This Mom Says, "Please Support Independent Music Everywhere!!!"

Yes, this is my son's band and like any good Mom, I'm doing what I can for him.  Check out this website, or search "Cole DeGenova" on YouTube and Google.  He works hard, his band works hard, the music is outstanding. 

This website IndieGoGo helps independent musicians and songwriters find funding for their projects.  If you aren't familiar with the current state of affairs in the music business, you should know that if the Beatles were around today, they would never get picked up by a record label. 

That's why IndieGoGo is here, to help creative, sincere, dedicated musicians be able to bring their music to you.  They need your help (we all know it won't be the 1% coming to their aid).  Check it out and maybe you'll feel generous...every little bit helps.  And of course, the music is FANTASTIC if I do say so myself!

Thank you so much.

Becoming Our Own Role Models

I reread some pieces I had written a few years ago and found this.  Funny how life is circular, how things come back around again and again.  They usually come in different packages but it is still the same, just reworked a bit;  maybe to get our attention again.  Were we not listening the first time around?  Maybe.  And maybe we just need to think about it again and see it from a different perspective.  So here it is again.

Found this online today and it seemed quite apropo for the current times. Women - Becoming Our Own Role Models 

As women embrace the fullness of who they are as individuals, they may find themselves supporting other women, helping others to reach the level of inner comfort and outer freedom that they themselves have found. Among those who are less sure of themselves and their place in the world, it may be more common to criticize other women than to seek their help. 

But there are things that a woman can only learn from another woman, as there are things about being a man that can only be learned from other men. We all recognize that we have much to learn from each other regardless of gender, but sometimes we could use a supportive role model that gives us a more precise example of what and who we can become. 

There was a time where women stood together in a bond of sisterhood, women supporting women. It is only natural that the pendulum swings out of balance for a while so that we may have the experience of what we do not want. It is up to women to bring the pendulum back into balance and bring back the sacred sisterhood we yearn for at our core. If we envision a world where women support each other and help each other find their place in an ever-changing world, then we can become the change we want to see. 

Jealousy, envy, criticism, and judgment are refuges for the insecure. As we help others to become self-assured, we create a world in which all people help each other, regardless of gender. Only women can make the change in how women are seen and understood, not just by other women but by the world at large. The way we speak about each other to other women and to the men in our lives informs everyone to treat us with the respect that all women, and all people, deserve.

My Wish for 2012

First and foremost,  my wish is peace for all - peace of mind, peace of spirit, peace in love and hate, peace in beginnings and endings.  It is a time of endings - a year;  a life on this earth for some, a spiritual life for others.

I saw an end to my store, friendships that had run their course, run out of road.  I saw an end to old thought patterns that do not serve me any longer.  Some revisited me, if only in dreams and some revisited in body or spirit.  Maybe to remind me of the importance they played in my life at one time.  Did I look at them from angles never seen before?  Yes.  Was their pain revisited?  heck yes.  but there was also the love and gratitude that was once there and still is in some way.

Then I placed them lovingly in my deepest memory.  Some may never again come to call but they color my life and are a part of who I was and who I am becoming.  Some will call again and may be unrecognizable from my new perspective and may share my space once again.  So I say to them all;  I love you and thank you and send you on your own way.

This is also a time of beginnings.  While some were on their way out, others were entering.  I give thanks to all who blessed me with their presence this year.  To you, join me on my next journey!

If there is an unease as you move forward into the new year, embrace the transitional jitters as difficult as it might be.  It is here whether you like it or not.  Give it the space and love it desires and deserves and let it expand and grow into you..  I am right there, too, on that precipice, looking out onto so many possibilities, seen and unseen, eyes and heart wide open.  What an exciting moment to be present within!

If I can just love myself as much as I love those around me, it will spread its branches and support all. I come in contact with.  And if that love can assist those who are in greater turmoil, support them on their journey, then my wish is complete.

I say goodbye and hello in love as we step into the newness that lies ahead, known and unknown.  this is my wish to myself and to all.  Peace, prosperity, health, joy, fulfillment, laughter and love in 2012.  Thank you to all who have watched over me in body and in spirit.

This is the end of our worlds as we know them.  I'm excited.  I hope you are too!

A Walk in the Woods and... Murder?

A leisurely stroll in the woods of Ellison Bay Bluffs County Park led to a distressing encounter yesterday.  It all began with a lovely bluff view of Green Bay on Lake Michigan and leaving my husband alone to smoke his pipe, I set off on a meditative walk.  After all, I am beginning a new life chapter and coming out of the seeming coma (okay, it was just a huge fog...) that fell upon my brain after the closing of my business, I was eager to meditate on what’s next for me while taking a quiet stroll.

Praying to my angels and goddesses and whomever else happened to be listening, who might want to chime in with their words of wisdom on this walk, thoughts filled my mind and I drifted into a wonderfully peaceful place.

About 15 minutes into my ethereal walk of late autumn dried leaves, bare branches and brownness, I happened upon the color red.  Hmmm.  Upon closer inspection, it looked as if an animal had been attacked; maybe a coyote or a fox kill.

Upon a much closer inspection, there was a bright red blood spill in the middle of my path and a dribble of blood as if something was dragged over to this pile of red within the dried leaves in the brown woods. 

Okay, I am a city girl but I am not naïve in any way.  Something had been killed in the path before me.  Upon an even closer inspection, there were some internal organs carefully laid out around what appeared to be a very large rock, very little blood, and NO BODY.  That’s right, NO CARCASS.  What had been killed?  Where was the body?

Small circular blood spill in my path, something dragged into the woods along the path, fresh organs, and no body.  Nope, I am definitely NOT a naïve city girl at all.  I was standing in front of a morbid murder scene!  Upon closer inspection of the rock “altar” that the heart, kidneys, liver, etc. were placed upon (of course it was an altar – isn't that what sick, deranged killers do with their victims?), it started not to look like a rock at all.  So I took a stick and poked at the “rock”……it was soft…….IT WAS A SET OF LUNGS!

Did I mention that my peaceful, tranquil, meditative state was completely severed? (Had to use that word – I had just entered a scene out of Dexter!)  My bucolic, pristine nature walk had become a crime scene!

Where was the body?  The kill spot was rather small and round, perfect size for a person of my build.  And who carefully lays out innards the same way they are placed internally?   And where did the blood go?  And much more importantly, where was the BODY??  So I did what anyone would do in my situation.  In Chicago, coming across guts in an alley would have someone speed dialing 911 as they high tailed it out of there!

Not me……I went to the extreme.  This wasn’t some random, ordinary kill.  This could only be the work of a witch.  I had entered a scene from Blair Witch Project!  Of course!  That’s why there was no body or blood.  That’s why the guts were carefully laid out.  This was not the work of an animal.  What animal would take the body and leave the innards?  So I did what any city girl would do.  I panicked.  Blair herself HAD to be nearby.  Or a crazed maniac.  I looked into the trees (because of course that is where either of these folks would be – right?)  I slowly started backing away up the path.  I looked for the river I could follow to take me safely out of the woods. (I always wondered why those kids in Blair Witch Project kept going around in circles in the woods.  All they had to do was follow the river bed and they would still be alive today!!!!) No, I wasn’t lost.  And the river was actually Lake Michigan.  I pulled out my phone to call my husband (Hey, it is 2011.  No one will ever get lost in the woods again as long as the Verizon satellites are up and running.) to tell him of the ghastly scene I was now running from, eyes darting left, right, above to make sure no one was following me.

Okay, it is true, I am a horror freak.  Have loved horror flicks all my life.  Wrote some vivid tales in Mr. DeLuca’s creative writing class in 6^th grade that concerned him enough to make a call home to Ma.  I guess slayings with ice picks are not common themes in 6^th grade essays. 

I was the mother that scared the other mothers in my book club when they found out I let my young children watch scary movies.  And yes, a relative of some sort pulled his daughters out of the TV room where they were sitting with my youngest son when he started talking about zombies and dead people.

Maybe a part of me wanted to have walked upon a scene from the TV serial killer Dexter.  That would be way more exciting of a story to tell later.  Or maybe I have been a victim of personal crime way too many times and my brain is geared for this type of reaction.    Or at least some sort of maiming!

So as the fear increased, the more my brain conjured up ideas for this scene, my husband walked over to a sign in the woods that read, “Hunting Begins November 15” and called me back.  Damn!  It was a friggin’ deer!  But I still fought it.  After all, I wanted the drama of a murder scene.  What a story I could tell!  I said what kind of hunter neatly lays out the innards the way they are laid out in the body from top of torso to bottom?  It looked like an anatomy class.  Of course, he told me with such determination and authority that hunters must gut the animal, tip it over and everything spills out perfectly in place.  Right…..  A deer of say 200 pounds can easily be tipped upside down and emptied.  I had problems trying to tip over a 70 pound calf on a cattle ranch in New Mexico. 

After consulting with a local and then later with an avid hunter, I had stumbled upon what is commonly known as a “gut pile”.  Normally, hunters who are deep in the woods will gut and “dress” the deer there, where city folk like me will not stumble upon their leavings.  My citified hunters dressed the deer on a paved path in a county park.  Lazy wimps.  Amateurs.  What kind of hunters were they?? City folk with shiny shotguns.  Geesh…

For me, there will be no Bambi or Mama Bambi killings.  The closest I ever got to both deer and death at the same time was when I was working at the Chicago Botanic Garden and almost got run over by a huge buck with a massive rack of antlers.  Then I could have added impaling to my list of personal assaults.  I also came across a few deer on another wooded walk.  No paved path to walk upon and there she was, right in front of me, staring at me.  We stood for a moment, both of us, contemplating the oddness of both of us happening upon one another, and I walked away.  After all, this was her woods and I was trespassing upon her territory.  Imagine that.  After that confrontation, I could never consider shooting one or bowing one, “tipping it over” and spilling out its guts to feed the rest of the woodland animals.  Eeewww.  Yuck.

So here is my boring story of hunters and deer.  When I tell my grandchildren, of course, it will become the Dexter and Blair Witch story which will scare the pants off of them.  Their parents will roll their eyes.  Hey, I might even add an ice pick or impaling…

Onesies for Christmas

Forever Lazy, Funzie, Jumpin’ Jammerz, Big Feet PJS, Rompers.  You know ‘em, you love ‘em, footie pajamas….. on someone else.  Especially now at my age.

Considering my hot flashes flash on and off every few moments.  Imagine trying to get out of one of these contraptions only to have to jump right back in again.

But I am digressing here.   Allow me to bring in a character we have all come to know and love (because she comes equipped with such fodder for comedy), my mother, Dee.

I don’t know when it officially started except for the few pictures of me as a baby.  But I was actually wearing one?  You know, those onesies, footed pj’s that made it impossible to pee without having to totally strip naked and by that time you had already had the accident, so why bother getting up in the middle of the night anyway.  That’s what they make diapers for…

Moving forward, I am in my tweens.  Christmas at our house was a Charlie Brown tree (the cheapest Dad could find), one, maybe two, sets of lights, and a couple of boxes of Styrofoam balls with colored silk thread.  Ours had tassels from the decades old thread detaching itself, making them look like my dad’s bald head in the morning, with the comb-over not combed over.  Bottom line, they were old and worn out and blue.  I hid when Ma said come down and let’s put up the tree.  It was done it five minutes anyway.

Christmas morning was also a delight.  We all jumped out of bed, hoping Santa had somehow transformed Charlie Brown’s tree into the tree in The Walnut Room, and each year we were greeted by that mangy tree and one present each.  Mind you, we were not poor by any means.

One year we tortured our youngest brother by sending him on a treasure hunt to find his one present.  We needed the distraction from the disappointing morning.  But anything to prolong the time until orders were shouted by Ma to prepare for the family party later that afternoon.  So poor little brother spent two hours following really bad clues to end up finally finding a present he didn’t want anyway.

Again I digress.  For some reason Ma had a need to torture me, or maybe just to have a little yuck on me for a year’s worth of aggravation I would have doled out to her.

So I opened my first footed onesie pj’s in my tweens.  They usually had stupid prints of ducks or bunnies or some saying on the front, like, “my mother went to Kmart and all I got were these stupid pajamas”.

I would have to try them to afford the whole family to mock me and laugh at me.  She got the biggest kick of all.  She enjoyed it so much that it became an annual event.  And each year I thought she couldn’t possibly pull this crap again, but there it was yet another onesie.  I thought that if I was going to endure this insanity year after year, maybe I should create my own appliqués like, maybe, an ax murderer print saying, “Ma, just in case you didn’t know it– I hate you”.  Or maybe in the style of Chevy Chase and Jane Curtain on Saturday Night Live, “Ma, you ignorant slut!”

It didn’t stop though.  The  Christmas before I got married and escaped from Golf Road and holiday hell, my fiancé sat beside me as I once again opened my gift.  This time, as my mother laughed hysterically, I let loose a tirade of holiday obscenities which had no affect on her as she begged me once again to slip it on so she could see and get her yearly belly laugh.

I left them for her to wear, which she did, and I never again stepped into that Christmas tradition.  So, if anyone has an idea of surprising me this Christmas with those new footsie jamies that they are advertising on TV, please, a paper shredder or garden scythe would bring a bigger smile to my face.  I cannot be held responsible for the outburst that “might” occur.  No, Really, I am serious, really.  No onesies.  Really.

Contemplating Spiral Signs this Holiday Season

In my continued fascination with spirals, I was looking at one that was spinning.  You know, the kind you see when someone is trying to hypnotize you?   It represents continual change and evolution and the interconnectedness of all things.

In terms of rebirth or growth, the spiral symbol can represent the consciousness of nature beginning from the core or center and thus expanding outwardly. Or you can look at it as outward information coming in to the core of your being.  I read this yesterday about this kind of spiral movement:

And when one contemplates such an infinitely regressing movement one begins to appreciate that the words 'first movement' doesn't even begin to express the beginning - that it's all an endless beginning - it's all a one act play - an infinitely recursive and enfolding one act play. Thus the 'first movement' is everywhere you look And soon you'll look up and see the same thing in every thing you look at until your view of reality begins to shift and with it meaning itself will take on a whole new meaning and on and on and on - beginnings enfolding endings which enfold another beginning until there's no more beginnings or endings and you just are. -Robert McCoy

If you look at a spiral in motion, it appears that it is moving from the outside in.  And if you look closely at the center, it appears to get larger as it spins.  Interesting if you think of the spiral as inward reflection.  As more wonderful things move in, your center becomes larger,  I think you can also say that as things move out from the center, it also leaves space to allow your inner most ideas to grow.  the inner core stays the same as the outer grows in size.   Do we actually spiral out of control or just to a place that is new and not understood quite yet?   I am starting to like that uncomfortable feeling on not quite being on steady ground, because I know it is leading to new ideas, thoughts.  Any way you look at it, growth is occurring.  You can see for yourself here: 

click here

So the same people, places, and things are always new, always beginning again.  From a different perspective.  You get to see them from all sides, angles, directions.  And sometimes, what you have been looking at for years starts looking different. So enjoy your life from all sides and angles this holiday season.

Like a tunnel that you follow

To a tunnel of it's own

Down a hollow to a cavern

Where the sun has never shone

Like a door that keeps revolving

In a half forgotten dream

Or the ripples from a pebble

Someone tosses in a stream.

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping

Past the minutes on it's face

And the world is like an apple

Whirling silently in space

Like the circles that you find

In the windmills of your mind

-Sting

Spirals and Reflection...

"In the wave lies the secret of creation."

Walter Russell from The Secret of Light

I am thinking of spirals again.  The Spiral represents the path of life - from your Essence, outward to the world. Or, depending on your perspective, from worldly existence to spiritual Essence.   As I make my way through this transformation, I am envisioning the gears on an old ship.  Remember the movie Titanic, when they were trying to reverse the boats gears and change course in hopes to avoid the collision with the iceberg?  They were trying to first shut down the forward motion of the gears and then shift into reverse.  The boat was moving forward while the gears were moving backward.

It is a struggle to change course.  So much energy is being expended on that forward motion that it takes a tremendous amount of force to exact any change in the direction.  And at some point, in the middle of the struggle, you are going both directions at the same time.  If you look at a spiral,  it could either be pulling itself inward or outward in direction.  It is liminality at it once again.

I am at that midway point of moving in both directions - the old is still surfacing from the innermost point of the spiral and jettisoning out of me while the new is coming in.  Think of a revolving door at the department store!  It is that kind of energy that makes weird things happen.  Like hearing from an old friend after years of absence.  It is so familiar - that voice, those words.  Yet it is equally awkward.  You are no longer that person of that familiar pair.  The puzzle pieces that once fit are now off kilter, the edges overlapping and not setting into perfect place.

Is that the old leaving and coming at the same time, hoping to not be left behind?  Maybe to be morphed into the newness that is on its way in only to emerge again shortly.  I don't know.  the question I need to ask, and I will, is why did they disappear, and more importantly, why are they back?  What drew them back?  I have always needed answers for the whys in my life!  Then again, it is said that if you just wait, the barriers will go away.  Nonetheless, I still need those answers!

But actually, right now, what is really more interesting is watching and feeling those gears switch direction and carry me onto a different course that can only bring excitement and joy of what only NEW can bring!!