Be the change you want to see.

Thankful:

1) gorgeous crisp clear sunny day
2) art supplies
3) idea for art that Jeff has and wants to explore
4) tons of food in the fridge and freezer and pantry
5) friends who love me
6) family who love me (even though I'm weird...! they haven't said that for awhile though.)
7) warm cozy clothes
8) warm soft cozy bed
9) better-than-decent health, better than decent body
10) good brain that works on solutions in conjunction with heart and body
11) tea (mmm tea, time to go boil a kettle)
12) beautiful things in my life like movies, furniture, jewelry, this house
13) my cats (of COURSE my cats are #13!)
14) the sea, the sky, the trees, the earth, the flame - all so beautiful and so different!
15) my vegetable garden
16) medical insurance (fucked up that this is something to be thankful for instead of everyone just being covered!)
17) texture of objects - my teacup, my sweater, this desk, my cat's fur...
18) peace I've found since figuring my shit out and uprooting the unhealthy stuff in my heart
19) clarity of thinking since #18
20) children I get to work with
21) dedicated teachers and students I get to work with
22) cool people I have yet to meet(!)
23) adventures
24) learning new stuff (and getting frustrated and figuring it out)
25) the internet and all the friends I have found in it
26) really good pens and crisp strong paper
27) self-knowledge
28) intuition and having learned to trust it
29) breakfast at 11:45 am
30) and breakfast for dinner last night =)
31) the bike friendly town I live in which also has decent public transit
32) learning new things about how my body works in particular (see #24)
33) toast with cream cheese and fig spread (and all the other tasty foods!)
34) autumn leaves backlit by the descending sun
35) sunlight breaking through the clouds during a rainshower and how the world glows
36) my faith system and the deep thorough nourishment it brings me
37) rereading favorite beloved books (I just found Freckles on Google Books! I think I'm going to cry with happiness!)
38) Everyone reading this. You are appreciated and loved.
39) Second chances
40) Everyone who ever extended a hand or said a kind word when I was down. You made a difference.
41) A fresh and shiny new year to learn, love, grow, work, and change the world for the better.

Love,
Liz

I have an idea for a blog post: Advice for younger women.

I'd like to make it a list of 40 things I've learned as a woman of a certain age.

I'm not yet sure I HAVE 40 things I've learned as a 40 year old that would be valued by younger women.

Here's a start though. Edit: who knew I had this much good advice in me? =)


1) Pluck your chin hairs while your face is slightly 'dirty'... they come out easier and don't break.

2) If the person you're crushing on isn't all that "into you"... might want to reconsider why YOU are into THEM.

3) If your body is sore, move it. No, really. (And don't say should I move it if it's broken, I know you are smarter than that)

4) Invest in quality tools of all kinds. Take care of them. You don't need 3 pairs of mediocre scissors, or nailclippers, or whatever, if you have one good pair and you know where it is.

5) Get rid of crappy stuff. Get rid of multiples. You deserve better than to paw through boxes of crap looking for something you need.

6) Don't talk trash behind people's backs. Hell, don't talk trash period. You look petty and mean when you do.
( Read more... )

Whew! Not too bad for a first draft! Any comments, advice, critiques, or contributions?

(that was SO much fun!!)

Ridiculous and inconceivable that tomorrow is my last day of Summer Session for the Waldorf teacher training.
I won't get to see my friends every day? I won't have dance and art history and creative writing and speech classes every day? I won't get to hang with the incomparable Ken, my sculpture teacher? I won't be learning new songs on the fly every morning with Lisa?

*WAAAAAHHH!!!*

This has been wonderful. I am entirely sorry it's almost over. I will survive the transitions necessary, but for now I have to kick my own ass to get there.

I get to bring a lot home with me. My Main Lesson book from Roberta's class, with art and poetry we created together. Some of my sculpture work. A LOT of literature to read and share, including a great article on the Waldorf philosophy of reading in elementary school. I have work I want to continue to refine, including writing and speech exercises, some of the art in the Main Lesson book, and I have a bit of clay I can use to be creative, and which might last a long while if I am kind to it.

Tonight I have to make a card for Glenda, another for Anne-Marie (my class secretary), and try to do a bit of practice for Saturday's assembly: the skit, the speech exercise, and the eurhythmy performance.

Gonna take the husband out to find some food he finds appealing. Right now he's feeling better enough to play piano, which is a VERY good sign.

Love ya, read y'all later,

Liz

I'm doing Artist's Pages, or trying to, in the mornings. The designer, Julia Cameron, insists that the benefit of doing them, consists largely in doing them handwritten. That is how you sweep the braindust out, she says, and has anecdotal stories to back her.

I'm growing more inclined to believe her, both from my own practice and from my extended experience of writing my Waldorf classroom-and-student observation paper, entirely by hand. And letting it lie fallow for days at a go, as I had always heard rumor was effective. (nemmind that necessity-invention's-mom had always insisted that I write all my college papers at the last minute, until now I have never been able to finish a paper early and then set it aside and leave it...)

This paper seems to have assembled itself in my subconscious. I refer to my notes, the second draft of fully written sentences drawn out from initial cryptic classroom notes...

And I can just feel how the words and sentences want to go together. Even if they were pages apart on my first draft. Just writing them, they assemble themselves. word leads to word, sentence to sentence, growing organically, building a progression like a jazz riff.

It's truly remarkable. I cannot recall ever before feeling this ease of assembly. I don't know if it's an effect of all the Waldorf classes I have been taking, if it's the newfound confidence and clarity from my recovery work, if it's the fact that I write so damn much HERE on LiveJournal that I just have become a better intuitive writer, or what.

But I can feel the organic nature of the process. I've never looked FORWARD to writing a paper for class like I have done this one tonight. I'm ready. It will be lovely. I have illustrated title pages for each section, drawn myself, and I'm handwriting it with my cartridge calligraphy pen, in purple. I never before had teachers who told me I could, I should make, my homework beautiful. And this time, they have, and I believed them that I was able to do so, and I think it will be beautiful. I can't wait to see it once it's done!

*happy dance!*

My 15 minute break is nearly over, I am hoping to be done by midnight so I can try to get a solid night's sleep before substitute teaching girls' PE tomorrow. Short commute, blessed be.

Am currently developing a theory wrt pain (or at the least discomfort) and me learning something new.

The educational term is Cognitive Disequilibrium. That means your brain gets all shaken up when you encounter a new concept or paradigm that you didn't have room for in your prior worldview, and so you need to move everything around a bit to make room for the new (assuming true) thing you have learned or are learning. It's a bit like that trick to suitcase packing, where an already-full suitcase (or especially duffel) can be made to accommodate more stuff by jouncing it on the floor a little, so the existing stuff settles down, packed tighter, and there is then a bit of room at the top of your bag to add something else.
And of course the Extreme Version of Cognitive Disequilibrium would be, the Unpack-Everything-Add-the-New-Thing,-Repack-everything-Up-Again mode of repacking.

I think I've been doing some of that Extreme Version, myself, along with some of the more convenient version... hmmm.

Many people aren't, it seems, even willing to jounce their duffel-o-self a bit to make room for the more-stuff, or to reprioritize their packing lists and omit items that are less useful on further examination. Many people are probably pretty content to pack like they have always packed, assuming they have what they need to meet their needs for the next trip or emergency...

But I'm finding that I want and need some very different things now. When I used to pack my Travelling Bag and my Emergency Bag, I used to include a lot of things my Mom and Dad always included. For example, mom likes to have a shower cap. Dad had diabetes meds. I also used to overpack... "What if I want to wear THAT? and _that_?" I might say. So I would schlep a lot of extra stuff around with me, on the off chance that I or someone else would want or need that particular stuff.

You know what though? I can count on the fingers of ONE HAND the times that someone wanted one of those extra things I packed. Including me wanting to wear THAT or _that_... Life is a lot easier when I decide to pack light, when I rewrite the old packing lists.

Now rethinking The Way We've Always Done Things, well, that's a bit of work. And it's not always comfortable, either. You have to ask Why Have We Always packed the shower cap, and since I'm not diabetic and Dad's dead now, Why are diabetes meds still on the Packing List? Also, realizing, that Later When I Come Home I can Wear THAT, or _that_, and I sure don't need that, which is My Personal Unnecessary Thing I Always Have Brought On Trips, and admit to being embarrassed about the fact that you are only just now admitting that you don't need it, and whyever did it take so long to Figure That Out?

Translate that to my Physical realm and add the element of Will.
Yes, you have to hurt yourself a little, every day, to avoid Harm. That means, work the muscle that's cramping, to the point of discomfort. Bend and stretch even when the joints are creaking and the other muscles complain. You wanna be strong? Re-examine how much damn time you're spending killing time on the Internet and figure out how to make a comfortable space to do your back PT exercises in the house. And then do some yoga or bellydance, and then, seriously, you can use your Power of teh Internets to GO FIND A CLASS because you know that is how you learn best, when forced to be accountable to other people in a class (and particularly to be accountable to the Teacher, if I respect him/her...)

it is gonna hurt, at least a little, to climb back up this rock. And I won't climb in the same way as I did when I was 25 and took for granted that rock climbing was easy. It's also a totally different rock... the river's washed me downstream a significant bit. *grin* (Yes, I like metaphors and parenthetical statements, why do you ask?) I've got some new tools and, as mentioned above, have lightened my carry-load considerably; my muscles are weaker than they once were, but I know that with steady effort I can make them and me, stronger. (Literal AND figurative, here.)

Emotional Disequilibrium
Thing about Emotional Disequilibrium is that you cannot tolerate very much of it and still learn effectively (witness kids' grades dropping with parents fighting, bullying in the classroom, illness of whatever kind, etc etc etc.) However, often the process of Cognitive Disequilibrium PRODUCES Emotional Disequilibrium ... (duh) ... being uncomfortable while having to learn something new, having to admit that You Don't Know Everything, that you can be Surprised, you can be Unprepared... *gasp* quelle horror! in our culture it is often preferable to lie about what you know/don't know than to admit any kind of ignorance and willingness to be educated... We often will take hit points IN our ignorance Because we are Unwilling to admit to our ignorance... (witness most folks initial sexual experiences... and oh yeah my own *regret*)

But Emotional Disequilibrium can, when managed carefully, be the source of Learning, also. It's not MetaCognition, to think about your feelings and whence they came and what your triggers and patterns are, but it's damn effective even if I don't have a nice jargony name for it... I've been referring to it as Pathwork, healing work, Family of Origin work, Clutter-clearing, Reconstruction, and Shadow work. There's probably as many names as there are people doing the Work.

Many call it Recovery. For me, Reconstruction is a better metaphor.

ReDesigning. ReDrafting. ReWriting. Keep feeding yourself and caring for your own needs and making sure you are warm and dry and loved... as much as is possible in a chaotic world, and that you help others to be fed and warm and dry and loved... and you can probably lighten YOUR load, and help others lighten THEIRS.

Feeling useful and loved and secure in the world, yeah, that's the path to recovery/reconstruction/health.

The Path to Peace.

For one thing, we got one of our favorite lecturers back, so that was great.

Then after Recorder and lecture, I went back to the barn with a bunch of people (like 10, we had an alumnus stay over for the night)...

however.
Before we went back to the Barn, we went out to the Bar.
*wry*
I had a suspicion that was what was planned; they've talked of doing this for other Birthday Celebrations, (and it was the Celebration for Mary as well) so I wasn't totally unprepared.

I had already discussed the sobriety-plan before school with my friend Mauricio (who is kinda a pothead, but whatever) and with another friend, and wound up soliciting Joanie and Sarah for support as we were walking up to the door of the bar. Nothing desperate, I was relaxed, but people knowing what's going on with me, felt like it would be more than half the battle. Joanie said, well, I know they serve tea, and I'll just have tea with you.

<3...

So I had Lemon Zinger, and she had Apple Cinnamon, and I talked briefly with the bartender about going for my 30-day chip (which I should be eligible for Wednesday). He was supportive - he asked what was my goal; I need to work more on verbalizing what exactly IS my goal; right now it's an exercise in Will/willpower.

To return to the first bit, both flavors of tea went admirably with the OMG ginger-cake with little BEESWAX birthday candles on top (Yeah, Jessica blew them out and saved them, no surprise here)... the cake was so GOOD and quite honestly unexpected, and I'd had a sniff of Sarah's beer (a new brand for me) and Evangeline's hot toddy (I think it was rum and lemon), so most of curiosity was satisfied...

But the cake? no pun, no lie, that fed me and Fed Me better than any booze would have done. And sharing it and the recognition, was beautiful too. I got a bead bracelet from Willow, a little beeswax taper from... I think it was Sarah, and a teeny little holder for it; a cool 4-in-1 color pencil from Mary, who brought one for everyone, and a handmade card from two more people... Evangeline... and... I need to check. (memory test)

and they sang us (or we sang us, cos I sang also) happy birthday, right there in the pub...

Here's the lyrics to the Waldorf birthday song:

We wish you a happy birthday
A joyous and celebrated birthday
To Our Dear Friend
May you have a joyful life!

We sing it once thru, straight, and then it becomes a round - it's gorgeous, truly.

After we ate and laughed and talked and listened (I need to do some more listening, but I'm not talked out yet...*sigh*) we cleaned up after ourselves and went back to the Barn, where we built a scary-hot fire in the woodstove that stands in the middle of the room (I discovered today that I did indeed singe my scarf-fringe on the stove last night!)... and I put on PJ's, laid out my bedding and Joanie offered to rub my feet. Which was bliss, truly. A light rose-oil scent... and I just relaxed, near enough to the fire to benefit from the light and warm. When she was done, (I hope I expressed my true thanks for the effort!) I put my socks back on, tucked into my bag, and started to doze off, with laughter and conversation nearby and the heat from the stove warming the top of my head.

During lecture on Saturday, my teacher said, "And the antidote for fear...?"

I replied, "Action."

the answer came from a Knowing I am connecting to,
so I am learning how to Act. I won't be Here as often as I used to.

Pentacles and Wands, baby.

Hi LJ!

Been offline for two days. It's been surprisingly good; rewarding and productive. My house looks better than it has since we moved in, I cleared almost all the surfaces (including the floors, I could actually sweep in here and probably will in honor of Samhain before I leave for class tonight...) I threw a bunch of stuff away, recycled a bunch of stuff, and took at least 40 pounds to goodwill (my mom's trivet collection was HEAVY... *g*)

Saw the podiatrist yesterday for the pain I've been feeling in my right foot. It's been on the top of my foot and making me limp a bit, enough that I was worried about doing my back an injury or insult again. (it's happened before when I have been gimpy!) We looked at my x-rays and nothing was broken. *whew* and wow, what they can do with x-rays now! they were sent directly to his computer, like 15 minutes after they were taken, and he could tweak the resolution to clear up the picture in case the tech only took a mediocre picture... measure my bones in their real sizes, right there on the screen, it was pretty wow.

he manipulated my Rt. foot a bit before we looked at the x-rays, and a bit more afterward... he also checked out my calf and shin for a bit, and then he explained what he could see on the x-rays.

The places I was feeling more pain were metatarsals 2 and 3, though all 4 of the smaller metatarsals were sore! (as I discovered once he was pressing firmly on each one and I was yelping! And this is true on BOTH FEET!) On the x-rays he measured and showed me how 2 and 3 (the bones just next to the big-toe bone) were measurably thicker in the dense, structural bone, than 4 and 5.

Then he explained why that is: my calves (and I assume by extension, my hamstrings) are SO TIGHT that they are putting stress on the arch-bones of my foot! (No shit, there I was!) Mind-blowing...! He also explained that the reason I love my Chakos (and by extension the mules from Keen) is the slight heel (on top of the arch support); calf muscles like that make the body want to walk on its toes all the time (hum, that explains why I sit with my heels up on the chairlegs all the time when I'm on the computer!) The stress from the muscle constantly pulling works to strengthen the bones, but taken too far, you can get stress fractures... and DO. NOT. WANT.

The PT for this crazy tension, is to do those calf-lengthening stretches, hanging your heels off the kerb, sort of thing, but this morning I've been exploring my body's flexibility and it feels like, well, EVERYTHING is tight - hams, obliques, quads, the IT band, adductors, abductors, and the little trapezoid-shape over my lower back... (let's not even BRING my shoulders and neck into it right now...) Had a lovely massage from a new guy at Massage Envy Wed night, but you couldn't prove it by me today. (Ow.)

So yesterday after coming back from my appt, I did some more housework and organization, put some Rush on (Snakes and Arrows, for those who know) and was trying to dance and move around the place. Yeah, all kinds of muscular tension, ALL OVER.

I've been saying for a long time that I wanted to get fit, get strong, inhabit my body more, but now I have literally SEEN what it does. WOW. Sitting on my ass for too long is double-PLUS-ungood!

You'll see me moving a lot more in the upcoming years, and for the rest of my life. Thank goodness I'm in the Waldorf program, it's really about learning BALANCE between the realms of your life - artistic, physical/kinesthetic, mind, spirit, social...

My habits are changing. Which means folk won't find me here QUITE as often, but _I_ will DEFINITELY be healthier for it.

And now I think I will get dressed and go for a walk to the grocery store.

fools_and_irish challenged those of us in education to talk about what we would do to improve the education system as it currently exists in California/USA.

I have one thing to say to that: train the teachers better.

• Give teachers concrete skills and a chance to practice them under supervision until they have attained mastery - AS LONG AS IT TAKES for them to attain mastery.
  
• Train teachers in the social skills-of-connection with kids, because kids are looking to like and love their teacher, if you give them a chance. They also learn best when they like their teacher.
  
• Make sure each teacher has enough mastery of his/her subject that they can give lectures and develop lessons without having to copy from someone else or from a book or website. A teacher who doesn't know their stuff can't foster the trust of the students - they know something is fake about that teacher, and the learning situation goes south.
  
• Correlation to the previous point - for the Gods' Sake, DO NOT PLACE SOMEONE IN A ROOM JUST TO HAVE A BODY IN THAT ROOM. Have a qualified confident teacher teaching that subject. Some principals and some personnel offices get so desperate for teachers they put whoever in, and as shipoffools999 so gracefully put it, it's like they throw the fledgling in the room with the students, close the door, and pray for a good outcome.

Another thing I have to say to that: TREAT the teachers better.

• Half an hour lunch? You're kidding me, right?
  
• Healthy food on campus.
  
• Frequent chances to network/collaborate with peers. And either feed us or give us paid release time.
  
• No Stupid Inservices. If you need to educate us on some particular topic, don't shove all of us into the library and have someone lecturing us. Teachers bring tests to grade to those things, and tune out. If it's important enough to train us, it's important enough to do it RIGHT, or to optimize our time. Small group work. Online material and tests to make sure we absorbed what we are supposed to know. We're professionals, treat us like that. Save the cattle calls for pep-rally teambuilding efforts. Boring inservices are INSULTING.
  
• ** Encourage continuing ed, ON CAMPUS. Each one teach one, right? If each teacher WAS PAID and taught an after school class once or twice a month in their specialty, FOR OTHER TEACHERS, you'd network out, teachers would be less isolated, we'd have more fun, more loyalty, less stress, and duh, we'd learn something. Why do you THINK we're working IN EDUCATION?? I would totally have gone to a modern dance class taught by Kelly C., or a history class by Thatcher P., or an art class by Barbara B., math class with Mr. S., weightlifting with Cesar O. (and not just cos he was cute!), and I would gladly have taught a class on pantomime, improv, stage makeup, and we woulda had FUN!!! Teachers are LEARNERS. Work with that. Build on that.
  
• ** Each school should have at least one full time substitute teacher on staff. You could apply to have that sub cover you for the morning while you went to the dentist, catch your 6th period if your kid needed picked up from the other school cos she was puking, you could apply to have help (if the sub wasn't otherwise engaged) to do research, help decorate your room, help you organize your paperwork and lessons or help you grade papers or record grades. Teaching is often damn LONELY. MITIGATE that. We are all social creatures, few people really like sitting or working alone in their room. The morale improvement ALONE would be TREMENDOUS.
  

I know I have more ideas but these are the ones that brew in my brain.
To sum up:

Give teachers RESPECT
Help teachers LEARN
Make teachers CONFIDENT
Remember teachers are ARTISTS and PROFESSIONALS. (Treat em like it!)
Let teachers have PRIDE and help us to BUILD COMMUNITY.

Here endeth the lesson.

HEREis Carolyn's contribution.

Was feeling pretty crappy yesterday, a combination of physical and mental effects (primarily that my "period" was more like an "!") but am feeling better today, reasonably well grounded, able to stay focused, and sending loving energy to the parts of me that are working hard to do their job.

(I'm envisioning a teeny tiny person wearing overalls who's part of a team shoveling a mudslide out of a roadway in order to allow the flow of normal traffic to commence. I'm sending warm dry socks, solid stompy boots, good grippy gloves and strong quality tools to my teeny tiny team, and I'm getting ready to send the tea-cart around and invite them to take a rest before going back to work again.)

It's amazing, though, the toxic-feeling images that were the first-ideas behind this visualization. I had to consciously pick and choose positive images, changing mental associations. This is a natural process. Not a nasty toxic clean-up, not a job whose attendants are shamed to complete it or looked on as less-than. It is something that must be done as part of the natural cycle of life, as regularly as day follows night follows day.

Framing it positively took some effort. That tells me both that I have problems and that the culture I live in has problems, with this process being a natural, "normal" part of human health.

I'm working to be more conscious of the messages I've internalized from the larger society, and to take care about which ones I now choose to consume, which ones I choose to remain part of my internal landscape.

I like the Road Crew metaphor. I think I'm keeping it.