Heading West

Fall Equinox (Mabon in Celtic tradition) is tomorrow, 9/22/21--a day of balance between light and dark, as we begin our seasonal descent. 

I'll mark the occasion by boarding a plane (yikes!) for Reno, NV, starting a 2-week adventure. The main focus is a week-long training through the School of Lost Borders on The Elder's Journey: 4 Shields of Eldering for Women. Here's a snip from the description:

Program Overview: We will explore how we can live as elder women in the world today. We will recall our personal stories, life experiences, and collected knowledge and discover ways to transform them into our wisdom and our medicine. We will explore an ancient means of looking into the mirror of nature (the Four Shields).  These teachings and the earth itself will help to bring what is needed to your own particular stage of this rich new frontier.

The program starts on Saturday, so I'll have a few days in Yosemite National Park, then a week in Big Pine, CA for the training. As of last week, we have 7 participants, 2 guides, and 2 assistants. We'll all be camping together with solo time in nature every day, followed by reflections and mirroring. There's an option of a solo overnight, probably on Wednesday 9/29.

Big Pine, California

This will be my 4th and probably final training through the School of Lost Borders. Wonderful people—wise and loving. I’ve done 2 visionfasts that involved taking a question into nature, spending 3-4 days and nights solo on the land, no shelter or food but water. Challenging and transformative!  this session offers solo time in nature every day, but only one solo overnight. that’s the level of challenge I’m up for!

 After the program ends on 10/1, I had planned to spend 4 days in Sequoia National Park. As you probably know, the park is currently closed due to fires. So we'll see. Ah, the times we're living in…

I know I’ll need to stay loose and expect the unexpected during this trip.  I hope to return with a bigger view, clearer sense of direction, and open heart, nourished by wild nature!

 

Turning 70

It's the evening before my 70th birthday. I'm getting ready to retire from my job at the University of MI after almost 20 years! We're in the midst of a pandemic. The world feels so uncertain. 

I had hoped that the prospect of turning 70 would cause me to write songs, create some amazing piece of performance art... Didn't happen yet, but the year is just beginning! these days, I find comfort in deep connections with family, friends, & kindred spirits new and old, and the lovely habitat Pattie has nurtured in our back yard. Cardinals, flickers, nut hatches, blue jays, downy woodpeckers, an occasional hawk. The feral cat hanging out on the porch, the hummingbird who shows up to enjoy our bee balm...

I have a lot to be grateful for--AND this is a really hard time to be alive. 

Blessings,

Jeanne

Being an Ally

Here's one example of what it looks like to be an ally!

Memories of My Dad

Slad’s Den

My dad (we called him "Slad") had a nice set-up in his tiny den, with a sliding door to give him privacy. His desk was tucked in the back corner of the room, opposite a shiny black manual typewriter beneath the bookcase. The bookcase was full of memorabilia. His Ohio State ceramic mug. A hole-in-one trophy. A rack of pipes from when he used to smoke. My favorite (I have it still) was the one with the pipe bowl carved into a grinning devil head with moustache and pointy beard. A can of pens, mechanical pencils, a special marker in the color of his current car to cover any nicks.

 A section of the bookcase was reserved for Slad’s various harmonicas. The echo harp with its wobbly tremolo. The chromatic harp with the little lever. The various Hohner marine band models in different keys.

Slad’s two-drawer metal file cabinet contained the important family papers. You never knew quite what he would pull out of there—your social security information, birth certificate, college scholarship. And of course all the current and past paperwork from his business enterprise: the Mac-Col golf ball, an all-rubber practice golf ball he co-invented with his colleague Jay Colville, with “less bounce to the ounce.”

 
The upright piano took up a good third of the available space. Mom had painted it in the popular faux antiquing style of the 60s, several shades of beige. I had an Andy Williams book that Slad and I liked to pull from in our music-making sessions, as well as some Broadway scores—Camelot, West Side Story, My Fair Lady. “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess was a reliable pick. And the Beatles songbooks, with some of our favorites like “And I Love Her”, “If I Fell”, Michelle ma belle. Other times, Slad would play to whatever caught his ear on the FM radio: Billy Joel, Ann Murray, or James Taylor.

Subterranean 

I loved the hours I spent with my dad at his basement workbench. As always, he was a skillful and patient teacher, helping me with various projects—a clothespin doll or miniature table. When he concentrated on a particularly delicate procedure, his breathing would audibly shift into a deeper pattern.

Slad kept his nails and nuts and bolts categorized in small glass jars screwed into a holder overhead. He had started with tools from his dad and Mom's dad, and added many of his own. My personal favorite was the electric sander. I got a kick out of rounding the edges of a piece of wood as the circular sandpaper whirred—instant transformation.

Slad’s workbench lives now in the basement of my own home, across from Mom’s sewing table and sewing machine. The other day as I was threading a needle, lost in concentration, I heard the rhythmic sound of deep, slow breathing. It was my own.

The Mackeys at Christmas

Photobook I made for Mom in 2011--Christmas pics across the years. Good times!

Click here to view this photo book larger

From Shutterfly.

mid-week check-in

Well, I pulled out the old Stretching VHS tape and gave it a try over the weekend.  Felt virtuous while doing it, but something about the exercises threw my neck out of alignment.  Hadn't felt that chronic pain in months (since I haven't been doing the kind of intensive writing that was required for Drop the Knife).  See, told ya so.  Well, on the plus side, the sore neck only lasted a day. 

Bill O'Hanlon (author of Do One Thing Different and Thriving Through Crisis) always has creative, solution-focused suggestions.  Here's his list for How to Keep Change Going:

• Remind yourself of the price you pay or will pay for not changing.
• Enlist friends or supporters to help you change, remind you, and keep you on track.
• Link change to positive consequences and activities (for example, I keep myself exercising regularly by listening to favorite audio programs when I walk).
• Don't attend to the feelings and preferences of the moment, but rather attend to the commitment to change or the new action or habit.
• Take the long-term rather than short-term view
• Take risks--remember the old saying:  If you fall on your face, at least you're heading in the right direction.

OK, so I'm going to re-read Bill's book, Do One Thing Different:  Ten Simple Ways to Change Your Life. And unlike the first time through, I'm going to do some of the exercises!

My current creative project: self-care

I've done my autobiographical performance piece, Drop the Knife: A Memoir-in-Song four times now:  U-M campus, Oxford OH, Takoma Park MD, back in Ann Arbor at Washtenaw Community College.  Stacie Chaiken, dramaturg and writing coach, is coming to town the weekend of 6/9, so we're going to do it for her as a house concert.

Anyway,  have been thinking about my next big creative project.  can't say I'm super-excited to face the truth.  Yeah, the truth is my new project is SELF CARE.  damn.  Am out of balance in body-mind-spirit.  Free-floating anxiety, body talking back about various aches and pains.  My old pal Penny says one thing she hates about getting older is how much more time people spend complaining about health problems.  ok, i won't do that--will just spend time writing about what i'm doing to feel better.

yeah, i'm going to blog about my efforts.  the first thing i've put into practice is daily herbal infusions.  no, i'm not hooked up to an IV.  I'm following the advice of Susun Weed, alternating between these four: comfrey leaf, nettles, red clover, and oat straw.  I make 2 one-quart bottles (pour boiling water over a handful of the herb, let it sit overnight, drink the next day).  Susun says you can feel better after 2 weeks.  I'm right at 2 weeks.  am i feeling better?  some of these are supposed to help with adrenal exhaustion, which i'm sure i've got.  no, i don't feel better yet.  but i'm hopeful.  i've got a bunch of great ideas, lots of resources for engaging in self-care.  here's the kicker:  ideas aren't enough.  i need to actually engage in the behaviors.  and that I WILL DO!

beano out.

It was suggested that I create a scrapbook to remind myself what's going well in my life, since I'm tending to be a bit negative these days.  Came across this drawing that just about sums it up--what's going well, I mean.  Oh yeah.

Ann Arbor Moth StorySLAM

Looking forward to Ann Arbor Moth StorySLAM this month at the Circus!

Roadmap

Here's a digital story I created in 2008 at a fab workshop of the Digital Storytelling Center.  Stefani Sese was a wonderful guide.  This is about the first time I publicly broke the rules, back in Springfield, Ohio at Wittenberg University.