Yo Zambullirse el zorro con el yeso en la agua.

WHY, you may be asking, would I plunge the fox with the plaster cast into the water? There could be so many reasons: he might need a bath; he might be trying to bite me, and this was the best way to distract him.

OR I might have drawn the words "el zorro," "zambullirse," and "el yeso" from my new "Spark Notes Study Cards: MORE Spanish Vocabulary Study Cards" box! (For those of you still wondering, no you do not have to call the ASPCA on me--I am not being cruel to wild animals with disabilities.)

(Free fox photo courtesy of Clipart Graphics.)

Combined with the strategies I mentioned in my previous blog post, I have added the vocabulary cards, as well as the "Grammar Study Cards" (same publisher) to my Spanish language tool box.

I can already tell that I need to shuffle the cards--apparently they are in alphabetical order, and the "front" end of the box starts with "z" and moves back toward "a." This is not exactly a natural way to learn a foreign language. (Did YOU learn to say new words in alphabetical order when you were a baby? I didn't think so. Neither did I.)

So, today yo zambullirse el zorro con el yeso en la agua. If I manage to finish dunking him without getting my arm ripped off, I'll see if that box of grammar cards can teach me how to say "dipped/plunged" (past tense) instead of "dip/plunge" (present tense).

Meanwhile, buenos dias mi amigos!

Come on in. La agua está muy bien. (Or: Why Some of My Facebook Posts and Comments Have Been In Spanish, Lately.)

If you are one of my Facebook friends, you may have noticed lately that some of my posts are in Spanish (usually short responses, like "Me gusta!" or short comments in response to comments made to my status by friends in Spanish). The reason for this is simple: I am at long last making a really concerted effort to stretch my extremely rudimentary understanding of Spanish beyond my narrow little comfort zone.

Free clip art courtesy of http://www.designedtoat.com/.

There's nothing more motivating than a deadline, and I have one looming in front of me now: one of the requirements for successful completion of a PhD is that I be able to pass a written test that "proves" that I'm fluent in a foreign language. Though I WAS fluent in German as a small child, I've lost it all now. And though I took four semesters of honors French in college, receiving all A's and B's, I am hopeless at French because I've never had an opportunity to use it.

I only had one year of Spanish in 9th grade, but when I was working on my BFA 20+ years ago there was a family from Argentina living in the same building as my daughter and I in the university family housing. The father was working on a PhD in Agriculture, and the mother had a lot of time on her hands--she was a school teacher in Argentina, but spoke English as poorly as I speak Spanish now, and her teacher certification was no good in the states anyway. They had two daughters that were about the same age as my daughter, and they played together every day, and swam together at the university pool in the summer. The mother and I became friends, and were able to communicate by filling the gaps between my poor Spanish and her poor English by helping each other with the languages.

Now I teach in a high school with a large Latino/a student population, so I speak Spanish more frequently than I have in 20+ years. But 3 years into this experience I haven't really learned anything new, because it's my job to teach them English in my content area, so I do the same thing with them that I did with my Argentinian friend 20+ years ago. I rely on "Como sé dice...en Espanol?" ("How do you say....in Spanish?"). I have Spanish/English dictionaries in my room for the students so they can learn English better. This does nothing to encourage me to stretch and learn more Spanish.

Mostly I use my Spanish to make my Latino/a students feel more comfortable, always greeting them and asking how they are in Spanish. One day a couple of years ago I greeted one of our Latino students as usual in Spanish. He responded as usual, but then continued on in a rapid stream of Spanish out of which I was only able to pick out a few words. I gave him a confused, straining look as I hesitated, trying to pick out and sort the words I recognized into something that I could understand, but even if I'd been able to do that quickly enough for it to not be socially awkward, I still wouldn't have been able to formulate a response because I no longer have any vocabulary.

So I sighed, and immediately confessed that "Yo hablo muy, muy poquito Espanol."

He smiled, and said in heavily accented English,"Really? Because you speak Spanish with no American accent." Wow. I had fooled an actual native Spanish-speaker into thinking I could speak the language, without even trying! That was great feedback to get, because through that interaction I discovered that at least I pronounce what little I do know correctly!

But that was two years ago, and I'm no further along than I was. And now I feel the hot breath of the PhD demons on my heels, reminding me that I really should NOT wait until I'm about to take my oral and written exams to try to "bone up" on my Spanish! And what a waste of a wonderful opportunity--I have all these students and several really terrific colleagues at school who are fluent also who I'm sure would be willing to help me out.

The Universe started prodding me. I received several email solicitations from Rosetta Stone announcing huge mark-downs of their Spanish language modules (but even so, they are still really, really expensive). My mind drifted to my "Spanish for Gringos" CDS, gathering dust in the corner of my office. Then, Good News Network posted an announcement that the Foreign Service Institute has made all of its old language courses available for free to the public online: http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php. Wahoo! I went straight to the Spanish section and started going through their documents and sound files.

It occurred to me at this point that I already have documents and sound files--two different courses, complete with CDs, that I've been through without really exerting myself. At this point it occurred to me that what I really need is someone to work with me so I can practice in a natural way (rather than learning all of Mr. White's lines in the Foreign Service Institute dialogues). So I invited a Facebook friend (we'll call him "Friend A") to work with me online, and he said yes. Then, another friend ("Friend B") who is a lot more fluent than I am, but still wants to work on her Spanish jumped in, and I have two friends helping me online.

By far the single most useful thing I've done to ramp up my learning speed has been this: Friend A suggested that I change my language settings in Facebook to Espanol. Wow! I did that, and all the sudden I learned about 20 words that we see over and over in Facebook on buttons, links, etc. Me gusta! That's when Friend B jumped in--she thought that was a fantastic suggestion, too, and wanted to know how to change the settings.

So far so good. Friend A now only writes to me in Spanish, which is fantastic, and Friend B jumped on this bandwagon, too. I have finally found a useful purpose for the Google translation tool (because it really stinks for just copying and pasting blocks of text and getting anything that makes sense out of it): I only use it as a sort of Spanish/English, English/Spanish dictionary. I read the Spanish passages and try to work out what they mean without any help. Then I cut and past the individual words or short phrases from within the sentences that I don't know into the Google translation tool. This works GREAT because it means I'm learning vocabulary! It also works great because I'm now really LEARNING.

This morning, after I spent about 30 minutes using this method to translate two paragraphs of text, it occurred to me that I should make a list each day of all the new Spanish words I've learned, and attempt to use them in other contexts immediately, and then throughout the day, so I don't forget it all before it has a chance to sink in. So here's me doing that--today's words/phrases :

Spanish      -        English

---------------------------

idioma        -        language

ver mas      -        see more

ayudando/ayudandote  - helping/helping you 

la vida         -        life

agredicido   -        grateful

comentar    -        comment

gusta          -        like

configuración -     setting (literally: configuration)

ahora          -        now

Me quedo feliz -   I'm happy

se cambia    -       changes

se hace una manera - is a way (se hace=is, una manera=a way)

para            -       for, to

practicar      -        practice

perfil           -        profile

inicio           -        starting place / kick-off (in Facebook, this is the Home page)

eliminar       -        delete/remove

Hace una hora aproximadamente - about an hour ago

approximadamente - approximately

leer             -        to read

escribir        -        to write

mejor           -       better

despues       -        then/later/after

traduzco      -        translate

presos         -        prisoners

encanta       -        love

todavia        -        still

buena suerte -       good luck

hablando      -        talking

hablo           -        I talk/speak

decir            -        to say

puedo          -        I can

recibe          -        get

palabras       -        words

tambien        -       also

suena           -       sounds (as in, "sounds like")

de nuevo      -       again

esta manera -       this way

If any of you reading this (if anyone is reading this) are fluent in Spanish, you'll see right away that haven't used the infinitive forms of many of the verbs in my list--I just copied them out of the sentences the way they were used, understanding that if I use them in other forms I'll have to learn the correct conjugations. But for now, I'm just so happy to have increased my Spanish vocabulary by several words! This new method of learning the language is already working really well, and I'm so excited estar aprendiendo Español! 

If there are any other friends out there who want to join in on the fun of helping me (and maybe even helping yourself) to learn Spanish, don't be shy! Come on in; the water's fine. ;-) 

"Great" Facebook Debates Lead to New Blog

Over the course of the last year I couldn't help but notice a lot of anger being expressed on Facebook regarding politics. Most of this was coming from extremely conservative Christian corners, regarding imminent health care reform policies about to be enacted into law. I won't use this particular post to debate the particulars of the pending legislation and all of its many revisions (maybe later), but I was astounded at how these good Christian folks were so angry about the possibility of this legislation passing. They accurately called it a socialist policy, but that was their very justification for bashing the bill--apparently Jesus would not support equal access to health care for all, regardless of socio-economic circumstances. This nearly left me dumbfounded.

I say nearly, because I attempted to reason out the issue from a biblical perspective for a short while. I am a Christian too, after all, and my interpretation of what Jesus taught is not even in the same universe, apparently, as these other Christians' interpretations. There was no reasoning it out though, because these debates were not debates at all. I would find documented research and facts, post them, and then be told that I couldn't trust what those people said. Why? Well, because the people who were losing the debate said I couldn't, that's why--no facts whatsoever were presented to support the other side of the argument.

It got ugly. At one point I came all unglued over a Fox News story about a survey "proving" that a college education makes you stupid. This new tack in the health care debate just made me mad: "We can't win, so we'll just make stuff up, now." I frothed at the digital mouth on my Facebook page about this, and one of my right-wing friends posted a link to the website with the survey, inviting me to investigate. I did. I even took the survey. The survey is touted to be about civic literacy, but it is really about capitalism and the free market system. (Guess who stands to lose if the health care reform legislation is passed: Insurance companies who operate on a free market system, that's who.) Even though I am not an expert on economics, I scored 85% (the national average was 75%). So, I more than passed their "civic literacy" test by a wide margin, thus disproving (according to their skewed logic) that my college degrees had made me stupid.

My friend who posted the article/survey un-friended me over this, without so much as a "fare thee well." OK. Whatever. That was good information to gain about that "friend."

But the whole unfriendly encounter got me to thinking about what I was really trying to accomplish by engaging in these bogus debates.

According to the International Debate Education Association (IDEA), a debate is "a way for those who hold opposing views to discuss controversial issues without descending to insult, emotional appeals, or personal bias. A key trademark of debate is that it rarely ends in agreement, but rather, allows for a robust analysis of the question at hand."

The IDEA uses the Karl Popper debate format, which begins with an affirmative speech centered around a positive resolution (e.g., "I think Jesus would have supported health care reform because..."). It's called a "positive resolution" because you state it such that you are for it, not against it. Then a negative cross examination ensues (questions designed to shoot holes in the resolution), followed by a negative speech centering around the opposite of the positive resolution (e.g., "I think Jesus would not have supported health care reform because..."). These two items are repeated, and then followed by affirmative closing remarks, and then negative closing remarks. Hopefully you understand that I, nor Karl Popper, are commenting on the merits of the argument with the use of "positive" and "negative"--this means you're either for the resolution (positive) or against it (negative).

The so-called debates that I had been sucked into were conducted more along the lines of this format: http://www.sodahead.com/fun/steps-to-quality-debate/blog-169739/ . (If you read all the comments to the very bottom of the thread, remember: I'm the one who got blocked--or un-friended, in this case--not the other way around. ;-)

So, what was I trying to accomplish by participating in these debates? Of course, I was trying to participate in "a robust analysis of the question at hand." It wasn't necessary for my "opponents" to agree with me, but I was hoping for a real debate (even though I wasn't the one who started it). I haven't gotten one yet. So far everyone on the "other side of the aisle" on this issue has yet to provide any research or documentation to support their position (not even a quote from the Bible, for heaven's sake--if that's going to be the bedrock of your position, why not quote it?).

What actually happened though was that I stirred up a huge hornet's nest every time I had the audacity to attempt to confuse my opponents with the facts. (I'm not saying I'm right about my particular point of view, but I did provide bona fide documentation to support my position, which is one of the steps in a real debate.) They questioned my faith, called me stupid, and got really, really mad. I got frustrated and a little angry in response. It just felt yucky.

What I Learned From All This

After my so-called friend un-friended me over the so-called civic literacy survey debate, I remembered something my grandmothers used to tell me (they all read from the same book, don't they?): "You'll attract more flies with honey than with vinegar." (I always wondered why I would want to attract flies in the first place, but never mind--I get the moral metaphor.)

I decided my grandmothers were right about this (this is not open for debate--they just are, OK?), and chose to try a new tack. Ever after I will only post good news and positive results that spring from the policies and legislation I support as a way to inform the "other side" of the reasons I support these things. I also do not respond to posts designed to get my dander up. I just let them roll by, because unless I say something in total agreement then I'm just going to be told I'm going to Hell for disagreeing with Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. It's pointless, and it just makes me feel crummy, and doesn't do anything to further my cause.

The extreme right-wing and the extreme left-wing have BOTH forgotten how to do conduct a debate, if they ever knew at all. The extreme left-wing is particularly skilled at insulting the intelligence of the right-wing (which may be why I was so unsettled by the so-called civic literacy test--they used the extreme left's favorite weapon against them). The extreme right-wing has been relying more and more on the "you're going to Hell because only a communist would support Barack Obama!" retort (although since the health care reform passed their latest strategy seems to be to pretend that they are the majority and the government is trampling their rights, which can't be true, because Presidents are elected and legislation is passed by majority vote). Regardless of tactics and strategies, neither side seems to be getting their message across effectively. Both sides seem more interested in being right than in changing the world for the better.

The most disturbing part of all of this is how frequently Jesus' and God's names are thrown around in support of some pretty mean-spirited comments and policies. This makes all of us Christians who are not on either the far left or the far right look just as bad as the Christians mishandling the teachings of Jesus.

What I've Decided to Do

So I started a new blog: Behold the Lilies. Instead of starting up another debate to prove to these folks that they are wrong in the way they've been representing Christianity as Jesus taught it, I've decided to be the change I want to see in the world. (Uh oh! Gandhi said that! He was a Hindu, so I must be going to Hell for quoting him, right? Wrong! Read on...)

It is really disturbing to me to see how the Bible is used as a weapon against the very social progress and policies that Jesus himself tried to make happen 2000+ years ago. Instead of contributing to the negative environment, I'm going to do what Jesus did and tell stories that reflect and radiate the joy and miracles that happen everyday as evidence of the God I see revealed in the world.

Because Jesus is so frequently misrepresented by folks who use his name in defense of their arguments, I'll be using the Bible as documentation to support my observations. As of this writing, I've read the Old Testament over 8 times, the New Testament over 16 times, the Psalms over 16 times, and the Proverbs over 96 times. I know what's in the Bible, what Jesus and everyone else who is in it said, and it is NOT what the people calling health care reform a communist initiative say it is. Jesus taught us that love, compassion and joy are supposed to guide our every move.

Because I live in a world where we are so fortunate to understand so much about how the Universe works, thanks to so many wonderful scientists throughout history, I'll also be using scientific data as documentation to support my observations. Joseph Campbell said that in order for religion to continue to work over time, it must keep up with the Universe as known. Evangelical pastor and writer Michael Dowd, author of "Thank God for Evolution" confirms Campbell's idea in his book, asserting that science confirms the existence of a loving God and a friendly Universe.

Because I know that an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God is big enough to reveal itself to everyone on the planet in a way that they are able to get it, I am grateful for the other great religious traditions of the world that have informed our own Christian religion so greatly. A lot of what Jesus taught is the same as what the Buddha taught 500 years earlier--the central truths of life are universal; how can it be true only when Jesus said it, but not when the Buddha said it?

Though I respect and admire the other great religious traditions of the world, my own cultural orientation is Christian, so that is the viewpoint I will be coming from. I sincerely believe that there is common ground to be gained by listening first, and then seeking to be heard. And that's what I'm attempting to do from here on out.

What About THIS Blog?

This blog has always been about whatever I'm immersed in at the moment, which for the last several years has been Art, Art Education, and Native American Studies. It will continue to be my outlet for sharing what I'm doing in those areas, as well as anything else I find interesting or fun. It is a sad commentary on my workaholism that it has been primarily about my work--I'll try to do better and play more. I'll also try to make more regular posts. I was astounded when I realized I haven't posted anything since last August! Yikes! I'll be back soon, I promise. :-)

Evidence of Things Not Seen

Yesterday, while I was fighting for "Truth, Justice, and the American Way," holding up my end of a stimulating and intelligent debate on health care reform with a couple of my really smart friends (one who agrees with me, one who doesn't), my husband was engaged in his own life-and-death struggle to defend everyone's right to be really, really ridiculously silly. In short: my husband likes to yank people's chain. I think I might be the only one (besides him) who really knows which way the hamster is running in that twisting, turning Habitrail between his ears. Others who think they know may assume that he's going down the tube that has the cheese at the end of it, but I know differently--he just loves a good, rip-roaring argument, so he never takes the same tube twice.

The "debate" he was conducting was about faith v. evidence as a "proof" for the existence of God. We have a lot of very right-wing, fundamental, evangelical Christian friends, some of whom are prone to never update their facebook status with anything except a scriptural quote from the Bible. This offends my husband's sense of originality and fun, so he invented his own "holy book" to quote from just to get their goat: The Book of Le Roy. Daily, he updates his facebook status with little snippets of "wisdom" from the Book of Le Roy, and daily these friends of ours take the bait. I have been amazed at how seriously they take him, and annoyed at how much of my husband's time is stolen from any creative or valuable pursuit (like, say, unplugging the toilet, or feeding the dog) and diverted toward these really silly arguments to win back his soul.

So I jumped into one of these discussions and said, "Don't take the bait....he'll toy with you for hours...." No one heeded my warning, because the struggle for Jonathan's soul is apparently of intergalactic and interdimensional importance. The really silly debate raged on....

I want to make it clear that I do not think my very right-wing, fundamental, evangelical Christian friends' beliefs are silly. I do think some of them have entirely lost their sense of humor and may need to undergo "A Clockwork Orange"-style total immersion re-education in comedy, so they can recognize it when they see it. For the record: I value and respect my friends' points of view, and their right to believe what they believe the way they believe it. (If only they respected mine....)

But it is getting hard to respect the way they ignore their own Biblical directive to "shake the dust from [their] feet" when their message is not well-received. These same folks are particularly intolerant of our more liberal application of the same spiritual beliefs they hold, as well as our "live and let live" attitude of respect for those who don't think the same way we do. Despite the obvious and utter nonsense my husband continued to tirelessly throw at them in response to their desperate attempts to get him to answer their alter call, they just dug in ever deeper.

Finally, after watching this for half a day, and realizing that missing NOVA because my husband couldn't pull himself away from the computer was a very real possibility, I couldn't take it anymore. Jonathan was trying really hard (finally) to make a point about the difference between faith and facts, but either because he couldn't find the words to neatly tie up the argument, or because that Habitrail routine is hardwired into his system, everything he said to try to end the "debate" just fired it up again. Out of sheer desperation, I did it for him. Here is (as far as I'm concerned) the end of that discussion:

"The point Jonathan is trying to make is that quoting the Bible is not the way to get people to believe. Though archaeological evidence has verified many of the settings and locales of the Bible (Old Testament and New), it has never verified the existence of Jesus, nor the events of his life. This is all recorded in the Bible and in many extra-biblical texts, but not one shred of evidence exists to prove that he rose from the dead outside of that. So quoting the Bible does not provide evidence to support what faith inspires us to believe.

So why believe? Faith, that's why. And what is faith? Well, though it is poor form to use the Bible to prove the Bible (in academic research we call this a circular reference--it would be somewhat akin to asking President Obama why the health care reform bill will work and having him reply, "Because I said so"), I will quote the Bible to provide the reason that quoting the Bible is not evidence:

Hebrews 11:1--"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a paradox: there can be no evidence for that which is unseen, because it is unseen; there can be no substance for things hoped for, because they do not exist yet.

The answer to this really, really silly debate is this: Continuously quoting the Bible to people who think you're full of crap is NEVER going to get them to believe in Jesus; only faith will do that, and that comes from supernatural experience. Furthermore, Jonathan--quit yanking these people's chains--they may take you seriously and you will be held accountable for the dismantling of their faith.

Pax. Peace. Shalom."

I wish I could say that did end the debate, but one hanger-on got all defensive about her faith-dismantling-resistance superpowers and kept it going. Of course, my husband couldn't resist that--it was one more Habitrail tube down which he could lead someone, at the end of which there may or may not be cheese. Gotta love his energy.

My Most Memorable Learning Experience

Just recently I was creating a profile for myself in Montana State University's D2L online course interface for a class I'm teaching for MSU. One of the questions in the profile was, "What was your most memorable learning experience." Hmmm. I had never really thought about that, weirdly enough. But I found the question intriguing, so I drafted a response.Then I got an error message telling me that my answer could not exceed 256 characters. How in the world can you communicate an answer to an important question in 256 characters or less?

I found the question interesting enough and my own response informative for me, so I didn't want to truncate it. I've posted it here in its entirety.

My Most Memorable Learning Experience:

This is too personal to share in specifics or detail, but I'll give you a story that illustrates the nature of the lesson. Several years ago I watched a documentary on the current Dalai Lama. At some point in the program, an interviewer asked him, "Who was your greatest teacher," apparently expecting the Dalai Lama to name another Lama who instructed him in Tibetan Buddhism. To the interviewer's surprise (and to mine), the Dalai Lama answered almost before the interviewer finished asking the question, "Mao Tse-Tung!" Shocked, the interviewer asked why, and the Dalai Lama explained that all of life is suffering, fear and desire are the causes of all suffering, and Nirvana is the absence of fear or desire (my paraphrased summary), which is all in the mind, and not dependent upon our actual circumstances. According to the Dalai Lama, no one in his life or experience had ever inflicted more suffering on him than Mao Tse-Tung, which gave him the opportunity to conquer fear and desire.

I recently had an experience not so nearly as dramatic as the Dalai Lama's and the Tibetan people's suffering under Chairman Mao. But it was extreme in its impact on my life, and every bit as instructive and important. What I learned was that we don't necessarily learn the most (if anything) when we are happy and everything is going well. Suffering and those who inflict it can be great teachers, if we are masters of ourselves and our responses to them. The greatest lessons are lessons that cause suffering, and the greatest rewards are available to those who can emerge from the experience better for having had the experience, and without asking, "Why did this happen to me?"

Why did this happen to me? Because all of life is suffering, and everyone suffers. One of my favorite movies is "The Princess Bride." In that movie Westley says to Princess Buttercup, "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." I agree with the Dalai Lama, and I agree with Westley--we learn through our suffering, mostly about ourselves. Socrates directed us to "know thyself." If we emerge from our suffering having learned something about ourselves, and apply what we learned in future, we will suffer less, because we understand the causes are not external (no matter how dreadful the circumstances or perpetrators of our pain may be), but rather internal; all is revealed in our reactions to the situation or person(s) causing the suffering. If we are able to learn from that and move forward with new understanding, less fear and less desire, the lesson was worth learning. It was in my case.

Thus endeth the lesson. ;-)

Hate Is Not an "American Value"

Once again, still, and continuously, email containing not only fabricated, embellished, and/or malicious information disguised as "news" has made its way into my mailbox. This time it was an email that attempts to make all Arabs look stupid. I've spent more time than these emails are worth wondering what the motives of the people who send them around could be (and commented on that in a previous blog post: "Don't Confuse Me With the Facts").

Where this particular email is concerned, the goal being to make Arabs look stupid, I think the motive is simple: to undermine any confidence the recipient of the email might have in the President, who has made it a central goal of his international diplomacy initiatives to extend an olive branch of sorts to Arab nations, and acknowledge the fact that most of them are not terrorists, and that Al Qaida does not speak or act for Islam (and is in fact not a Muslim organization at all--they are political, not religious). I think there is also a cheap shot at connecting him personally with terrorists, because his father was Muslim (President Obama is Baptist, not Muslim--this is a long-established fact).

Of course I'm talking about the Etihad A340 Accident that has been blamed in this "urban legend" email on the alleged ignorance and stupidity of the test pilots and engineers of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologis (ADAT).

Today's blog post is not to acquaint you with the details of that accident. If you don't already know about it and haven't been "lucky" enough to get one of these inflammatory emails maligning the intelligence of Arab engineers and pilots, you can click on the link above and read the original email, as well as the debunking of the claims by Snopes.com.

For anyone who can read a newspaper, tune in a radio or TV news station, or pull up Google.com in an internet browser, it is easy to sort fact from fiction. It's even easier if you get your news from more than one source, not just the one that agrees with you 100% of the time in their slant on the news. Upon closer scrutiny, where news stories from different sources do not agree, it is usually a matter of tone or omitted facts, not outright fabrication (this is what we call slander when it is spoken, or libel when it is printed).

Just so there's no confusion, I do not consider anything that comes to me as a forwarded email news unless it is an email that contains a link to an actual news story on some news-reporting website. Most of the time I just delete them, but some of them really get under my skin.

As I was writing this, I was also wondering why I have no problem simply deleting the emails that wrongly attribute a speech to some comedian (there was a really good one going around a few years ago that was attributed to bunch of different politicians and historical figures, but was actually by George Carlin; and then another one attributed to George Carlin that he said was not his), but then I get all worked up over something like this stupid Etihad A340 Accident garbage. Here's the reason: the ones that get me all worked up are the ones that attempt to malign the character and intelligence of an entire ethnic group.

I should mention that these forwarded emails usually come from relatives. My friends know better (not to mention that my friends would never send them). This brings to mind that old saying that "you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your relatives." (Then there's that other saying that you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your friend's nose....) Make no mistake--I love my relatives (although that little saying is particularly poignant for me right now for reasons that will never show up in my public blog). But it seriously grieves me that so many of them are so closed-minded about any culture or religion that does not fit into their lily white, super conservative, "Christian" beliefs, and a few of them will even send out these emails that are designed to divide us even further.

Let me just come right out and say it: though these emails may sometimes be disguised with humor or cleverness, they spread hate; plain and simple. They are hate mail. No amount of humor or supposed cleverness can disguise their true intention.

For the record, this is not the first time I've ever confronted the senders of these emails. On the contrary. When I get an email that is forwarded to me with this hateful nonsense in it, I go to Snopes.com, type in a few keywords from the email into their search engine, usually find an article debunking the "urban lengend" that was sent to me (Snopes.com has actually never let me down on this one), and then I click "Reply to All" in the original email and send the link to the debunking of the "urban legend" back to everyone in the "To" field that accompanies my own email address.

Sometimes I get a "thank you" from someone on the list for turning them onto Snopes.com. Usually I don't hear anything back. But one chronic offender actually gave me the most creative response I've ever received: "Who are these Snopes people, anyway? What do they know?" Smokescreen! Where did he get his information? Where are his supporting facts? As it so happens, I knew the answer to his question, though he was never able to answer mine, and in fact did not have any supporting facts for his libelous email. (If you would like to know the answer to his question, click here and read all of the numerous articles about who the people behind Snopes.com are, and why and how they debunk urban legends.)

Another reason I got so worked up about this email in particular is that I have been the Journalism teacher at the school where I teach for two years. Debunking "urban legends" is Journalism 101--get your facts straight! Don't print anything unless you can prove it! I do not have to have a degree in Journalism to know this; I learned it in English class every year in the little unit on Journalism. Everyone who's had a high school English class should know this. But, alas, it is not high school kids sending these libelous emails around, but adults.

My final word on this today is about what really got my ire up. It really, really bothers me that people who spout off about "American values" send this hate email around. Perhaps they don't know any Arabs. Perhaps that's because they're so busy creating walls of hatred for anything different than themselves between them and these people they're making up stuff about. Perhaps it's simply ignorance of the unknown; that tired old fear of anything "other" than "us."

Ladies and gentlemen, it is now the 21st century. We no longer have the excuse of ignorance to defend our petty maligning hatreds. America is no longer populated only by the descendants of white European conquerors and the indigenous, invisible remnants of the continent. The "indigenous remnants" are a thriving, vocal part of our citizenship, as are the hundreds of millions of non-white, non-European legal immigrants, naturalized citizens, and their descendants. It is long past time that the ignorant minority begin to acquaint itself with the growing population of American citizens and their friends, relatives, and allies who do not come from a Judeo-Christian culture.

Moreover, we are no longer separated from the rest of the world by slow transportation and communication. When I click the “Publish” button on this blog, it will be available to everyone in the world with access to the internet instantaneously. Regardless of the attempts at censorship we read about surrounding the recent elections and unrest in Iran, it is extremely difficult in this day and age to perpetrate a lie for very long. Now more than ever “the truth will find you out.”

The unfortunate truth that is being revealed by these emails that many think are harmless is how much hate is being generated in the name of the perpetuation of “American values.” I, for one, choose not to participate in the dissemination of hatred. I’ll go one step further than deleting the offending emails and continue to point out to the senders and their other recipients their falsity, as well as my sincere desire for them to stop spreading malicious nonsense. If you would like to participate in my little movement, it’s as easy as I’ve described in this post: go to Snopes.com, type a few keywords from the email into their search engine, email a link to the debunking article back to the original sender and all other recipients. Together maybe we can prove that malicious misinformation and hatred are not American values.

Back to the Drawing Board....Literally

Right out of the chute, I made a classic error in my approach to this AP Studio Art portfolio project: I wasn't true to my own artistic process, which is generally a backwards one.

When I was a senior in college I had to create a portfolio of work that was connected and then write a thesis statement about it. It's been twenty years since I had to do that, so I'm fuzzy on the details, but it seems to me that we had to state at the beginning of whichever course this happened in (Senior Thesis, perhaps?), and then create works which satisfied the thesis statement.

By my senior year in college, I was worn out and disillusioned. At that point it was just about crossing the finish line. I had long since given up any hope or desire to be "the best." There were several students in our art school who were extremely talented and seemed to produce masterpieces without even trying, and I didn't feel that I was even in their league. Why bother? I was never going to be as good as they were. I had faithfully submitted my artwork to the annual juried student art exhibition each year, and each year came up completely empty. Not even an honorable mention. So for me it was all about just getting the diploma.

When my senior thesis class (whatever it was called) rolled around, I declared my intentions and set about creating big drawings. My graduation date was in August, so I spent the entire summer creating about twenty 3'x4' drawings that all had to be connected in some way and satisfy a thesis statement. I felt like a fraud the entire time.

I took a bunch of black and white photos of my daughter for a photography class, and they happened to have this big aloe plant in the background. So I did four drawings in a row of my daughter with that aloe plant and decided that the aloe plant would be my theme. I scrounged through ancient family photo albums looking for something to use for my series (in desperation), and found some photos of my mother holding me on the day I was born that had some pretty dramatic lighting. I did two of those and created an aloe plant wallpaper theme in the background using the aloe from the pictures of my daughter. Then I took one of the pictures of my mother holding me and took me out, and replaced it with the aloe plant. And so on and so forth... I remember thinking this would be the lamest thesis project ever created, but I would get my diploma and finally graduate, so who cares.

Then I submitted the best piece from that series to the annual juried student art competition. It won Best in Show. Knock me over with a feather. But that wasn't the best part of that whole series.

I regularly sent drawings and paintings to my dad when I was in college, because I couldn't afford to buy Christmas and birthday presents. He regularly carried my artwork down to a picture framer who had a gallery, and she asked him if I would be interested in showing my work in her gallery. I carried the entire body of work from my thesis project to the gallery and hung the show.

When I got all the pieces hung the way I wanted them, I stood in the middle of the empty room to make sure everything was level and hanging straight, and just about had the wind knocked out of me. All of those drawings that I felt were part of a fraudulent effort to fulfill a degree requirement that I didn't really care about anymore were talking to me. I suddenly realized, standing there looking at those pieces hung together for the first time, that my series wasn't really about aloe plants at all. It was about generational female family relationships--there were only pictures of me, my mother, my grandmother and my daughter, and that aloe plant. I suddenly made the connection between the healing qualities of the aloe plant and the brokenness that can happen in family relationships. Wow.

For the first time it occurred to me that I might not be in control of my artistic process, and that that might not be such a bad thing. Something bigger than me was at work, and the best thing to do was to get out of the way and let it happen. When I had basically given up on ever being a "great" artist, I created the greatest art of my life to date. It was really powerful, both the art and the realization.

When I teach my Advanced Design class, I always start the semester out by telling them that story. The reason is so they will know that they are not the only ones who feel like every other artist in the world (or the classroom) is better than they are--even the teacher feels that way. I tell them the story and then I show them the work (click here if want to see it, too--it's in my online art portfolio; any drawing with an aloe plant was part of that senior thesis project). They are relieved to discover that I am a human being too, and are also impressed that I can actually make artwork. ;-)

Then I tell them that they have to do the same thing I did in college: create a body of work that is connected and satisfies a thesis statement. Then they groan and roll their eyes.

This is where this little dry run of the AP Studio Art portfolio development process comes in. I explain that I'd like for them to explore a concept, a medium, and an artistic style. My concept for the aloe series was broken family relationships and the healing of those relationships--what concept will they explore? I explain that theirs doesn't have to be heavy like mine was (I didn't intend for it to be heavy; it just happened that way). I also explain that their work, like mine, might just turn out to be about something completely different than they intended it to be, and that is OK; that may even be better. They can always rewrite their thesis statement to match the work, and then discuss how their project evolved.

So back to how I violated my own cardinal rule in this little dry run I was attempting all week. I came up with a concept, a theme ("Patterns of Behavior: Predators and Prey") and then worked too hard at trying to control how it turned out. Realistic drawing is all about control, after all. So I struggled for a couple of weeks, and was feeling like accounting or custodial work must be way more fun than this.

And then Scott Brady sent me a link to an artist who is having an awful lot of fun with methods and materials (Gary Reef).

Doh! I was being way too serious, and needed to have more fun! I kept my theme, but decided to make it more about experimenting with materials than drawing. Voila! Much better.

Here is the evolution of my process on these first few pieces. Evolution and process are the very ideas I want my students to "get" in the Advanced Design and AP Studio Art courses, so it was really good for me to suffer through this.

The first image I created, which is way too serious, and almost a little cartoony (which might not be bad in itself, except that's not what I was going for):

5"x7", graphite and colored pencil on Rives BFK drawing paper. This was my first try. Way too "serious," and way too much nitty gritty drawing for a dry run. So I got this far and decided I needed to try something else. Next....

5"x7", watercolor and acrylic paint and printer toner on Rives BFK drawing paper. A little better. I used Photoshop to flatten the image to just a few values and remove all details, and then printed it directly on the Rives BFK drawing paper. Then I painted the net-like pattern in the border and the colors in watercolor. Then I splatter-painted white and black acrylic paint to soften the brightness of the colors in the border. The writing in the white border around the center image repeats, "Red touch black, friend to Jack. Red touch yellow, kill a fellow."

5"x7", graphite powder, acrylic paint, India ink and printer toner on Rives BFK drawing paper. This one got a lot closer to what I was trying to pull off. I used the same Photoshop method to flatten the image even further (only black tones this time) and printed it on the Rives BFK again. Then I cut a stencil to cover the image in the middle and lightly taped it down. I lay down an assortment of old orphaned keys and then dusted graphite powder over them. I removed the keys and removed the excess graphite powder. Then I used a kneaded eraser to sharpen the key shapes. Then I used a sponge and sponged in a heavy texture in the background around the key shapes, and the red, yellow and blue in the image. Then I lay down the keys again, and splatter painted black, yellow, and white acrylic paint to create more depth in the background around the keys. Then I used Ink and a pen to draw in the hexagonal pattern in the key shapes. Getting closer to what I'm after in this one.

There's another way that I was not true to my own process. Over the years, the method for developing images that has worked best for me has been a sort of photo-montage method. I love to draw, and to me good drawing is nearly photo-realistic drawing. I also love montage. Having learned from my senior thesis experience, I decided decades ago to let the image tell me where it wants to go, instead of me trying to drive the process.

So I begin by going through my photo file (I have thousands of photos that I've taken over the years of various objects, landscapes, lighting effects, etc.) and pull the images that speak to me on a visual level at that moment. I set a few aside, regardless of whether they seem to go together or not.

Then I start drawing one. At some point in this process, how the other(s) fit in with the first one will begin to reveal itself to me and I start drawing the other(s) in the same space, creating a montage effect. When I'm getting close to the end of the drawing, usually songs, poems, stories, or quotes connected to the objects will come to mind, and I write them down right there in the artwork. Then I start experimenting with materials and layering, and eventually the work says, "I'm done now."

I pretty much followed that process with this little experiment, but I started out with a statement and that threw me. I started trying to control where it was going, instead of letting the materials and the methods shape the image. I've learned my lesson (again). I promise I'll have more fun in the next set, and hopefully the work will reflect less control and more movement through the process.

Myth Busted: Teachers and "Summers Off"

Today as I was writing my Morning Pages I realized that I have exactly 5 weeks before school year 2009-2010 begins. This means that I am at the exact mid point of my summer "off." Thinking about having the summer "off" induced a sarcastic grin, because all teachers know that "summers off" are a myth.

While many of us do take time in the summer to get some much needed R&R, the truth is that we also do a lot of other things that our employing school district gets from us for free. Summer is a time when professional development opportunities occur, because most teachers cannot get the time off to go during the school year. Summer is a time when teachers can work on those 4-6 continuing education credits that are required for renewing our teaching license/certificate every 4-5 years. This is all training that we must pay for ourselves (sometimes receiving reimbursement from our districts, sometimes not), and of course it is time spent doing something for which we receive no compensation.

Something that many people also do not realize about teachers is that we do not get paid for twelve months of the year. While some school districts make it possible to have your paycheck spread out over 12 months instead of 10, most do not (mine does not). That means that you have to put money aside during the school year, or get a supplementary job for the summer to pay your bills. A lot of my twenty-something colleagues, so recently graduated from college, simply go back to whatever bread-and-butter job got them through college. Some teachers opt to apply for summer school teaching positions, which are extremely competitive because the summer school enrollment is only a fraction (we hope) of the regular school year enrollment.

It may surprise you to learn that teachers are prohibited by law from applying for unemployment benefits in the summer, because we are 10-month contractual employees. The rationale is that since we know that we will not be receiving a paycheck during the summer months, it is our responsibility to make other arrangements for income without burdening the Department of Labor and Industry with an application for benefits. Never mind that my tax withholding dollars went to the Department of Labor and Industry unemployment fund out of which I am now ineligible to draw benefits. Never mind that in a poor economy summer employment simply may not be available, and even in a good economy most short term jobs available in the summer begin before the school year ends, end after the next school year begins, or are snapped up by teenagers and college kids who only work during the summer. Oh, and of course if our school administrators have scheduled us for professional development during the summer, which usually involves a time commitment of one to two weeks of full 8-hour days, it's hard to get a summer job when you have to take one or two weeks off right in the middle of it.

My strategy is to choose to save money during the school year to float us through the summer, because my bread-and-butter job that got me through college is hairdressing, and I do not have a cosmetology license in the state where I currently teach (my current license is in the state of Montana, and their supposed reciprocity agreement with the state I work in is not really reciprocal). This year, as it so happens, we had several mechanical emergencies right as the summer began that nearly wiped out our summer fund, and then my lucrative end-of-summer teaching gig was sabotaged (a long, brutal story for another time and place) so we've been literally getting by on Grace.

But my financially meager summer is not what this blog is about. Originally, this summer's schedule was planned to go like this: 1) A week of camping in Maine immediately after school let out, 2) Three weeks of writing unit and lesson plans for every single day of every single class for all six of the high school art and journalism classes I'll be teaching in the coming school year, 3) A week of AP Studio Art training, preparing me to teach my AP Studio Art course in the spring semester, 4) Another week of mad unit and lesson plan writing, 5) Taking my mother camping on the beach for a week at Assateague Island National seashore (which I had to cancel, because my summer teaching gig was sabotaged), 6) Two weeks of building the online American Indian Art Survey course I'm teaching for Montana State University this fall, 7) Two weeks of teaching a summer bridge program (the job that was sabotaged), 8) A final week of polishing up my units and lessons for my high school classes and my online graduate course, 9) Back to school.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a full summer schedule, with only two weeks of vacation (and one I had to cancel because of lack of funding). At this point you may be thinking that it's my own fault if I don't get to enjoy the entire summer off. I mean I could do the unit and lesson planning some other time, like on the fly during the school year, right? WRONG! This is the other great myth of teaching; that it's just like any other job. It's NOT like any other job. For the past three years I've spent most of my winter and spring breaks grading papers and projects and trying to plan ahead for the next units. My workdays were 12 hours long for the first year and half of teaching, about 10 hours long for the second year, and between 8 and 10 hours long for the last half of the last school year.

Teaching is a lot like theater. When you go to see a play, the one-and-a-half to three hours of performance you see on the stage during showtime required about 300 hours of rehearsal and stage prep! The same is true for teachers. Before my students ever set foot in the classroom, I've written the entire unit plan (what state and/or national standards does this unit meet, rough sketch of the "big picture" of the unit and what the students will be doing over how many days/weeks) and each individual lesson plan (one lesson plan per day, per class, outlining exactly what the students will be doing in minutiae that day during the lesson from the minute they set foot in the classroom until the minute they leave). I will also have prepared all the materials and equipment they will need to do the task at hand, have it all arranged so that distribution is efficient and economical. And then it's showtime! Once showtime is over (3 shows a day, 90 minutes per show), then I must assess their work and record the grades in my grade book for the record keepers.

What that means is that if I want to come in 15 minutes before the kids arrive in the morning and leave 15 minutes after they leave in the afternoon, then I have to be really, really organized. Without all the summer prep, the reason for my 10- and 12-hour days was that I came in early in the morning to write the lesson plans (because I was never more than a day ahead of my lesson) and stayed until between 6:00pm and 8:00pm to do all the grading and recording of grades, and was still working on it over the weekend. This was a nightmare, and it didn't take me very long to figure out that leveraging my summer "off" time would help me to have shorter, more enjoyable school days, as well as being able to do something restful and relaxing during my weekends and scheduled Thanksgiving, Winter, and Spring breaks.

So that's what I chose to do this summer. Because my end-of-the-summer teaching gig was sabotaged, I chose to see the bright side and look at it as an extra two weeks to get my act together for the school year.

Since I've just realized that I am at the exact mid-point of my summer "off," I've decided to ramp up the organization and planning process a little more. In addition to getting all of this preparatory work done, so I can just walk into my classroom in the fall and teach, I've also gotten into a good exercise habit. I've been walking three to five miles a day and have lost about ten pounds. I do not want to lose this momentum once the school year begins! It's so easy to let the urgency of the school day overrule my own good plans for myself (the saying "poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part" comes to mind). Since I know that this school year is likely to be a lot like the last two school years, and the only person over whom I have control is me, I have decided to do all I can through advanced planning and preparation to thwart all potential threats to the good things that I've done and plan to do for myself.

The first of this multi-pronged plan will be to begin my regular school year / school day schedule tomorrow morning. You may think this is crazy, but I know from experience that any sudden change to an established good routine can totally derail said routine.

I have a gym membership which I haven't used at all this summer because the weather's been so nice. I've just been taking my exercise in the form of these long walks in the park, and it's been really good for my mental and physical health. But tomorrow I am going to get up at 4:30am (my normal school year get-out-of-bed time) and drag my butt to the gym and get on the elliptical trainer 15 minutes and the stationary bicycle for 15 minutes. Including the drive to the gym and back, this means I'll spend an hour on this activity, and I should be home by 5:30am.

Then I'll make some Good Earth Tea (original), fix myself a bowl of Rice Chex with half a banana and 2% milk, eat my breakfast and get to writing Morning Pages. (If you want to know more about Morning Pages, get The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity [10th Anniversary Edition], by Julia Cameron--NOT just for visual artists, but for anyone who needs to unblock the creative process, or keep it flowing.) Writing Morning Pages only takes 15 to 20 minutes of focused, concentrated writing (this simply means DON'T stop writing for a full 15 to 20 minutes--write down every single thing that crosses your mind for the 15 to 20 minutes, no matter what it is!). Doing this as prescribed will produce at least three long-hand 8 1/2 "x 11" written pages. Sometimes I'm on a roll and don't want to stop, and can drag it out to a full hour, but only if I have time. If I only devote 15 to 20 minutes to Morning Pages, I'll have arrived at this point in my morning schedule by about 6:00am or 6:15am, and this means I have time to do my other non-negotiable morning activity: making art.

I need to be at my desk by 6:30am at the absolute latest to get in a half hour of art-making time. This is not only a creativity exercise, but an accountability exercise also. Woody Allen said that "90% of success is just showing up." Most of the reason would-be artists don't make art is because they spend too much time thinking about, talking about it, thinking and talking about why they're blocked and not doing it, but not making art. I have been guilty of the same for about 20 years. I set out to change that this last school year with success. I'm not making as much art as I'd like to, but I am making a lot more than I did in the preceding 19 years, so I'll consider that progress. My goal has been to make progress on one piece a week. I work small to increase my chances of actually finishing something, since I don't have big blocks of time to devote to the effort.

This year I'm setting a new goal, though: a finished drawing/painting/print a day. My inspiration for this is twofold: 1) the painfully slow process I've been testing to simulate what my AP Art students will have to do this school year, and 2) Duane Keiser, who set out several years ago to complete a painting a day, and succeeded. As I mentioned in a previous post, "Good artists borrow, great artists steal," so I have "stolen" this idea to help me get out of my artist's slump. For now I will settle for showing up and making progress, but once school starts I'm going to try to complete a painting/drawing/print a day so my students can see that it is possible, and to catapult me out of this bad habit of not making art every day that I've cultivated over the last 20 years.

After art-making, I'll be in the shower by 7:00am and out the door to school by 7:30am. This will get me to school by 8:00am to 8:15am, which is actually a little early for the slacker I intend to be as a result of all of my advance prep and planning, but so what? Then the school day: 3 back-to-back 90-minute classes (I think I have a 30-minute lunch in there somewhere), a 90-minute planning period at 2:00pm, which I plan to use to do ALL of the grading, recording, and materials prep for the next day, and then out the door by 3:45pm!

There will be a couple of days a week when I leave at 4:45pm because of my once-a-week coach class and my National Art Honor Society meeting, but most days I plan to be home by 4:30pm, taking the dog for a walk in the park for about 45 minutes, and then making dinner, reading a book, and to bed by 8:30pm to 9:00pm.

The most beautiful part of that plan and that schedule is that my weekends and holidays will belong to me and my husband, and not my school district.

If I am able to use the second half of my summer to get all that planning done, then my school year will look exactly as I have described: like anyone else's regular day job, with no homework and no grading outside of regular working hours. It will be a beautiful thing, (dare I say it?) a work of art.

So, the training program begins tomorrow. For the rest of my summer "off" I'll be working a regular 8-hour day like everyone else. The first half of my summer was about recovering my sanity from the absolutely insane schedule that teaching public school is, and the second half of the summer will be about preventing the insanity from happening again, regardless of what direction the insanity is coming from. I plan to be an island of calm and reason in the middle of whatever craziness my school or school district have cooked up for me this year. The eye of the storm, focused on the present moment, centered in myself and my purpose. Life is good. :-)

Inuit Pipe Update

For those of you waiting for the conclusion of the Inuit Pipe cliff hanger, I got a response from Mary Jane Lenz, a curator at the National Museum of the American Indian, today via email:

"Smoking was (and is) a leisure time activity; the "men of substantial means" sounds very odd though - they may have been thinking that only a wealthy man could afford tobacco, but I'm reasonably certain that anyone who had tobacco would share it.

Before Western tobacco was used, a kind of native tobacco was mixed with ash and formed into a cud and kept in the cheek. But Western tobacco was an early trade item, and people invented pipes to smoke it. The bowls were very small, only enough for a small dollop of tobacco (which was, again, often mixed with ash to make it go further.) Usually there was only enough for one big puff, so a man would light the tobacco, fill his lungs, and take one enormous puff which was powerful enough to set his head spinning.

There's a good book by Edward W. Nelson, published in 1896 and now available in paperback, called "The Eskimo About Bering Strait", which has a lot of information about pipes and smoking. I couldn't find it online but didn't have a lot of time to search for it. You may have better luck.

As to your question about pipes being disassembled when not in use, that whole business seems to apply only to the Plains, and even there not everyone is in agreement. But there is a current idea that a Plains pipe, when it is smoked, acts as a kind of "telephone line" to the Creator, and that when one is finished it should be "disconnected". So for the moment Plains pipes are usually stored and displayed with the bowl and the stem separated. This is certainly not the case for arctic people such as the Yup'ik and Inupiaq Eskimo, where smoking is more of a social event."

I am still planning to read the books I ordered from the library, as well as the one she recommends here. This was fun. :-)

Enough of a Challenge

When I'm making art, one of the ways I keep my butt in the chair long enough to create anything is to listen to books on CD, or music. When it's music, quite frequently I choose music that puts me "in the mood"--usually old favorites (sometimes really old). I've found that making art is not the time to try out a new potential muse; if the music doesn't suit or inspire me, it just interrupts my process and takes me out of the "zone" I'm trying to get into.

While my choice of music for making art is very much intentional, my choice of books on CD is not--I simply grab a stack of something that looks interesting to me on the library shelf. If whatever book I'm listening to while making art happens to fit the art that I'm making, it is sheer coincidence.

I don't believe in coincidence. I do, however, believe in the power of the collective unconscious (for you fundamental die-hards out there, translate: "Holy Spirit" if it makes you more comfortable--it's all the same thing to me).

Today I am experiencing just such a coincidence. I'm working on a series called "Patterns of Behavior: Predator and Prey," which centers around patterns from my own childhood and adult family interactions, as well as similar situations in my current work environment. The book that I happen to be listening to made it into the CD drive when I started working on this series, because I was in the middle of it while commuting to and from Goucher College for a class a couple of weeks ago. That's all--I just wanted to finish the book before going on to something else.

The book I'm listening to now is called I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis , by Jerry White. He is a land mine survivor who started an organization called "Survivor Corps" that originally served to help other land mine survivors in third world countries without the generous means available to most Americans for their recovery. It has grown to broaden its definition of "survivor" to include all manner of physical, emotional and psychological trauma.

I got the book because I love inspiring stories. I was about 3/4 of the way through the book before I realized that I have suffered and survived a whole battery of psychological and emotional traumas throughout my life, and one really big one just recently. His book has been explaining to me why I am a survivor and not a victim, and how it is the choices that I have made that have determined the outcomes and my attitude, and what have tipped the scales from victimhood toward survivorship.

In short, the 5 steps are: 1) Face Facts, 2) Choose Life, 3) Reach Out, 4) Get Moving, and 5) Give Back. (You can read the book if you want to find out what is involved at each step. Click on this link to get the book from Amazon.com: I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis .)

Here is what struck me like a bell today while I was listening to this book and making art:

"It's enough of a challenge to save myself, keeping my own attitudes and life in order. I would just as soon avoid too much contact with whiners and complainers, and give them what they need to move forward. I confess it is much easier to hang out with friends who are already on the survivor path than those on the victim path. If you give of yourself to a victim, you must do so carefully and with clear parameters. If you don't watch out you'll be doing more harm than good...If you aren't vigilant, you are brought into the victim web of rationale and deception...Victims must get what they need. At the end of the day, they are net takers. They draw in more than they give out, and ingratitude is the dominant sin. After all, who has the time to be thankful when we are nursing our own wounds? Beware. Victimhood is insatiable. Feed it and it will grow. Reward it and it will spread like a virus."

Also from the book, the 5 hallmarks of victimhood:

1. Living in the past.
2. Self pity.
3. Resentment.
4. Blaming.
5. Taking.
   

There are many things from this book that helped me to understand that many of the hard choices I've made concerning work and family in the last year and half were good for me, and exactly what I needed to do to be healthy. The ensuing uproar and outcry from those who would "[draw me] into the web of rationale and deception" to feed their own addictions is their problem, not mine. I've been surviving; overcoming; breaking free of the insanity of those patterns and behaviors.

Jerry White is right: that is enough of a challenge. I'm taking it, facing facts, choosing life, reaching out, getting moving, and giving back. It feels good.