MaryAlice Musings and More

Pirates, Witches, Christmas Elves, and the stetson hat farmer....all at our house this morning. Luke in his Christmas pj's and Myah in her Wicked Witch of the West costume, and me in my Stetson Hat and bib overalls, and Radar in his pirate cape...all getting ready for Halloween. Radar protected the house, and the rest of us went off to Hell's Kitchen. Great Music, fun food, lots of treats, we brought our entire pumpkin of treats, and they were a big hit with the staff...the gooey mice were the best! Then Tom Horner walks in with his family. If only I could really take a picture with my new phone! So kids are off to hockey, Radar is still resting, and I am enjoying the little halloween fun of the morning. Boo!

There are days in the fall where the crispness in the air, and the brilliance in the sky! Today is one of the most gorgeous days that I have been able to both notice and enjoy! Blue, Blue, with White wafts in the Sky. Sunshine shining wonderfully.

The sun came back, such a welcome sight. The winds blew and blew, the temperature dropped and dropped, and this a.m. I read in the paper that babies came as well. Seems as if having record breaking low barometric pressure signals and opportunity to come on into the world!!! This morning through my beautifully BIG window the sunrise was brilliant. The colors amazing. It brought we deeply back into myself for a few moments. I had been printing out receipts, worrying about meetings and in general having a morning fret. The color started slowly at the horizon and within a half-hour the entire sky was the sweetest colors of lavender, red, gold, yellow, and pinks. Thanks for the simple beauty of life.

It seems like this weekend's rally in DC - the Stewart/Colbert we are not political folks has proven that Comedy Central and Facebook is participatory government. People are traveling from around the U.S. (or there are about 20 cities that are restoring sanity or maintaining fear satellites). There is nothing sane and we should be afraid that folks are calculating that 4 Billion dollars has been spent on mid-term elections. All this money spent, sanity-fear, and we still want to believe that someone will wave a magic wand, take something away from someone else and give it to them. Ouch, I woke up on the cynical side of the bed this a.m. --- breathe. Breathe in some hope and take right action (not right wing!).

Oh my, the winds are gusting at 50 miles per hour, it is in the 40's (low), and the snow is coming. Must be close to Halloween in Minnesota. Hang onto your hat, get out your gloves, the time for no out of state visitors is rapidly approaching!

Yesterday was the 8th Anniversary of Paul Wellstone's death. Of course there were more who died than just him, his wife Sheila died with him, as well as his daughter Marcia. Seven died altogether. Paul didn't change my life, he was not a my professor, or neighbor, he wasn't even a friend. I did in both my personal life and professional life have an opportunity to listen to him, to speak with him and to learn from him. I am not a big hero person, but Paul was a hero to me. I didn't like that his oratory fashion had a lot of screaming in it, but I would manage to get past my irritation and listen. He was bold, he was honest, he never gave up, he loved people, he believed in people, he believed in change. Even though I wished he didn't have to yell so much, I see know that the only way anyone would wake up to what he said was to yell. He could also talk, and listen. I listened last night to Paul on MTN , Minneapolis Television Network. They ran interview...

This weekend I went out with my friends Dawn and Ryan and baby Laura (10 months old). Ryan and Dawn share a love of micro-beers. Ryan make some good home brew and he also hosts the MNBeer site. We went off to the Muddy Pig on Saturday afternoon to sample belgian beer - it was the annual fest! We went at a great time, and had a table by the window. Laura had just got up from her nap, and she was as usual ms. mellow! She is the most content baby, and her mom and dad just ooze loving her, it is such a treat to be with them, and a flight of belgian been. So what about Rosalie Sorrels --- somehow as I was singing to Laura, the Hostile Baby Rocking Song sprang into my head (I said Melvina Reynolds sang it-my bad!). I came home and hunted on you-tube ---I didn't know the name, just the genre "hostile baby rocking song ( this is the day we give baby's away, with a half a pound of tea! If you know any ladies who want any babies send them around to me....) --- the title ...

There is a tree close to the side door of my house, it is a red oak. The leaves stay on very late into the fall, sometimes they don't really drop until close to Thanksgiving. It is a great tree, and last year I had it trimmed and spruced up to help it stay healthy and live long. As Radar and I stepped out of the door yesterday afternoon I heard a noise, it was almost like a quacking, sounded maybe like a bird, I wasn't sure what it was but it was persistent. I stopped, Radar as usual was quiet, listening himself, I figured out the noise was coming from the tree, and then I spotted this squirrel, it was in the crook of the tree, and looking right at us. I looked back, and the noises that came out of the mouth of the squirrel, my jaw dropped. This squirrel had much to say, I have no idea what it was, at first I thought we were being scolded for entering his/her territory, then I thought he/she might be singing a fall song, then I landed on the squirrel was just giving prai...

A week ago I went to a homeopath. My daughter, and granddaughter see the same practitioner. I have a few specific "things", aches, pains. Mostly I wanted to give my body one more way to support itself in healing, both for little things and at a deeper level. It had been a long time since I took a "remedy". I remembered the most negative part of the experience (of course!) and that was giving up coffee. I am down to one cup + a day. I have restocked the caffeine tea choices in my house, and have no more cold press coffee made. Each day I am closer to letting go, I actually had a dream about a chai drink last night, it was good. Next week I get my remedy, she is still sorting out what would be best. Here is a five minute video called Just Good Medicine , a shortcut to what is homeopathy? As for government, below is how the NIH introduces one to homeopathy. Here's to our health, I'll skip the coffee, please. The term homeopathy comes from the Gree...

I am blogging as Radar is back to sleep, he got up for a little run, ate some food and now is blissfully asleep on the bed! He is unfazed by his latest celebrity moment. Radar was notified yesterday that he would be the January calendar dog for the Small Dog Rescue 2011 Calendar. This picture of Radar taken last winter is a preview, it is not the selected photo. Terry Gydesen Radar's Mom (I have other Mother status!) and amazing photographer (check out her blog by clicking on her name, please) sent in several great shots of Radar from each season. They selected January for our boy. Please if you like dogs, know someone who does, check out their website , the calendar information will be available soon. Just in time for holiday giving and receiving. By the way, SDR has dogs available all the time, for adoption and fostering, they are a great group. I love that Radar is in my life, my grandkids love Radar, and he is the best extension to our families! Check it out. ...

In the east there is a band of beautiful red/pink/white light color. The horizon I see from my house is higher up, it is framed by the two big trees in my "alley neighbors" yard. One has no leaves, the other hardly looks as if a leaf has dropped. The contrast of what I can now see on the leafless three and the what my eyes notice on the other leaf filled side is amazing. What a preview of these winter months, so much morning color and light, very little if NO green, sometimes some green plant is frozen in its color! Breathe in and out, deep, noticing the light, the ever expanding light. There's no place like home.

Sometime yesterday afternoon I found myself noticing what was happening with my mind, my body. I had been in a hotel conference room....not a huge ballroom, but I think you could slide the "walls" back and it would be one of the sections that made up a cavernous room without a window. No light, bad artificial light. Isn't there another way? This is a day learning community session that includes a "working" lunch. I wonder if we would be better served to take our lunch out by the pool. It is 86 degrees! Made me appreciate my own office, where chaos may reign but there is natural light where ever you go. I light staying in the light!

It is Martina Navratilova's Birthday. I have to say that there were years in my life when watching her play was the way that I learned how to have an active fantasy life. The best memory is that at Michigan Womyn's Music Festival one year I bought a refrigerator magnet of Martina, it was a very nice close up picture. I put it in my office, and every once in awhile, someone would walk in and ask if that was my girlfriend. If only, I wished. So today, I send Martina big birthday wishes and am having a fun moment remembering those fantasies. Thank you Martina for your great tennis playing and your ability to kickstart my fantasy world!

Oh, it is amazing weather here in Austin. The folks that live here, are talking about the Mississippi corridor and how we have all been having the best weather in the country. They are dry (little did I know Austin is usually humid!) and cool evenings and morning, with a slow warm up until glorious sunsets of slowing cooling heat. Once again my Austin tour guides did it up great. After the chaotic time on the highways, Austin drivers seem to have little capacity to pay attention and they drive really fast; we ended up at San Miguel . On my other trips here this restaurant has come up as a place to go and we just didn't get to it in time. It was first stop this trip. Oh my what great food, check out the site, and get ready to drool. The art is great, the space very comforting and inviting, and the food --- yum yum yum. I had the best ceviche since Guatemala. The tamales were great. The margarita? Perfect. A great welcome back to Austin. Today the Austin Book Festival ...

Today is the third time in less than a year that I am going to Austin, Texas . It took 59 years for me to get there, but now I am on a roll. Austin reminds me of Madison (those are both names of towns in MN that I seldom have been to) - that is Madison, WI. Madison was the perfect incubator for really growing into myself. I loved Madison, I had a pedestrian life, coop, work, movies, eats, all within the ability of my feet to get me there. Then there was the University, each year I have more respect for how my education has shaped how I think, and what I do. So how about Austin vs. Madison, first, there is just the edgy factor. There's the capitol and the head shops, there is lots of music, there is great food. I love the Austin Motel - a step back in time. Congress Street and State Street.....oh and it is the first place I had a margarita. Think I'll have one tonight!

World War 1 spy - Mata Hari was shot at dawn in 1917 and then in the evening of 1951 Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez star in the new TV show - I Love Lucy. Slow day in history. Maybe everyone was just enjoying a beautiful day in fall (or spring in the other hemisphere!) Noticing the colors, enjoying the light. Celebrating the balance of the season, endings - beginnings. Oh Mata Hari - you were quite a gal! Lucy you made me laugh even when I didn't want to think you were funny! Enjoy the color of the day.

I did it. I expanded my network! 3 g....phone with typing pad. 1st step away from blackberry. I just loaded app's. I have moon phases, inspirational quotes, a compass, notepads, oh lord who knows! Know if I could feel confident that I know what to do when the phone rings, and I that I recognize the ring as my phone. I have no idea what it sounds like. One more step into or away from who knows.

I needed a little pick me up this a.m. I "surfed" over to Ben Sidran's website and found this video, Hwy. 61-Revisited . When Ben sings it opens my heart, I feel my chest expand, and I am in my body. Depending on the tune, my toes tap, or my whole self just has to dance. Sometimes I just close my eyes and get carried away. Ben Sidran has this great CD of "deconstructed" Bob Dylan Tunes. Take a ride on Hwy. 61 (it's close to my house!). Enjoy the colors.

Born in 1884. Last night on PBS on watched a program about Franklin Roosevelt, Blanche Cooke (who I know from her work on Eleanor Roosevelt) was one of the narrators. How she spoke of Eleanor in regards to Franklin's affair with Lucy Mercer (who had been Eleanor's personal secretary) was so very touching. Eleanor had discovered the affair, and Franklin had promised that it would end. It did for awhile, and then Franklin had their daughter Annie arrange the meetings with Lucy and her Dad. Eleanor never knew that that affair had begun again, until she went to Warm Springs to pick up Franklin's body after he died. Franklin died with Lucy Mercer at his side. Blanche talked about the 10 minutes that Eleanor had alone with the body. She had not only come to retrieve his body, but she also upon arrival found out that Lucy had been with Franklin. She pulled herself together, and it was on the train ride home, with the casket returning to DC that Eleanor later talked about...

Glorious Day. Today is my daughter and son in spirit's wedding anniversary! James works in the Washington County Courthouse, and many of the judges are working all day today, performing marriage ceremonies, making it easy to remember your anniversay and your wedding date! The power of ten the power of zero. I have the grandkids, they stayed over night. Radar was also here for the night! We all walked in the dark to get a steamed milk at the coffee shop! It was June like warmth at 8:30 p.m. The kids loved it, they live in the burbs, and walking to the store, the park, a restaurant is not what they do-I think they have the potential to strive for a pedestrian life. Radar loved it, we all sat outside at the table, it wasn't Paris, but it sure was fun. Today started with a trip to hell, that is Hell's Kitchen for breakfast -- yummm, yummmm, yummm!!! Now time out in the sunshine. Myah is doing her homework, Luke is on his skateboard, and Gramma is online. Pretty fine...

This weekend in NYC there is a conference on Lesbian Lives in the 70's. One of my Women Studies teachers Evi Beck, and many other authors, musicians, activists, and lesbians that I have known or been touched by will be presenting or attending. What a rich time in my life, here is a little of what the conference organizers have to say: T he 1970s was a period of intense excitement, change, activism, and activity for lesbians. As lesbian feminism redefined what qualified as a "political issue" and challenged every assumption about gender, race, class, ability, sexuality, and any other social category, lesbians of all kinds created cultural, social, political, economic, and regional organizations and networks. Lesbians created businesses; lesbians made and marketed music; lesbians played on softball teams; lesbians engaged in struggles for racial, social, and economic justice; lesbians made films; lesbians created womyn's land. Inspired by the massive social changes ...

If anyone thinks that Minnesotans go nuts during summer, hold onto your hat. We absolutely vibrate, hum, move to a different atmosphere when it is October and it is over 80. We almost hit 90, (well half-way there). Tomorrow is to be even warmer. This warmth, the angle of the sun, the light, the leaves sweeping golden collages in the air. No worries about it getting better, pretty good right now!

In 1991 as my dearest friend Perry was slowly leaving his body, I sat in his kitchen and listened to Anita Hill in Congressional Hearings for Supreme Court Nominee Clarence Thomas accuse him of sexual harassment, inappropriate and unwelcome sexual comments. Perry died, Anita Hill is a professor of law, social policy and women's studies at Brandeis University, and Clarence Thomas is a Supreme Court Justice. I was just listening to a discussion of the new court, and they talked about how Clarence Thomas never asks a question during the proceedings. New Justice Kagan has in her first session of court asked more questions than Justice Thomas has in the last court year, and possibly his entire tenure! Go figure, too bad he didn't learn silence and not interrupting (he says he doesn't like to interrupt the attorneys) earlier in his career!

Born in 1917 - Ms. Hamer became known as the spirit of the civil rights movement. At 44 years old, Fannie Lou met volunteers from the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) - she did not know that she had the constitutional right to vote. She herself volunteered to go to the Montgomery County courthouse to register to vote. Later she said, " The only thing they could do to me was to kill me, and it seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember. " When I was 14 years old, Ms. Hamer spoke before the Credentials Committee of the Democratic National Convention, it was on television. She told of the ways in which African Americans were prevented from voting. She was an inspiration. She did shine a light where there had been darkness. She talked of being sick and tired of being sick and tired--and she found her way, and our country is better for it, and we still have a long ways to go. Happy Birthday Fannie Lou.

It is Tuesday a.m. and I am already trying to catch up....this blog thing was so out of my consciousness, and with it's recent resurrection I am still sorting out - why what how when....the who would be me. Last night the Red Tent Women came to my house for a board meeting. We planned our next event - we do them monthly with a summer break! This month we will be having a "Senses Bar"....what a fun idea we think. Awakening the senses, noticing, sharing...so for my twin cities friends put Tuesday, October 19th on your calendar, come on over to the Mill City Cafe in NE Minneapolis. For those of you further away...stay tuned, take a moment, breath through your nose, let the breathe out through your nose. Try it again more slowly, and deeply. A little preview of the "Senses Bar"!

I am home from an amazing weekend of Cherag training. I had no idea how I would connect, what it would feel like after 5 months to be back together with this group of women who have heard some sound of a call. It was a big wow! I am still vibrating, and humming, and awake. It is great when we get these moments of being so absolutely present, so alive. What a gift, and how great when we can find ways to practice and notice and share. As the weekend went on the sunlight grew clearer and the leaves more golden and the sky more blue. What a relief to have the angst, the anger, the fear, the state of whatever melt away for a moment. Recharge. Renew. Ready for tomorrow. Have something more to show up with as I step back into the world.

It is fall and it was two years ago that I began this blog....I was faithful to this form of expression for quite awhile, then sporadic, then absent, then just gone....I might have some things to say, observations to sort out, a desire to kindle something within and between us as readers, as writers in a virtual community. I am off to be with one of my Sufi teachers and a wonderful circle of mureeds (seekers). I get to be by Golden Lake a great vessel for reflection, both within and without. I might find inspiration to open up this page tomorrow and make another blog post. To take the time to connect - to use both my head and heart to move these hands to the keyboard once more.