MaryAlice Musings and More

The late afternoon started with my grandchildren, we went to our most favorite japanese bistro and sat at the sushi bar, and were happy, contented appreciative enjoyers of every dish that was sat in front of us!  I love that their favorite neighborhood restaurant when at Gramma's is the sushi/noodle bistro.  They especially love the rabato.  Then we were off to our friends Thai restaurant where we had sticky rice and ice cream, and folded peace cranes!  The place was packed with families - kids running around, the owners smiling, the wait staff running, everyone making cranes, toasting the new year.  We had thai fortune cookies - my said that I was going to be successful in bed - what an omen for the new year! Now it is time and space for intention.  I would like to share the peace prayer from the sufi order.  We in the U.S. and in a number of other countries will all be praying sometime tonight or tomorrow.  I hope that in whatever way you can and do - that you will take a moment ...

I love that we honor artists, and artists who are alive! The Kennedy Center is a great place, I have been there, and it is beautiful.  One of these moments when television is at its best.  Such a good way to end the year.  We are so fortunate to have the arts in our lives.  It is such a vital part of my passion and my soul.  

Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive penned his musings about Reverend Warren on December 20th...it took me awhile to go to the Progressive Magazine site - the article and the comments are forthright. I liked the suggestion that women and women and men and men just kiss their way through the inauguration. Wonder if I will get any takers? Let's hope that we can have better appointments where it really matters about Gay Rights, Abortion, and other "social" issues! So I still have to rant a little more about this --- I would have like to have Thich Nhat Hanh give the invocation. I have selected one of his sayings, it is about love for self, somehow having two days of expressing my dismay and express my hopes is about loving self. So here is a zen wish for all of us from Thich Nhat Hahn: Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself – if you are not capable of taking care of yours...

The New York Times in the opinion page ran a good article on Obama's choice of the Rev. Rick Warren to give the invocation at the most historical of inaugurations since the 1st one!   You're Likable Enough ...by Frank Rich is reasoned and asks what many of us are,  why is Obama spending political capitol on this.  Isn't there another way to bring a group of people who don't see eye to eye to the table.  As a lesbian, a "gay" woman, who came to my understanding of being gay much more through my feminist political vantage points, than my understanding of gay history.  Of course that was 33+ years ago, and Harvey Milk is not a historical abstraction but a never forgotten hero,  as was Del Lyon.  I once went to a Daughters of Bilitis meeting, and felt like I was in the midst of courageous, tireless women who loved women, and I was.     The Reverend that suggest because I am a woman who loves women I am equal to and being a child abuser.  This is what the Reverend ...

Three generations trundled off to the Guthrie this afternoon to see the Christmas Carol.  Sasha was around the age of Myah when we first went to the Guthrie to see the Christmas Carol. She gave the 4 minute cliff note of the play as we were driving to the theater.  Myah was struck by how horribly awesome Mr. Marley's ghost was, and giggled at the delight of the "old" Ebenezer watching scenes from Christmas's past.  Luke like the traveling in space of the 2nd ghost of Christmas - he thought it was a cool dude who was in the sled.  Sasha sang silently along with the music.  At the end, the man in the row in front of us, thanked Myah for her giggles, and said that it made the play even better.  I loved the scenes that pulled at your heart, and delighted in my child and grandchildren sitting with me.  Sasha thought the Guthrie was a good place for a sexy date,  I told her I would remember that when I was planning one!  The grandkids loved the play, and we decided next yea...

The grand kids are in bed,  Mom and Dad are finishing up the last tasks of this christmas eve night.  Luke and Myah had their first needle felting lessons and made wonderful ornaments that are hanging on the tree.  They are proud and pleased with their bells, stars, gingerbread men, and quarter moon.  They are beautiful.  A gift for christmas eve.  At bedtime we all snuggled in the "Mom and Dad's bed, and listened while my daughter, their Mom read the "Polar Express" and "The Night Before Christmas".  All listening and enjoying the pictures.  For me, a precious moment,  I remember my daughter their Mom being snuggled in my arms on christmas eve reading, being so excited about this day of receiving of giving.  Earlier in the night Luke and Myah got to pick one gift,  Sasha was able to do that,  the one gift on christmas eve.  They picked their boxes, and are happily sleeping in their snuggly new pj's.   I am getting ready to sleep in the old memories, th...

Shhhh, don't disturb the light.  The candle light is moving, slowly reaching upwards.  The flames are whispering to each other.  Recognizing, witnessing each others vibrations.  In the stillness the flames quietly light the altar, the walls, the room, my heart.  Honor the darkness that creates such a magnificent space for the light.

When I drove to work this morning it was below zero (real temperature) and the wind chill made it feel really worse!  It was crunchy cold.  The sun was brilliant in the sky.  Winter sun bright!  Big, big sun, lots of vapors in the air.  Big cold. Big Light.  Then all of sudden there is this rainbow in the sky --- well it's not a rainbow, it's a sun dog.  An amazing full, amazing colored sun dog rainbow in the frigid morning.  It was beautiful...the sky was twinkling, sizzling, radiating.  That hot hot sun so far away, the artic cold and whatever combination that needs to occur did.  A big gift on the first day of winter.  A sweet way to be rewarded on the way to work.  Fire, ice, sun dogs, and winter.  The solstice light of the evening before turned into the radiant beauty of the dawn.  Just like the poem, cherishing the light of the morning dawn.

Just Delicate Needles Its so delicate, the light. And there's no little of it.  The dark is huge. Just delicate needles, the light, in an endless night. And it has such a long way to go through such desolate space. So let's be gentle with it. Cherish it. So it will come again in the morning. We hope. Rolf Jacobsen Translated by Robert Hedin Copper Canyon Press

My house is filled with candles,  I have some fun round color bulbs of all different colors, and I have spent the evening, sitting quietly in the dark with my candle light!  Reading and rereading Just Delicate Needles, cherishing the light.  I am also baking, bringing cookies to work tomorrow and this year I am only making cookies that my Gramma and my Mother made -- tonight it was Winter Wedding Cakes, Date-Nut Rocks, and Nut Gems....my favorite are the gems,  My paper with recipe must be 35+ years old it has so many stains on it and it is time to share: Nut Gems   2 1/2 Dozen 2 c. sifted flour 1 c. butter 4 T. powdered sugar 1 c. chopped nuts  2 T. water 2 t. vanilla powdered sugar Cream butter (or oleo), add sugar gradually, cream until smooth.  Blend in flour.  Stir in nuts, water, flavor (vanilla).  Mix well.  Shape into 1" balls, bake on ungreased cookie sheet in oven 350*, 20 minutes or until golden brown (usually takes longer).  While still warm roll in powdered sugar.   E...

Our Governor told the state how he was going to take around 140 million out of the current year state budget today.  Ouch.  Local government aid cuts,  counties that thought they knew what their check from the state would be next week - surprise it's less, lots less.  The state is adjusting their budget and everyone else should to - that's the message!  Hard realities and lots of opportunities to dig within self and examining what about adjustments.  As I left work today I kept thinking of President-Elect Obama and his message of change.  There is one thing I am certain about change -- it means that change has to happen -- not just change for someone else, but change that effects me.  So here's to the adventure of change.  The reality, the possibility and so much more.

Minnesota is still without a Senator for the new Congress that convenes in January.  Today the tireless and brave State Canvassing Board is still counting contested ballots - they did the Franken pile and Coleman was up by 350+ votes I just don't remember the exact count,  then they started on the Coleman contested pile and NOW Coleman is ahead by 5 (FIVE) votes.  The Supreme Court has sent the contested absentee ballots back to the campaigns, the secretary of state, and the state canvassing board and told them to figure out a process to sort out which ballots should be included in the recount,  there may be another election before this is settled.  And the worst of it all -  there is not a shard of equanimity with either campaign.  The calls and emails for money continue.  The lawyers are on the TV everyday, I did laugh about the ballot that had the "oval" filled in for Franken and then the voter decided to make a statement on the line "only because he is a democrat...

I just returned home from a wonderful dinner and such deep diving into being present.  What a gift to have friends that want to share and be able to listen and be present to this very moment.  It is so full -- that moment of listening of just being with another being  -- what a gift.  Today was a full plate day,  lots of signing documents, doing reviews, checking in ..... trying to do the stuff that needs to get done before the end of the year.  People were glad the the "nuisance" snow had stopped, that it didn't take them as long to get into work, as it took the night before for them to get home.  There is a little cheer despite all the "bad" news.  Driving home, I noticed more holiday lights.  I love the lights!  They are magical -  there is some part of being little that just has a safe place to come out when I am "captured" by the twinkling of the lights.  We are days away from the longest night,  we are in the dark, and yet I continue to pulled in...

2* and snowing, the plane left 1 1/2 hrs. late from Nashville, due to the weather in Minneapolis.  How funny to be so ready to get on a plane and come home to weather that is just mean for December 16th, and most people would think it was mean anytime!  But happy I was when we actually knew we were going to be able to fly home tonite!  It is cold and windy and wintry and I am glad to be back home.  I sat next to a new Dad, Sam is 10 weeks old and he couldn't wait until we were high enough in the sky to show me the pictures on the computer.  This was his first business trip since the Sam was born, and he couldn't wait to get home, he kept apologizing, saying well of course I want to see my wife, but he couldn't contain his joy!  I have been practicing being open for conversation on plane rides, and the connections I had both coming and going from Nashville were great.  Open hearted, interested, good story telling and listening, it made the sometimes boring flight so full and...

I was at the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday! I didn't see the show, but toured the auditorium, listened to some music, remembered how important it is to have something to count upon. Tennessee and Minnesota have something in common -- a long time radio show. Garrison Keillor has said that his listening to the Grand Ole Opry shaped his own dreaming about Prairie Home Companion. Prairie Home Companion has been a part of my weekend since I was a young young woman living in the hills of southwest Wisconsin. We didn't have a TV and public radio was my lifeline --- it still is, and I have several tv's. Luke (my grandson) and Sasha (my daughter) were riding in the car on Sunday -- PHC was on the radio --- Luke told his Mom that Gramma was taking him to the radio show when he was a little bigger, he was wondering if the start of the new year would be "a little bigger", "Yes" Mom said, and she told Luke about how she went with her Mom to see PHC. These are th...

What a week, Minnesota is reeling.  The budget deficit continue to grow.  The Senate election recount is still going,  ballots (with the exception of mail in ballots) have all been counted, well except the 133 ballots they can't find in Minneapolis...the State canvassing board met today and they start slogging through the 4000+ contested ballots.  Headlines in the paper about the staff at nursing home abusing residents with dementia...I am reading a book "Trauma Stewardship" which is about the deep authentic layers of caring for ourselves when effected by secondary trauma, burnout.   People think that the folks who work in state government are out of touch way removed, but I watch people everyday who feel very responsible if in any way the system fails a person.  All of us have to sort out, to understand how we best can center, nurture, process and not have the abuses, shortcomings and neglect of our systems incapacitate us.  It has been a hard week, a great desire to tra...

I had been feeling pretty good lately about having my home state be the home of our soon to be president.  I mean Mayor Daly #1 was the mayor the entire time of my childhood and when I moved to the city of Chicago proper as a young adult he was still Mayor!  I have felt that people had warmed up to Chicago lately, but mostly just forgot that it was a big city.  I was feeling proud to be from Illinois and then it all comes roaring back, corruption, dead people voting, etc.  This Governor with a name that I cannot pronounce or remember has taken the cake - or at least tried to have his cake and more too!  I would laugh if it wasn't so sad - and such an example of where we are in American politics, why not just take the highest bidder!  Isn't that was capitalism is all about?  We sure are keeping our federal agents busy, with Governor's selling senate seats,  now even in squeaky clean MN they are trying to figure out if our honorable sr. senator was involved in his wife being ...

My grandchildren are both readers,  they are 6 and 8 years old, and they are still so amazed and proud and captivated by waht they can do: read, and the amazing stories and information they learn when they read.  They are reading chapter books and starting to move beyond the "readers" and just picking up a book and reading it!  We are reading the Narnia Chronicles.   They read to each other, and still love to have Mom, Dad, or Gramma read them a story. I went to my local bookstore tonight to find some new books for my youngest reader!  I had already got bought books for the biggest of my readers - sitting in the kids room was a very big kid (almost teen!) her Mom works in the store, and as her Mom showed me some of the choices, she turned to her daughter and asked if she remembered the series.  At first she feigned disinterest, but as I started laying out the books, I asked her if she remembered a specific book --- she leapt out of her chair and started telling me things abou...

Tonight I finished one of my "green rugs"  it is made from old t-shirts, you cut a continuous strip starting from the bottom 1/2 " or so, and just keep cutting until you get to the arm pits.  Then you have one ball of t-shirt, and a rag.  It takes about 6 t's to make a rug.  You use jumbo needles 17's and knit back and forth, and you have a rug.  Then you sew a bias tape around the edge and it is great feeling for your feet, looks good, and amazing recycling.  I am giving them as presents!  I also have been making mix it up scarves...taking various left over yarns and making crazy strips of color and texture.  Fun and you can stay warm,  and I am making felt bowls and now boxes....all of this is a way to have balance, be quiet find my center, listen and be so very appreciative of what I have done and how it gives me pleasure.  Simple things in life.  Knit, Knit, breathe, touch your soul.  Knit knit breathe feel the expansiveness.  Knit knit transformation.  Trans...

We are moving closer to the official first day of winter, here in MN we are as usual way ahead of schedule.  We have 1-2 inches of snow on the ground and it is a beautiful dry snow falling this morning.  There have been a number of accidents, people forget that they are diving on snow and it can be slick!  It is amazing that this happens every year seeing that we really have so few weeks when there is NOT snow on the ground.  The houses that I look at out from my "back yard" view are all white, as is my own, and it gives this consistent white background everywhere, the trees and bushes break up the whiteness that is everywhere.  I am feeling that going within pull as we move into winter.  The internal landscape whispers and entices me to pay attention.  I am felting, and knitting, and writing, and imagining!  Focus on my being vs. what I do.  We are moving towards the longest night, the light has diminished and the internal light burns eternally.

Stillwater is the town that is known as the birthplace of Minnesota,  it is right on the WI/MN border and the St. Croix River separates the two states here, and further south it is the Mississippi River.  Stillwater is old, and I am in staying the night in one of the oldest hotels, it is now called the Water Street Inn, it is on Water Street and a stones throw away from the lift bridge.  Yes it lifts up and it is old too!  We are having our annual retreat - a time away for all the staff who are working so hard to create a way in which people with disabilities can and do work.  That there is an expectation that people with disabilities get to plan about work,  they may not always choose to work, but people can make informed choice.  It is about full inclusion and not living in poverty and all the things that come from work.  I have found over the past 12 years that the only people that really joke about not working are people who work.  We have a mission in our work to increase competit...

On Saturday I felted four bowls,  they are all dry now and shaped, and I must say they are amazing vessels.  You can feel the good energy and vibrational attributes of the care and fun and prayerful energy that happens when I knit and shape and transform something from yarn to an object!  How fun to feel so good about the creative process. Then there is this crescent moon that keeps getting larger, the sky was so very clear tonight.  It is cold, the sun is low in the sky, and the lights of the city and the celestial sky all have a texture of winter to come.   Jupiter and Venus were on the horizon earlier tonight, the moon was no where anywhere near them.  So the shifts have occurred, the movement is noticeable even though the planets are so very far away.   I am glad that I could see Venus, Jupiter, and the crescent moon all shimmering so very close to each in this amazing triangle.  Now they are moving on, and I have been moved. May we each find that which moves, inspires, keeps us op...

So here's the best light show around.  Just look in the SouthWestern Sky - there is a conjunction or alignment of Venus and Jupiter with the moon in the southwestern sky -- it is most amazing during the early evening - and will be for the next couple of nights.  On Tuesday Venus will be eclipsed by the moon.  As the month continues Venus and Jupiter will continue to move apart.  Venus, Jupiter and Moon will not be this close again until 2052. Enjoy the celestial night sky.  Stop the car on the way home from work.  Go outside and check it out.  It is beautiful.  I pulled into my favorite look-out in between the cemetery and the highway - there is a high spot, and a little park.  You can see south and west and downtown Minneapolis always is a treat.  So I stopped tonight and just watched and marveled at our amazing universe.   It's a must see.