mermaidcamp
Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water
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My First Job, Singing and Costuming
December 31, 2012
— 3 Comments
When I was 17 I was quite the singer. I sang in an acapella madrigal group in my high school in Texas. We were super professional thanks to our director, Frank, C “Elephant” Coulter, choir director extraordinaire. This small college town in Texas was all about football, the bonfire, and the war in Viet Nam. Frank came to work every day overdressed like a rooster and somehow instilled pure passion and discipline into high school students who generally wanted to slack. When I graduated Frank got me a job in Cherokee, North Carolina, where he spent the summers with his wife working at a theater company in the Great Smoky Mountains. Frank and Elizabeth ran the canteen, a snack bar and meeting place for the crew after our production 6 nights a week for the public, Unto These Hills.
I was the lowest paid and the youngest member of the company. I was a singer in the choir, which was live with an organ accompanist. I quick changed a few people each night including an eagle dancer into Andrew Jackson. There was much body paint involved in the eagle dance, and the stage is dirt, so costumes needed the weekly deep cleaning we did on Mondays in the costume shop. I sewed and repaired costumes for the first week while we were in preparation to get the show ready. Fittings were needed for actors and dancers, who were true to form, very theatrical. Our head eagle dancer was from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and could perform an entrechat huit. He also had a glass eye that he used to take out to scare the young Cherokee boys in the dressing room. When I see the above version of the eagle dance the costumes are familiar but the rest has lost quality. I am glad I was there when we sang it in the Cherokee language live and in person. You can never go back, especially if it has been 44 years. I recently visited Margaret Dorn in New York City, who sings for a living. We recorded a technically awful but sincere Eagle Dance Song and sent it to our friends in Raleigh who still know how to sing it too. It was certainly fun while it lasted.
My Tribe and History
December 31, 2012
— 6 Comments
Plymouth
It is enlightening to track my personality archetypes while I track my ancestors. There are similarities, highs and lows, temporary dead ends in both. You can’t change the ancestors and you can’t change your archetypes, in the same way that you can not rearrange the stars in the sky. When I was new in the genealogy game I went to Tulsa to meet a cousin based on only family legend and no facts to discover/confirm our Cherokee bloodline. We had a great time, but came up empty on the Native American theory. We both wanted it to be true, but my cousin’s husband was insanely convinced without any evidence. He really wanted a Cherokee wife. He was the worst detective I have ever seen.
While searching it is important to be open to discovering that for which what you were not looking. When I find a Plymouth Colony ancestor I am generally excited, fill in the blanks with some black britches and some assumptions. Richard Taylor was no regular Pilgrim. He fell in love and married a Wampanoag chief’s daughter. I have a tribe in Massachusetts. I never would have guessed this, but I am thrilled out of my mind. My 12th great-grandfather,Great Sachem, had been exposed to English fishermen, and had learned some language from them. He walked into the Pilgrim camp and said “Welcome Englishmen”, to the great surprise of the Englishmen.
Wasanequin Great Sachem Wampanoag tribe (1554 – 1617)
is my 12th great grandfather
Quadequina Wampanoag (1576 – 1623)
Son of Wasanequin Great Sachem
Margaret Diguina Weeks (1613 – 1651)
Daughter of Quadequina
Ruth Whelden (1625 – 1673)
Daughter of Margaret Diguina
John TAYLOR (1651 – 1690)
Son of Ruth
Abigail Taylor (1663 – 1730)
Daughter of John
Martha Goodwin (1693 – 1769)
Daughter of Abigail
Grace Raiford (1725 – 1778)
Daughter of Martha
Sarah Hirons (1751 – 1817)
Daughter of Grace
John Nimrod Taylor (1770 – 1816)
Son of Sarah
John Samuel Taylor (1798 – 1873)
Son of John Nimrod
William Ellison Taylor (1839 – 1918)
Son of John Samuel
George Harvey Taylor (1884 – 1941)
Son of William Ellison
Ruby Lee Taylor (1922 – 2008)
Daughter of George Harvey
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Ruby Lee
I am very interested in my tribe, and have already had contact from a fellow descendant who has some proof of our Nativeness. I am looking forward to his input and learnring more about my roots. Ironically these people helped the Pilgrims survive, but the tribe has no reservation today. This is an overview of my First Nation Family:
Pokanoket is a tribe of Native Americans who trace their their lineage back thousands of years beyond the colonial days of the United States of America. We trace our ancestry through the bloodlines and the written and oral history of our people. We are the people of Massasoit Ousamequin, Massasoit Wamsutta, and Massasoit Metacom. We are Philip’s people, the people of Metacom. We are the people who celebrated the First Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims in 1621. We are the people who have endured much and who have returned, after a long journey through history to the present day and continue to look forward to the future.
Pokanoket is also a Nation. The Nation of Tribes you may have heard of referred to as Wampanoag ( pronounced wahm – peh – noe – ahg ) was known to our ancestors as the Pokanoket Nation. The Pokanoket Nation, also known as the Pokanoket Confederacy or Pokanoket Country, was comprised of a multitude of Tribes.
Each Tribe was comprised of Bands and Villages and the Pokanoket Tribe was the Headship of the Pokanoket Nation.
Pokanoket is also our home. Prior to the time of the pilgrim’s arrival in Plymouth, which used to be Patuxet, the realm of the Pokanoket included portions of Rhode Island and much of southeastern Massachusetts, including the surrounding islands around Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard.
The Pokanoket social organization developed in a manner that differed from neighboring Native American Tribes, since Pokanoket was more socially structured and layered, as well as more politically complex.
Unique to the Pokanoket Tribe were the spirtual and military elite, know as the Pineese (Pineese Warrior), who protected and served the Massasoit (Great Leader). They are the spiritual guardians of Pokanoket Nation.
Pokanoket believed seven to be the perfect number of completeness, for we still believe in the Seven Spirits of the Creator.
Two Tigers in a Treatment Room
December 30, 2012
— 6 Comments
Elizabeth, White Tiger Acupuncture
I was lucky to be called when an appointment opened up at the U of a Cancer Center Supportive Care for Healing where I am the substitute. I have been seeing Justine for lymphatic drainage or cranial sacral work regularly by booking the cancellation slots on short notice. The volunteers call me when sessions become available. I was offered the chance to try acupuncture, which I know is good but I have not tried. My iatrophobia extends to all things needle, but I took the opportunity to face my fear. My spleen is delighted that I went, and so am I. I go to practitioners of wellness rather than the drug docs. My presence at the hospital is still for wellness care, but surrounded by drug docs…slightly expanding my knowledge of what they do. So far I have seen no evidence of allopathic negligence, so my phobia cure is working. I think I may be the only one who goes to use it as a self-care facility rather than as a treatment for cancer, but everyone is super kind to me. The cost is about half and the quality about double what is found on the open market. It is a fabulous deal to be the substitute. The practitioners are in it for the value they can give to the community
My session with Elizabeth Hachenberg of White Tiger Acupuncture began with pulse and tongue reading to determine my situation. She concurred with Jon Thomas who told me last month at my Tui Na session that my spleen was trying to talk to me. I listened to her advise about diet, meditation, and demeanor which was brilliantly delivered. She was so right, I was eating on the fringe of my balanced diet, consuming too much alcohol, greasy rich food, and sweets. I had gone too far out of healthy bounds for too long and need to move closer to the center of balanced eating target. She was elegant about saying this without blame or need for sudden radical change. Her deep knowledge of Chinese Medicine is well communicated in language anyone can understand. She was born in the year of the tiger, as was I, so there was a certain compatibility in Chinese terms just because of the 12 year difference in our ages. I had no problem trusting her to work on me.
She placed the needles on my meridians, most with very little sensation. A tiny prick or a tingle quickly passed as she moved around the table quickly inserting the next needle. When she arrived at my left foot I noticed pain, ache, then a dull sensation that followed that particular point, which turned out to be on the liver meridian..the pumpkin pie martini point. It only lasted for about a minute, but it was distinct from the other points she targeted. She let me rest for about 20 minutes to allow the process to take place. She gave me a great meditation to use during the rest. I used an imaginary cheese cloth to strain the contents of my body, starting with the tip of my toes, and slowly removing impurities until I reach the top of my head. I enjoyed the cheesecloth visualization, and collected a huge load o schmutz to dump. I felt really good all day after the treatment, and will go again. I am over my fear completely, just like that. I am correcting the dietary issues and feel better in general after about a week of that. If you have wondered how acupuncture might help you I highly recommend that you try it. Elizabeth works on the far east side of Tucson in Civano, taking appointments Tues-Sat.
Bienvenidos a Tucson
December 30, 2012
— 1 Comment
Tradicionalmente en Tucson los negocios han servido el mercado de ambos lados de la frontera. Nogales, Sonora es la puerta de entrada por la mayoria de frutas y verduras que exporta el pais de Mexico. Hay bastante negocio y riqueza en Sta. Cruz County y en Sonora desde el tiempo de los Espanoles. Ranchos enormes y negocios viejos, acostumbrados de la cultura y los riesgos de la frontera sobreviven. Tucson, entre el diablo y la frontera, sufre poque los Maricopanos han parado comercio legitimo, pero no el crimen. Nos molesta, pero ellos tienen el poder político en el estado. Joe Arpayo no nos representa.
La gente de Sonora ya no tiene ganas visitar Arizona ya que SB1070 es la ley. Esto me parace muy natural. Tucson tiene una herida economica bien seria resultando de la clima politica. El nuevo alcalde de Tucson, Jonathan Rothschild, quiere renovar el comercio entre Sonora y Tucson. Si tiene éxito los Mexicanos, lindos y queridos, van a regresar con su efectivo a nuestra ciudad. Yo le brindo mucha suerte porque nos hacen mucha falta nuestros vecinos Mexicanos elegantes, distinguidos, y mas que todo, ricos, que antes nos visitaban. Aqui les esperamos, para servirles, sin pedo.
Disculpe el Espanol desnudo. No he encontrado el espellcheck en Espanol en mi WordPress.
Passive Agressive Cops Foster Crime
December 30, 2012
— 7 Comments
Joe Bonnano
I live in central Tucson, where we are surrounded with gun dealing, dope dealing, human dealing, and we are not sure what else. Here everyone knows that these illegal businesses are perhaps the strongest part of our economy. Tucson works on that trickle down theory…if we let lots of crime money circulate in the city, somebody will buy something from the legal merchants. We are well aware that cops do not make extra money enforcing laws, but rather by strategically ignoring them.
People in other parts of the country might be shocked by what is called the neighborhood watch program in this city.. Our neighbors have had three visits from the neighborhood watch cop. We had a functional handful of neighbors who regularly e mailed and gave information to each other about crime, safety, and suspicious activity. We met with her to find out how to enhance our skills and coordinate with the TPD. She came but told us we did not meet the requirements she had to follow, so she could not work with us. We went ahead the same way, just using our e mail list to contact each other.
The second meeting set up to form an official watch was a few days before a sales tax election that was of great importance to the officer. Although we had far fewer attendees at the second meeting, she decided that this time we could make it official. So she stayed for an hour and promoted the sales tax and told us we already had no hope of law enforcement, but if the sales tax did not pass she might loose her job. I remember thinking, she really should loose her job since she is out here not doing it at all right now. After the official status was granted I contacted her to help eliminate the extreme flaming crime that we had to tolerate full time in the form of a charity scam operating in our public areas. She refused to help or respond. She told me to call the parking authority to try to remove the log jam of cars that blocked us into our houses while they made donations to the criminals. The parking authority did arrive six months later and ticket a neighbor who had been illegally parked for a decade, but all the neighborhhod had to live with full time fully public crime by three of the thirty houses in our condo village. Since they were in the scam business for years, our property value has been reduced to almost nothing. Nobody would come to look at a property where the residents were fully parked in to their homes with crime traffic.
The third meeting with the officer was even more poorly attended, with only three other homes represented, other than the full time criminals. So, with the threashhold of a minimum of 16 participants, she went ahead with a brief meeting to sanction the tiny, close knit, and full time criminal group who sat before her as our official neighborhood watch. The other homeowners would just be able to watch while their quality of life is trashed by this group. I raised the issue that there were not close to a majority there, which was met with hostility by both the charity scammers and the cop. What they have in common that aligns them is a desire to be hostile rather than aware. I watched a functioning group of neighbors turn into a crime enhancing group of punks under the guidance of the TPD. No exchange of information has been done since she sanctioned the criminal group. They refuse to respond, just like the TPD. I want to recognize the important work being done by this branch of law enforcement, and I want to stop paying for it. It seems to damage society when cops pretend that crime is not their problem. We don’t need to pay tax dollars to extend willful blindness to crime. We already have that.
Saturday Morning Puppet Show
December 29, 2012
— 2 Comments
There is a number to call in the ad above to tell congress if you want to stop living like Jessica Rabbit in a bad cartoon. Tweet them, write them, fax them, call them, and beg for mercy on this country. Each new installment of this congress show is less acceptable than the last. We have gone beyond throwing bums out, and must address the systemic way this all came about in the first place. I think it would be good to know what happened on K Street before lobbyists moved in and started running the Howdy Doody Show.
Pamela Morse, Private Eye
December 29, 2012
— 1 Comment
I got my early training from Nancy Drew in proper detective work. I read all her adventures when I was very young. She was popular with my friends and neighbors so we used to recreate little Nancy Drew dramas for play. I fixate on detail like Sherlock, but I like to fashion myself after Jim Morrison’s Spy. My espionage skills are good. My dog is a red bone coon hound named Artemisia. My all time favorite look forever is the performing costume of Mata Hari. Ironically, I can find no detectives in my ancestry. Since they were and are undercover, maybe there is no way to find them. There were many with military careers, which should involve some kind of recon and or intelligence. To say that I am nosey is an understatement, but I am not interested in the gossip and the trash generally accepted as truth. There is something about my nature that needs to investigate…….everything. The detective is a dominant archetype in my personality. I enjoy stealth more than almost anything.
I used to hang out for many months in the winter on a small island in the Berry Islands of the Bahamas called Frazier’s Hog Cay. The practically unpopulated island had about 6 homes for foreigners to use for holidays. It is connected by a land bridge to Chubb Cay, where a marina, yacht club, and landing strip makes it possible for life to exist on Frazier’s. I used to go fishing with hand lines at night and hang out with two old Bahamian ladies who were my very good friends. We had our own detective agency to snoop on all the dope dealers. This was inherently dangerous, but we were drawn like moths to flame. I was an instigator in the gang, but they lived there full-time. I only came for a while in the winter, which was height of the smuggling season as well, because of Miami Vice (the lucrative market in 1980’s). I was contributing to the danger in their lives by organizing reconnaissance expeditions to spy on the Colombians who sailed big boats into the shallow water, unloaded onto fast cigarette boats every night and took off for Florida through the Bimini Straights. One day on the beach we found an entire bale of Colombian pot, but it was buried deeply in the sand and had been salt-watered to death. I walked right past it, but my Bahamian friend, who was about 75 at the time said, ” Ain’t that the grass?” When I think of it now we are all so lucky we did not loose our lives hiding in the mangrove at night to confirm our suspicions. We were very old ladies to be playing Nancy Drew, but we were compelled by curiosity that ignored all danger.
most excellent spy gear
To Tweet or Not to Tweet,
December 28, 2012
— 3 Comments
Hamlet and skull
that is the question…..wheather it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of 140 character communication, or ignore it. Peeps who do not tweet are not neccesarily out of touch, while tweeps who do may be wildly deranged or just killing time. Considering how much time is killed in real time, we must admit that this double edged sword cuts both ways. Our challenge is to use it for the benefit of mankind. I am sure there were many fatal errors while humans became familiar with the properties of fire, but eventually the power was harnessed for beneficial uses. The printing press, and, Oy Vey!, the printed Bible have drastically changed the course of history. The tool itself must not be maligned, but investigated to find the highest and best use.
We have a tool for democracy called congress which,in itself,is not a bad idea. It was created to govern our republic. There were corporations in early America, but there were no superpacs. Carolyn Myss uses an excellent example in the book Sacred Contracts to explain the use of tools on earth. She used the example of learning to use a knife. If you grab the knife by the blade it will be painful and destructive. When the paid becomes too great you may decide to use the handle of the knife which makes the knife useful for many purposes. Then the knife can cut food and perform a number of other useful tasks. We need to grab congress by the handle now. This is much too painful. This is our time in history, post Zombie Appocolypse global hot house. How shall we handle this?
On the Bus or Off the Bus
December 27, 2012
— 2 Comments
Merry Praksters
There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all – suspicion. –Demosthenes
How can we cultivate a healthy sense of disrespect and suspicion that is mindful of and careful with the opinions of others? We see no mature examples set by politicians. Religious leaders all teach healthy disrespect for worldly authority. Some religions teach that all worldly authority is to be shunned because of the wicked nature of it. The nuns on the bus dissing the Pope showed healthy suspicion of politicians trashing the poor to be elected by the rich. There was a saying that resonated back in the hippie world. “You are either on the bus or off the bus.” The phrase came from the book The Electric Acid Kool-Aid Test by Tom Wolfe. We also talked constantly about revolution, and the end of the empire. Bob Dylan, The Dead, Angela Davis, Black Panthers, SDS….. it was all very meaningful….and then it faded like morning dew in a folk song. Perhaps these nuns were hippies who never lost the baby faith.
Double Down to Feed Our Neighbors
December 27, 2012
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- Tucson public art
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- art as border
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- Culture combination
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- SB1070
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- Hi E’rybody!
In Tucson we host a lot of transients, create crime/residual poverty, and our economy has depended on boom and bust construction. The present condition of our social safety net to protect our weakest is critical. Our Community Food Bank is now $400,000 underfunded for the year. The shelves are bare and the need increases daily. Last night on PBS Newshour I listed to philanthropy experts discuss the fiscal cliff fiasco and non profit businesses. Small donors are fewer this year because of both uncertainty and lack of extra funds for giving. The uncertainty is exacerbated by the fact that non profits also receive 30% of all funding from government programs. They know that falling off the cliff will eliminate many non profit agencies by simply removing the government support. I take a very dim view of congress in the steam room while non profits fold.
A glimmer of hope in Tucson: “Hi e’rybody, I’m Jim Click.” A well known cowboy car dealer hero has stepped up with Sandy Peebles to double all the contributions made to the Community Food Bank from now until the end of the year. I usually take mine to a local lawyer’s office for doubling, but she was not offering the matching funds this year, so I am late. I am thrilled to see our wealthy business owners ride up on the white horses in the white hats to do the right thing. I always ask friends and neighbors to support the Food Bank of Southern AZ because they get the most bang for the buck. When you give a dollar to the Food Bank they use their leverage to buy $9 worth of food for those in need in Tucson. Some non profits have heavy staff and administrative costs, but the Food Bank is lean and clean. They recently won a grant to put gardens in the schools. Please follow me to the website and donate now while the need is great and your donation will be doubled. Let’s all help Jim dig a little deeper into his car bucks.
I also ask everyone to help me end fraudulent philanthropy. Criminals take advantage of the public by seeking donations for bogus entities. Please have some scrutiny and some consideration when you donate. The experts on PBS taught me that small donors usually do not write off their gifting on Federal income tax. That was surprising to me. Wealthy people strategically use giving to pay less in taxes. If you do not have an extra million to give, please make sure your donation is going to a legitimate non profit with an ethical goal. The gifts are needed by the legitimate non profits more than ever, and it is important to know what happens to your hard earned donation.
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