Come out from the shadow of your family tree!

Come out from the shadow of your family tree!

This Family Constellation Workshop cuts to the heart of generational issues,
shifting inner images from what is to what’s possible, transforming obstacles
into more health and well-being. Based on the work of Bert Hellinger, this workshop
offers a rare opportunity to uncover hidden patterns, healing past, present, and future generations.

Led by Judy Smith, who facilitates workshops and training in S. Africa and the U.S.
http://www.emotionalgenetics.com/index.html

Sat., July 18, 10-5 pm
Sun., July 19, 10-4 pm
NiaSpace
3212 S. Congress
Austin, TX

Cost: $325
$100 deposit
(or pay in full July 18)

Mail deposit to:
Mary Ann Reynolds
905 E. 2nd St.
Austin, TX 78702
512-507-4184
mareynolds@grandecom.net

CEUs available for MSWs, LPCs, and MFCs

Suggested preparation: Research your family going back three generations,
noting significant and traumatic events. Also you may read Berthold Ulsamer's
Healing Power of the Past, available on Amazon.com.

Questions? Call Judy at (903) 534-6263 or email her at info@emotionalgenetics.com.

repost of funny movies, people, and comedy sketches

I'm reposting this because it's summer and because I like to laugh. Also adding Hangover to the movie list--Lela says it's the funniest movie ever!

To avoid having to reinvent the wheel every time someone asks about funny movies, I'm putting this list on my blog. It has my own favorites and favorites from Lela, John, Pauline, Keith, Keith's friend Tony, Alec, Spike, Elizabeth, Nicky, Kathleen, Clarita, and Zoe, so it covers a variety of tastes as to just what is funny.

I'll update it as I hear from more people and if my memory about a funny film that I've forgotten gets jogged. And okay, okay, I know a few of these are TV shows, but you can rent them at the video store or online same as movies.

Here are 98 funny films and 26 funny people that will hopefully make you laugh, or at least cheer you up:

The 40-Year-Old Virgin - Tony
48 Hours - John
A Fish Called Wanda - Mary
All of Me - Pauline
Always - John
And Now for Something Completely Different - Alec
Annie Hall - Mary
As You Like It - Pauline
Back to the Future 1 - John
Being There - Mary, Pauline
Best of Saturday Night Live - John
Beverly Hills Cop - John
The Big Lebowski - Mary
Blazing Saddles - Mary, John, Kathleen
The Blues Brothers - John
Brain Donors - Alec
Bruce Almighty - Alec
Bugs Bunny classics, especially What's Opera, Doc? - Mary
Caddyshack - John
City Lights - John
Chris Rock: Bigger and Blacker - Zoe
The Dish (Australian) - Tony
Down and Out in Beverly Hills - Pauline
Dr. Strangelove - Mary
Duck Soup - Mary
Ed Wood - Mary
Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill - Mary
Fargo - Mary
Ferris Bueller's Day Off - John
The Fifth Element - John
Forget Paris - John
Galaxy Quest - John
Ghostbusters - John
The Gods Must Be Crazy - Kathleen
Gold Rush - John
The Goodbye Girl - John
The Great Race (old one, not the remake) - John
Groundhog Day - John, Mary, Tony
Hangover - Lela
Happy Feet - Pauline
Honey I Shrunk the Kids - Pauline
Idiocracy - Mary
The Incredible Shrinking Woman - Pauline
It Happened One Night - Mary
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (old one, not the remake) - John
The Jerk - Pauline
LA Story - John
Lethal Weapon II - John
Liar, Liar - Alec, Pauline
Life of Brian - John, Alec
The Little Children - Nicky
Little Miss Sunshine - Mary, Tony
The Little Rascals/Our Gang - John
Love & Death - John
M.A.S.H. - Mary
MASH (old TV show) - John
The Mask - Pauline
Modern Times - John
Moonlighting (old TV show) - John
The Monster (Italian) - Clarita [stars Roberto Benigni, need I say more?]
Monty Python and the Holy Grail - John, Alec, Spike
Monty Python's Flying Circus (old tv show) - John
Moonstruck - Mary, Clarita
Napoleon Dynamite - Spike
Nurse Betty - Nicky
O Brother Where Art Thou? - Mary
Office Space - Mary
Old screwball comedies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screwball_comedy - John [It Happened One Night being the best]
Parenthood - John
Patch Adams - Alec
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure - John
Pee-Wee's Playhouse - John
The Pink Panther - Kathleen
Play It Again, Sam - John
The Princess Bride - Mary, Pauline
The Producers - Mary
Purple Rose of Cairo - John
Raising Arizona - Mary
Road Runner cartoons (pre-60s) - John
Roxanne - John
Saving Grace - Pauline
Shrek 1 - Mary, John, Pauline
Shrek 2 - Pauline
Singin' in the Rain - John
Sister Act - Mary
Sleeper - Mary
Some Like It Hot - Mary
South Park - Mary
Stalag 17 - John
The Sting - John
Stripes - John
The Tall Guy - Spike
There's Something About Mary - Mary, Tony
The Thin Man films - Mary
Tom & Jerry cartoons (pre-60s) - John
Tommy Boy - Tony
Trading Places - John, Pauline
True Lies - Pauline
Tootsie - Mary
Wedding Crashers - Clarita
What About Bob - Elizabeth
What Women Want - Mary, Pauline
What's Up Doc - John
When Harry Met Sally - Mary
Young Frankenstein - Mary
Zoolander - Spike

People who are funny:
Woody Allen - John
Lucille Ball - Pauline
Lewis Black - John
Victor Borge - Alec
Mel Brooks - Mary
Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig - Mary
Jim Carrey - Mary, Pauline
Charlie Chaplin - John
Ellen DeGeneres - John
Jackie Chan - Mary
Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean - Mary
Whoopi Goldberg - Mary
Cary Grant - Mary
Goldie Hawn - Pauline
Danny Kaye - Pauline
Larry the Cable Guy - John
Harold Lloyd - John
Steve Martin - Mary, Keith, John
The Marx Brothers - Mary
Larry Miller - John
Ninja Turtles - Pauline
Paula Poundstone - John
Chris Rock - Zoe
Jerry Seinfeld - John
Peter Sellers - Mary
Gene Wilder - Pauline
Robin Williams in concert - Alec

And last but certainly not least, I'm adding a link to the 50 greatest comedy sketches. Click the title of this post to view. Many of them have video clips. Thanks, John!

aahhh, juneteenth

i'm home today because it is an unusual state holiday, juneteeth, the anniversary of the slaves in texas finding out---THREE YEARS LATER---about lincoln's emancipation proclamation.

the 81st legislative session is over, ended june 1, and life is returning to normal, whatever that is. a special session is on the horizon so they can finish unfinished business, but right now i do not care one whig.

i am sooo grateful for this day off.

this past session, my third at the legislative budget board, was a hard one for people at my agency, and maybe people at other agencies, but especially at my agency, because two of my fellow employees DIED during the session.

in the 20-something years of institutional memory of my longer-tenured colleagues, this is the first time an active employee has died. and not just one active employee, but two.

was it a coincidence that these deaths came during the session? that is unanswerable unless you can read god's mind. but session are stressful, and that could have contributed...

one colleague died in april. he had a seizure and was in the hospital where a week later, on Easter Sunday, he had a fatal stroke. the medical professionals discovered after the fact that he had had a brain tumor.

i didn't know him well at all--we bumped into each other in the kitchen occasionally. i was told that in the period before the seizure, he complained about being tired. but who wasn't making that same complaint?

a month later, another colleague didn't come into work one day. no one answered when they called. a couple of people went to her home. they called the police, who entered and found her in bed, dead. she had had a heart attack in her sleep.

what was particularly hard about this death was that this woman was still working at 68, putting in time to be eligible for a retirement pension, saving her pennies for retirement, and SHE DIDN'T EVEN GET TO ENJOY IT.

after my boss told me of her death, my second thought was "Way to go!" dying in yoru sleep is nice. and...you don't have to keep working under stressful conditions. reminds me of the humorous coffee mug with the statement, "I'm not calling in sick, I'm calling in dead".

don't get me wrong, there are perks, the main one being that i work in a pretty good office with a lot of really cool people, and we do get comp time for all that overtime we put in during sessions, so you get extra time off. if i use all my comp time and accrued vacation time this year, it adds up to about 7 paid weeks off from work. not bad.

the worst thing about the job is being at the mercy of the legislature's schedule, which is to meet from january through may in odd-numbered years and then do little in the interim. maybe have a special session or two, campaign for re-election, etc. that doesn't really affect me.

who came up with this crazy idea of meeting for 5 months every other year? my hunch is that way back when texas was first a state, the "founding fathers" decided that because it's such a big state, and there were no planes, trains, or automobiles, it would be efficient to condense legislation time so legislators could go back to their communities and farm, practice law, or do whatever else they did to make a living. (they still only get paid about $7 grand a year--yes, you do have to be rich to run the state government.)

so the schedule has been like that since 1845. and now we DO have planes, trains, and automobiles...

i ask you: people, does this make any sense? not to me it doesn't. count in deaths, stress, broken marriages, neglect of children, illness, exhaustion, nervous breakdowns, overtime and comp time, utilities from working late nights, etc., and it just doesn't seem very humane to me.

how do you change this? well. i asked. (you knew i would do that, right?)

this is what i learned. there would have to be a referendum, and the voters in texas would have to approve a change in the schedule. and that has been tried before, and the voters voted it down.

people, i'm asking you, if this ever comes up for a vote again, vote FOR change, not against it. i beg of you.

rivers

The session ended June 1, and I took a 4-day weekend this past weekend. Visited a friend in San Antonio for a couple of days, checking out the new extension of the Riverwalk (go check it out--not as crowded as downtown), the San Antonio Museum of Art, and the Texas Folklife Festival.

Then we went out to the countryside to connect with green vistas and clear waters and clean air. First stop, Guadalupe State Park in Boerne. My first time there. The river is low and slow, but wonderful for lazy floating.

I spent a long time in my float watching the ripples of light bouncing off the water onto the underside of a large driftwood branch arching out of the river. It was so alive! I felt the presence of spirit very strongly.

Realization: Dead things are really not dead, they are alive because they still exist.

We traveled on to our cabin near Vanderpool, which was comfortable and came with a hammock and a skinny hungry mama cat and three kittens. We drove into Leakey for cat food and saw the most gorgeous sunset on the way back, with large wide rays (God's fingers) against the sharp edge of the hills.

I don't know for sure, but it seems like the biggest hills in the Hill Country might be right out there in Real County. So many "Steep Grade Sharp Curve signs, it reminded us of the road to Hana on Maui. Breathtaking views, too.

We drove a scenic route from Leakey to Camp Wood, followed the Nueces north and the Frio south. Not much water access but spectacular views--and most unexpectedly, we saw a pasture full of kangaroos! They were curious but didn't come too close. Even saw a large "baby" in its mother's pouch!

We also saw buffalo and several types of exotic herd animals.

Then on to Garner State Park and the Frio. South of the dam, it's deep. I got a good snorkel/swim in, really working my arms and shoulders and feeling it, AND not being sore afterwards (must be the yoga).

Lovely brilliant green cypress trees and buff limestone rocks at both rivers.

The trip was fun, refreshing, inspiring, and a great way to spend the time. I'm already thinking, "How can I do more river swimming and floating this summer, and avoid the noisy drunken crowds?"

poem: Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman (excerpt)

Love the earth and sun and the animals,
despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labor to others,
hate tyrants, argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence toward the people,
take off your hat to nothing known or unknown,
or to any man or number of men,
go freely with powerful uneducated persons,
and with the young, and with the mothers or families,
re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book,
and dismiss whatever insults your own soul;
and your very flesh shall be a great poem....


~ Walt Whitman ~

(from the Preface to Leaves of Grass, 1855 edition)

poem: An Improvisation for Angular Momentum, by A.R. Ammons

i love the analogy and awareness of awareness here, that segues into pondering about the passage from life into death. i especially love the idea of the death mother shepherding us through.


Walking is like
imagination, a
single step
dissolves the circle
into motion; the eye here
and there rests
on a leaf,
gap, or ledge,
everything flowing
except where
sight touches seen:
stop, though, and
reality snaps back
in, locked hard,
forms sharply
themselves, bushbank,
dentree, phoneline,
definite, fixed,
the self, too, then
caught real, clouds
and wind melting
into their directions,
breaking around and
over, down and out,
motions profound,
alive, musical!

Perhaps the death mother like the birth mother
does not desert us but comes to tend
and produce us, to make room for us
and bear us tenderly, considerately,
through the gates, to see us through,
to ease our pains, quell our cries,
to hover over and nestle us, to deliver
us into the greatest, most enduring
peace, all the way past the bother of
recollection,
beyond the finework of frailty,
the mishmash house of the coming & going,
creation's fringes,
the eddies and curlicues

~ A.R. Ammons ~(Poetry, 1994)

the end is in sight

the legislative session ends on june 1, and i (one of many) am looking forward to it very much, to having more time and focus to communicate on this, my blog, to catch up on yard work and gardening, and most of all, the downtime i am craving.

what's so special about downtime?

for me, it's a chance to let my mind wander freely, unfocused on any specific task--unless my mind happens to come up with a task that is pleasing to me!

it's a chance to let my body rest and find its own rhythms between activity and receptivity, doing and being.

it's a chance to reconnect with nature--sunshine, fresh air, rain, clouds, sunrises, sunsets, birds, animals, insects (especially their awesome noises!), to tune into the changes through each day and the progression of seasons.

i'm looking forward to swimming in barton springs, to getting up early to beat the heat and enjoy the aura of early morning.

what about you? what do you like about having downtime?

poem: invisible work, by alison luterman

this is a great mother's day poem. real, not sentimental. enjoy!

Invisible Work

Because no one could ever praise me enough,
because I don't mean these poems only
but the unseen
unbelievable effort it takes to live
the life that goes on between them,
I think all the time about invisible work.
About the young mother on Welfare
I interviewed years ago,
who said, "It's hard.
You bring him to the park,
run rings around yourself keeping him safe,
cut hot dogs into bite-sized pieces for dinner,
and there's no one
to say what a good job you're doing,
how you were patient and loving
for the thousandth time even though you had a headache."
And I, who am used to feeling sorry for myself
because I am lonely,
when all the while,
as the Chippewa poem says, I am being carried
by great winds across the sky,
thought of the invisible work that stitches up the world day and night,
the slow, unglamorous work of healing,
the way worms in the garden
tunnel ceaselessly so the earth can breathe
and bees ransack this world into being,
while owls and poets stalk shadows,
our loneliest labors under the moon.

There are mothers
for everything, and the sea
is a mother too,
whispering and whispering to us
long after we have stopped listening.
I stopped and let myself lean
a moment, against the blue
shoulder of the air. The work
of my heart
is the work of the world's heart.
There is no other art.

~ Alison Luterman ~


(The Largest Possible Life)

gardening, not blogging

i have built 4 boxes for square foot gardens and filled 3 with soil and planted them. i've got a 4th box made, ready to be filled with soil and planted. it will have the really hot weather stuff--okra, corn, moon and stars watermelon, yellow squash, and a melon called charentais that i saw in the nichols catalog that looks similar to canteloupe and is supposedly delicious.

i check my garden before and after work. i water plants by hand using sun-warmed water (the chlorine has evaporated too, making it even better for my plants). i reuse plastic kitty litter containers and dip the water out with a bowl that holds about 8 ounces--just the right amount for a square foot. the plants seem to be responding quite well.

the recent rains haven't hurt either.

i've harvested about 8 strawberries from 4 plants, with more to come. i have eaten thinnings of green onions, spinach, and chard, and added homegrown dill, parsley, arugula, and a feathery mustard to salads.

this garden is giving me such pleasure! the 4x4' boxes are divided into 1' squares using a grid. i planted accordingly--either 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants/seeds per square, depending on the size of the mature plant. grids give these gardens a visual order. i notice the plants in each grid and am able to compare it in my memory to how it looked last time i viewed it. it helps me stay on top of things, like when the arugula needs to be pinched.

the third box, planted april 12, is really coming along! the natural gardener had no legume inoculant, so i planted both bush and pole beans without it. most of them sprouted anyway. it's easy to see where the holes are when you plant 9 beans per square, and i will probably wait a few more days to see if any late sprouters poke up through the soil before i plant replacements.

newly emerged seeds in that box include mammoth sunflowers, 3 kinds of pole beans (green, yellow, and purple), Romano bush beans, an early sweet corn, 3 colors of zucchini (light green, dark green, and yellow), and New Zealand spinach. i haven't grown that before. i also have Malabar spinach seeds to plant in the fourth box--they climb. i don't think NZ spinach climbs, but i shall find out!

the pole beans are planted so that they can climb up the corn and sunflowers! elsewhere i planted cucumber seeds around a sunflower seed, so they can climb it too. it's all an experiment--trial and error. i'm keeping a notebook so i can keep track of what does well.

other plants i haven't grown before include stevia and ground cherry, a nightshade with sweet fruit. can't wait to taste them! yes, i'm growing something i've never eaten! (well, i've eaten stevia before, but only processed.)

the soil mix is the same in each box: 3 10-gallon bags of Rose Magic from the natural gardener and an equal amount (by volume) of organic peat moss. i mixed "garden pep" (cottonseed meal from the natural gardener) in box 3. no wonder the new beans can grow 2" in a day! i now understand the origins of the jack and the beanstalk story!

i've got 2 kinds of spinach and red lettuce going. i'm going to try shade cloth over them for the first time to see if i can extend them into the hot summer. but if not, i also have spinach beet (a nichols novelty), chard, the NZ and malabar spinaches, amaranth (hin choy), lambsquarters, and sorrel to provide greens through the summer.

i bought transplants of miniature tomatoes and sweet peppers from seed savers exchange and have also planted transplants of eggplant (regular and japanese).

i imagine that at some point, i will have more food than i can eat. i've been hearing about wheatville's new "gro-op" program--don't know the details yet, but it sounds like it may provide a way to share the excesses of my garden and partake of others' bounty. if so, how cool is that?

i also am planning to plant some gourds to grow up trees and fences and provide me some new and interesting containers. dippers, bowls, birdhouses, bottles--many possibilities await.

i plan to have a separate flower garden just outside my back door with several kinds of sunflowers, zinnia, and marigolds, all good cutting flowers for the house, office, and giving away.

i'd still like to find some holy basil to make tea with.

so, that's how i've been spending my time this glorious month of april. gardening, not blogging.

poem: From Blossoms, by Li-Young Lee

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the joy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

~ Li-Young Lee ~

(Rose)