Women @ Work in the 40th

"Photographers working for the United States Farm Security Administration (FSA) and later the Office of War Information (OWI) created the images between 1939 and 1944."

"The original images are color transparencies ranging in size from 35 mm. to 4x5 inches. They complement the better-known black-and-white FSA/OWI photographs, made during the same
period."

Check my flickr galleries for more on my selection of Women @ Work and Folks, more may be in the making. All of my selections so far stem from the set 1930 - 40 In Color

"For more information about the collection and to see the approximately 171,000 black-and-white photos, visit: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/f sac/"

Taking Stock

Last Sunday August 1., two years ago I created my first blog SUENOSDEUOMI  and one year ago I switched to UOMIS, this venue because of tech problems. So now I am one week in to my 3. year of my blogging adventure. A good time to pause and take stock.

My older blog garnered 1648 visitors from 68 countries to date, if I trust that flag counter. This site counts 1045 visitors from 47 countries with 3855 page views.

What does it all mean? That I am not quiet as invisible as I feel? A few told me in person that they enjoy reading my blog. But feedback, much less a discussion is rare, almost non existent. My post on the tragic demise of Chris Rose was an exception and garnered views and comments as I had linked it to our local paper's article and my flickr account. I still think of Chris Rose, every time I pass the roses outside the church of Our Lady Guadalupe. I vividly remember watching Chris stealing a rose and me reprehending him and the exchange that ensued and then later on the plaza how he presented the flower to the lady of his choice.

So are my posts simply too boring to warrant a response? One anonymous feedback said something to this effect. Why bother to write or read a blog?

For me I like for one the challenge of formulating a thought or more often an experience. I liked that even as a kid in school having to write essays. I was a vorascious  reader and would bring stacks of books home from the libraries. I would read while walking to school, or under the bed covers when I was supposed to be sleeping. For a while I resented everybody that attempted to bring my focus back to  the mundane world. No, don't ask me to leave my book and go on errands!

Because I grew up speaking Swiss German, (proper) High German was the language used to read and write, the English/American language, my fifth, has challenges all of it's own for me. I have extensive training in German and French, but only several semesters in the English language. Most I picked up by listening to foreigners and pop songs at first, and later by needing to communicate with  a host of internationals while living in Amsterdam. The very first book written in English that I attempted to read was Fritz Perl's In and Out of the Garbage Pail. A presentation of a then new form of psychotherapy, Gestalt Therapy, by the creator himself. I believe I intuited a lot of the ideas rather correctly, after all Perls was born in Berlin, was germanic. It was the early seventies, centers for the Human Potential Movement like Esalen held a lot of fascination, certainly for me.

Gestalt "Prayer" (may have become my credo)

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.

That sums up my feelings about my blogging pretty well
- for now.

May be continued ...

You may notice that I added a section that lists the blogs I follow. I am on the look out for blogs of interest to me. I find it rather odd how difficult they seem to find. Your suggestions will be welcome.

Delicious Medicinal Meal

I discovered that steamed Dandelion greens over a heavily spiced tuna steak smothered in green Chile Verde of my own making (lots of Cilantro, few tomatoes) is quiet edible, in fact delicious. I was afraid I would not be able to stomach the bitter Dandelion since all my fibers long for sweets. The very reason my body is in such dire need of the blood and liver cleansing properties of bitters such as Dandelion. Do you know you can make coffee from the roasted roots of Dandelion that is considered in the Macrobiotic system of healing through diet as extremely Yang and beneficial?

Advice for Women Who Run With Wolves

The advise from Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.
out of her book Women Who Run With the Wolves
reads as follow:

1.  Eat

2.  Rest

3.  Rove in between

4.  Render loyalty

5.  Love the children

6.  Cavil in moonlight

7.  Tune your ears

8.  Attend to the bones

9.  Make love

10. Howl often

Cat and Dog Hanging

Sumo-boy and Saemi-boy, cat and dog,

 hanging out with no need for mediation.

Fresh Breeze

Ah, fresh breeze on my cheeks 
while riding my bike 
with two pups on lead, ah!

I made it out on bike with the pups by 7 this morning. No big deal? Well, for our sleepy town, little happens this early, the streets are still mostly empty, the air can be cool, even cold as autumn seems to have announced it's approach already. For me it is a big deal to beat the temptation of the net and head out, rather then on the computer, before the heat of the day.

My pups did great, stayed focus and did never once threaten my life with  erratic, spontaneous impulses of their own. I marveled inside the coffee shop, where we stopped on our way home, how easy life has become with more mature (going on 5 years, both) dogs. No longer did I have to feel anxious about their behavior outside while I was placing my order inside. No longer did I feel a need to crash the waiting lines to get back out to prevent mayhem. They are really good doggies, but canines they are. It is always better to not approach an unknown tethered dog. Today one girl somehow got scared off. I really do not know what happened, did not hear any klamauk. I felt bad, wished the girl would have wanted to try again, rather then slink away from my pups. I surely do not want to imprint fear of dogs on any girl through my pups. Wish someone had introduced me gently to dogs when I was young and scared and certain those German shepherds  were out to bite my hand off. 

Isabella-girl, who often now lags behind (having discovered that my eyes are not on my back) today, with a glimmer in her eyes, got to running ahead and gave Sumo this mischievous look back. I love that glee filled spirit of hers that exudes out of those big brown eyes.

Passing a tree full of apples many of them on the ground, I learned that some city workers do think and make sensible decisions of their own. The fallen apples will not be wasted in a land fill, but will feed a sow. Hooray for not wasting food! Hooray for one man's initiative and hooray again for the city no longer fertilizing all public parks as it used to be done. No thanks to toxins and yes to green managements. In our community it is the law that fruit hanging and dropping on/over public spaces is common goods. My eyes were open for loot!

That is how I stopped at a neighbor's plum tree where the side walk was littered with gooey, gunky, messy, squooshy plums. Hoping for some whole fruits, I stopped and stared, as two girls, I learned 9 and 3 years old, approached me. Ah, so cute, the bigger girl pushing the wagon holding her younger sister. I learned that she has a day off from Summer school because she has a mean teacher. Her paper did not get a star like most others, so she decided to give herself a star! And for good measure she added a second star on her sisters sheet. Oh well, the girl conceded that she misses her best friend, a boy, and she will go back to school tomorrow. I was surprised to find two very cute girls unsupervised on the streets. Hope they will get their expected new puppy tomorrow and that I will see them again at the dog park, under supervision.

All in all a most delightful morning today.

Unsolicited Advice #7

One can be only as honest with others as one is with self.

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

Mark Twain 
When she cannot deceive herself 
the chances are against her being deceived by others.

Deception of self and others is rampant. Many a woman has tales to share. In the news only today one woman claims to have discovered, on facebook, the marriage of her husband to another woman! Lies can pass through lips of the most sincere and sweet looking faces. A sociopath perfects suggesting to you what he thinks you want to hear. Of course such disturbed individuals could be male or female, but here I am concerned with the woman that gets taken by her man, her lover, her husband, and sometimes a total stranger.

Gullibility because of feeling needy, chasing a dream, or seeking a way out from an impossible situation is not helpful, but neither does it condemn the victim of a ruse.

I remember my Dad's warning to me, then a teen. I hated his trying to impress on me that the world is not a safe place and people can not be trusted. I hate to give this same impression now. The antidote is to learn to trust your instincts, go through the world with eyes wide open and to not wear blinders and rose colored glasses. 

The truth shall set us free!

Wet

Unsolicited Advice #6

Learn the difference between a response and a reaction!

Dr. Kaushik

I must credit Dr. Kaushik with alerting me to the difference of a response versus a reaction.
 

It was the seventies, I was still in my teens, Dr. Kaushik had just started to travel the world teaching his insights to those that would listen. I had just moved in to a farm house with a huge attic out in the Swiss, very pretty countryside. Dr. Kaushik came to hold his seminar in our attic. It was all very exciting. An international group of young attractive world travellers came to camp out with this guru, or master from India. My mentor Dwuno placed Dr. Kaushik's teaching to a similar level of enlightenment as Krishnamurti's, a very high endorsement. So happily I sat at this man's feet along with everyone else and listened. I was young and in serious trouble with my parents. Eventually I got up the courage to ask about my situation at home. His answer: "Don't react!"

An automatic reaction is a far cry from a measured response. Mature, responsible human beings nurture the ability to respond, rather then react! I will always feel gratitude for Dr. Kaushik's teachings.

Unsolicited Advice #5

Learn the difference between feeling your feelings and acting them out. A sure sign of acting out is being overly concerned with the other rather then yourself. Manage your experience rather then another's! Make I-statements rather then blame as in: "You did", "-made me feel ...."

Releasing pent-up energy through acting out is very tempting and seems so real when in truth it is a means of avoiding your feelings and manipulating another's. Remember to bring it all back to yourself, your experience and your choices, rather then reactions.

Unsolicited Advice #4

My unsolicited advice from one, 
maybe a bit more experienced woman to another:

Feel Your Feelings!

Expression is negotiable - Repression is not.

Point of View

A different point of view
may reveal the extraordinary in the mundane.

Happy Birthday President Barack Obama!

Despite all the disappointments in policies stemming from this current administration, I personally still feel enough good will and affection for (and from) President Barack Obama to wish him a very happy birthday with many returns yet to come. 

Well wishes do not make for a personality cult, it is o.k. to join Michelle Obama in wishing President Barack Obama well. Doing so does not denote blind following of a leader, it does not stamp the presidency with our total approval, it only offers a return of good intentions we so clearly can feel and believe in coming from the president we elected.

Sweet and Refreshing

Downtown Oasis in our High Desert

Reflections are not too common with our high desert climate, but the monsoon rains, really severe storms, have started up again. Better late then never as in years prior. So for us these water reflections are a feast for the eyes and are not at all taken for granted.

Potential

Given the chance, and here the likelihood of such by far outweighs the lack, this green bulb will soon mature in to a big, bright, beautiful, tall yellow Sunflower. While there is great potential for the realization of these genes, beauty and value are found in all stages.

Is it chance or providence that makes us reach, or not, our (human) potential? 

I would say it is part chance, part nurture, part luck, as in not attracting unwanted predatory attention, and a good part the ability to persevere. I have no reason to believe in providence or fate, do you?

Swiss Independence Day August 1.

The Swiss celebrated today August 1. the birth of their nation which dates back to August 1. 1291!

The common CH symbol, oddly seen on back of American cars in the States, stands for the latin Confederatio Helvetica (CH) translated in to German to Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft and  in to American, Swiss Confederation. 

Switzerland is no young Spring Chicken, the Swiss have been around the block a few times or more. These days their wisdom not to join the EU (European Union) seems a lot more sensible and prudent.

I have to resort to Wikipedia to learn that the area that makes up Switzerland covers only a ridiculous 15,940 square miles. The population counts less then 8 million.

In 2005 the median household income in Switzerland was an estimated $90,000! For much of the 20th century, Switzerland was the wealthiest country in Europe by a considerable margin. The Swiss franc remains one of the world's strongest currencies with the lowest inflation rate.

The Swiss Confederation has a long history of neutrality—it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815. Gosh, do I appreciate such a record!

1971 was the year women were granted the right to vote. My mom never chose to exercise her right, while I had left Switzerland before the age that would have qualified me to place my votes.

Switzerland has one of the best environmental records among nations in the developed world; It was one of the countries to sign the Kyoto Protocol in 1998 and ratified it in 2003. The country is heavily active in recycling and anti-littering regulations and is one of the top recyclers in the world, with 66% to 96% of recyclable materials being recycled.

Zürich, home to 1.5 million inhabitants and 150,000 companies, has taken top position in recent quality of life surveys. Life expectancy is among the highest in the world. Universal health insurance is compulsory.

The Swiss are the world's largest consumers of chocolate and looking at myself, I believe it. Finally though chocolate was discovered to hold those beneficial health qualities that encourage us to indulge guilt free.

Albert Einstein, physicist, might be the most famous Swiss personality but contemporary Tennis player Roger Federer, born August 8. 1981 may haven even more name recognition. C. G. Jung, Psychiatrist, has gained a surprising popularity here in my community in Santa Fe. Jean Piaget's name I encountered only the other day when I researched a pre-school in my neighborhood. Giacometti's work was recently auctioned for top price, I have no idea why, I do not understand his art, but sought after it is. On the other hand Andreas Vollenweider is well known in New Age circles for his trance inducing, soothing sounds.

Still Pretty

Unsolicited Advice #3

Love! Not that I exactly feel qualified to talk, much less advise about love, but I wish someone had told me when I was still in the process of becoming a woman that love does not just happen. We make ourselves vulnerable and available for love of a certain kind for a reason. Those reasons, or motivations, better be good. Love does not have to be a coup de foudre, a follie a deux, a singular or shared state of insanity. Love happens, usually for a reason. It behooves us to inquire, to wonder and to tread cautiously. We are magical, multi-faceted, wondrous beings. It is a good idea to bring our various facets in to play with another, rather then present one aspect alone. It is good to take our sweet time in getting to know another and through it ourselves.

Nothing compares to the sweet sense of overflowing goodwill towards the focus of our affection. Nurtured along properly the positive flow may continue rather then flip in to a malignant, maybe disappointed, destructive, powerful negative torrent. Love rejected can turn in to hate all too easily.

Do not allow the festering of hate, do not close your heart. It is our life long challenge to keep an open and soft heart, no matter what.

Unsolicited Advice #2

Trust has to be earned!

I had the very good fortune of having come upon a wise and wonderful woman who taught me many things, one of them that trust is not to be given freely, but needs to be earned. As a girl, not yet a woman, this was a revelation to me. I guess I had an idea that somehow we intuit if someone is worthy of our trust or not. And we do, but not just. Remember the saying "trust in god, but bind your camel?" I say trust in your intuition, but put it to test too.

There are many reasons why good people become untrustworthy. Addiction comes up as maybe the number one reason. Chemical imbalances can wreck havoc. A less then ideal upbringing, or the choice of bad company can easily lead one astray as well. So I say don't be a fool, test the recipients of your trust and affection!

Unsolicited Advice #1

Learn to say NO! You can not say yes, if you can not say no. Learn to say no. Say it nicely, but firmly. No need to be rude. I say this from one woman to another, maybe less experienced woman or girl.

In the news a french woman just confessed to having killed 6 new born babies of hers. You bet this woman did not know how to say no. We do not know if she could not refuse her husband, or maybe the Pope, who still insists that sex with protection is wrong. But we do know that since the woman could not say no, she denied life to her offspring. In the same way when we can not say no, we deny an aspect of ourself, we kill an aspect of ourself, and eventually grow in to a farce of our self, an idea of self with little resemblance to who we really are.

Society teaches us, especially us women, to be pleasing. Naturally being more empathic then men, we women tend to give up ourselves in favor of the other. Have we not heard of oral sex given by teenage girls - in hopes of, yes, love. We older women shake our heads, what happened to women's lib? This is not what women had in mind then. This is most certainly not how to win a man's heart. (Not that with all my experience I really would know how.)

In order to say no and mean it, we have to know who we are and what we want. This knowing of oneself takes time to develop. There is no need to rush, not even in this culture of instant gratification. Remember you can say yes fully only after you have learned to say no!

Sun Flower in the Making

The Cry for Justice that Reeks of Revenge

The cry for justice reeks of revenge. The mobs on the comment boards lust for bloody murder, sounding not unlike what the hecklers may have sounded like in ancient persecutions of say early Christians and later witches and throw in the french royalty as well. This spectator sport seems of a childish mind with little to no connection to a real live heart. What makes people delight in so much cruelty? Does the suffering of one's own family members justify such sentiments? The cries for  so called justice persist, as if the death of one man can reinstate another's life. There is no justice! Life can be terribly unfair. Stop already the cry of revenge, it hurts my heart, eyes and ears - and yours!

I admire the path the South Africans chose after apartheid. They held hearings, they aired their grievances, they listened to each others stories. It must have been cathartic, profound and healing. They moved on. We need more of that kind of wisdom, that kind of whole making process, that kind of humane encounters between perpetrators and victims. We need a being held accountable, a telling of our stories, a listening to each others pain, and eventually a forgiving and letting go, but never forgetting! 

Farmers Market

These days I go to the Farmers Market not so much to buy produce, but to watch people. Why have basic food items like potatoes, bread, salad and fruit in season become so expensive? I used to pick and choose a few stems of flowers for a few bucks, now the bouquets are way out of my price range. I do believe in buying local and organic, but the costs have become outrageous.

Last week though I treated myself to one of my favorite items I have had a hankering for, maybe because it has been my birthday month where always I seem to indulge myself even more then usual.

Heidi's Raspberry-Chile-Ginger Jam is the best! None other come even close. This kid happened to be a good sales man (not that I needed any convincing) with a sense of humor. Isn't he, I want to say cute, but cool really ought to be the adjective.

This virtuoso violin player was at it again last weekend. He reminds me of Picasso's blue period, looking sad and forlorn, although I doubt this is how he truly felt.

Soon this proud farmer will bring again his seriously hot Chile Peppers for roasting on the spot. The  beloved scent of roasting red and green peppers is so characteristic to our farmers market. Some eat those  hot peppers straight others add them to everything, not just eggs and beans, but bread. Not me.

While some like to point fingers,

others like to dance.

Blessed are those kids that get to have special time with their Dads at the market.

Ray managed to crack some smiles from some kids, as he blew them balloons for free,
while his service dog watched and his sign informs that tips are customary.

I did not mind that I got dripping wet as I picked up this gorgeous, irresistible flower pot.  I was relieved that I did not incur a traffic ticket, as I was woefully parked the wrong way.  This arrangement brightens our of late overcast days and spreads cheerfulness, so must be well worth it's weight in gold.