The Spin of Time
We woke today an hour younger as our clocks set backward at midnight. It is a bonus to gain an extra hour of sleep. But how exactly are we “saving time?” Is time a thing that can be saved? Daylight Savings Time is a good reminder that time is a made up thing. Who calls …
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Book of the Month
Call Us What We Carry Amanda Gordon’s newest collection of poetry Call Us What We Carry is a beautiful weave of voices, sometimes gritty sometimes sublime, the many voices that make up this nation. She has a remarkable ability to go backward to the past while putting herself ahead into …
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Letter from Hurricane Ian
By Jennifer French A few days ago I dreamt that I was Wonder Woman. Well, not quite. I had Wonder Woman’s boomerang-like headpiece and was using it to fight bad guys. I had help, but my helpers couldn’t differentiate the bad guys from the good guys. And then the headpiece …
Read MoreStop Misogyny World Wide
The horrific death of Mahsa Amini on September 16 in Iran is a brutal reminder of how fear, disrespect and hatred of women perpetuates world-wide. The 22-year-old was killed in police custody by the Iranian Morality Police for wearing her hijab “incorrectly.” The Islamic decree that a woman’s hair must remain concealed epitomizes …
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On Learning to Love Loss
We have now come to a turning point in what feels to be a long long fade — a kind of toboggan slide downward— as my mom continues to lose her bearings and now, according to the staff around her, needs to be placed in another facility with full time nursing care around her. I can recall my mom standing on one leg in the kitchen years ago drinking bancha tea.
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Recommended Documentary of the Month
Surya and I just watched the Aug 9, 2022 Frontline special ‘Afghanistan Undercover’, a PBS documentary directed by the amazing Iranian journalist Ramita Navai. After the U.S exited the country one year ago, the Taliban in Afghanistan have pulled the human rights rug right out from underneath women in that society. It reveals just how devastating and exploitive fundamentalist religion can be and, when mixed with male domination, leaves women vulnerable to neglect and abuse.
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Caring for an Aging Loved One
Following my last entry in which I shared some reflections of my time with my 88 year old mother who suffers from dementiaI was pleased to hear back from some of you who shared your experiences attending to an aged parent. There are just so many trials and tribulations in witnessing the deterioration of the body-mind of someone we cherish.
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The Brain, Dementia and Yoga
I recall Iyengar once said, “the brain is the most difficult organ to adjust”. I am staying with my 88 year old mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s and dementia and this is apparent. After 45 years of yoga, my mother Susan’s body is healthy and stable but she cannot remember a thing
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Happy Interdependence Day
July 4th in the U.S.A is about baseball and Bruce Springsteen, the red glare of fireworks in the night time sky, and frankfurters on the grill (Beyond Meat, of course). On this “independence” day we realize that in truth, citizens of the globe are not separate but interwoven, not isolated …
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At Great Odds
What is your tolerance for the dumbfounding and the unpredictable? I hope it is not too low, for the world today is full of wind storms, fluctuating markets, hackers and trolls. Someone recently said that on the time line of maturation, humanity is still in its adolescence.With brains not fully developed, people are erratic and do things without thinking at all.
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