mermaidcamp
Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water
You can scroll the shelf using ← and → keys
Greeting the Season
November 25, 2012
— 1 Comment
The feasting of Thanksgiving behind us, we are hurdling down the holiday barrel of laughs toward either a cheery/jolly time or a close encounter with debt and depression. Which do you have at holiday time? Since much of the shared consciousness of holidays takes place on screens now, rather than in person, we can more easily show a public facade of festive fantasy while freaking out in deep desperate disorientation. I personally am neutral. I don’t drive much any time of year, but for the next 5 weeks I will be in my car even less. I do not like all the high anxiety and consumer madness in the streets. There is more distraction than I would like on the road, so I stay home.
My parents used to send out letters in Christmas cards to establish a contact with people they knew around the world and basically mislead them about how happy they were. This copying and addressing by hand, then stamping and sending the revised versions of their lives was an important way they stayed tribal with all the accepted norms they wanted to keep. They lived in a time when the exterior show was of the utmost importance. Not sending Christmas cards would have made them uncivilized. I still have a couple of cards printed with my name on them that I sent to people when I was in elementary school. They are kind of non sectarian, with a picture of a fawn and Happy Holidays. I have never felt the need to send cards or give gifts as a social imperative. The big build up, the relatives crashing at the house, the decorate and mandatory clean up was not my style.
I like to cook special treats that remind me of winter to give to friends and neighbors at this time. I make some spaghetti squash latkes for Chanukah, and all kinds of ginger concoctions. This year I am featuring nuts and everything that I can buy at the Caravan Market. This specialty foods shop right down the street from my home has all manner of goodies and spices from the middle east and north Africa. I can bike there and bring back exotic extreme foods and spices in minutes. They have pistachio baklava, halvah, and Swiss chocolate for sweets. My own version of holiday cheer is a little extra money and effort spent on food and drink. Shopping local for me is fun and easy. I prefer supporting my neighbors in business to trying to find my car in the parking lot at the mall.
Newton’s Third Law Goes Shopping
November 24, 2012
— 2 Comments
In case you need to refresh Sir Isaac Newton gave us some basic concepts that we use today. He broke down movement and energy to define inertia. The third law of motion states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This may be easy to imagine in terms of tug boats or bumper cars, but how does this law pertaining to matter have significance we can use to make smarter purchases? When we play billiards we consider the angle, the trajectory, the speed of the ball as we direct it on its way. Do we ever think about the economic repercussions we create with our spending decisions?
Today is shop local, Small Business Saturday. At the same time the mega retailers are bringing in customers with loss leaders to hunt for extreme bargains. Santa is in business all over the country promoting the concept that a big spending binge is healthy, cheery, and designates the participants as Christians. Giant light displays and seasonal music beckon to those who are attracted to all that. Office parties with cocktails and perhaps secret Santa designate this month as Slack for Seasonal Cheer time. Monday while employees are paid to be working, a day to shop on line will be granted by workers to workers. Only a Grinch or a Scrooge would interfere with Cyber Monday. Culturally this is the time to allow employees to take it easy around the office as a reward for doing their jobs for 11 months. What equal and opposite harm can come from that?
Meanwhile over at Zappo’s every single employee is brushing up skills, checking them twice, because it does not matter if you are naughty or nice….you will be answering the phone and delivering happiness to customers during this busiest shopping season. The core values that run the best retail experience on earth include full collaboration from all staff all the time. When needs of the customers’ shift, they shift to accommodate. They do not carry the myth that by giving them a party in December the company fulfills the promise to make employees happy. The Zappsters know that an overall commitment to serve the happiness of both customers and staff is in place and being improved constantly. Their benefits, their work environment, and their personal satisfaction are at the very foundation of the success enjoyed by the company. I do enjoy on line shopping, in spite of the fact that it does not support my local economy. Since I am a speed shopper, I am not so much into the comparison of prices as I am into a superior selection and customer service. The happy Zappsters deliver, so much more than shoes. I like the idea that my purchase contributes to a happy healthy workplace if not to my micro economy.
Hip Shopping and Sugar Plums
November 23, 2012
— 3 Comments
By definition, a purchase at a small business is an act of individuation. The effort to save small business, slow food, craft quality, and organic farming is valid from an economic standpoint. The local business keeps currency flowing in the local stream. Home Depot takes as much profit as possible home to the stockholders, as is their mandate. This does not make Home Depot evil, but it does mean that it is impossible to purchase anything hip at that Depot. The interaction with the customer is done to scale, as in, ‘What do we need to order from China for next season?”, or “How do we create a new line of seasonal treats our customers have requested?” The hip gift giver looks for the unique match, which is not to be found in the massive crush of deep discount mall shopping.
My mom just loved being swept away by merchandise. She shopped all over the world and stocked up on gifts for unknown future receivers. These ghost recipients were just taking up some of the slack in her giant shopping disorder. She was good anywhere, from the street market in Asia to Wal-Mart. She loved acquisition for no apparent reason. I spent way too much time in my childhood shopping for my taste. I believe this experience shaped me into the psychic speed shopper that I am today. First of all, like many traits we reverse (only to end at the same place), my goal is always to spend as little time as possible. Exactly like my mother I start with no need to shop, owning already more stuff than I could ever possibly use in this lifetime. If I buy something I need to feel that I have been guided, like the Star of Bethlehem, to that object. I want to feel like shopping commando, in and out without even being detected in the marketplace. Ruby (my mom) wanted to hang out and try on everything, being stimulated and thrilled by dressing rooms and the hollow compliments of commissioned sales people. She burned me out long before I was 9 on that situation. I never go to malls, and would simply die if I had to go to one on Black Friday.
Today for Green Friday I have no particular need to buy anything. It is the perfect day, however to take the public bus to Fourth Avenue to buy pecans and pistachios at the Food Conspiracy. There is a local party with live music, discount shopping and dining, and a chance to see the streetcar tracks they have been building for what seems like forever. By taking the bus right in front of home I will avoid all traffic/parking/road construction issues. I like to create gifts I decide to give, to make it a personal deal. The recipient will never be thrilled as in wow the expensive brand name thingy everyone else has!!!!!!!, but maybe years later will be able to remember how the sugar plums tasted. I freestyle my own sugar plums from nuts and fruit I find or have. This year I dried some awesome pears in September that are delicious. I want to try mixing them with pistachios and pecans, both of which are grown in Arizona. I encourage you to do your own, since it is almost impossible to make them taste bad. I think Alton is way off base with the fennel seed, and would never do that in mine, but that is why the creation is an individual gift. The ones in The Night Before Christmas were sugar-coated coriander …..drastic flavor if you ask me. I goes to show that your flavor will be savored by individuals, so take some time to do something tailored to them. Thoughtful and personal is the new mindless overconsumption.
Underage Drinking on the Mayflower
November 22, 2012
There was no drinking water on the Mayflower voyage. Every man woman and child was issued beer to drink. This gave new meaning to the word sloshed. It also gives a new reason for the Pilgrims to be seriously thankful to end the trip. Ironically it is the Brits who are celebrating Alcohol Awareness Week while Americans prepare to guzzle all weekend in the name of thankfulness/football. The British are suggesting that the use of an alcohol unit calculator will shock most people. I am sure this is like the food list for eating awareness. Addictive eating and drinking is by definition kept unconscious. Much energy is spent giving holidays the power to force overeating and drunken excess. This illustrates the general state of mental decay we promote. A holiday honestly does not have the power to make you do anything. Turkeys and cocktails are not a force, they are symbols.
How much change can you create by choosing Thanksgiving as the day to begin knowing how much you really drink? This holiday has special meaning to me because it was at Thanksgiving that my dad got so publicly drunk that I was able to convince him to go to Betty Ford. He was 81, and the treatment did not work because he went right back to Texas to his supportive drunken environment. My parents had to be removed entirely from the state to begin to address the issue. This year while you do your holiday bar tending, filling your home with extra cheer, don’t kid yourself. Calculate.
Pilgrim Will
November 21, 2012
Plymouth Colony Seal
This is the will of my 10th great grandfather who arrived on the Mayflower. It is interesting to note how much they had and did not have. Bless the Plymouth colony for keeping good records:
The Plymouth Colony Archive Project[Go to Biographical Profiles • Wills • Probates • Search • Archive] James Bursell October 11, 1676Plymouth Colony Wills 3(2):61#P281The Inventory of James Bursell
An Inventory of the estate of James Bursell of yarmouth who departed this life on the third of October 1676, and this Inventory taken the 11th of October 1676
L s d
Item in Meate Chattle 25 08 00
Item a Cart & wheeles & yoakes & Chaines 01 09 00
Item in barrells & other wooden ware 02 02 00
Item in pailes and seiues 00 10 00
Item in pewter 01 13 00
Item in 1 morter and pestell 00 02 00
Item 1 pott of butter 00 04 00
Item in earthenware 00 02 00
Item in Iron kettles & 2 potts 01 04 00
Item in brasse kettles & other brasse 01 16 00
Item in one warming pan 00 08 00
Item in seuerall sorts of Iron tooles 01 16 00
Item in old brasse and one spitt 00 03 06
Item in tining ware 00 01 06
Item in Cheires tables and trenchers 00 10 00
Item in armes and amunition 01 00 00
Item in a paire of tonggs and old Iron 00 15 00
Item in Corne and meale sackes 01 00 00
Item 1 feather bed & furniture to it 06 06 00
Item in wheels and Cords 00 12 00
Item in flax and linnine yarne and a baskett 02 00 00
Item 1 feather bed and furniture to it 06 05 00
Item more 1 feather bed and furniture to it 05 15 00
Item in Table linnine 01 03 06
Item in pillow Coates 01 16 00
Item in a remnant of Cloth 01 04 00
Item 17 paire of sheets 18 12 00
Item more in bolster Cases and linnine 01 10 00
Item in Cours linnine Cloth 00 11 00
Item in a parsell of linnie Cloth 00 10 00
Item in wearing apparrell and linine 12 18 00
Item a bible 00 03 00
Item in sickells 00 05 00
Item in Cushens and penistone 2 yards 00 11 06
Item in Glasses and a lanthorne 00 02 06
Item 2 Chests & a Case with bottles 00 16 06
Item 1 bull 02 00 00
Item in Mony 09 04 00
Item in debs due to the estate 16 02 06
Item the estate is debtor about 10 00 00
Item in old lumber 00 06 00
Item in an house and land 25 00 00
Item due to estate for laying 02 10 00
[156 17 06]
Iohn Hiller
Ieremiah houes
This 15 of Nouember 1676 Emett Bursell the relict of Iamos Bursell late deceased made her appeerance and Gaue oath to the truth of this Inventory before Iohn Freeman Assistant
James Bursell (1600 – 1676)
is my 10th great grandfather
Daughter of James
Son of Anna
Daughter of Silas
Daughter of Sarah
Daughter of Sarah
Daughter of Mercy
Son of Martha
Son of Abner
Son of Daniel Rowland
Son of Jason A
Son of Ernest Abner
I am the daughter of Richard Arden
He is not a famous Pilgrim. In fact, we do not know who his parents or his wife’s parents are…yet. We do know, however, what he owned when he died in 1676. 17 pairs of sheets seems like the most extravagant thing they had.
British Bible Belt
November 11, 2012
— 8 Comments
William and Lucinda Jane
My great grandfather, William Ellison Taylor, was a farmer and a preacher in the Church of Christ in Texas after the Civil War. He had beautiful handwriting which I have in the form of his Confederate pension application. He was shot in the knee at Second Manassas, but still had to get back to Selma, Alabama. He survived to marry Lucinda Jane Armer, who ironically is a descendant of the Plantagenets. They moved to Texas along with Lucinda’s parents after the war.
The place and time Lucinda and William lived was an echo of the dramas of their ancestors who had Bible issues of biblical proportion back in their homeland of England. Lucinda’s family was playing music in the court of Henry VIII when he killed some wives and made himself the head of the new Church of England. Other members of her family were Plantagenets, being royal.
King of France Louis IX (1215 – 1270)
is your 21st great grandfather
Son of King of France
Son of Philip The
Daughter of Charles
Daughter of Jeanne
Son of Philippa
Daughter of John of Gaunt – Duke of
Daughter of Joan
Son of Duchess of York Lady Cecily
Son of Henry
Son of Henry
Son of John
Son of Francis Gabriell
Daughter of John
Son of Elizabeth
Son of Richard
Son of George
Son of George
Daughter of David
Daughter of Minerva Truly
Daughter of Sarah E
Mary Tudor disrupted the reign of the Plantagenets and made martyrs of William E Taylor’s ancestors. The big problem was the way everyone felt about the Bible and who should read it. William Taylor may have been named for his 8th great grand uncle, William Tyndale, who was burned at the stake for translating and publishing the Bible in English. His niece Margaret was married to Rev. Rowland Taylor, also burned at the stake for his religious convictions. The British Bible belt was worse that just burning crosses…..they actually burned the people they found to be heretical.
William Tyndale (1507 – )
his 8th great grand uncle
Father of William
Daughter of John
Son of Margaret
Son of Thomas
Son of Thomas
Son of Col James
Son of John
Son of John
Son of John
Son of John Nimrod
Son of John Samuel
Certainly William and Lucinda lived the Bible belt philosophy. I went to the Church of Christ a couple of times with my cousins when I was visiting in Houston as a kid. It was very foreign to my church experience, being fully stripped of all remnants of fancy dressing. No pipe organ, no choir, no stained glass, very austere, and they went there twice on Sunday and again on Wednesdays. I did not relate to the whole thing. I grew up in Pittsburgh in a post industrial country club culture with cocktails. I never understood the cousins and all that Bible stuff because my parents did not do it. I think I am starting to know why they still had that in the Taylor family. Once somebody dies for something, the least the family can do is go along with the belief for a few generations.
But the greatest of these is charity.
November 9, 2012
— 2 Comments
Charity
We are asked to give in many ways. It is important today to regognize one of the meanings of the word charity. Charity bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, according to Paul. This charity is the virtue of charity, not at all the same as the generosity and giving of gifts. This charity is the one that thinks of all other people charitably, or with kindness. We have been on a rampage of enemy creation around here. The enemy is not a group of people you don’t know, or another nation you can not even locate on a map, as you may believe. The enemy is your very own inability to be patient and kind, and think of all strangers charitably.
It is an internal rather than an external practice. Your tax exempt giving does not exempt you from generating kindness and compassion for strangers. Your participation in public service does not give you a pass when it comes to being patient and loving. Your bright and shiny holiday lights do not prove that you are in some positive spirit, but only a willingness to electrically decorate. Loving kindness is a state that can only be shared. This year as you budget your end of the year donations, find willingness in your practice to think kindly of others you have never met. Do your part to keep the nation from hurdling off the charitable cliff. I am not asking you to do the difficult job of thinking kindly of people you know and think are incredible jerks. Start with something easy, like political parties, Europeans, the Congress of the United States,or other groups of perceived enemies about which you honestly know nothing. Just love them up and start to bring the concept closer to home as you get stronger in your ability to be patient and kind.
Pilgrims, Puritans, and Politics
November 6, 2012
— 2 Comments
Alice Carpenter, Pilgrim
There is some gross generalization presented in the Thanksgiving spectacle/history lesson of the colonies. There was turkey, lots of lobster, and headgear similar to the hats and feathers in school pageants, but the Pilgrims and the Puritans are not the same group of people. If one traces carefully the two thought forms still exist in America, but they are distinct. Pilgrims came from Holland on the Mayflower to bring their biblical faith to another part of the earth. They believed they were sojourners on the earth destined for the holy city, and only subject to worldly law when it did not conflict with religious directives. The Puritans, as the name implies, had been working in reformation to purify religion through political action. Puritans arrived after the Pilgrims in the Boston area. They had a different attitude toward the native people, since they were not sharing a divine sojourn with them, but making a political state that they believed aligned with pure reformation ideals. Both groups shared biblical Christianity as their standard, but in practice Pilgrims sought peace while Puritans sought to dominate through harsh purifying authority (think Salem/witches). None of this would have ever been done if the Bible had not been printed, causing Europe to become politically violent about reforming, restoring, separating, and purifying. Before printing presses political power and religious power were so obviously entwined as to cause…the Reformation.
Thomas Southworth was born a Pilgrim in Holland. His father died there. His mother, Alice Carpenter , sailed from Leiden on the Mayflower with her second husband, Gov. William Bradford. After Plymouth was established as a Pilgrim colony Thomas joined his mother and stepfather. William Bradford was a shoe merchant, and many other Mayflower Pilgrims were also in clothing, hat, and fashion trades. They had spent years in Holland being influenced by the fancy colorful costuming of the Dutch. It was politically not cool to starch your ruffs (ruffles like QE I wore up around the neck). The large collar draped rather than stiff said you were so New World 1620. That explains the white scarf look we see in costumes. Almost no real Pilgrim clothing remains from the period, so the current stereotype is not accurate. Black and grey may have been worn, but were not standard. These Pilgrims were fashionable religious adventurers (with stylin’ footwear) bonding with the natives in the new commune/colony of Plymouth when the Puritans arrived. Thomas spent his career as a (well dressed, I am sure ) politician.
Thomas Southworth (1617 – 1669)
is my 10th great grandfather
Daughter of Thomas
Daughter of Elizabeth
Son of Elizabeth
Daughter of Eleazer
Daughter of Sarah
Daughter of Mercy
Son of Martha
Son of Abner
Son of Daniel Rowland
Son of Jason A
Son of Ernest Abner
is the daughter of Richard Arden
This year if you think about Pilgrims, or use little figures decoratively get something historically correct. There was no water on the Mayflower. Every man woman and child was issued beer each day of the trip. Imagine the hangover a child might get from a long sea voyage drinking nothing but beer. As sojourners of the earth they felt it was all part of the mission. Get over the concept that these people (Pilgrims) sailed across the sea to wear black and stuff turkeys. They came here to tune in, turn on, and drop out of the religious struggles in the old country. They were all about debunking the folly of corrupt authority posing as religion. Pilgrims were the big proponents of separation of church and state. They believed that they had a personal connection to providence that was more important and powerful than any civil institution. Puritans, on the other hand, had interest in reforming civil institutions. Can you link these beliefs to today’s political landscape?
Dreaming of the Dead
November 1, 2012
— 2 Comments
As we prepare for the dead to visit earth over the weekend I daydream about all my relations. In the study of my family tree I become infatuated by the various ancestors as I learn about their lives and times. I love it when they have left a picture of any kind, even of the grave they occupy. I also become excited when I see the handwriting they used. All original documents or photos of their homes give me a connection to their styles. I am a huge enthusiast of all that I discover and learn through the study of genealogy. It may well be true that I prefer the dead to the living at least part of the time.
I am also studying the archetypes that play in the dramas of our lives, interior and exterior. We know that our unconscious is influenced by the books we read, the shows we consume, even the conversations we enter. I don’t work on my family tree each day, but there is not a day that passes without thinking about some of my dead peeps and their adventures on earth. My conscious and unconscious is involved in the ghost of everything past. I never have the urge to join the DAR or reenact battles, but have started to plan travel around the dead peeps who lived in the areas I will visit. This month I am focused on my Pilgrims, the beliefs, the hardships and the failures they encountered. At the moment I am discovering Jeremiah Rhodes. He was a wild thing of a Pilgrim.
Zachariah Rhodes (1603 – 1665)
is my 10th great grandfather
Son of Zachariah
Son of Malachi
Daughter of Malachi
Daughter of Dorothy
Son of MARGARET
Son of Benjamin
Son of Paul
Daughter of Valentine
Son of Sarah LaVina
Son of Jason A
Son of Ernest Abner
I am the daughter of Richard Arden
He drowned in the river near his home after all kinds of major adventures, which included founding Rhode Island. He was opposed to the law in Massachusetts that obligated citizens to support preachers financially. He was thrown in jail briefly for making public statements about this conviction. This fabulous rebel archetype had the right circumstances and energy to live out his ambitions without abandoning his beliefs. He married Benedict Arnold’s sister, Joanna Arnold. I can picture my own fantasy movie of the lives of these early settlers. As I turn my attention to dreaming I hope to be visited this week by these and all the other relations who contributed to my existence. I invite all these saints to come marching through my dreams. I am wishing for some period costuming of a dreamy nature, but am okay if you decide just to visit as a ghost.
The Personal Service of Farming
October 31, 2012
scarecrow
What are the personal services you use in daily life? You may not be aware of all of them. If you buy prepared foods, that preparation has been done for you. You know if you hire a child care helper or manicurist that you are buying personal services. It is hard to find all the ways others contribute skill and time to our daily lives. Compared to primitive self reliance our modern lifestyle is comprised of paying more for labor and transportation than we pay for goods. Many have lost the skills needed to make anything from scratch. Farming in the US is a prime example. We are running out of people who know how to grow food as this profession declines rapidly in young people. If we don’t train or import some people to do the service of farming we will face serious problems.
My grandparents owned a farm when I knew them so I was exposed to the milk cow, the beef cows, the pigs, the gardens, and even to the butter churn. I lived in the city of Tulsa but considered the grandparents spread in Arkansas where was assistant farmer on the weekends to be extremely romantic. I rode a mule and shot a rifle. I thought of myself as very Annie Oakley when I was about 5. My parents had grown up without modern 1950’s conveniences and liked the idea of jet setting rather than farming. They enjoyed the country club and the University Club, and garden club, and host of other urban activities that Tulsa and Pittsburgh offered them. They did not seem lazy to me, but they certainly had a different style when it came to personal services than my grandparents had. There was no way they would ever own a mule or live next to a barn. They were over all of that. They were urban, upwardly mobile, and believed themselves to be super liberated. I suppose they were.
Every generation acquires some new skills and drops others that no longer serve the moment. It is a great idea to stay abreast of technology, move with the times, and accept the reality of now. In some phases of life, however, it is healthy, good, and indeed necessary to play a creative skillful part in carefully designing reality. If one chops no wood and carries no water the disconnection from source becomes disabling. The spirit has no dwelling in a world that offers only convenience. The soul requires art, and the spirit creates those artful moments that last in memory. One’s own self realization can’t be purchased, downloaded or installed. There is no service that can impart the satisfaction derived from self expression. Once practiced, polished and realized each one of us has a gift of powerful personal charism to offer to all the sentient beings. We can only hope that some young Americans find a vocation in farming.
mermaidcamp 