inconvenience vs priviledge

e-mail facts: We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by very courageous women.

Remember to vote.

PS
In Canada the women of Manitoba got the right to vote in 1916 thanks to the efforts of Nellie McClung and her colleagues. The rest of Canadian women were allowed to vote in federal elections when the Women's Franchise Act was passed in 1918. However, it was not until 1940 that the women of Quebec got the right to vote in provincial elections - the last province to accord them this right of suffrage.

Words from Martha Beck

a commercial for finding a therapist

hit by an arrow of outrageous fortune?
trauma, persecution, rigid judgements, lost job, lost love...

emotional wounds can lame as badly as a broken limb

Quiz

is there anyone who knows and cares about all or almost all the significant events of your life?

do you feel you are living life behind an invisible screen, unable to truly connect with anyone or anything?

is there at least one person you talk to once a week who really understands almost all your feelings?

is there anything you feel you can't or musn't tell anyone?

do you feel comfortable crying in front of the person or people you love most?

are you able to freely express love to your friends and family?

are you lonely even if, or especially when, you're with a group of people?

do you have to be under the influence of alcohol/drugs to be open about your thoughts and emotions?

does your fear of others' disapproval dominate your choices?

More Julia Cameron Teachings

Creativity is medicine. It is not dangerous or egotistical. It is life affirming and essential. The more we use it, the more steadily and readily we use it. The more we ground it and regularly access it, the better off we are. The healthier we are.

Humour and acceptance enter the picture.

As we express our intrinsic nature, which is beautiful and specific, particular and original, we experience a healing transformation less in ourselves than in our relationship to the world. We are very large, and in expressing this truth, healing occurs. What is healed is the rift between our spiritual nature and our mistaken perception of ourselves as flawed.

Self expression began to heal character issues that years of therapy had not touched. as she found a way to channel and express her colourful inner selves, her life took on a gentler vet more vibrant shape and her dreams took on colour clarity.

Typewatching

allows for personal need of the moment


P's are life's question raisers (typically answering a Q with a Q)
J's are life's advice givers
*
avoid putting your partner in a corner conversationally
appreciate partner's ability to generate alternatives. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO CONSIDER THEM.
*
E's astounded by I's word for word recollections of coversations the E doesn't remember having had.

deception dance paraphrasing

truth telling is the foundation of intimacy
and often the central challenge in our lives

knowing and being known

refining and deepening disclosures
without disregarding different realities, hurting others etc.

the heart of who we are in the world and, what kind of world it is

schlock

after returning home from a drunken evening of irresistable when actually japanese kareoke, my undomestic and normally choreless sister surprised me when she prepared a tasty, easy and healthful snack for us. i sat in her tokyo apartment eating from an earthy, warm yet dainty rice bowl, using chopsticks, and i thoroughly enjoyed couscous, topped with avacado, tomato, cuccumber and yogurt. i swear it felt like the first thing i could eat in that country. but my appreciation wasn't just of the soothing sustenance when starving. it was the true pleasure of savouring a luxury, a real treat. good textures and temperatures and it felt healthy too.

happy new year! when she stayed, along with our also surprise-visiting cousin, the tiny one room attic i was living in, in jerome with my then fella? we were all flu ridden. she prepared another of her standard dishes: schlock. chick peas, garlic, onions, sometimes ginger, cooked forever in oil with chopped tomatoes for liquid and lots and lots of cumin and tumeric and corriander and all. no worry about timing, just cook for ages and serve over rice. so nourishing and deeply filling. earthy grounding good. i even ate it cold the next morning, and schlock is STILL one of my staples.

* * *Woman to Woman:
the daughter of brilliant and complicated parents, an adoring and alcoholic artist for a father and a dazzling, funny, wildly frustrated mother driven to see her daughters achieve what had never been possible for herself...

bits from oprah:
joyce maynard wrote "like so many women i know i had a complicated relationship with my mother. i adored her and there was never any question in my mind how much she loved me back, but we argued about many things and kept uneasy silences about others... at the age of 66 she was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. i was living hundred of miles away at the time, raising my three young children, struggling with a failing marriage... but i flew to be with her and spent the summer in toronto. my mother died in early fall. five days later i moved out of the house my husband and i had shared for 12 years to a house in a different town 30 miles away...

one thing she kept was her mother's rolling pin
the magazine publishes the recipe from the author's website. www.joycemaynard.com
i went to hear her read in new york. for free at the bookstore. even in manhattan you can usually get a seat at readings...
Rona Maynard (an older sister) Chatelaine editor says
A cardiologically correct dessert is a lot like a cup of decaf – it tantalizes your senses but withholds the big buzz...
It runs in my family, this lust for things rich and sweet… my sister and I at 11 and 15 thought we’d escaped all the humdrum rules of suburban life along with the meat loaf and carrots... (on holiday with their mother they were allowed to have desert as dinner every night)
...We’ve had our disagreements since then, but when it comes to the role of desert in life we’re of a mind. My sister bakes world class pies and I love to eat them. Last summer after an uneasy silence of many years, I invited myself to her home in California. No sooner had we set a date and she got right to the heart of the matter: “What kind of pie would you like?”
… by eating my sister’s baking, I was allowing her to make me happy. We couldn’t have shared a more restorative experience.

* * *
Don't you even have A Dish?" is a great rant done at me by a funny far off fairbrother. i bet if you've ever come to my house, you'd enjoy it. i am NOT passionate about cooking, gourmet or otherwise is all i have to say on the matter.

however, tourtière is a really tasty treat that my mom (a good french canadian) makes and can teach people like me someday to make. or, if they're really lucky, like i am still, she gift delivers it to them, after creation. (or, my dad does. or nowadays they do it all together as a team tradition).

it is another one of the valuable HOLIDAY heritage things of my past that i want to retain in my future...

you can believe me when i tell you it has special magic powers!
so appealling it has been even known in some circles as, 'sorcière'

doesn't that sound yummy? i've long heard that the way to a man's heart is thru his stomach. and, since i can't cook, or bake i thought i would share at least one tasty tidbit of enticing encouragement...

so, my mom can cook and my sis can cook pretty good. and dad's sis can too and ma's sis has even started and SOLD restaurants so i figure the talent is in me somewhere (if latent) and waiting to explode. let's hope eh? perhaps i might shalt start with A Dish.

we have a deep psychological need to be accepted as we really are.
we conceal aspects of ourselves that we think invite rejection but ironically the very act of secrecy makes us inaccessible to love.

this emotional disconnection is so intolerable we often end up seeking comfort in destructive ways i.e. addicts
experience loving acceptance and ultimately heal
*
"Confession is risky. Some people really may reject you if you claim your whole identity and tell your whole story. But, explicityly losing those people is no more horrible than keeping them - sort of - at the cost of your integrity.

Besides, there are probably fewer of them than you think.

Love has sharp insight indeed a nd the people who love you aren't fooled by whatever masks you wear. They sense when you hide things and become frustrated by the inability to connect.

By giving the people that you care about the chance to love you as you are, everyone will benefit."

-- jun 02, martha beck, oprah mag

birth

midwives seek to restore a sense of intimacy and community throughout birth process, instead of medical events requiring the supervision of physicians and routine application of technical aids.

procedures, the dominance of technology and professional needs
prioritized over women's bodies

medical monopoly

birth outcomes vs. various aspects of birth