(No background music) School kids taught to praise Obama

Here's a call and response song similar to the one the children sang:
Call: Every other house on my block is up for sale. Response: GW Bush and the conservatives.
Call: I haven't been to the doctor in years because medical insurance is too high. Response: GW Bush and the conservatives.
Call: American businesses are drying up. Response: GW Bush and the conservatives.
Call: The American banking system went down the toilet. Response: GW Bush and the conservatives.
Call: We were lied to about the Iraq War, which drained our coffers. Response: GW Bush and the conservatives.
Call: It will take a miracle to dig us out of this. Response: Barack Husein Obama

Up Late Again

I should be in bed but I am not. I'm reworking my website. I painted all day, worked out, came home and got on the computer. I guess I could have continued to paint, but I was tired. Besides this needed to get done. I'm soon to bed. Yawning. Oh, here's something that I photographed not too long ago with my camera phone. It's some kind of really weird mushroom that was in the woods at Cascade Springs. Pretty though, but I wouldn't eat it.

Uneventful but full of delight

I had a very uneventful walk today. Other than the birch trees marked with a large orange X on Oakdale, nothing out of the ordinary. One time I heard a rooster crow on Lullwater. But that was in the morning. I've never heard it again. Hmmmm. It was near the same place where I found the book entitled "I Can Dance." Sometimes it's good to remember eventful things on uneventful days.

I Can Dance

After spending the past two days doing the huckabuck in my studio and crashing at a semi-reasonable hour, I awoke and went for my usual 4 mile walk. About halfway through the walk I discovered a stack of books on a trash heap. Laying on top of the stack was a little book entitled "I Can Dance." Now is that magical or what? But there's more to the story.

This incident took me back to my childhood and a very sad story but a very happy ending. When I was a little girl, I had the little girl dream of being a ballet dancer. I knew that I would have to take ballet classes. I asked my mom if I could take lessons and she replied a firm "No" and then went on to say that in order for me to take lessons I would have to go to the largest nearby town, Fayetteville, NC. Her reason: "They don't allow colored children" in the class in my own hometown, Southern Pines, NC. I was devastated. Colored meant nothing to me and I decided that I would prove to my parents that I should be allowed to take dance. So, I went to the library and found a book, just like the one that I found on the street. It was illustrated with pretty little girls doing all the ballet steps. I learned all the basic ones.

I would twirl and bow before my mom, dancing to the music that my dad played on his radio show on Sunday mornings--classical music on WEEB.

"See Ma, I can dance", I would say.

"But you still can't take dance over town and I'm not driving to Fayetteville," she would snap, obviously annoyed. I never lost the dream of being a ballerina but it became obvious after a while that I was too old to do ballet. Oh well, life has its disappointments.

However, when I was in Australia in 1994, I camped out with a group of Aboriginal women at an Oasis in the desert somewhere near the Strezlecki Track. One woman, Nora, took us deep in the bush for a ceremony that had to do with "women's business." I sat among the elders tapping rocks against rocks just as they did and felt very happy to be included in the ceremony. All of a sudden, Nora came forward and took my hand and pulled me to my feet. "Do this", she said, as she moved her feet, arms and body. I aped her moves and we danced. For a very long time, we danced.

I was overwhelmed. I later told her my ballet story and in between tears and sobs I said,"All my life, I wanted to dance ballet, a dance that is over 400 years old. But today I danced a dance that represents over 40,000 years of continuous culture. Thank you for this gift!"

By the way, I also saw a man that looked like Picasso walking down Oxford Road with his two graying dogs and another man who resembled Diego Rivera. What a morning!

Wishes

I made lots of wishes on yesterday, which is why I didn't blog. One (the most important one) came true. It was about balance and letting go. I have a tendency to think that I can make things happen even though the universe says no. I even get angry about it. In the end, I wind up being angry and out of focus. I really hate that. Sometimes it takes days, weeks, months before I can pull myself together. Such was the case with my wish (prayer) for balance.

The other wishes that I made are being worked on. They involve material things. Interestingly enough what threw me out of balance in the first place was that I could not have something that I wanted. In the end, I had to give up and realize that the thing that I wanted was not for me. The universe sent a better option. I'm back to wishing again but this time, I am ready to move in another direction if need be. Now that's balance!

Blowing Kisses

When I was a little girl I learned that when you see a red bird you should make a wish and blow a kiss to it. This will bring you good luck. I have learned that luck is a relative thing. But by acknowledging the red bird I am in tune with the universe, if but for a moment! On second thought, I guess I was pretty lucky to learn this practice.

Sometimes a simple act is all that is needed to change our disposition. It moves our spirit, changes our focus and perspective, especially when the mood is not pleasant. I have had times when I have been on the fringes of anger and then a red bird zooms through flying very low. I pause for a moment to blow the bird a kiss. In an instant my mood has changed. Good magic is about moving our spirit to a place that is better.

Transcendence

I love the whole idea of transcendence. When things get tough, magic takes over. Hoes work by themselves and cotton is turned into clouds.

Another story in Courlander's A Treasury of African Folktales talks about how an overseer put a group of African slaves in the field "but he couldn do nuttn wid um." The overseer whipped the slaves. Angry, they got "tugedduh an stick duh hoe in duh fiel an den dey say 'quack, quack, quack,' and dey riz up in duh sky and and tun hesef intuh buzzuds and fly right back tuh Africa." The hoe was left in the field, sticking in the ground but the Africans went back home.

Hoes That Work by Themselves

From A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore by Harold Courlander.

I have heard about a magic hoe that folks put in the gahden. They speak certain words tuh it; the hoe goes ahead and cultivates the gahden without anyone touching it. They jist tell it tuh do the wuk and it does it." (Folklore, Georgia Sea Islands."

The land possesses the body. The body possesses land. When in need of rest, sleep, escape the body becomes "magic." It transcends.

My ancestors spent many days transcending--through prayer and meditation. Hoes magically worked by themselves and people could fly.

Ogun

It was all about the garden today, especially garden tools and the role that metal plays in our lives. Today a wise man talked about metal and how we tend to forget how vital it is in our lives. It plows our fields, tends our gardens, and it carries us from place to place. It floats in our bodies. It also makes our weapons--knives, machetes, guns. Give thanks to metal--Iron, cobalt, selenium, zinc, potassium and the necessary 25 more that keep us functioning.

The festival was for Ogun--the Yoruba deity of iron and metal. Ogun clears paths for clearer thinking and makes for loyal relationships. Ogun uses his metal tools to shape our lives and inner potential. Ogun is a powerful force running through our veins in the form of 30 metallic elements that are necessary for a healthy body.

Ogun was once married to Osun, the beautiful deity of love and inner peace. My friend and I mused as we worked in the garden that upon glancing at the beautiful river goddess who lived in the grove at Oshogbo, Nigeria, he decided that she should be surrounded by flowers and more beauty so he honed the tools for cultivation. Oshun went to work and created the grove. We imagine her walking there each morning, fan in hand, stopping every now and then to smell the roses.

Look Back

I am not sure why I am afraid and what I am afraid of or to be quite honest if I am really afraid at all. I am anxious about the next moment. I wonder if it will be as good as the last moment or better than the one before.

This morning I went for a long very brisk walk. The sun was shining and it was warm, almost hot at eleven. It - I felt good.

I blew kisses at the red birds that zoomed across my path. The rock that I thought metal was just a rock. I picked it up, walked a ways then threw it. I shook someone's world--shifted the energy just to the left of me.

See what I mean about that last moment.

Right now I am trying to figure out why I wrote the first sentence of this piece in the first place.