it is your ego that takes you toward God. Without that good ego, how could you do your sadhana or spiritual practice? To approach God, you need the ego. But as you get very close, you lose it.
“God bless you. Om Shanthi, Shanthi, Shanthi.”

Swami Satchidananda
http://swamisatchidananda.org/

dream journal

In my dream I've been in a play and cast members and I are headed to a party in my VW bug. I'm driving and the front seat passenger is directing me where to go. We head down a long dark road and he says to keep going. The road ends and we are at a cliff over the ocean. It is a stunningly beautiful view. The car does'nt t stop quite soon enough and we bump down to a little plateau and the brakes still don't work well enough to hold us in place and then we are in a nose dive down the side of the cliff. The ocean and rocks are hundreds of feet below but death is certain and I'm thinking, "I CAN'T BELIEVE I"M GOING TO DIE THIS WAY, but ok God, if this is how you want it, thank you for this life, thank you, thank you, thank you, and for all the non-believers in the car with me, bless them God, accept them, protect them."

And we keep heading slowly down the side of a cliff at a 90degree angle as though a large hand is holding onto the back of the bumper and slowly easing us down. And I just keep praying with gratitude for life.

And then we're not crashing, we're piling out of the car, passing under an overpass and into a open top cylindrical tank and it starts to rain and then big globs of white gook come flying down and I dodge out of the way quickly, to the shelter of the overpass and realize the other cast members are way up on the cliff throwing things at us and it's all a big joke.

DREAM Journal

Last night I dreamt of Marc Murray, a troubled young man from my 17-18th year back in Santa Cruz. So much information has been received over the years about just what I was dealing with. I was dealing with Karma, of course. In this dream as in Mike dreams, I pursue the animus; this time, in the form of Marc as a football player at UVA. The most important part of the dream for me, was, realizing that Jesse belonged at UVA. Marc said that the first three months of Physics class was memorizing one thousand dreams. When a student would share a dream with the class, the professor would announce: "This person is a Magical Thinker!".

U2 3D IMAX CONCERT

Shot at seven different shows during the Vertigo tour of 2006, this production employs the greatest number of 3-D cameras ever used for a single project. (Associated Press / January 21, 2008)


Holy Mother of God, if you have an opportunity to see this 3d film, by all means DO! The message is Loud and Clear for Human Rights now AND it will get your kundalini flowing!

Obama and Oprah 2008

Now that my Presidential choice Elizabeth Edwards and her husband John have dropped out of the race, this is my new ideal for the election in November. Oprah is Goddess energy personified, the most powerful female on the planet.


Obama, if you want to win the White House, choose Oprah as your running mate!~

Be well, do good work,
Connie

Recurring Mike Dream

For years and years I have dreamt of my first "boyfriend", Michael Mattson whom I met in the 8th grade at Del Mar School and continued to make out with him for a year until the first day of High School when the Conquistador in me said, "wow, look at all these nice fish in this exciting pond!" I have come to realize how deeply affected I have been this early relationship. I explored my first steps into sexuality with him, and learned my worth very much imprisoned in my willingness to make out, or not. The first time he broke up with me it was because I wouldn't kiss him in public. I remember one conversation with this very introverted, strong, silent type man boy. He was so silent, I would often ask him, 'what's wrong?". I mean, we would just sit together never saying a word; we were 13 with absolutely nothing to say just this huge awkward silence between us. One night he snapped at me, "why did anything have to be wrong?" Forty odd years later, I see he had a point.

But there was something deeply missing in this guy. To say he was independent (he had complete freedom to be anywhere, any time he wanted to be) doesn't cover the sense of responsibility he had toward his brother. I suspect Mike's childhood ended shortly before I met him. He never spoke about his home or his parents. I intuited that his mother was single and working to support her kids but that left him to parent his brother, Stacy, a year or two younger and with a girl name like Stacy, Mike had a very protective aura about him; he was tough enough that if you teased Stacy, you were going to have to face Mike and given his mature physical body, that may have stopped you.

In 8th grade I was spending the night occasionally with this boy; the first time at a beach cottage that our friend Betty's parents took care of in the off-season. Betty sneaked the key and a bunch of us partied in some body's beach house in the middle of winter. God, it was cold! All that Mike wanted to do was make-out so that is what we did. I learned how to kiss Michael Mattson, let me tell you. But jeez, I'd get so bored after a while. I guess I wasn't as into it as he was. Curious, yes. Turned on? No. The second time was the following summer, months of kissing behind us. ( We told our mothers we were staying at Karen's house but we didn't tell them Karen's mom was out of town; Karen told her Aunt she was spending the night with me. ) Here was a group of three adolescent "couple", Karen, Sin, Carrie, Bobby, Connie, Mike, pairing off in the bedrooms to learn a few new things.

This is the night I heard Roberta Flack's recording of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". Her voice woke up my heart chakra and I tumbled irreversibly down the rabbit hole of romantic love. And this is the next morning I wake up to find his finger in my bone-dry vagina. Of course at the time, I didn't know what to think and it took years for me to own my sense rage at this, my second violation. I guess I could be grateful that he woke up my second chakra the way Roberta Flack opened my heart, but a gentleman would have asked first.

So, for years, I've been dreaming of Mike and what recurs is intense visceral physiological longing, sometimes in my vagina, but more recently, in my heart. I awoke with an aching heart the other morning, having touched him, finally, in the dreamtime, only to have him slip away again. If I researched my journals, I imagine I've dreamt Mike hundreds of times since 1972, always searching and seeking to physically connect.

In tonight's dream he and Bobby are walking toward me. When we meet, Mike says he's going surfing but the climb down the cliff to the waves is a dangerous endeavor. In typical Mike fashion, he thinks nothing of it and take a path away from us, on a road to the west, heading for the cliff with the waves far below. We've made a plan to meet later at his sister's huge, rambling wind-weathered house which is full of Mike's family. Brother's keep showing up, but not Mike. Finally, he does and we sit on the floor in front of the sofa. I put my hand on this leg, he turns on the t.v., to watch porn! (I was soooo disappointed by this turn of events!)

He tells me in the dream that we wants to marry but must go work for three months before returning. He seems unsure if I'll wait for him and I tell him that yes, of course I will. And so again, the longing comes in. But I am heartened on this journey to my animus...I am encouraged that I am moving closer to integration with this avatar of mine, Mike, who I realize now, is a protector for me but also my strong, male, warrior spirit who easily makes the choice about which cliffs to scale down, rather than jump from. He is also the bold and arrogant risk taker, who doesn't feel the need to ask permission.

This wouldn't be a true Santa Cruz dream if I didn't dream the huge nightmarish wave bearing down on me, but this time it was only one and though it was big, I knew it wouldn't catch me. Anyway, I was safely behind glass, watching it roll in and exclaiming, "oh, that's exactly the kind of wave I have nightmares about".

Namaste`
Connie

Stumble into Jesus

I was scheduled to bear the Chalice at St. Paul's Episcopal yesterday. I SO did not want to perform this service! As much as I'd tried to wiggle off the roster of readers and Chalists in the past six months, I had given my word and as a matter of personal integrity, I HAD to show up. For five years, I have loved offering that most holy of cups to the followers of Christ, but lately I've been a hypocrite, listening to, but not reciting with everyone else, a liturgy practiced by rote, that I now experience as hollow and empty of deep spiritual meaning. These words spoken by millions, every Sunday around the globe, which in itself is a fantastically miraculous thing.

A wise woman told me that when she felt conflicted with the church she’d go anyway and pray to hear just one thing. WIth her voice in my head, I showed up to offer what I could to the "service": meditative peace and serenity. I may have been reciting internal, melodic mantras instead of the Nicene Creed, but my heart was in the right place.

So, having made the commitment to show up and serve, and much as I had to drag my butt there, I was relieved to find my friend Doug as compatriot in the tag team bearing of the Holy Cup, offering the masses their elixir of Christ's blood with the following blessing: "The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation" or " May the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, keep you in everlasting life.” Ok, this was the hard part? I kept forgetting what I was to say! And you have to alternate it and Doug and I are supposed to be saying the same thing at the same time, but who cares, cuz the awesome thing is bearing witness for folks experiencing their faith in this distinct version of "care and feeding of the soul".

(I think it's the blood part that really bugs me. Personally, I'd much rather offer chocolate chip cookies and breast milk to followers seeking salvation and forgiveness, because in a lot of ways, it is the hurt and broken child that many bring to the sacrament of communion. Ok. It's my hurt and broken child that I have brought to the ritual I just feel certain that milk and cookies would be what the HOLY BLESSED VIRGIN MARY would do... unless she was PMS or in menopause and then it would probably sound like, "make your own damned cookies, I'm busy!")


When all who came to the rail had been served, I followed our Rector, Scott, keeper of the Body of Christ, with my Cup of Salvation into the pews to offer bread and wine to a woman not able to stand. Scott stepped into the pew, I followed...

and tripped over the kneeler, stumbled, thrown way off balance but then, voila! caught myself absolutely determined not to spill a single drop of that consecrated blood! The woman's husband touched my hand and kept it there, he looked me in the eye, asked if I was ok. And it was in that moment that I recognized the love of Jesus, right there in church. The stumble took place in slow motion of course, and it was in that moment that I learned how much I do value, for those who seek salvation in it, the chalice of life-giving wine that is so central and integral to Anglican worship. The really sweet part was that the divine child in me crowed, "I didn't spill a drop!".

There was such glee and wonde, pride and delight in the voice of my beloved tender-hearted-CHILD-self! Scott did not join me in any of that - instantly I felt that child silenced for the sake of the sacrament being delivered to this woman unable to stand. I could see in her eyes that the outburst had unhinged her a bit and that my lack of comportment was unexpected and perhaps a little scary. (I am self-aware enough to know that I can be intense and just a little scary). TO say that I found the entire experience tremendously HUMILIATING would not begin to cover it. With the weight of hundreds of eyes watching, I smiled and chuckled quietly, but no other voice was muttered. So, the voice I will continue to recall is that of the one who took my hand and steadied me with a loving heart, looked me in the eye and asked after my condition. Thank you, dear one.


Maybe I'm just getting ready for the seasonal winter/lenten journey of either embracing or rejecting this Jesus guy, as the only son of God. I just want to say, "oh, give me a break!" One God? Come on! What's the point of one God? The "archetypal" Jesus is out there in the world right now, working through people like our rector, Scott, through souls like Doug, who has experienced first-hand the miraculous healing of prayers uttered in Jesus’ name. I’ve seen Jesus dancing to Moby at the Norva, and I've conjured him up holding hands with a stranger at the scene of a horrific car crash, praying for life to be spared. Jesus is awesome in his ability to be in the present moment, but his God status doesn't speak to me, and in truth, it never has, for the simple truth that the experience of women is left out of the entire fable/myth/fairy tale.

Where is the SACRED DIVINE FEMININE IN THE ANGLICAN CHURCH? Sophia, the holy spirit symbolically rendered in DOVE as the physical form of WISDOM was left out of the Bible! (was the feminine just not quite important enough for those men making choices, laying down law...about what got said, what got written down, not to mention tracking down the witnesses to the red letter words that actually fell from the mans' tongue, lo those hundred years earlier?) You know, if there was one book to leave out of the Bible, why do you think WISDOM was left out? It was left out because it represented the intuitive mind, the mind that doesn't require a face for God in order to believe it exists. WISDOM represents the human capacity and hard-wired programming for higher knowledge available to each of us if we will only find our salvation in our own bodies, minds, in our hearts, not in the sky resting on clouds too far away to feel or touch. Unless you're dead.


Today, Jesus is not the way for me. I get that I am a divine being and so are you. I get that one of my lessons in this incarnation is to see the value in all humanity, not just in women and our ability to create, which hello?, kind of gives us the power to hold the future of the human race in our beautiful, soft, warm wombs, doesn't it? I will not, cannot, worship a God who plays a passive aggressive power game that ends in the sacrifice of the BELOVED. If that's the story, give me Shakespeare, he was so much more eloquent with Tragedy! It feels like the sequel to Abrahams' drama in "Old Testament v. 2". More blood, more suffering, more, "Oh! I am not worthy"? No thank you.

Jesus had a message: Love yourself. Love your God, Love your friends, your neighbors, your enemies. Beyond that, I am fatigued by all the WORDS that come between me and what it feels like to hold, to own, to offer something sacred, to clutch it in both my hands, to not spill a drop.

With due reverence and honor for your journey,
Namste`,
Connie
Connie Hanna
Norfolk VA
1-14-07

Today, I Choose Happy

On Dec. 10, 2007, I awoke from my sleep faced with a well known dynamic: things had not gone as I'd expected, financially, and I began to feel myself on the precipice of an all-too familiar abyss that, should I have chosen to fall, very possibly could have plunged me once again into the depth of winter depression.

Some brilliant psychologist coined the term SAD, or Season Affective Disorder , in an attempt to categorize a natural chemically organic phenomenon; the tendency for homo sapiens to seek the inner cave when it's dark and cold outside in the season of winter. At least, like me, for humans in the northern hemisphere. I started noticing about five years ago that what my soul sought in winter was retreat, to go within, introspect and more than anything, REST.

I talked a good game for several years about doing that; going into my natural desire for hibernation. I've tried and tried not to work in the winter, but the nature of the artist is so damned compulsive!! Might as well just expect the birds will stay in the north for the winter, where they will die of freezing temperatures and starvation. To NOT create is the artistic equivalent of staying in the north, or not retreating to the bear cave where the simple warmth of the body (or all those blankets on this bed of mine) is enough comfort to nurture a mind and body in search of peace, a soul in search of reflection and deep contemplation in order to see more clearly the inevitable clearing of the path come late March, when the stretch of road ahead is cleared of snow, and the heart, like a seed, well rested and open, will begin it's onward journey into the mystery of the unknown.

It seems to me, in my 50th winter, that I truly come to a place of recognizing that focused creative and artistic work earns and deserves this time of natural inward turning. My work has kept me so connected to the outside world all these 20 years that I continued to put the needs of others in front of my own natural inclination to retreat, out of fear that those who needed me couldn't wait for my return. Jeez, how egocentric is that? I can be so arrogant at times, I'm telling you, it humiliating!

So back to that morning of choice on the edge of the abyss. That old familiar darkness...that depression? I chose to flip that thought over and said," I choose Happy". And so I have. And since that Monday morning, when I find myself slipping into that familiar skin of worry, I stop and I tell myself, "No, I choose happy today." Indeed, that is what I find I create.

And so it is. And for this I am very grateful. May you choose happy today!

Namaste`,
Connie

Accident on Granby St. Norfolk VA in front of DePaul Hospital

While taking my dog Lucy for a walk, I heard a rash of sirens near
by. When we got to Granby St. my soul led my self to the scene of an
automobile accident that, from the looks of it, had been extremely
exciting had one been there to witness it or experience it.

As Lucy and I approached the scene on foot, a small group was
gathered across the street from the site of six firefighters working
to remove a body from the drivers side of a late model silver Lexus.
The front end of this car was a mangled mass of steel, or is it
aluminum that car engines are made of? My eyes told me that a person
couldn't survive the damage done to that mermaid in the median, the
wounded oak tree 30 feet from her clipped off tail, or the empirical
evidence of the remains of this sedan now 25 feet from either of
those two obstacles that failed in ceasing the rocketing forward
momentum of a vehicle not intended for flight.

The small group gathered on the sidewalk in front of DePaul's
emergnecy room were mostly men, one woman. One man kept saying the
same thing, over and over. "We were coming by here not 15 minutes
ago..." the subtext was his disappointment at not having witnessed
the actual event. I asked if any one cared to join me in prayer.
The only black man in the group was the one who nodded and joined me
at my side. I took off my glove, I took his hand and we started to
pray. And you know who showed up? JESUS did! And his mother too!

I was so surprised to find myself praying with Jesus on Granby St.,
since I've so recently come to the conclusion that he just isn't my
God and try as I might, I haven't been able to make that connection
with a male God. I have come to think of myself more as a Buddhist
rather than a Christian; the spiritual aspects of Buddhism surely
have led me much further into my beloved walk with mysticism than the
Episcopal church ever has.

But...this is what I learned: when you need to pray for someone's
life, when you find yourself taking the dark and beautiful hand of a
perfect stranger who, out of half a dozen is the one willing to
conjure up some God with you, praying that if it be His will, and
that means saving a life, than by all means, please Jesus, intervene
and do that...Christ is the guy for the job.

So, thank you Jesus. Thanks for being present and such a huge source
of healing and love for so many wounded and broken and frightened
people. Thanks to Mary for being there with her nurturing maternal
essence. Thanks to those amazing firefighters, whose work is so
clearly laid out for them when they show up to rescue. Those men and
women never cease to amaze me when I see them do what they do. I
just know that that's how God shows up at the scene: with the
firefighters... through them, with them, in them. Thanks be to God,
which ever one works for you. Thanks be to the God that shows up!

Connie Hanna

Dear Sweet, Paige:

Having learned how to love you, my soul eternally remembers the joy.

Namaste` little sister
Connie

Weekly Words of Wisdom

From Sri Swami Satchidananda~

 

You are Happiness Personified You never get happiness by doing something or achieving something, including spiritual practices, prayer or the search for God. Even God cannot give you happiness. If God gives, God might take away. Anything that comes, goes. Even in the name of searching for God, we see people becoming unhappy. Here is my answer: Happiness is not to be sought outside. It can never come from outside or from inside. It can't come, because it simply is. It is always. Where? Everywhere. It is just happiness. You are Happiness personified. You are that Supreme Bliss. You are that joy. You are the image of happiness. If you want, use the word God. Who is God? What are God's qualifications? Always being happy. So, as the image of God, how can you be unhappy?
God bless you. Om Shanthi, Shanthi, Shanthi.

Mad as Hell. Not gonna take it anymore. Profanity warning: there is some

There has been a convicted child molester in my life for about a year.  I don't recall asking for this specific gift, but alas, it was bestowed.  I've written others letters to this individual on this blog, so if you're curious, the information is probably available. 

 

But here's the thing:  I first  thought the lesson was forgiveness.  I forgave.  I did not judge.  I wrote letters to jail. 

We went for sushi not long after his release and I played the angel who asks, "if you had your choice, what would the karmic payback for what you did be?"  It was not a rhetorical question, AND I did not expect a forthright answer.    I asked him to tell me when he had an answer.     NOT GONNA HAPPEN!

I have not felt  empowered, as a survivor of childhood sex abuse,  by the experience of forgiving.  In fact, I'm mad as hell.  

He showed up unannounced at my studio and  after fifteen minutes of listening to his arrogant whining, this is what I said: 

"I am not here for you to dump your shit one".  

"I'm not dumping shit..."

"Yes, you are, that is how I'm experiencing this.  And it's the same old shit that you've been dishing out for all your 33 years.  I am not here for that.  I am here as a spiritual director, not to listen to whine and make excuses for your deplorable behavior.   Get over yourself.    And by the way, your karma payback for getting so drunk you molested your live-in girlfriends  12 year old daughter is 12 years of CELIBACY . You don't deserve anything for what you did to that little girl.  12 years Brandon, now get the fuck out of here".

"I'm sorry, Connie!" 

Brandon, tell it to the child whose healthy sexuality you robbed her of. 

You are a thief.  You cannot be trusted. 

Could I find the Divine in you, I'd honor it. 

I was talking with Renee, Steve and Cathy, three highly spiritually connected people on Sat. night and I heard myself gushing about the richness of my spiritual path after 19 years.

The path is so beautiful! There are choices everyday to be made but they all lead to the top of the mountain, where, I'm told, it's quite easy to be enlightened!

Divine Service (great name for a diner) is the daily work, but every once in awhile, I curl up in the arms of God when I think I can handle it.

Sparkles to you all!

Addiction

My web friend Paige says that creativity is an addiction. I cannot think of a more positive and astute definition of what drives me to create. Thank you Paige. You are a gem.

Robbie Schneider

In 1983, I had recently moved from my hometown of Santa Cruz to San Francisco, to live with my best friend Marge who was leaving her husband of five years, Patrick Fitzgerald. I was 23 and I think she was 22. Our birthdays are a year and a day apart. She was dating Rocky at the time....Marge was my first girl crush and she is one of the women I have loved most intensely in this life. Marge was a first in many ways for me, but she truly taught me what it is to be a member of a tribe.

Marge's mother was Athabaskan and their summer ritual was to go up the river and catch salmon. Salmon camp; hard work, that went on for weeks and weeks in those days of so very much light. Her aunties and grandmothers stitched and beaded the most beautiful slippers you've ever seen. Such an exquisite gift.

I coveted those slippers. I have a picture of my feet in them somewhere in the attic. the picture, not the feet, are in the attic.

Jeez, so I'm taking a long way around to tell you that when Marge and I lived together in a McAllister Ave. brownstone basement apartment, just west of Haight Ashbury ,she met Robbie Schneider from San Mateo one night at a comedy club....and she brought him home and we hung out on your living room floor. He was such a boy! And Robbie, if you ever happen to read this, I want you to know that your CERTAINTY of your destiny has always stayed with me. You JUST KNEW that your star was brilliant and bright. I hope that it still is my friend, I hope your destiny has been kind to you. You were funny then and you're funny now and I thank you for that!

Connie

Advice to a Stressed Out Bride

Hey there, take a minute and imagine yourself in Japan, like in a Samurai  movie, alone in a courtyard, you, the warrior in black; with  hands on your waist and a big sword at your hip,  you confront the inevitable and dare it to proceed.  

Now step out of it's way and let it proceed. 

This is the truth:  it is not up to you to please anyone but yourself and Chris on Saturday.  You simply don't have the strength at this point, drained as you are, to command the day like some Queen from her throne.  You are not Cate Blanchett in ELIZABETH, (though you were undoubtedly there) and the Samurai warrior is scaring the hell out of folks, LOL    hallaleujah!,  can I get an amen?  ;o}  

Let the Goddess woman earth mother of Celtic origin who empowers your  essential, true nature take over from here.  Let her drive.  You can sit in the back or to her right, but you no longer are steering this vehicle.   It's a Cadillac El Dorado and it's a nice, floaty ride!

Let if flow, Kelly. 

Breathe. 

Connie 

The Nature of Treasure

The nature of the treasure box. The treasure box came of clearing
space in my studio for new stuff to come into. What I invited was
magical thinking, to reference Joan Didion, one of my favorite non-
fiction writers.
So what form does treasure take? And how does one let go of what was
once treasured enough to keep, but is now ready to move along it's path?

I guess it's as simple as watching the russet leaves fall from the
maple trees in November. Leaves that decorated the branches of a
succulent, living, plant form that each autumn, due to it's nature,
must let go and release what is no longer vibrant and useful, whose
purpose has been served; life, so that it may be lived.

Retirement

I made an announcement yesterday to those gathered in my home for an open house, that as of the end of this year, I am retiring from the business of being in business so that I may more fully live my life as an artist. I felt so supported by my loyal friends and fans in making the announcement of change. Although I will undoubtedly continue to make jewelry, it's production will no longer by my focus for financial security. I'll make jewelry because it brings me joy, because I must, because I have so many beads to string!

I have no intention of giving up the little house/studio and I trust that the resources required to keep it open and and paid for will simply materialize as necessary.

A few weeks ago, I stepped onto my back porch on a lovely fall morning and surrendered my need to control and be controlled by worry over money. It was a deeply profound surrender of a life long habit of engaging in the illusion that there isn't enough to go around. Or, if you're not careful, you're going to come up short and be humiliated by not having enough. This is my mother's drama, not mine and I hereby relinquish the hold I've kept on that drama.

Worry over money? I let it go! Money is flow, money is energy: it can't be created or destroyed! My intention is to open pathways to multiple streams of energy that flow into my greater river of revenue!!

The cool thing was that after making this surrender, I looked over at a 25 year old above ground deck pool that has brought us much fun, joy and refreshment in the past 13 years. I thought to myself: "that pool is done".

Twenty four hours later is had completely drained! Now I have an empty pool in my backyard! The God Tree must be so happy for all those gallons of water released into it's root system that it may be fed and nourished and quenched!!

Keep Your Lights On

"Hey now, all you children,
Keep your lights on,
cuz there's a monster living under
my bed, whispering in my ear,
and there's an angel
with her hand on my hand
she say I got nothing to fear
but there's a darkness, living
deep in my soul,
still gotta purpose to serve."
Santana

Plush

When I was quite young, one of my mother's boyfriends pitched baseballs at lead pins, at the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk, and won for her, a tall, proud plush black panther with purple glass eyes. I remember thinking it was so very exotic. If anyone has a black plush panther with purple glass eyes, could you let me know when you're done with it so I can get it back? K? Thanks!

Connie

the purpose of the journey

Spend no time whining about how long the journey takes or how old you were when you started.  The point of the journey is the journey, not the time it takes to drive it.  God isn't wearing a wristwatch; there are no calendars in heaven.    

Connie

raven magic

The raven appeared to me this afternoon and then magical bead movement began.  I noticed a little mistake about half way through an almost completed necklace...so I'd clamp off one end of the strand and

plan to unstring until I got to the place where the missing bead was.  But the missing bead kept moving!  After a few turns, it was at the very end of the string where it took only 30 seconds to fix.  How cool is that?

A week ago today I walked outside onto my back deck, took in the beautiful, swollen rive and  and gave over my need to control money. I gave over to the reality that money is not money, it's energy and if there is one thing I've learned as a bachelor of science?  Well, it's that energy cannot be destroy or created...it just is.  

At the end of the NEXT day, our swimming pool had drained itelf.  I find that symbolically significant. 

Namaste`, thanks for reading me.  It means more than you will ever know to me.  You know, 

to be heard?  

Connie

"I have learned that there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of

valid inspiration".  Steve Martin

uttered to Will Corr in a Winged Conversation at SGAF

"I'm not here for the orgasms, I'm here for the God."

http://www.mainstreetartsfest.org/Content/Artists/2006/Corr-head.jpg

When you find yourself flat on your butt

The morning started ok...no mishaps in the shower, Jesse in a good mood; I got an hour of computer work under my belt
and got dressed: skirt, leggings, camisole, silk blouse, my long black cardigan, black beaded lariat and a chain link scarf my sister made me. Once I added the vintage cowboy boots I thought I was looking pretty good for a woman of a certain age experiencing pre-menstrual symptoms in the peri-menopausal phase of her advancing years. I gatherd my laptop, handbag, cup of coffee....walked through the living room, slipped on an unseen slippery something and fell flat on my ass. The moment of surrender is a nano-second but it just flashed in my mind, "girl, you're going down". Eh, no harm done, so I pulled a little muscle in my lower left back...no problem! I do YOGA and that means that my body didn't contract and tense to fall, but just kind of slid on down. It's so humbling, isn't it? To have put yourself together so well and then to be covered in coffee and white dog hair! Ce` la vie, all is well, it was good for a laugh!

Connie

Invasion isn't War

Support the troops: End the war.

That would be a lovely sentiment if we were in fact "at war", but we're not. We, i.e, the Bush Administration, i.e, NOT THE AMERICAN people invaded Iraq to secure it's oil fields, lo those many years ago. In order for it to be a "war" wouldn't there need to be an enemy to fight against? A rag tag bunch of militant religious zealots in an ages-old-pissing contest does not actually constitute an enemy that threatens the security of the United States in my opinion! It seems to me that the Irag invasion was a greedy attempt by the uber-corrupt Bush cartel to secure further economic resources through military contracts to friends in order to increase the wealth in the Republican party so that future elections can continue to be usurped. Land of the free, home of the brave? Give me a break! Land of the rich, home of the disempowered is more like it.

Regarding my Mother

Regarding my mother Dawn and our estranged relationship:  
It's been ten months since we spoke.  Our last visit could be characterized as a "blood letting" and I find in adulthood that I no longer need her style of parenting in order to fully actualize my authentic self.   I am grateful for this revelation.

Aud Guray Nameh

The Dalai Lama is not my God, he is, however, my spirit guide.


Aud Guray Nameh

This is the truth.

One true God.


Namaste`

Forty Nine

Today I celebrate my last birthday in my 40's. I find this fact quite astonishing in the general scope of things. It's a number. 49. 4+9=13 1+3=4 the square root of 4 is 2. So this is an even year I guess. Even. Vs. Odd. Even, as in equal, balanced, harmonious, all adjectives that I use to describe my current state of mind.

There is this milestone in a woman's life when she recognizes that her power does not lie in her sex appeal. This is the marker on her path that portends a transformation which requires slipping out of the cloak that signaled her readiness to engage in the illusion that a woman's greatest asset is her attractiveness to the opposite sex. I have been working from that illusion for forty nine years and in the process, disempowering myself by the investment of prana it takes to keep that illusion aloft.

In some ways I'm talking about my physical body and what it is capable of. In an another way, I'm referring to pure knowledge of self worth that has nothing to do with how others perceive me. I ran into an aquaintence at the grocery store yesterday and we chatted while waiting in the express line. When I parted I called her by name and she said mine. As I was pulling out of the parking space, she was walking by and looked at me again with a just a little doubt and said,
"It is Connie isn't it?"
"Yes", I replied.
"I just wasn't sure because everytime I see you you look different".

We are all capable of this. We are all capable of transforming our present self into something more authentically true and closer to our enlightened selves. We all have the ability to metamorphis into a brand new butterfly. From birth, we revolve around a spiraling helix of seven year cycles; developmental cycles that act as building blocks for our spirits. Every seven year:, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, we are expected to complete certain tasks of human development so that our souls might continue to evolve through this life cycle, emerging at death into a new cycle where all that we learned and mastered in this life is experienced as wisdom in the next.

This is the beauty and the reward for striving to NOT BE STUCK in any particular seven year cycle, because if we don't complete the tasks and master the maturation of the cycle we are in , we circle around again and again until we do master it. And there's no need to judge that experience of being stuck, what's important is the knowledge that movement up the spiral is indeed something to strive for so that our human existence isn't rife with the suffering created in stagnation.

So, what are the lessons of this seven year cycle I am in the final year of? Back to the beginning...that no portion of my "worth" is based in my ability to attract the opposite sex. Someday, in some life time, I expect to be born oustide the illusion that "opposite sex" is anything but a silly human notion that provides an easy surface of resistance to push against. An illusion that is more helpful in identifying what I am not rather than what we ALL are.

Happy Birthday

To Brooke and Artemis and George:

Happy Birthday to you. If it were up to me, we would return this day to all you who deserve to celebrate it for what it is...a lovely day in September.

EAT CAKE AND ENJOY. REJOICE IN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU ARE LOVED!

Connie

Cake is my Life

When I was 12 my Dad picked my sister Kim and I up from Santa Cruz and took us to his house in San Jose for a birthday celebration. I have to applaud my father for even attempting to entertain two pubescent girls who really didn't know him very well. What I remember about this event is the most delicious birthday cake I have ever eaten. It was white cake, with a blackberry filling and whipped cream frosting. Jeez, here it is 33 years later and I can still recall the pleasure of the taste and texture of that cake. This is probably when my cake obsession began. I have been trying to resurrect that cake moment for years and years and this summer, I think I found it.

In the Adirondacks there's a shop called the Marketplace in Tupper Lake. They make phenomenal sandwiches and a small but excellent selection of baked daily goods. This is the type of place that completely lacks organization, is continually understaffed and these women really have no business (but a love and good food and cash) being in this business. Keep in mind that this is my city-fied version of how I'd run things if I were running things. Like, if there are three people working, it might be a good idea for one person to take orders and money while the other two fill the orders. Nope, the same person will take my order, if I get noticed at all after 10 minutes of waiting, then she'll make my sandwich while answering the phone and taking THAT order (which will be ready 20 minutes after the caller has arrived to pick it up, making the point of calling ahead moot) and then she'll come around from behind the counter and take my money and make change. The other two behind the counter are doing either, their own version of this dance or one is baking bread while the other is filling a call in order for 19 sandwiches. So, the Marketplace is a lesson in patience and the pace of country living and it is ALWAYS worth the wait.

One day, while waiting, I spied in the back room, (which is huge and it's never really clear if you're meant to be back there or not) a round foil pan with a cake in it. I picked it up; it must have weighed two pounds...and read the label....Chocolate Carrot Cake. I thought it over for about two seconds and decided that a cake this heavy iced in chocolate frosting with sprinkles of chocolate chips and walnuts was probably worth the seven dollar investment. So, yes, I bought it.

There are a few words to describe my experience upon biting into my first slice of this cake: Ecstatic, explosive salivary response, moist, chocolatey, smooth, creamy, dense, CARROTS??? and nearly orgasmic. In other words? It tasted REALLY, really GOOD!

I went back a few days later, asked for the recipe and the owner whose name I cannot recall assured me that she never revealed her recipe sources. I gushed shamelessly about this cake and ordered another for our departure date so I could bring one home with me on a sixteen hour car ride. When I picked it up I told her I didn't want to be better than her, I just NEEDED this cake in my life. She asked me what cookbooks I used and ultimately led to the one (online no less) that would reaveal the secret recipe. I am so thankful to this woman, I can't tell you.

IS there a baker in the house? Here is the best chocolate cake I've ever eaten recipe:

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour two round cake pans.

Mix dry ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1.5 to 2 cups sugar ( I like less, the carrots are sweet too)
1 tsp baking soda
half tsp salt
1/2 cup baking cocoa (the better quality the better, like Penzey's)

Mix the wet ingredients
1.25 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
3 cups finely grated carrots

Fold into the dry and mix with a hand mixer on 3 til well combined.

Pour into the pans, bake for 30 minutes. (Check with a toothpick in the
center when you first smell the cake.)

Let cool ten minutes and cool completely on racks out of the pans.

For the icing have at room temperature
8 oz cream cheese
1 stick butter
3 3/4 powdered sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
3 tsp vanilla

Mix til smooth, ice the cake and sprinkle with walnut pieces and chocoalte chips, even if you don't like walnuts, it's an important texture experience.

This cake is almost fool proof. I've made it three times and it's a huge hit!! Everyone will be saying, "who made this cake???"

Enjoy, and thanks to the lady in Tupper Lake who broke down and told me where to find the recipe!

Happy Cake Eating....
Connie

Buddha on the Road

A man meets the Buddha on the road. Overwhelmed by the glorious inner light and peace of the Buddha he asks,
"Are you a God?"
"No, I am not God", says the Buddha
"Well, are you a devi?"
"No", says the Buddha
"Then you must be a saint", says the man on the road.
"I am not a saint", says the Buddha.
"Well, if you aren't a God, a devi or a saint, then what ARE you?"

"I am awake", says the Buddha.

Lisa

My friend Lisa told me yesterday that the time to begin dying is here.  11 months ago, she was diagnosed with uterine sarcoma. Uterine Sarcoma, as  far as I understand, is so rare that it accounts for only 4% of all diagnosed cancers.  In the "real" world, this means that research for treatment of this type of cancer is non-existent because it wouldn't PAY to find a way to effectively treat it when there is so much more profit to be garnered from researching treatment for  the more common and specifically female cancers as breast cancer or cervical cancer. 

For the past 10 months Lisa has undergone the chemo-therapy treatment that is the most likely to work, if only it were the right treatment.   But it's not a treatment that eradicates  uterine sarcoma  and remission  isn't part of the vocabulary and try as she might to think bigger than her health care professionals, she's now just  exhausted and in pain and an end to this suffering is beginning to seem like a viable treatment; for in the words of the Episcopal Rev. Ann Brower,  "death is truly the ultimate cure". 

Geez, and here I find myself envying Lisa at what appears to be the end of her 48 year LISA journey on earth.  I sit here and envy the vision of the bridge she faces.  I don't know what it looks like to her, but to me it's a rope bridge over a river so unfathomably far below me, that I sense it's really more of a snaking seam of ephemeral energy than the destiny of my liquid soul, who in this process,  will realize that this rope bridge is an illusion and the return to the river of life is infinite and it is only in those moments....like THIS one...that time exists, and I am here and present and awake in this moment and voila`, the fall ends, I'm once again a drop of water in the never ending flow of prana...life energy...and the moment.  Begins.  Again. 

Dear, Dear Lisa. All is well. You are loved. You are NOT alone.
Namaste` my friend

The baby blue jay

Pulling into the driveway this evening, with the top down on my '99 Saab convertible, I spied a bird in the driveway. I slowed down, and listened to the plaintive cry of a baby beseeching the mother for help. Oh...it was a baby Blue Jay and it was scared and helpless and hopping into my garage.

Can you imagine taking your first test flight and falling flat on your ass, no cloud to support you and lift you up? No wind to capture you aloft and send you soaring to a higher height where time and elements might give you a better chance at actually mastering the art of flight?

I approached the baby with my mother voice, attempting to soothe and comfort. It just turned and stared at me through the bicycle tires...what to do now? As it stands, this little one spends the night in the garage and with God's grace, may attempt a few flights in space with walls before attempting once again, flight from a nest whose boundaries have no end.

P.S. The following morning I came out to the garage to get in my car and Lucy chased the baby bird to the garage door. It swacked at her and held it's own and when I opened the door, away it hopped, kinda flew.

All is well.

Abdul Baha To Live the Life

When I was in 10th grade, my English teacher, Sue Moore gave me these words in a keepsake. Every ten years or so I come across this missive and am grateful to my teacher, who saw the writer in me. At the same time I'm moved by the simplicity of these words from the desert, by Abdul Baha, who in that parched landscape, saw kindness to others as the responsibilty of those in relationship with God.


To Live the Life:

"To be no cause of grief to anyone.

To be kind to all people and to love them with a pure spirit.

Should opposition or injury happen to us, to bear it, to be as kind as ever can be, and through all, to love the people. Should calamity exist in the greatest degree, to rejoice, for these things are the gifts and favors of God.

To be silent concerning the faults of others, to pray for them, and to help them, through kindness, to correct their faults.

To look always at the good and not at the bad. If a man has ten good qualities and one bad one, look at the ten and forget the one. And if a man has ten bad qualities and one good one, to look at the one and forget the ten.

Never to allow ourselves to speak one unkind word about another, even though that other be our enemy.

To do all of our deeds in kindness.

To cut our hearts from ourselves and from the world.

To be humble.

To be servants of each other, and to know that we are less than anyone else.

To be as one soul in many bodies, for the more we love each other, the nearer we shall be to God; but to know that our love, our unity, our obedience must not be by confession, but of reality.

To act with cautiousness and wisdom.

To be truthful.

To be hospitable.

To be reverent.

To be the cause of healing for every sick one,
a comforter for every sorrowful one,
a pleasant water for every thirsty one.
a heavenly table for every hungry one,
a star to every horizon,
a light for every lamp,
a herald to everyone who yearns for the kingdom of God"

`Abdu'l-Baha

Bottled Water

It takes 1.5 million barrels of oil to create the bottles that contain the water that quench
America's annual thirst. As much as I adore an occasional bottle of Evian, this kind of
consumption seems unconscious to me.

Buy a Nalgene bottle, fill it from the tap (luckily I live in a city whose water is rated #4
in the nation for purity) and move on from the the idea that your body needs H20 from
an artesian well in the South Pacific or Swiss Alp.

Recycle,re-use, re-purpose.

Mind over Matter

"Honey, if you don't mind, it don't matter".

Overheard by Chris at the Nordstrom Coffee Cafe

Shocking Pink: The truth about God

God is a frequency, always there, always available. Tune in. Just tune in. Be conscious. WAKE UP! Make it your intention to know God. It's just a word. It's that simple.

Advice For Young Women in Shocking Pink

Ya know, we are each on a path that we share with those humans who are on the path with us. If in your life, you find yourself at a symbolic or real mountain, like Half Dome (Yosemite, CA), then your quest is to muster the courage, rein in some faith and begin climbing. The secret to the summit is that it functions as a door to the new path. Be a true leader; others will follow.

May you be well and happy,
Connie

Madeline and Patrick

May the long time sun shine upon you
All love surround you
And the pure light within you
Guide your way on. 

Married June 11, 2007

Namaste`,
Connie

forgiven

I forgive.
May I be forgiven.

Live

Good                                             Devil

           God                              Evil

   Dog              Live

"Religion is a way of walking, not a way of talking".  R. Inge