two months from today....

Photo found at the Library of Congress' Flickr Page.

Two months from today, I will be returning from a trip to Ireland and Scotland. Two years ago I went to Paris, and this is the follow-up trip.

Last time I had three friends who went with me. This time I will be "alone", meaning I don't know any of the other people going WELL, but I traveled with them last time in Paris; or most of them.

I recently saw, and am now reading "Eat, Pray, Love", by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's like yoga for your soul. She went on her own spiritual pilgrimage, and I am enjoying her story; it's vastly entertaining.

A current favorite quote is her telling the reader about how the Italian language came to be. In explaining how some folks got together and decided to use the most beautiful dialect, they selected Dante's, "He felt Latin was corruppted, elitist language, and that the use of it in serious prose had 'turned literature into a harlot' by making universal narrative into something that could be bought with money, through the privilege of an aristocratic education." This solidifies my belief in the right of people in general to universal education. I do feel this is a right. Go, Liz! =)

I am not exactly sure what reading this book now, or being in this place has to do with my upcoming trip, except that I am ready to embark on another adventure. I've made plans by myself, to ensure I encounter interesting and varied people, and I can't wait.

"Still, despite all this, traveling is the great true love of my life. I have always felt, ever since I was sixteen years old and first went to Russia with my saved-up babysitting money, that to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice". OMG, she gets it. I feel this way! My route is more circuitous, I think I love traveling so much because I wasn't able to do a lot of it in my early life. We went on small trips, and I adore my mom, that she did what she could with what she had, but until I was over 40, I'd never left the North American continent. I've still never been to Mexico and have been to British Columbia. If you would ever have asked me if I thought I'd make it to Canada first, I would have laughed at you.

I was supposed to be an exchange student when I was 16. I was supposed to go to Germany for a month of the Summer. The partners were picked out, but I was not a traditional high schooler. I worked, to have money for the things I wanted. This German girl came and stayed with us. She stayed for three weeks and decided that she hated me and hated our family and wanted to live somewhere else. That girl, who our German student stayed with for about ten days, got to go to Germany. All my friends went. I was devastated. I stayed home and I worked.

Now here I am. My kids are raised, my care-taking responsibilities are largely gone, and it's my turn to see everything!

Peace!

There are also amazing things in this country I have yet to see. I decided, before I was 40, to start there, to learn how to travel in stages, and now that my kids are grown, my pursuit will be relentless until I have seen all I want to see, which I think is a list that will never, ever end. At least I hope it never ends =)

Are you an educator?

I don't know the answer to that question. I am not an academic educator in the traditional sense of the word. I do work in higher education. Perhaps that's why this is an issue for me. I do teach dance, and flow tool manipulation to teens and adults, and I think about how my teaching affects those I teach.

Does everyone become an educator by virtue of having obtained a specific amount of experience as a human? If that were to be true, is there responsibility to those being educated? How far does that responsibility go? Is there a responsibility to preserve the feelings of those being educated?

Does a person, or a group of people, open themselves up to whatever a "judge" or "educator" thinks when they agree to participate in a competition? If one is an educator in charge of those attending a competition, what responsibility does that person carry? What if the feedback received from a competition could negatively impact those who participated? Is it the group educators responsibility to impart the comments of the judging educator unedited for the benefit of ultimately making the group as a whole stronger?

Perhaps if taking the time to read this, you can get the gist of what's bugging me, but these questions have been rolling around in my brain for over a week now. I don't know how I would frame things if the girls I teach dance to chose to compete and came away with some very negative comments. I think it would hurt my feelings and I think it would hurt their feelings too. They say that that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger, that adversity breeds toughness and any other manner of such things. How does an educator frame such a thing, when given feedback by another educator, when imparting this information, to allow those they educate to continue to love what they are learning? To keep at it? To get better?

Getting that kind of feedback feels bad, though. Do you deny that it feels bad and move on? Do you acknowledge that it feels bad and move on?

Ultimately, I think we are all responsible for our own general mental health and well-being, but I just wonder at people who seem to find it necessary to injure someone else's psyche or to hurt someone's feelings simply because they can. Without knowing any of the circumstances of a given situation. When things happen, especially bad things, there is ALWAYS a story. I tend to give folks the benefit of the doubt, and have often paid perhaps a greater price for that, but I've not usually been sorry. Because I care how people feel. I care about the affect my words and actions have on them. Sometimes it's not about them, it's about me, and they've had an affect that I need to respond to. If that's the case, though, I try to say that up front because I don't like hurting people. I don't like being hurt.

I look, curiously, at people who do. Do they just not know or realize it? What must it be like to live like that?

I can't imagine....

And then there were many amazing and beautiful things about this years experience, and only a few sad ones. I think there is something within me that craves to find the beautiful and the positive even in horrible things. Eternal optimist? Maybe.

 ~Peace.

So, I've been on strike....

I had a really cool, somewhat frilly, somewhat un-like me theme posted here for awhile. A theme I actually paid for, so that's really saying something.

BUT, with the most recent Wordpress update, it broke the pictures scrolling thing at the top that worked for "featured posts". I had patience for a little while, but, alas, my patience waned, my mood turned as black as this pretty new theme, and here I am, posting again =)

As we approach Jazz Festival (I think this is number 12 for me, without missing any) week, life is going pretty damn good for me. I can't believe that next year, the Jazz Festival will be 50!! Let's hope nothing budget-related and totally messed-up happens to compromise that. Nothing surprises me anymore....but for now, I am keeping the faith! Blessings abound. There's so much to write and think about!

This crazy (that's crazy in a good way, not crazy in a stalker-bad-creepy way) dude that I've admired on Facebook for awhile, his name is Chad Sorg, and I approached him in early December about being the artist to create the "Compression" poster this year. He said yes, to my great satisfaction, and I got the finished product in the not-too-distant past. Here it is:

I REALLY like the design! It's much lighter than I thought it would be, and it just feels good, to me. That photo was taken by Dana Nollsch, a good friend who shot the event last year, and Chad worked magic with it. So, that's the look we have for this year! This is WAY exciting for me! Then, I got to take a turn myself at doing a small bit of graphic design, creating a poster for Unmata's Amy Sigil, who's performing at Compression this year, and also doing workshops on Sunday, which is something my good friends at Asha are sponsoring. Here's that poster:

 

 Both of these things make me very happy. I just saw Amy and crew last weekend. For Papa Ben's birthday, we all took off and drove to Sacramento last weekend on Saturday, to make this happen. The performances were amazing. Many of the Hot Pot groups did a new piece that was breathtaking, and Amy, Shelly and crew did "Fashion", which made me cry when I saw the video, and again when I saw it in person. Here's the video from Tribal Fest this year: Absolutely breathtaking!

There's also exciting stuff coming up for Controlled Burn, as they also suffer some growing pains, but that really should be it's own post. I am very proud of the stuff that I do for them...

Next Friday, we get to spin again at UNR's Night of All Nations! It's been a few years and we are very excited to be welcomed back. I will write more when I can, but for right now, I wanted to break the dry spell, install darkness again upon my words, and now....

I must go and work and do other stuff.

Peace!