Three Things Tuesday...

The organizations changing the world:


#1: Lafarge Ecosystems:

Lafarge Ecosystems

Lafarge Ecosystems Blog

I have been watching the blog for a while now. Something about hearing the continuing stories of animals with names appeals to the inner child in me. And, well, tiny monkeys are just the most awesome Morning Starter (okay, other than, ahem....weasles). Take a look at this organization and it's mission. Outstanding work. Can you help? Sure. Shoot 'em an email to tell them how cute Owen and Mzee are. Then ask them how you can make a difference.


#2 Heifer Project:

Heifer Project

This is well worth a gander, folks. If you don't already know of this organization, you *should* go look. Really now. I send out bee hives every holiday season. Sometimes when I am feeling rather Moo-ish I help pay for a cow. Sustain Thyself is the message here. Give them fish and they eat for a day. Teach them to fish they can live a lifetime. A larger percent of what you send gets where you want it to go with these folks. No more skimming money for vacations for the dude in the copy room. If you don't buy RED (see previous post) at least buy something that will pay forward for a long time.


#3: Wisdom Leadership:

Wisdom Leadership

I have always believed that feminine energy is creative and protective in ways that male energy is not. Both are important. Balance in Everything. Sure. But...I firmly believe that companies (okay, the WORLD at large) would do themselves a huge service by searching for, attracting and sustaining a workforce of leaders who are women. Take a peek. See what you think. At the very least, if we *are* going to hell in a handbasket, it will be a *pretty* one.

THINK RED,BUY RED!

Join Red



Buy the Change you want to see:

Join RED. Think RED. Buy Red.

Red is a business strategy aimed at eradicating AIDS around the world, but particularly aiming the big gun of the material juggernaut at solving the devastation laid bare in Africa due to this epidemic. Spearheaded by Bono, of U2 fame, this seeming simple strategy offers all of us a hands-on way to make a real difference in this beast of an issue. Portions of all proceeds garnered by Red Companies will be directly impact the ability of African people's ability to receive AIDS drugs. We can get the pills to these people, by buying RED. It is that simple. Look it up. Do it.

Last night I was Priviledged to attend a benefit concert sponsored by RED at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, Kenmore Square. The guys (okay and a few girls, too) are still sleeping on the bus heading to Philly as I write this, and they deserve the rest. That was one hell of a magical play date. Any of you who are into Scrubs, or Grey's Anatomy, Indi Rock or Zach Braff (Garden State and The Last Kiss) and his latest musical propulsions will recognize some of the dynamite in the roster last night. The stage was filled at all times with incredible energy, camaraderie and music with a metric butt-load of fun and soul behind it. And all of the folks on the Hotel Cafe Tour 2006 played for free. Our ticket prices, in great part, helped spread the word of RED, and the impetus behind the show was apparent. These guys played their hearts and soul out for 4 hours.

The roster of talent included Joshua Radin, Cary Brothers,Brian Wright, Joe Purdy, Jim Bianco, Kate Havenik, Kevin Devine and the Goddamned Band, and their attending support staff. I was fortunate to sit with the folks at the RED table, where a laptop was set up for people to log in their email to get information on the corporations involved in the Red campaign (see link above). These guys are all friends, and it shows in the way they play together. Jovial, jumping,jamming and dancing on the edge of musical Glory, they obviously were enjoying themselves as they played well into the night, and continued well past the regularly scheduled playlist. As far as I could tell each contributor was totally on the top of their form, the band was hella tight and there was no shortage of goosebumps and awe from the continuous rally of indie rock, jazz, blues and serious vein sucking folk. A seamless mix of hard and fast, cool and slow, screaming guitars and almost whispered songs of lost love, this is a concert not to be missed if you can help it. See Here for tour dates and locations. From the website above describing the Hotel Cafe Tour 2006:


"Once just a small coffee shop, The Hotel Café has quickly blossomed into not only one of the premier singer/songwriter venues in the United States, but also an all-purpose clubhouse for a burgeoning community of Los Angeles songwriters.

After an enormously successful first run in the fall of 2005, The Hotel Café Tour is ready for its sophomore road trip. Twenty-five artists will share one bus, one band and one crew and embark on a six-week journey throughout the United States.

The tour will feature a rotating lineup of at least six artists at every show, all sharing musicians and supporting one another, making for a unique night of music. The traveling circus is held together by performer and co-organizer Cary Brothers, who will be present for the entire tour.

After major success with his song Blue Eyes on the Grammy Award-winning Garden State soundtrack, Cary Brothers and The Hotel Café Tour continue their relationship with Zach Braff, featuring many of the artists included on The Last Kiss soundtrack.

The Hotel Café Tour has no cookie cutter corporate American Idols, just real music, written by real artists, surrounded by real friends, who actually have a story to tell. Check your city to see who is playing and expect lots of surprises! And show up early, as it's not a normal opener/opener/headliner line up!"

So, go see them, you won't be sorry. And, remember to BUY RED for the upcoming holiday season. Now, we have another opportunity to make our dollars make a difference.

Buckshot LeFonque

Oh, Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....






"Add a little this...take out a little that..."

Weaving together jazz, R&B, rock and hip-hop, the music of Buckshot LeFonque has always defied categorization (an unpardonable sin in some quarters). But that's just the way an ensemble of merry pranksters like Buckshot LeFonque prefer it. It was two years ago when saxophonist/composer Branford Marsalis first got together with some of his musically like-minded friends to form Buckshot LeFonque and record their debut album. Now the band is back with Music Evolution, an album as indefinable as its predecessor, yet even more thrilling.-BranfordMarsalis.com

Branford Marsalis – Saxophones, Drum Programming
DJ Apollo – Wheels O’ Steel
Rocky Bryant – Percussion
Reginald Veal – Acoustic bass
L. Carl Burnett – Guitar
Joey Calderazzo – Piano
Russell Gunn – Trumpet
Mino Cinelu – Percussion
David Sanborn – Alto Saxophone
Reggie Washington – Bass
John Touchy – Trombone
Will Lee – Bass
Frank McComb – Keyboards, Vocals
Sue Pray – Viola
Julien Barber – Viola
Barry Finclair – Violin
John Pintavalle – Violin
Donna Tecco – Violin
Richard Locker – Cello
Carol Webb Sotomme – Concert Master
50 Styles: The Unknown Soldier – Vocals
Laurence Fishburne – Spoken Word
Ben Wolfe – Acoustic Bass
Delfeayo Marsalis – Trombone
Eric Revis – Acoustic Bass

Adolescent Mask

I take pictures. Often. Very Often. And, probably the most rewarding shoots are the portraitures. I have always been fascinated by the human face. I know, most children focus on faces in their infancy. And, it is also a well known fact that children will have vivid memories of times when the first experience trauma. For me, in infancy, at one point my parents were simply not available. So, it is my belief that at that point, when I would cherish the sight of their faces leaning over my crib, the beginning of a very long path was born.

As a child I learned to study faces, to survive. Because of my family dynamic it was imperative that I learn to read body language so that I could feed back to them what they wanted to be fed. If I was not one step ahead, chaos would reign.

As a 6 yr. old, I was already steeped in Yousef Karsh portraits. I was mesmerized by the clarity, the very pores of the men and women portrayed, crystal clear. There was something behind the eyes, that was a traitor to the stance, to the pose...the rage in Churchill's eyes, for example.

When I take pictures of people, I speak a little prayer of sorts, a beckoning to the Powers, that I may capture the spark, the dark, the insane or the glorybound in that space which lingers behind the mask, yet before the bone.

Faith without Proof...

In response to a blog entry of a friend about his despair regarding loss of relationship and his cynicism about bonding and True Love:


I sense your cynicism and despair. It is a palpable cloud around you. But I also sense it is lifting. This is a good thing. When you shine, you are so brilliant.

Over the past few years my core beliefs about True Love have shifted dramatically. I *used* to be addicted to Disney Chemicals, that pervasive notion in our culture that there is The One out there who will match you so perfectly. It is a shame that we indoctrinate our youth, particularly our women, who then pass this on to the next generation of women, with this idea that lightning will strike them and when the smoke clears the Beloved will be standing there, perfect and whole and willing to merge to the core, ready to take care of them, to take the lonliness away forever.

There is no perfect. There is no whole. There is no merging to the core.

I have a firm belief in the Spiritual Beginning of the Universe. I believe that when we click so deeply with someone we don't know well, that we are actually Remembering what it was to be part of a Whole. Part of God. The many faces of In His Image. Call it what you will, but there is a definate recognition that happens. And that alchemy is intoxicating. Like anything good that is intoxicating, it behooves one to be judicious about the degree to which we turn ourselves over to it.

Most people fall into love. Fall. Into...unaware, blind and jacked up on the high of endorphine and recognition, desire and hope, they wander deep into the woods, unaware.

Love takes work. And True Love, Soul Connected love, is deep and rich and messy and noisy and quiet and profound and delicate and so many things that cannot be understood with the roar of Myth in your ears. It takes a lot of work to stay Centered. It takes bravery to face the fact that the person standing before you is human, and NOT the image you have carried around with you since youth. Falling into humanity, from the pedestal of Desire and Want, is a long, hard drop.

It takes a lot of self love and compassion for others to be able to stay in a relationship when the masks drop, when the bloody shards of our hurts become apparent, when we are brave enough to divulge how hurt and broken we are inside.

I do believe in Supreme Connection. I do believe in Big Love, in Profound Relationship. They come at odd times, at great risk. I believe that Falling In Love happens. I also believe whole heartedly in Walking into Love. Much gentler process.

The ability to stay in Self and with Other at the same time is crucial to maintaining balance. The siren song of Merging Souls is loud and it sways you away from Self. It can be a clever ruse to steer you away from the work you may need to do, and some people use it as such. Being profoundly connected to someone through love (agape or other wise) can be a phenomenal way to learn about yourself and the world. Having another heart, mind, soul and body to show you things about yourself and the world that you could never have known without that particular viewpoint, is part of the Good Magic of bonding.

The Biggest Hurts from abandonment are born of our inability to be at Home and at Peace with ourselves. It is a curse of our own making that we so quickly abandon ourselves to new relationship. If one can remain awake, alive and happy with *oneself*, only then can true partnering, healthy communion and soulful bonding survive.

And only through Real Commitment to path together can we as humans make the best and take the most from our relationships. That promise means to commit to truth and to the awareness that Change happens. It also means that we don't quit until it Just Does Not Work and Never Will.

Too many people make that choice too soon.

My 349 cents worth.

Three Truths and a Lie...

I have a hard time controlling my urge to slap clowns. Really. I do. If you know me at all you know that I am a kind person, not prone to violence. But, put a clown in front of me and my arm starts to twitch and my hand gets really hot. It has to do with a clown, a pony and a sunny day in Framingham when I was 4. Don't ask. *rubs arm, cracks elbow, crunkles knuckles*





I have a true disdain for fluffy toilet paper. It is an environmental issue for me, in the moral sense of the word. And I hate the way it feels, all flurrrffy-like and thirsty, all poofy and bumpy. No, my nether regions prefer the straight up Scott brand, as does my archaic plumbing (okay, and my wallet too..cause I have 2 teen girls and you KNOW how much they jam in the pot, eh?)





Once I stole something from my friend Rachels house during an overnight. I was changing the record on the record player (ah, yes, 'member doze?) and I found a pretty barrette on the table. It had sparkles and some ribbons, really thin ones, dangling from the top. I was never a froofy kind of girl, choosing instead to be the rough and tumble sort who plays Garage Door Limbo with the boys. But, that barrette spoke to me of pretty. And I wanted me some o dat. So I took it. It still haunts me to this day.





As a kid I used to get leg cramps at night. This happened often. My mother assumed that I was calling out in the night for attention, so she decided, after the first few times, to ignore it. That felt good, I tell ya. She came into my room one night and told me that I should "just think of something ELSE, and to Really Concentrate on it, and the cramp would go away". I decided to think of a vacuum cleaner. Now, every time I get a leg cramp my mind shoots straight to the Electrolux.

Plant Sex

Maybe it is just me *smirk* but plant sex still astounds me. I mean, we get lots of motion and grace (sometimes) and sweat and pushing and pulling and sounds and slurpy goodness from human sexuality, but when I look at the silent, reverant process of plants reproducing I am in awe.

One brief touch of a milkweed pod like this causes the spewing forth of bunches of seeds, each equipped with gossamer wings to carry it far and wide to a new birthing place. The ripening of the seed pods and the pollinating of the stamens and pistils, the acorns dropping, the wing dings making their helicopter flight to the ground, all of these relate to a never ending need to keep going, keep growing, keep your tribe alive and in a place of prosperity.

I wish I could drop like a chestnut, shedding my spiny shell, revealing my marbled and glistening, almost oily, surface inside.

I wish I could release my heart like this milkpod sends its issue forth, tossed into the wind, so easily.

I wish I could feel the gentle rub of a beloveds touch, gathering my granules of desire and carrying them to other places, forseeing a gentle, sprouting tendril for Spring.

In this time of Harvest, gather what you will and take what you need, but stop along the way to sing praises to the plants who are crazily thrashing, or silently whispering their sex right before you.

Look. Listen. Feel.

Yesterday's Forgotten Post (sorry)...

"While stuck in our ego-mind we attempt to ignore, deny or disregard this sacred, knowing part of ourselves. This part can bring us true and eternal fulfillment and satisfaction. All it takes is one holy instant of grasping the wonder of it all, and we can come to know love as it was created. We will no longer be attached to the sickly image we have made of it. Rarely do most of us live our lives as if we knew this to be so, either for ourselves or for anyone else. How many of us have attemtped to keep doing, achieving, aquiring, and yet remain unfulfilled, empty on the inside?"- Joan Gattuso "A Course in Love"

Bible Light

As I drove down the highway yestereday after our amazing afternoon I was gifted with a breathtaking vision before my eyes. The clouds, already dramatic and billowing, with edges of pinks and greys, separated for a few minutes, and as I was heading down 495 toward Lowell, with the whole world before me, the sun peeked through and shot rays of all colors from the clouds, bathing the landscape below. I used to call this Bible Light when I was a kid. I thought it was God.

In my entire life I have never seen this huge a spectacle of light. It was astounding. I actually cried. Usually, one sees a few white rays beaming down, but this time there must have been hundreds, all colors, pale sea green, diaphanous blue, just barely yellow, white, and it shot out in all directins.

It was the most perfect eyegasm I have ever had, I think. It reached way down into my soul, caught a thread from the inside and pulled me inside out.

I felt so damned grateful. For that vision. For my afternoon with friends. For the course of my life right now.

(note: that photo is not of what I saw, but it is the closest I can find to it...multiply the rays in that image by, say, 30, throw in a ton of colors and a lighter sky and that is much closer)

Stay Awake...

"Everything we do - our discipline, effort, meditation, livelihood, and every single thing that we do from the moment we're born until the moment we die - we can use to help us to realize our unity and our completeness with all things. We can use our lives, in other words, to wake up to the fact that we're not separate: the energy that causes us to live and be whole and awake and alive is just the energy that creates everything, and we're part of that. We can use our lives to connect with that, or we can use them to become resentful, alienated, resistant, angry, bitter. As always, it is up to us." - Pema Chodron - The Wisdom of No Escape

Slow and Steady...

Find that tipping point, the juncture where Change can happen. Go forward gently, persistently, working toward the goal you have set. Take breaks every now and again to feed yourself that which will strengthen you in your endeavors. And go back again to the task at hand, the crafting of your life. You will get there. The change will happen. Building a life takes a lifetime to do. One bite at a time.

Hopeful...

Today

Hold each moment briefly, like a wave. Each will crest and fall and succumb to the backwards pull of the past, waiting for yet another to take its place, rumbling and rolling into the present. Each minute is a shimmering reflection of time and place, moving, undulating and passing into another form even as you experience it. Don't hold onto the rocks for safety. Emmerse yourself in the Wetness that is the baptism of Life.