Personal transformation

“Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is in us.  The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.” M. Williamson,  A Course in Miracles

It is a three-day weekend, and for one morning of life in my sixth decade, I am choosing to write, as opposed to look at my email.  Perhaps later, when I do skim through the 75 or so messages, delivered to ‘alert’ me to the dysfunction of American society, I will begin to unsubscribe to half of them, and dedicate that time to ruminating and writing.

  I have been relieved of a time- consuming academic job at work. It is the type of administrative thing with a lot of ‘academise’ hoo haw that kept me from becoming a teacher forty years ago.  (Or was that my desire to be on stage?)  I will still be involved in this school accreditation, but not as a “chair”.  Hallelujah.  Thus, those other eight hours of my Holiday weekend can be devoted to me and my wonderful soon-to-be sixty-five year old self.

First rumination  - Personal transformation. As I grow ‘wiser’ (please note foregoing the use of the term  ‘older’) this spiritual journey of transformation is the thing.  Joyously, I have found someone to act as my spiritual guide. Jagadish, a guy who grew up in the San Fernando Valley, studied in India for 30 years or so, and then returned to help ‘evolve the planet’. 

His tradition is ‘Rasik’.  Apparently, there are all sorts of Hindi sects, Rasik being one of them.  Jagadish holds no judgment over who is the Godhead; his mission is to deepen your relationship with God, be that Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed or whomever.

 This appeals to me.  It has always seemed to me that all masters are teaching similar lessons.  Simply, they are clothed in different ways to approach their different cultures.  His humility speaks to me too, as does his gentle humor. 

His 90 year old mother is always at his gatherings.

 “Sylvia, can you hear me?” he projects his voice.

“Drink some water.” 

Sylvia’s eyes twinkle as she replies, “Yes sir”

Sylvia is sharp, taught sacred Hawaiian dancing in younger years, and is a cutie.  I project that one of my loved ones might nurture me in such a way.

Last weekend I attended a two-day workshop at his home in the Valley. This is about the fifth session I have had with Jagadish.  This intensive was with ‘Sri Ganesh’ – a Hindi deity who removes obstacles, and in that tradition is always invoked for prosperity.  Ganesh is depicted as an  elephant figure. One of the tusks is straight, clearing any obstacles, the other is curved – just in case you might need to re-think whatever kind of prosperity you want. Sometimes what we want comes with challenges that have to be addressed.

The aftermath is great happiness. My heart feels more open, fuller, more able to cope with the insanity of my workplace – the ‘joint’, a medical prison facility where I teach GED and Adult Education.

Of course whenever I do these ‘woo woo’ things, there is my sister’s voice in the back of my head.

 ‘Delou, you are always doing this kind of thing. “ 

“You always say, ‘Life is good,’ but you’re just running away from the deep sadness in your heart from Daddy dying when you were five.”

Once again, I question the validity.  Will these ‘sacred objects’ (blessed cards,  sacred blue lights) really do the thing? Or is it just my belief that they will facilitate the change in my circumstances?

And of course, what does that matter? Truly?  If I am feeling lighter in my heart, laughing more with my inmates as we go through the mandated 15 minute stretching exercises each class period,  feeling more optimistic,  why should I question with my monkey mind?   

I note that one of most interesting things that resulted from last weekend’s work is -  I am wanting to let go of any other meditative practices.  I find  so many of these discussions fascinating and there are hundreds of them online. I have been eating them up since New York days, Silva Mind Control, Seth Speaks, Tom Kenyon and the Hathors.  They speak of the change that is upon us; we have all come here to be part of that change. Get on board with meditation, or tapping, or positive affirmations. 

Surely, Williamson’s quotes and the ‘Course in Miracles’ was one of the earlier ‘enlightenment’ paths, in the ‘Age of Aquarius’.  But of course, enlightenment has been there for us since man first evolved.  We just have been hiding behind the veil making our way forward.

At any rate, although I wasn’t much of a church goer as a child – except for the summer and winter I was an actor in the local church plays – it is now apparent that the pursuit is to find the way to God.  The clearer that becomes, the more all the other ‘manifestation’ issues make their way.

At its center I no longer need to be looking for that ‘soulmate’ connection.  Maybe it will come front and center sometime soon, for now it is enough to guide my heart toward opening, period.  Guess what?  It is feeling just that.

September was such a busy time! And the madness spirals on!

Day Four of my admitting that I really do have the head cold of the decade.  (Not the century because I haven’t lived that long, at least not in this incarnation. ) I have been held hostage to not keeping up with my usual regimen of supplements.  This summer I was lauding myself all over the place because of how incredibly healthy I had been. 

Then September arrived, - a month in which I worked only four days! – and the regimen went to the dogs.  Lilah came to visit in SF for a week. We played in the city, discovered the mosaic wonder of the Moraga and 17^th St steps, slid down a wondrous concrete slide in the Castro district then ran off to SLO and Morro Bay. We both have wonderful friends and memories of the Central Coast.  On return, I worked three of those four days,  then left for two and a half weeks to play Grammy with my fourth grandchild, Penelope Joyce.  (PJ’s name and nickname both play tribute to my sis and bro.) 

How sweet a newborn is.  And it is such a blessing.  There was a truce that seemed to have been called between all the siblings.  The usual quarreling was there, but lessened as each one gathered around to kiss the baby’s head, ask if they could hold her.  And a new concerted effort came to quiet the household.  “Shh the baby’s sleeping.”

Grammy arrived on PJ’s sixth day of life. I jumped right in, buying groceries, planning meals, cooking, washing dishes, getting the kids to school and picking them up.  The ten minute walk up the hill to school was a great opportunity to quiz Eddy on his multiplication tables.  Sometimes we would do a competition of subtraction so Ava could join in.  She is such a student already.  At seven I suspected she picked up on 70% of the times tables just by osmosis. 

Eddy began ‘fall ball’. At eleven, and only in his second season of baseball, he has found a calling with pitching and I got to watch him strike out eight to nine players per game of the three I attended.  At last he has found a talent; that so cheers me.  All of the Shanks found their passions early on – PJ with his sports, Joyce with her arts, and I with the musical theatre jones – and it was such a deciding factor for all of us.  It seems that for this new generation the passion is only for material things – video games, ipods, things.  So Eddy doesn’t have a great passion yet for baseball, but how terrific to watch him smile as he hits the ball, makes it to first and flashes a real smile of “Wow, I did it well!”  It’s a rarity for me to see.  Hallelujah, there’s hope! And I am so partial to my firstborn grandson. 

Being the domestic for my daughter and her kids is fulfilling. For two weeks anyway.  Hopefully,  Nicole picked up some new and easy cooking ideas.  We found the fresh produce stand right next to Eddy’s baseball field. The Silver Queen corn from Ventura almost rivals the Ohio corn of my youth. (It’s missing the worms, which maybe isn’t such a good thing.)  Nicole discovered the wonder of melted cheese and tomato sandwiches.  All of us had gourmet pizzas concocted with the help of Trader Joe’s.  Easy pot roast, chicken pot pie, chicken soup, stir fried zucchini with tomatoes and garlic and onion.  September is a wonderful time to cook. There is so much bounty from the good earth. 

During four days of Grammy time, I flew back to Illinois to be with my best friend from college days. Birdie had just lost her husband and I knew I had to be there for her. Although I was stretching the finances,  the older I become the more I recognize the value of these dearest old friends.  To honor the heart of those we love,  as each of us moves to transition. And/or as my mom used to say “It’s hell getting’ old, Dee Dee.”   Or was it her musings on becoming a widow and how she no longer had friends like before?  . . . Ah, that’s another blog- 

On my drive back to SF and my work life – absolutely amazing my supervisor let me take off this time -  there was a stop in San Luis for the wedding of my wild and wonderful acting/improv comedy queen LC.  (However was I able to have such an abundance of life in one month – from new birth to death to weddings, etc,  etc,  etc?)LC’s wedding processional was a song she wrote for her husband Rhys when she first met him and knew that he was the one.  There were half a dozen of my theatre buddies there – all 30ish – and that was a sweet reunion. I probably need to throw myself back into that world for the infusion of youth and fun.  I am the ‘grande dame’ in that group. (“How long have you been doing this?” one young director queried me in SLO.  “Hunh?? What?”)  Anyway, LC wore a traditional white gown with her cowboy boots.  All the ladies in waiting donned boots too. This was a joyous celebration.And of course I sang "La Vie en Rose" to a standing ovation.  Love those theatre types!

It was during this whirlwind of being ‘Mom’ again, I lost track of doing my vitamins, juicing, green food supplements.  I returned back to work for one week, then flew down to LA the following weekend to watch my younger daughter in “The Last Five Years.”  I was sneezing prior; I attributed that to allergies.  Keep on pushin!

I rented a car and drove to the 5100 feet of Lake Arrowhead, the performance site, which was exquisite.  I hadn’t really been so high since Boulder days.  Another world, as Lilah put it.  “Things are just different up here, “ she told me,  “that’s why I haven’t been calling you.  No fastfood, one Stater Brothers store.  That’s it.”  Lots of towering pines, circuitous roads, a lack of road signs, changing signs, to get lost in.   Lilah had one day of snow the previous week.  Yeow, what a drive. I was cursing my daughter all the way through the brown, brown, brown and more brown from LAX to Redlands and then up this mountain.  This better be worth it, I groused.  And it was!

The younger Lilah was so very luminous in this two person musical.

The show documents the last five years of a marriage, of a brilliant new writer, on his way up, and his less than confident wife, whose career as an actress is much less promising. I could hardly sleep the night after.  It is a show in which the man usually outshines his spouse.  Jason Robert Brown wrote it about his own marriage after all, so naturally, he was more sympathetic toward himself than his wife.  One story has it that Brown intentionally wrote the female character so his wife could never perform it. The musical chops were too difficult.  I had seen the show many years earlier and remembered not caring much for the wife’s role – too whiny, not sympathetic.

However, this was Lilah’s show. She opens with “I’m still hurting” and it was all I could do to stop from running to the stage to hug her.  The truth, the vulnerability, the emotions and the singing were stunning. Every other song, there she was, capturing our hearts.  I watched my girl, Steve’s girl (She is the synthesis of both) and said, “Yes, she’s got it.”  And I was not the only one who was riveted.  - We will see what tomorrow brings.

And now I am in San Francisco enveloped in thick pea soup early morning fog.  I won’t attempt a swim today – Geez it’s been eight days since my last watery stretch.  I feel cheated, but don’t dare to chance it, too pooped.  It is a wondrous thing to have a life so full – And I didn’t even mention the job, which IS a whole other blog itself.  Xoxoxo  Delilah

San Francisco Women

The summer seems to have flown and I have barely written.  I continue to lead my weekend life as if I were on vacation. There’ve been lots of visitors and my adventures have been many. At one of those weekend adventures – the Cindy Sherman exhibit at SF MOMA – I lost my camera.  That does put a crimp because I a picture really adds to the tale. I’ll just have to cut and paste someone else’s. 

Let’s talk about Cindy Sherman, the rage of NYC when her exhibit first appeared earlier in the year.  She photographs only herself, in various personas, dressed in different costumes through many different eras –from historical times through the fifties and onward. She’s about my age and her photos comment on the stereotypes that women might fall into.  The message has been the same as it was in her twenties.- Women lead lives of quiet desperation, perhaps. I certainly was plenty depressed after viewing the exhibit.

I and my two other friends all thought it was time for Cindy to get over it. Forty years of the whine is enough.  It is a young person’s lament when they are discovering who they are.  Sure, I went through my period of wanting to be a bombshell and then, I grew up.  There are other women who perhaps still live in some sad faux reality (I’ll try to copy Sherman as the Beverly Hills dame– or should I include a pix of my one-time school mate Ann (Davies) Romney?) but as I regard my female peers, they are self realized for the most part and on this side of miraculous.  I also wondered if Cindy were gay and had not yet reconciled issues with her own sexuality.  

I much preferred a screening of “connected – the film” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLjcuDDTUTo&list=UU5nHqW7f_1xo82eqnY1xDjw&feature=player_embeddedwith%20  with the director Tiffany Shlain. Ms. Shlain is the techie who created the “Webby Awards” and is considered by Time magazine to be one of the top ten women in media who represent the future.  She very much believes in the technology’s ability to create a fully realized inter-connected world.     This film, which began as such, took a slightly different turn, when her father was diagnosed with brain cancer.  Shlain’s “Connected” realized not only the internet’s connectivity, but also that of the heart and relationship.  (SIDE NOTE: Father Leonard Shlain was a reknown  physician and surgeon, who wrote much about art and physics, and interestingly, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess . His thesis was that women once ruled the earth, but when the written word came along, men became the alpha dogs.) 

Shlain fielded questions after the film, which was sponsored by “ewip” exceptional women in publishing.  http://www.ewip.org/  I am thinking of getting involved in their March conference.  Many fascinating women were there – all much younger – Moira and I were one of a few 60 year olds - really connected to media and the business world. I asked Tiffany if she were aware of the intelligence of the heart (heartmath). I thought that would give some new insight.  

 This further sparked a conversation with Mary Vincent, who is much involved in the green movement. Just back from Bhutan and investigating their humane world, Vincent, a “thought leader of sustainable development”,  began with  green star solution, http://www.greenstarsolution.com/, which further spawned “gratitude gourmet .http://www.gratitudegourmet.com/blog.html.  Amazing.  All these cutting edge women and I get a glimpse of it all in ‘my city by the Bay.” Lucky me!

Work, Shows The Giants

My friends from the land of teaching  and beyond - 

      I hope your teaching year is getting off to a grand start. I was trying to assess with Deborah Tobola if my new job was better, less stressful than teaching at the joint??? That's a crap shoot. It is a state job. The pay is 2/3rd of my teaching salary, and the learning curve continues to grow. As soon as I get one thing under my belt, it seems they add something new to the mix. Or there's another training that alerts me to how little I know this job. When there's a 200+ page manual of regulations by which you must 'cite' the facilities for their deficiencies (Talk about political correctness) And it's written in Legalese, there's a lot to learn. 

    Since I take a lap top and printer into the field, there's a lot of computer finickiness around which one has to tiptoe. And language must be precise, reports must be submitted in an ultra specific format.  The department reorganized first of July and caseloads changed.  Oakland picked up 700 Senior facilities form another office, and although one Analyst, who had done senior work before said it was a snap, OY VEY!  There are always medication issues.  A lot of auditing of medical records, daily delivery of those medicines, actually looking at med labels, numbers, dates, dosages, making sure everyone has a prescription, and that it has not expired. Talk about tedium. 

     It is always changing, challenging. I put in lots of overtime without getting paid (I know I did that at Fremont - sometimes at the joint)  Most times if I want to get out of the office and into the field - always the preference - overtime is a must to prepare for going into the field.  Consequently, I leave at 7 am and often don't get home until 7 pm.

   But I've found an outdoor pool in a pocket of Brisbane, four miles from my house, that is generally sunny when I get home and I can get in some outdoor laps. (yay!)  Weekends have so many possibilities and seems lots of people are passing through. A girlfriend I had not seen since 8th grade, a family and school friend, came through 2 weeks ago and yet another Daytonian arrives here next week.  

My brother called at 4 pm yesterday and after ten minutes of chitchat said he was in SF. I thought he was kidding - That is often one of his ploys. But no, he was going to the Giants game, did I want to go?  Sure!  as long as it's not football, I'm down.  So I found my way on public transit to AT&T park (on the waterfront - I thought it was in some SF 'Wrigley Field' kind of area. Three hours of one on one time with my brother hasn't happened since my sister passed away, and I was so incoherent at the time -  So, the Giants are easy to find, the stadium is gorgeous and we had great seats. My bro said the sailboats in the Bay wait for when the homerun gets knocked out of the stadium and land in their boat!. Damn, can those guys hit the ball far! And I understood the exhilaration of watching a sporting event with 41,000 other people. Usually I prefer the 100+ cabaret venues - like my Tuesday night encounter with 85 year old musical singer Barbara Cook, but it was fun. My bro was very aware how add I was in terms of following the plays, and I said it would be like when he gets dragged off to a theatrical performance with me. . . .Don't think my brother has cared about any of my singing since I lived in SF 40 years ago.  Oh well, We all have our passions. (And I also saw on stage "War Horse' which was stunning, and a heart felt one man show "Humor Abuse. " That was a memoir of a son learning to be a clown, growing up in the Pickle Family Circus, working as the second banana to his father's leading clown. It was marvelous and at 37 the guy still does back flips!

  So that's my lengthy run down.  Think I'll copy, paste and blog it.  Come visit me in SF.  I am a city girl!   xo Delilah

Gay Pride 2012

            I found that $20 from several weeks ago, as I was cleaning out my mail basket. Gee, I found everything I needed plus that $20.  I marvel that when I was a college student in Boulder, my grocery expenses were $20 for the week. Probably my mother sent me $100 for the month.  Michael and Birdie and Sam and I would recycle empty coke bottles so we could go have a chewy steak on a Sunday night up on the Boulder Hill, or perhaps a hamburger, fries and  beer at the Sink.  Which goes to say that $20 seems to be equivalent to $5 back in 1970 terms, unless of course you frequent the dollar store, or SF’s Daiso, where everything and anything goes for $1.50.  (That place is better than Ross! And I will happily escort you there on your next SF excursion.)

             It is the Fourth. The sun shines beautifully in Colma. (Which was sadly non-existent for my grandson’s five day visit over the previous weekend.)  Soon I will venture into the gaiety of this holiday, San Francisco style.  I keep hoping the clear weather will prevail, so I can watch fireworks on this side of the Bay. Oakland is always clearer and warmer.

            I want to speak about the Pride Parade, 2012, San Francisco.  In 1973, perhaps ’74, I marched with my gal friends in the Gay Parade in NYC, which was four or five years after Stonewall. In the 1969 era gays who marched wore sunglasses and quite possibly suits (!).  Later we marched because it was the right thing to do.  We were proud. We wanted to make a statement. It was a bit scary, but it was good.

            Saturday I ventured over to the Mission where ‘Dykes on Bikes’ had their late afternoon precursor to Sunday’s events. I missed the opening, where there must’ve been a lot of motorcycles, and I joined the demonstration midway through. It was reminiscent – though more open – of that seventy’s era.  I walked behind two young, very lovely gals, bare breasted, who had taped their nips with gold tape in an X design.  Oh for the days my boobs stood so erect!  Many women on the side rose signs above their heads which read, “Flash your tits”. There were a lot of women in this parade. But it was nothing in comparison to the main event during Sunday’s parade.

 During the 2012 parade, there were women everywhere. One editorial ventured that all the young teenage girls had come out in their rainbow voile tutus, just because. Yes, seemed there were more women than men, but maybe that was because all the guys were in the streets. I could hardly get near the parade to see anything.  I watched a lot of it on local PBS station later that night – after the Gay Pride awards, which also had local TV coverage for two hours.  This event’s turnout definitely eclipsed St. Paddy’s Day in SF, and in San Francisco, that is going a long way.  The St. Paddy’s Parade didn’t seem to have that corporate buy in, which was much more a Union event this year. - So what? Irish people don’t buy as much as gays these days?  Chase had a float. Macy’s passed out fans that read ‘Pride and Joy”. Chipotle sponsored another float.  Virgin Air even! (And that’s going a long way in a gay parade) Let’s be in style. Glitter and be gay.

I am glad that there is that kind of recognition of the gay community. And in another way, it made me sick – because of the pandering for the dollar, which is so endemic in our culture.  I wonder if those young teenagers are aware?

In SF I encountered a few – not a lot, but a few, naked fellows, who sported nothing but a cock ring.  I would add that this past week, I was on the SF embarcadero and encountered half a dozen fellows, bicyclists, in the same birthday suit plus cock ring attire, (Is the cock ring work like a jock strap when you are on a bike?) who were resting and sunning themselves in similar garb. No police were there to harass them, just another – obviously straight – cyclist who cried out with a lot of aggravation, “For God sakes, save that for someplace else, won’t you?”  My daughter and granddaughter were sorry to have missed it.

Life in San Francisco is so whimsical, in some ways. The color of the houses, the mix of all the peoples. A lightheartedness prevails, but it is still one of the most expensive places to live in the USA and one that is driven by economics, technologically driven these days.   In the end of course we must look to our hearts and discount the packaging around it.  Long live love. And if it’s only sex, may it be safe!

The Cemetery Crawl

This blogging business is something that needs weekly attention.  My adventures are so varied from one week to the next. And I need to be studying my French lyrics for my Bastille Day gigs and Gay Pride is calling.  Ah alas, tis hard to be so diverse in one’s talents! And to live in a place that has so much going on all the time.  I s’pose every city has as much happening; it all depends on what your interests are.

So last week I went on a cemetery crawl. 

 On some other sunny weekend I had biked to the Colma Historical Museum, where I picked up my new bumper sticker “It’s great to be alive in Colma”  (1500 above ground – and I’m one of the few not employed by the cemeteries - 1.5 million below)  I also got clarification on all those bodies that were ‘disinterred’ from their San Francisco graves, then’reinterred’ in Colma.  The process began in 1900, when the city declared no more burials would take place in San Francisco. The property was too valuable! Colma was chosen because of transportation access, and the train stopped at all the cemetery sites.  In 1914 when the first eviction notices were sent, many bodies were dumped into mass graves because families could not afford the $10 to have the remains relocated. There was much controversy with the church because of disturbing of the souls. 

 The final leg of it happened in the late thirties when 90,000 bodies were taken from Laurel Hill and Calvary Cemeteries. These were Catholic cemeteries and all of the exhuming required the presence of a priest and a health inspector. Also bodies had to be reinterred the same day they were disinterred. Yeow. Too much information???

Although Wyatt Earp and his exotic dancer wife – a stunning Jewess, Josephine, whose breasts peeking through the opaque wrapper reminded me of Isadora Duncan – are buried right across the street in the Salem Memorial, (How perfect for my Daytonian friends, where Salem Avenue was home to Beth Israel Temple and Temple Israel, and I had plenty of friends there) I chose to crawl around “Pet’s Rest”.  Yes, finally we’re getting to the meat of things.

Pet’s Rest, as you can tell from the sign, began in 1947.  And people are so much more sentimental about their pets than their families!  The Tobins had a plot where five furry family friends were laid to rest. Near the back of the cemetery there was a mausoleum of sorts – Cinder blocks with pet ashes and a tile with the pet’s vitals on it.  

One animal was 5 months old.  And another was in reverence for  my Tehachapi dog Shanna.  Pictures of the creatures made their way on to tombstones. . . . I wondered if my sister would’ve had Meeghee interred in such a place???  Too late to answer that one.

This one is for Danahy!

Just about the right time frame of Shanna too!

Behind Pet’s Rest is another cemetery with a lot of the Eastern Orthodox crosses. As I make my daily walk down El Camino Real to Bart,  I see plenty of these.  The top cross was for Pontius Pilate and the INRI inscription,  middle cross was to support the weight of the body and the lower cross is a ‘foot support’ Did Jesus get one of these??  Part of the slant at the bottom has to do with if you were righteous you would ascend to Heaven and if not, you would drop into Hell. I am a little vague on this.  But I include a pix because it is new to me, although it dates from 6th century!