Miracles of stone masonry and survival

 Photograph by Tony Martin

This German Baroque Catholic Church is located on Dauphine St. in New Orleans.

My dear friend Tony Martin, who is fascinated by details, took this shot. He showed me the picture yesterday.

This morning, as I drove to a new coffee shop to meet a potential employer, I rode past this church and I actually saw the details for the first time. Things that are right in our field of vision are often not really seen.

I wonder at this 1858 masonry and how it has stood up to hurricanes Betsy, Katrina, and Issac.
Not to mention a disastrous fire that destroyed the altar, the majestic ceiling art, and the pipe organ.

Yet, here this structure houses three language communities: English, Spanish and those who need sign language. I've been told that the donated organ is loud enough to vibrate the floor so that the deaf  community can feel the music.

The altar was replaced with one from St Peter and St Paul's Church. The stain glass was repaired by the same company from St. Louis that installed some of the original glass. There are statues from other churches and a newly dedicated statue to Blessed Father Seelos who assisted with the Yellow Fever Epidemic and died of the same in 1867. He is being considered for sainthood.

So much to learn from this historic landmark. Here are just a few themes that come to mind:

• Survival
• Gifted masons
• Volunteers
• Diversity
• Overcoming adversity
• Sainthood
• Dedication
• Devotion
• Resilience

Why not be on the look out for a great work of art in plain sight? Marcel Proust says,

"The real voyage of discovery consist not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
http://www.neworleanschurches.com/stvincent/neworgan.htm
Read about the musical gift.

The Dali Lama and Jazz Fest

A blended duet.
Peace through breath.
Both exhaled through instruments:
One man made;
The other God made.

Yes, they meld in New Orleans!
Just like coffee and chicory;
Red beans and rice,
Peaceful harmonics.
Both eliciting smiles,
Both deeply satisfying:
A sense of
Hope, renewal and revival,
Resilience!

What's with phone solicitation?

This is me JUMPING out of a perfectly good airplane.

Do I look like I need a walk-in bath tub?

With all of the on-line sources, can't they see that I am a vibrant 64 year old who does yoga daily, weight trains three days a week and does aerobic exercise 3 days a week?

I just received a phone call about installing a walk-in bath tub! So here's to all of you who can't wait to sell me secondary insurance to Medicare, safety devices to protect me from falling, and hearing devices so that I can better hear your demands.

Meditation on Aging

Slipping out of our skin,

Like a snake…

It becomes excessive

A baggy shell

No longer tightly encased

It slips right off;

Sagging so that we can

Let Go.

Release the former shape.

The images unrealized,

The ideals undiscovered-

Slinking around,

Moving slowly

Because the bag has slipped,

Unleashing its contents.

We recall:

Memories-

Of beginnings and endings

Merged together,

Clutched to our hearts

Which Beat

so

much

Slower:

As if to signal the end

Only to dissolve

Into the great

Beginning

New Born..

Tight skin,

Knowing…

It must repeat itself.

City of Leonardo

Sans dome to worship in.

A square.

A monastery turned museum.

You painted the divine.

You sculpted and designed.

Your ideas spun into defenses and counter-defenses

Pontoon bridges:

Men walking on water;

Propulsion, evolution

Tornadoes of the mind.

Conjuring up the unimaginable..

Notebooks loaded and coded.

Your indelible mark on Milan,

And the world

Did you see your greatness?

Did you commune with the Divine?

Did your ideas spin you out of control?

Did you delight in the ordinary?

While envisioning the extraordinary?

11/18/2012 Milan, Italy

Drunk on her 35th birthday

"Where is your Mother?"

"I don't know.The hospital bed has wheel and she was in quite a state when I last saw her." We imagined crazy dialogues to accompany the out cast hospital bed.

In New Orleans, you might see anything around the corner from your house.
This evening after a Mozart "Coronation Mass" concert ,the "Million Dollar Quartet" Musical, a glass of wine, some taleggio cheese and reporting that the" birthday girl" from the end of the bar was not fit to motor home we left the Delachasie Wine Bar located on the corner of St. Charles and Delachaise.

The birthday girl, who was celebrating number 35, was wearing a white bustier with an attached guarder belt. The four straps of the guarder belt were swinging in the breeze over a  very filmy white cotton skirt. She was precious while seated. When she got up to leave, her cowboy boots could hardly support her. She swayed one way and the guarders another as she lurched towards the door. We found her outside getting some fresh air with her face pressed against the wire mess of the black lacquered tabletop. Her girl friend was patting her right hand. 

When I asked how they were getting home, I heard through slurred speech that the friend was biking the two of them home, I became concerned.

I quickly return to the bar where I know the tender and reported that, "The birthday girl is totally cassied* and the plan is to ride a bike home." This report resulted in the other bar tender giving them both large glasses water and calling for a cab. Thank you good bartenders!

Reporting done, Laurie and I entered her BMW for the 3 block ride home. We past the corner of Delachaise and Constance and found a hospital bed equipped with clean sheets with a cardboard sign that read, "Free" attached to the sheets.
What a story lies beneath these sheets. We considered dragging the bed back to the wine bar for the birthday girl to sleep it off, but took pictures instead and toy with all of the stories that we could make up about why the bed sat on the corner.


* In south Louisiana we used this corrupted term to mean Drunk!

Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” 

Where am I with that?
My dear friend, Dee, said that "we are all just one doctor's visit away from a dreadful diagnosis."
Is this a miracle, too?
Yes. It is a way to notify our egos that we are not the one's in control.
There is a higher self which does direct and guide us.

Noise in Our heads

Like smoke;

Rises from a marsh fire,

Filling the air

With decomposed heaviness;

Life’s warning signal:

BEWARE:

Fire from old wounds harm.

Rise up,

Purify the smoke,

Leave the air free,

For the safety of others,

To Breathe.

French Quarter Festival

Music, art, food, drinks, dancing, colorful people....
What's not to like about New Orleans French Quarter Festival?

Yes, there are crowds, but the music is FREE!
Dancing with abandonment to a Jazz ensemble from Switzerland, Kermit Ruffin, Charmine Neville, Washbaord Chaz, Ronnie Kole, and unnamed groups who just play on street corners without a stage or a sponsor. Their buckets ready for your dollar donations. We are all performers.
Do we hear our songs? What are the lyrics that we would sing?
What type of music would we dance to?

Zesting with the Festing

Trials of powdered sugar;

From grandmother’s house

Makes way for Bloody Marys;

Strawberry Abita beer and crayfish cheesecake.

Street pounding rhythms.

Music laid down and pounded out-

One-foot-in-front of the other.

Side step, handkerchief drawn:

Ready to dance.

Young, but, mostly old

Stompin’
Hands held high:

Grooving to Zyedco beats.

Full fledged smiles

Years dissolve as the tunes progress.

Strangers waving 2^nd lines,

Encouraging hip swinging movements

On-n-on,

One mo’ time!

2 for 1 beer,

Yeah you’re right.

Crunk’n the Who dat Nation.

Release, relief, regality

No more Katrina heartbreak,

Just the heart beating

Wave after wave of 

Revival…..

Alice Neel- Self Portrait

www.aliceneel.com

A Frequent Flyer at the Botox Bar

Wandering around and sampling;

A little restylane here,

A chemical peel there.

It’s a non-self-service costly bar,

Where the selections expand to meet your greed.

“Do I want to continue this merry-go-round?”

OR “Do I dare to get off?”

“What will I look like without the extra helpings?”

“Will my chin slide down my neck?”

“Will my eye lids obstruct my vision?”

“Where have I learned to be so vain?”

At the Drug stores as a child hanging around

The Magazine rack:

Glamour, Vogue, Teen Miss,

All telling me the Secrets to Beauty and success;

None foretold the cost and the discomfort.

The annoyance of our own skin.

From head to toe we run from the mirror of age,

Rather than embracing out skin:

And beholding ourselves as Goddess.

We return to the Botox Bar,

And attempt to refill our plate

Always walking away hungry and emptier.

November  13, 2010

Waking up after a chemical peel

Hatch an idea today

Each morning I practice what Julie Cameron suggest in her book, The Artist Way. Ms. Cameron says that in order to get to the creative part of our Brian we must silence the critical part. Writing three pages of whatever is going on in that soup mixture in our heads allows us to be freed from the constant Judge which labels all of our wonderment as  foolish. This silencing of the Judge encourages the creative genius to step out.It takes some time to accept that their is genius here right inside of us.

 I attended a week long Entrepreneurial Workshop sponsored by the Idea Village in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago. The young entrepreneurs must have learned this approach to creativity. There were so many ideas bouncing around the rooms that I felt the energy. The creative energy that exists in all of us.

What would happen if we had classroom incubators? Church incubators? Office incubators? What kind of ideas could we generate if we silenced the critical part of our brains each day?

I remember being fascinated in the Chicago Natural History Museum watching baby chicks hatch.
I was 40 years old and stood with the children riveted by this display. The chicks, once hatched, all clumped together. It seemed that they needed the support of one another to stand.

We are not chicks.....we are eagles who think that we are chicks....

Spread those awesome wings and FLY.

Gandhi's Spinning Wheel

http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&p=gandhi+with+spinning+wheel
Gandhi' and his Symbolic Spinning Wheel

While watching Ben Kingsley, the actor who plays Gandhi in the film by the same name, illicit the spirit of  Mahatma Gandhi I thought about the symbols of teaching. 

Gandhi spun for an hour every morning, usually around 4 A.M. He believed that it was very important for everyone in his ashram and he encouraged all to spin even Margaret Bourke-White, the Life Magazine photographer who took this photo.

When I began teaching in 1970 one large aspect of the classroom was the Blackboard. The Blackboard became a green board and now is a white board. The old Blackboard was eraseable, large and a source of information and punishment. None of our current students are required to write lines on the board like Bart Simpson, but maybe I should stop and write 100 times that " I will promise to be peace." 
I spent over 35 years trying to facilitate peace between students, parents, teachers, staff and the community. Now I must spin a web of peace around myself. Thank you Mahatma for the daily lesson.

Since leaving the classroom in December, I have been searching for a new job. This has not been a peaceful process. 

Retraining the teacher for a new job seems to be like getting rid of those old blackboards. I am stuck in the teacher mold. Getting rejections is not an easy thing, yet I must plod along looking for a different job all the while promoting peace.

Can one teach an old teacher new tricks?

Watching turtles

I watched two turtles race around Bayou St. John while I was waiting for a friend.
I had never observed turtles race. It was more like a swim ahead and to the right and wait, and swim ahead to the left and wait. More of  a turtle dance than a race.
I recalled a time when I stopped traffic on Marconi Drive, near the City Park entrance, to assist a turtle in crossing two lanes of one-way traffic.
Deciding to cross the road during rush hour traffic was more a death wish than a leisurely stroll across the street. I wondered if the old turtle tried to make the trip the next day and did not find a driver willing to stop traffic to assist the passage.
I am grateful for all of those conscientious people in my life who have been willing to stop traffic for me. Those who have been willing to sit with me in times of anxiousness; those who have held my hand when I had no idea what to do.
Thank you turtle for the gentle reminder.

http://www.lettersfromabus.com/117TouringNewOrleans/117TouringNewOrleans.html

Wise Fool or Naked Emperor?

Laughing at myself is often difficult, but necessary. Playing the fool is a good thing, not just for one day.
I dreamed about telling the Emperor of Education that he had no clothes on only to wake and realize that I needed to begin with myself.
How do I act like the Emperor? Do I think that my years in education make me a guru?
How am I like the arrogant king?

This morning I meditated on a reading for April 1st in the book A Pocketful of Miracles, by Joan Borysenko:

        "Fools are often much wiser that scholars because they see through the eyes of a child and are not too
        ' smart' to notice when the emperor has no clothes- even when the emperor is themselves!"

Enjoy this fanciful song and video, "Pocketful of Miracles."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bVZ8FSd8bw

Apologies to Hans Christian Andersen