I was taught by my mother when we lived on Cape Cod, it is good luck to say "Rabbit" on the first of the Month.

And this May is the last month of our stay here in Singapore.

So I say a fond farewell to my gorgeous students S and O, who always worked diligently and with a wonderful enthusiasm. Blessings on this family who have sustained me in more ways than I can name.

And thank you for spending so much quality time with our girl, like today at the zoo. We didn't have to look after our wild girl- O and S did and with great joy!

xoxo

Two more weeks and they are off to England! And then we will be off too to Ohio, Maine and Washington State/or California if that is our fate.

America!

Lombard Street is the Zig Zaggiest street I know and it is in San Francisco. There are more like this in the world but this street is famous for it. I obtained this image here:


San Francisco blogger

Just finished some great books:
The Lost City of Z by David Grann- excellent!
James Keliman's How Late it was, How late- Unbelievable and wonderfully written in Scottish patter.
So Brave, young and handsome by Lief Enger. I loved this book! I wanted it to go on and on.
Matched by Allie Condie I also really liked tho' it only took me two days to read.

Note* I did it!!! I posted every letter on time and finished my alphabet book. Thanks to the A-Z challenge and my sister for inspiring me, I accomplished my task.

Yes!
I say Yes! to this (Cedarsong Nature School)!

Here is what else I say yes to:

Inclusion and Acceptance of others, especially those who are different than us in mind, appearance and habit.

Yes to making mistakes and moving on (with learning and self-forgiveness).

Yes to preserving ecological diversity and clean oceans.

Yes to recycling and sustainability.

Yes to compassion and responsibility for those who are not empowered to protect themselves (animals, the land and oceans, and the voiceless people).

Yes (again and again) to love.

My understanding of the cross, which is not the x but something similar, is as a symbol of the spirit meeting the earthly. In other words the higher self meeting the earthly self. This to me is the Christ impulse. In Ethiopia, the cross is closer to an X.



The symbol X has other meanings in other cultures and nations, but many are very harmonious with this idea. In Nordic runes, the meaning is partnership and union with the higher self.

I have chosen this rune, or at least the essence of it, as a kind of helper, or guide.

I am wishing for X.

I have been watching/listening to a lot of Tom Waits lately. I just can't get enough of his incredibly distinct musical genius. I think my favorite albums/cds are:

Rain Dogs (my first)
Swordfishtrombone
Blue Valentine
Small Change
Nighthawks at the Diner
Frank's Wild Years

Here is a great "gag" show- Fernwood 2nite, with guest star Tom Waits. Precious stuff!



And Mike Douglas who keeps his cool:



And Part one of an Australian talk show:



There are lots more, Letterman (both times he asks Tom Waits the same questions), Jon Stuart, acceptance speeches and wonderous performances (Chocolate Jesus anyone?) on Youtube.

I already posted this but it is such an excellent read if you are into old cars. Tom Waits certainly is.

Tom Waits' Cars

Vashon Island is located across the Puget Sound from Seattle, Washington. It is very likely that we will move there in July. We have friends and family nearby and while I am totally unemployed right now and do not have a job lined up for the fall, there is no better place to recover from Singapore and all that ails me, (read angst).

This photo is a shot of the preserved land on the Maury side of the island that was only recently going to be mined for gravel until Preserve Our Islands took charge.

This is a land of hope.

Ugly? An unfortunate and unbelievably untrue statement:

I was looking for an old friend online today. She is an installation artist and used to be in a wonderful rock band (Cathouse) from Detroit. Her name is Elizabeth Underwood. I am not sure where she is living now but she was living in New Orleans when the levy broke and a good deal of her work after Katrina hit revolved around the grief and healing that occurred at that time.

I found a couple of interesting interviews with her and scrolled down to see a really ridiculous comment,

"Who is this ugly tranny anyway?" and it really hurt to read these words. My friend is an incredibly beautiful person. She wears bookish glasses and has a low voice but is extremely feminine and I just couldn't believe the unkindness.



This comment came from an individual with the word meat in his moniker and was posting from one of those pro-Masculine websites. I guess they don't teach much about being a man at this institution just about how to insult beautiful, talented, authentic and loving women. Sad.

It just reminds me again. There are people like this also.

The four Temperaments

Came about when the first known Greek physician Hippocrates began to look at the human body in a more practical way versus a religious way. Hippocrates began to study the human body and to make his life’s work that of observation of the body and its functions. Using this work and the work of those who came after him a 2nd century Roman physician named Galen came up with the four humours and the temperament names are derived from the names of these fluids.

Sanguine- blood
Phlegmatic-phlegm or mucus
Choleric-gall
Melancholic- black bile

And their relating elements:

Sanguine- air
Choleric- fire
Melancholic-earth
Phlegmatic- water



Story of the four temperaments in my class:

We went on our Second grade nature walk in Great Meadows in the spring after a heavy rain and we got stuck just before the spot on Hawk’s Hill where it had flooded the marsh.

The four temperament responses were:
“I knew this would happen!”- This was the melancholic who began to notice their wet socks.

“Can we eat our snack?” – This was the phlegmatic who found a nice dry sitting spot.

Fascination with the new tadpole population ensued with the sanguine child and they had forgotten all about getting stuck.

And industrious log moving until we are able to cross the marsh was the activity of the choleric child.



What is the Temperament in the human being?

We are born to a family with particular physical traits- these are genetic gifts. How we grow into our bodies and “meet” our bodies depends on what we bring from our “self” which exists from before we were born.

For children, this “coat” that they wear is temporary, so it is important not to label children with a temperament but to be aware of how an individual might meet a certain body if certain elements were strongly evident. It is also of utmost importance to understand that children continually change as development occurs, and in adults the temperament is oriented very differently. This makes completing a temperament judgment futile.

The Temperaments reflect how the child is meeting his/her body, life, soul and spirit.

Sanguine- air- well balanced body, interest in everything, emotional roller coaster, many friends, extrovert (in adults astral body is most present)
In children the etheric is strongly living

Choleric- fire- strong lower body- leader- blustery- worker bee, not so sensitive to others, willful (in adults self-consciousness is most present)
In these children the astral is strongly living

Melancholic- earth- feels things deeply, tall and stooped, pale and feels cold introvert (in adults the physical body is most present)
In these children the self is strongly living

Phlegmatic-water- slow moving- not too interested- objective bystander introvert (in adults the etheric/chi body is most present)
In these children the physical is strongly living

What do we do to help if our students are a little one-sided in their temperament?

Address their temperament during Speech, story time, during challenges, form drawing, and even the way one gives instruction. Here are some teaching tools best suited to temperaments:

Choleric child? She needs to respect those in charge. Give her difficult tasks and keep critics few. Solo work. Have them draw borders around their form drawings.


Poetry Rhythm for the Choleric: Anapest ∪∪⎪

I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute;
From the centre all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
(Cowper)


Sanguine Child? Wants to love. They need irregular repetition. Varied tasks. They are socially confident. Artistic. They love the melody of the song, and wind instruments.

Rhythm: Iamb ∪⎪


As night drew on and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveler, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank.
(Whittier)


Melancholic Child? Wants to sympathize with others. Acknowledge their hurts but not overly, be more a witness. Try to illicit compassion. String instruments. Solo singing. Counterpoint in music.

Rhythm: Dactyl ⎪∪∪

THIS is the forest primeval.
The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green,
indistinct in the twilight,
(Longfellow)


Phlegmatic Child? Wants to share interest with others. Needs to socialize. Take down the barrier. Surprise. Wake up! Choral singing. Harmony.

Rhythm: Trochee ⎪∪

Tell me not in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream
For the soul is dead that slumbers
And things are not what they seem.
(Longfellow)

The Sonnet:


The sonnet form is old and full of dust
And yet I want to learn to write one well.
To learn new forms and grow is quite a must,
But I will learn it quickly, I can tell.
And so I sit, today, with pen in hand,
Composing three new quatrains with a rhyme.
The rhythm flows like wind at my command.
The A-B-A-B form consumes my time.
But I’m not done until there’s fourteen lines.
One ending couplet, after three quatrains.
I’ve tried to write this new form several times.
The effort’s huge; I have to rack my brain.
But I persist, my fourteen lines now done.
I wrote my poem; my sonnet work is won.
by Denise Rodgers

Choosing an S word was difficult.
I am a STEINER educator so I think about Rudolf Steiner all the time.
I am also a fan of SIMPLICITY PARENTING and refer to the sage advice of Kim Payne constantly.
I live in Singapore which I love to deride mostly because it is hot, humid, and "mind controlled", and other things that are even more about me and my buttons.

Who was Rumpelstiltskin?
I mean, obviously he had magical capabilities. And he had a plan. But what was he going to do with the miller's daughter's/king's baby? Take him back into the earth? And what would this accomplish?

So many of the other fairy tales seem obvious in their symbology but who is he?

"Rumpelstiltskin is an odd fellow. Sharing traits of both wild man and witch, he is indeed a rare breed of fairytale figure. It might be said that he represents two opposing attitudes toward paganism: on the one hand, paganism can be thought of as a virtuous and more natural way of life. On the other hand, it may also be associated with a demonic or unnatural lifestyle, one that should be shunned. Rumpelstiltskin does not fit neatly into the typical template for a fairytale fiend. He is a diligent worker, honest and true to his word. He is compassionate for he shows mercy to the queen and allows her to win back her child. We can only laud his priorities and agree with him when he says: “A living thing is more dear to me than all the treasures of the earth.”

This is contrasted with the ignoble king, who loves gold above all else and only marries the miller’s daughter to enrich himself. He admits “Even if she is only a miller’s daughter, I will not find a richer woman in the whole world.”
And the queen might be quick-witted but is not necessarily a principled character. She relinquishes her first-born child because it is expedient and makes sense to her at the time."

From Fairy Tale Channel

I have been 50 foot Queenie since my friend CK named me decades ago when we worked at a vegetarian restaurant in Chicago. I am one of "those" Elizabeths, who make some men feel a little less than verticle. But the name comes from a PJ Harvey song that is a perfect answer to the misogynistic culture that is sometimes "Rock and Roll". It is one heck of a song and I would like to include it here. This is from a show in 1993 which I saw at the Metro in Chicago:



"50 Foot Queenie"

Hey I'm one big queen
No one can stop me
Red light red green
Sat back and watching
I'm your new one
Second to no one
No sweat I'm clean
Nothing can touch me

Tell you my name
F U and C K
50ft queenie
Force ten hurricane
Biggest woman
I could have ten sons
Ten gods ten queens
Ten foot and rising

Hey I'm the king of the world
You oughta hear my song
You come on and measure me
I'm twenty inches long

Glory, glory
Lay it all on me
50ft queenie
50 and rising
You bend over
Casanova
No sweat I'm clean
Nothing can touch me

Hey I'm the king of the world
You oughta hear my song
You come on and measure me
I'm twenty inches long...

Poem for Dorothy Parker
by Elizabeth Jackson Doshi

Enough is not part
of my repertoire
Hunger fills this space
Its always draught and want
and need and please
that the plenty
in my case

If I had a check
for every emptied store
a credit for my dues
there'd be no grave
for all my joys
nor tomb
for happy news

OPENING

The last time I felt like this was when I was in the process of falling in love with my husband AND AT THE SAME TIME having to leave a job about which I cared a great deal. I was in a state of free fall. The window was open and I was leaving a position where many of my friends and connections existed and my sense of self was being questioned and redefined. The difference between the last time and this time is that I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO LOSE and I still feel like I am losing. And last time I managed to snag a really excellent job within 2 weeks!

The rune for opening looks like this:

<


and its meaning is clarity or darkness dispelled.

I tried to get on a plane last Thursday for Bali with my family but was barred from boarding because the airline we were ticketed with insisted on me having 4 blank visa pages in my passport (I had three). It was for me the last straw in a series of seemingly strange events that have me thinking I have lost my mojo, my strength, my magic. Everything I have been trying to do since January has eluded me. The window is open and my songbird has flown.

Or has it?

NO MIND

The No Mind is the intrinsic essence of mind, the true self. It is inherently pure and good, and in Christian terms it can be said to participate in the Kingdom of God. In Eastern traditions it is prior to thought, prior to desire, prior to any conceptualization at all. It is discovered by stripping away all sensation, desire, concepts, intellection, volition, and awareness of "I." It partakes of the Oneness of all. Buddhism calls this mind the Buddha Nature, and much of Buddhist practice is aimed at its realization. They call it "no-mind" because it is without any grasping at a (selfish) self. Taoists agree, and seek to strip away all intellection and formalism in order to arrive at the spontaneous activity of the natural man who lives at one with the Tao of the universe. All attachments must be stripped away until there is nothing but emptiness. Then the heart can be heard.

Mushin (無心; Chinese wúxīn; English translation "no-mindedness") is a mental state into which very highly trained martial artists are said to enter during combat. They also practice this mental state during everyday activities. The term is shortened from mushin no shin (無心の心), a Zen expression meaning mind of no mind and is also referred to as the state of "no-mindness". That is, a mind not fixed or occupied by thought or emotion and thus open to everything. For the origin of the mushin concept, see Muga-mushin. It is somewhat analogous to flow experienced by artists deeply in a creative process.

Old World maps fascinated me as a young adult. I even considered having one tattooed to my back. I am happy to say that I decided against it. Though maps continue to interest me, especially hand-drawn maps. In Fourth grade at many Waldorf schools the students are taught to make maps of their classrooms (or bedrooms) and then the school, town and state. Learning how to put everything in its place and in correct proportion is a good exercise.

In the David Foster Wallace book, "Infinite Jest" his main character refers to his mind or brain as his "map". I hold true to this and so I include the following poem I wrote a decade ago.

My Minds
by Elizabeth Jackson Doshi

There are several minds like deities
that reign o'er my evolution
on the strength of their varieties
and wheels need revolution


The gods that are consistent
turn to turn away
these furies spin persistent
For punishment is pay

Count these minds in me
actors on a much loved stage
adored in tempered purity
worshiped in epidemic rage

The most unlikely friends
I'm forced to call my own
The coward and the hypocrite
The Infirm and the clone

All is not completely lost
and as my tongue would have it
the tales I tell are tickets tossed
to stars redeemed and so uncrossed
My freedom almost nearly won
to galaxy from favored sun

No one sees my efforts now
but minds within needs surely bow
at tables set and sched's complete
no love drops lost of tempest's beat

Confusion guided, strayers found
I wooed a murderer's heart to peace
and tore the dullard's sense unbound
These tasks I vow to never cease
as long as living I still long live
to stumble into prayer and give
the only prize I care to own
in name, my minds' immortal bones.

LOVE

The word love is overused but also powerful and creative in its work.In my youthful innocence I wrote my admissions essay for Bard College's undergraduate program on the word love. They accepted me but I dropped out after two years. I think I fell in love and left when my boyfriend graduated. They should have known.

Sonnet XXX
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
and rise and sink and rise and sink again.
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
pinned down by need and moaning for release
or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It may well be. I do not think I would.
From Fatal Interview (1931)

"To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge." Henry David Thoreau

How do you KNOW what you KNOW? And also, when it changes (as it always does)?

I know I am kind but I also know I am moderately difficult.
I know I claim kinship with many people with whom I have no blood ties but there are times that I cast out a whole country with the word, "Fools!"
I know the present moment is the best for finding truth and that the past has increasingly drugged me and detained me from living fully.
I know my "enemies" are really angels disguised in order to teach.
I know that patience is a powerfully ally but not yet my personal friend.
I know parenthood is a joyful and sublime journey on the path of humility.
I know my beliefs do not define my essence nor yours and yet at times I pretend to think otherwise.
I know love is not always a bouquet of roses but sometimes a desperate longing or an emptiness waiting for that which comes.

Jump from the frying pan
into a cool, deep, mineral bath.

Jump wildly like the Bird of Paradise
and then land like a Gooney Bird.

Jump rope and skip class.

Jump ship and sink or swim.

Jump in
out
side
side
on
in
OUT.

Inky Pinky

is a game we used to play on long road trips. One person thinks of two rhyming words and then provides a simple hint to help others solve the riddle.

Example:

Itch niche- A spot for scratching
Ill Bill- Sickly William
Imp Blimp- A dirigible for the mischievous
Piglet Iglet- Miniature ice house for young swine


Note* Any words will do, not just those that begin with an "I"- but I thought in honor of this day...

Hello!
We are hooked!
Tho' not usually if lately you've looked
for marble hats
or hungry walls.

We aren't usually found together at all.

But who cares? Said the husk
of a handle-bar tarp
to the trampoline horse
in the habit of a harp!

Note* The idea of "Hooking" comes from "Rip the Page" by Karen Benke, a Trumpeter book.

Gentlefolk I greet thee!
Gather around to gaze
at this grand gift-

That Jack with his good sense and guts has got
From the greedy giant.

I generate for you here
a list of other gains:

Gold! And the goodwill of the dame of said "governor"
for freeing her from his grape-gorging-girth.
She will not grieve greatly!

A harp whose gospel strains would melt
the glacial heart of any gladiator.

And Goodness, the gratitude we have
for that guy, Jack

Golly gee, is pretty great!

If only we could fly
we would be free
from this foolishness
of forgetting.

Our wings now fins,
our song forever filtered
through the flux and flow.

Flushed, flung,
finally our fleet surfaces.
Forests, fields and above,
"What is this firmament?"

Enter our empathic and empirical existence and
end your ever-excluding ethnocentrism.

My Ethiopian Ebony locks
has entered like Sheba

A queen even as she eats
the edibles of others,

"Oh, Excuse me" she emits
while exiting
the establishment entirely.

Don't dither!
Delaying will only disrupt
the dawning of the day.
Dare to dash
through the open door
Discuss no more,
Deeper, come this way!

Cast an eye
and cut it close.
They are creatures
both candid and cunning.

I crave the curl
of a sun-contented cat!
Or the disappearing act
that is the feline running!

For comfort
take the B.
It is soft on the lips and no matter
how violent the bear
one imagines his soft sleeping form
Breathing.

And the bell.
No amount of ringing
could erase its angelic call.

In the beginning was the word
and the word was everything inside and apart.

Sound created matter and words formed them into beings.
The Apple was just the start.

Ah is the sound of wonder and what better way to enter
the world, into the alphabet and the pieces of our written heart?