The OGT Daily #72 Learning language

 For the past several years and for the past 295 days in a row I have been spending at least five minutes daily learning new language skills. It was one the many distractions I used to get me through the ice wall of writing my doctoral dissertation.  I started with French probably about a two years ago on the free learning app Duolingo.  The one with the perky owl Duo who flies around and becomes supercharged if you get your lessons right.  I then decided to pick up Italian because I was watching Elena Ferranti's My Brilliant Friend on HBOMax and thought the language was beautiful. Then I launched into lessons in Arabic because ten years ago I spent time in Morocco and wanted to be able to communicate there but had no skills other than French.

For 295 days I have been on a streak mostly with French and have been able to do at least one or two lessons each day.  

With the intensity of the research writing I was doing all fall, my brain was exhausted and the little stories and situations in Italian or French were like taking a mini vacation and pretending I was someone else even for a few minutes. This kind of learning is also good for the brain and for memory due to both visual and auditory processing as well as verbal engagement.

Last night I had the word calcio stuck in my head and couldn't for the life of me remember what it meant until today.  It's another word for football or soccer.  So I've begun thinking in other languages and so I know something is sinking in.

What new thing did you learn today?

The OGT Daily #71 Coming Home

Today's blog is very simple. We drove home after traveling north to the mountains, snow, tall forests, and the remnants of winter. How refreshing it was to see the mountains in Vermont once more where I used to ski. Four or five inches of snow fell over night while we were there and we sat inside talking and singing, drinking wine and champagne and eating well cooked meals - hanging out with friends of over thirty years. Friends with whom our children grew up and with whom company is easeful and healing.  We have all settled in our elder years in different areas of the northeast so coming together once a year is a necessary and joyful ritual that keeps us grounded in all that we have known and done in our lives and in our own wellness and health even as the body begins to fail and we each face our own challenges.

But as my husband always says "guests like fish stink after three days" and we wanted to be home to the comfort of our own bed and the beginning of the work week. As we traveled we drove through farmlands and forests glazed with ice from the rains that fell after the snows. The more southward we drove the more the temperature rose so that it was a rainy spring once again when we reached our house four hours later.

How sweet it is to take a road trip and come back home to what you know and love.

I only wish it was as easy for many in this world and I send loving thoughts for safe haven for those who are far from home.

The OGT Daily #70 Labyrinth

After my adventure in the Franz Kafka exhibit last Wednesday I happened upon a surprise for which I am deeply grateful.  The Morgan Library is at 37th street and Madison, a brief walk from Grand Central.  I then needed to get downtown for a dinner appointment in lower Manhattan near Wall Street.  

Off to find a subway, I headed west toward Broadway and found myself staring up at a massive limestone church on 39th street with the sign Marble Collegiate.  This is perhaps the oldest church organization (not the building) in the city if not the country - going all the way back to the Dutch settlers when the island was called New Amsterdam. The building faced Broadway, but just at the corner to 39th Street tacked to the wrought iron fence was a small sign that invited: Come walk the labyrinth from 5:00 to 6:30 pm.  I checked my watch and it said 5:15.  Did I want to walk a labyrinth? Of course I did. They are among the most important symbols to me. I give a finger labyrinth to my therapy students at the beginning of each semester as a symbol of their journey to becoming therapists and healers.  

As the sign said within the church: The labyrinth aids in deepening our personal spiritual journeys. It is a "body prayer" or walking meditation on a single path that provides personal, spiritual, and psychological transformation. The path provides a mirror for where we are in our lives. It guides us into an experience of the presence of God.  A labyrinth is not a maze, which has many paths leading to dead ends. It is only one path leading to a central point. One follows the same path in as you do on the way out.  

In a maze you lose yourself, but in a labyrinth you find yourself.  

And there it was in the basement of the church annex, under softened lights with small candles along its outer rim. The face of this labyrinth was constructed out of white and black terrazzo; the black marking the edges of the path made of white in the exact pattern of the Chartres Cathedral formation that I give my students in Xerox form each semester to follow.   Several people slowly moved along in silence and stocking feet within the narrow white path trying to maintain balance. One women out of breath and hobbling along needed to stop along the way at a standing pillar to gather her strength.  

I gathered my own, slipped my sneakers off and began, one foot after the other toe to toe. It was a challenge to maintain balance. The path takes you inward almost to the center and then almost immediately turns inward in the opposite direction so that you must snake along and work your way slowly within the folds of the labyrinth, laid out almost as folds in the four quadrants of the brain.

As fellow passengers on this one path, we stepped aside to let each other pass in silence to continue on our journey, alone but in community. The many winds toward and away from the center surprised me as I have only two other times walked a labyrinth. When I reached to center I was alone there and took a moment to pray for peace and health for my oldest child whose birthday it was. Then I began again journeying outward and feeling the conviction of the moment.  

Such a powerful and simple ancient tool for belief and clarity.

What moved your spirit today?

The OGT Daily #69 Metamorphosis II: Voice

 To continue about Kafka, it is to him that I owe a debt of gratitude.  He was always writing about his struggles. I was a struggling art student in my twenties when I came across a tattered copy of his letters to his father.

Kafka's father Heinrech was a butcher who had little understanding or patience for his son's interest in writing and the arts. In the letters Kafka defends his artistic passions in such a way that I, as a 21 year old, took courage from.  

I myself was very poor at the time and receiving no financial support. I could barely cover my tuition with scholarships. All savings went towards rent with little left to cover food. A good friend used to come over and cook me a meal of pasta just so I didn't wither away.

I am so grateful for her, but Kafka's words also bolstered and inspired me  in my art making and writing.

Kafka himself was often ill with tuberculosis and died young from starvation. Ironically, this remarkable writer with such a distinctive voice was literally silenced by this disease which closed off his larnyx and throat.

There was a quality of simple and clever allegory that influenced my own artistic voice and vision as I became a film artist in my early life and up into the current time.

For whom are you grateful?

The OGT Daily #68 Metamorphosis

 The opening line of Franz Kafka's novel of this name begins: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." 

It is both a tragedy and utterly comedic as Kafka was a master of allegory and internal dialogue. His novels all involve existentential dilemma's and fantastical imaginings of everyday horrors of life in the early days of the industrial revolution.  

The Morgan Library in NYC has an exhibition of his original manuscipts, photographs of him as a youth and even as scale model of the apartment in Prague where he lived with his family in which the poor Samsa was imagined to turn into a vile cockroach in his sleep.

Yet the poor innocence of the unwitting man/bug, his hands turned into multiple useless sticky brown appendages, recalls the poignancy of many of us at our most vulnerable, self-loathing, unloved, and helpless. Unable to even move the giant carapace off of the bed or to turn the key in the lock, Samsa yet somehow keeps the humorous sensibility of a son wondering at his parents' worries that he has ruined his career by not catching his usual 6 am train to his job.

A dancer's interpretation of Gregor Samsa's metamorphosi

The metamorphosis or transformation of words into metaphors is at once moving and hilarious as the reader contemplates the poetic soul of the insect forced into to the soul crushing job of door to door salesman.

What I appreciate most is the allegory and ironic depiction of horrors we all struggle with: should I get out of bed? Am I lovable? Am I understood? If I become loathsome and less than human will I still be fed and cared for?

The Kafka exhibit is up until April 13th and well worth a visit at Madison Ave and 37th street.

What are you grateful for today?

The OTG Daily #67 River Gods

For almost 30 years I lived overlooking the Hudson River in NY state and still have the ability to do my daily walking there when I am in state.  Our home of 25 years looked over the river and the New Jersey Palisades which are balsalt cliffs that have not been developed or built on and represent a unique geologic formation in the world. We can still see these cliffs due to the efforts of the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs who fought to preserve them as a park in the early 1900s when quarry companies were mining the huge rocks known as balustrades. https://njsfwc.org/

I always felt the river was a powerful spirit and that the balsalt cliffs, which look like striped obsidian teeth, were like the jaw of a powerful Algonquin warrior god.  

My favorite animated movie is by far "Spirited Away" by Hiyao Miyazaki in which Haku the river god takes the shape of a boy and befriends a small girl Chihiro who has been trapped as a servant of demons in the spirit world.  He is also enslaved by a stink spirit that pollutes the river. They work together to free each other, when he tells her "don't look back" as a parting message ensuring that she does not get pulled back into the spirit world and can be human again.  Haku then returns to his dragon form and she must say good-bye.

River spirits or gods are ubiquitous in almost every culture, often taking the form of dragons or serpents.

In China, the dragon spirits are said to be a component of chi or spiritual energy

I have always felt the pull and spirit of the Hudson river gods and their positive energy.

What are you grateful for today?

The OTG Daily #66 Dessert

I've been reading about cravings and urges to binge eat. I have several clients who struggle with these.

I myself have been known to eat an entire bag of potato chips in an evening, but now I can't have the salt because it leaches calcium from the bones.  Salt free potato chips do take the "j" out of joy and the luster and sparkle out of a small chunk of life.

So maybe I should settle for sweet instead?  Except I haven't been able to eat sugary things for decades.

Not that I don't still love them.  I myself still crave a sweet thing at the end of a healthy lunch or dinner. Usually I reach for a healthy snack bar or some grapes, but why is that? Why do I have a palpable sense that I need sugar after eating something satisfying?

According to holmesplace.ch/en/blog/nutrition: "The desire for desserts may result from a large burst of insulin after a heavy meal. The sudden "jump" in insulin causes a rapid decrease in blood sugar levels, and thus increases the desire for sweets."

So viva la dolce vita - the Hershey's kiss, the Godiva heart, and the last marshmallow peep.  I've been known to have birthday cake for breakfast and as long as its gluten and sugar free, I'm going to indulge even if only once a year.

What do you crave today?

The OGT Daily #65 Traveling on Foot

 I'm walking now nearly every day between 3 and 5 miles loaded down with the six lbs of my weighted vest.  For inspiration I'm listening to Bernard Ollivier's travelogue Out of Instanbul from 2022 of his travels on foot on the famed Silk Road in Turkey.  Ollivier considers the car an invention that robs us of the convivial connections that occur when 35 kilometers be traversed in a mere 20 mins instead of a slow slog of half a day.  His goal was to go from Istanbul all the way to Tehran all on foot, turning down many truck drivers and minivans along the way.

Marco Polo along the Silk Road in the 14th Century
https://www.theblacktentproject.com/turkey-gate-of-1001-nights-tales-to-the-western-world/

He further adds that despite the pain to feet and body from carrying all your possessions on your back, walking allows one access to God under the following conditions:

    1) That you are alone (difficult when everyone wants to know what you are up to).

    2) That you are in the right place (and the Silk Road seemed that for him).

    3) That you be open and accepting of that which comes your way (signs of the Divine and humanity         alike).

The active discipline of movement was often used by pilgrims as a way to become closer to God on various pilgrims trails around the world. I can only claim at most 45 miles or about 80 kilometers on the Appalachian Trail with 25 lbs on my back, but this act of walking activates my mind especially for writing and clearing my head for creative practice.

Wearing the heavy vest each time as a penance for having the diagnosis of osteoporosis, gives me insight to the fate of prisoners, slaves, and others so shackled since time immemorial in man's subjugation of man.

But I am grateful for this weight and activity in which I am still able to travel on my own steam, free on the open road.

What activity inspires your day?

The OGT Daily #64 Waking the Garden

 There are certain small rituals that go almost unnoticed in our traveling of the year. One of those is waking the garden. It was still in slumber this morning, at 32 degrees, when I raked out the dead leaves and branches from last year's plants. 

I uncovered all the buried guardians: The Green Tara, Buddha, and St, Francis if Assisi, friend of birds and animals, exposing them once more to the early spring sunshine.

The frost prevents me from planting anything new this soon.  That will have to wait for a warmer season, but  bright possibilities begin to appear.   The red buds of the rhubarb patch, 

Brussel's sprouts green on the stem having ripened through the winter, and then there's the kale which remained green all year.

It can be hard to wait for the thaw and the growth of spring, but I anticipate it even as I put my garden to sleep each fall.   

It feels as if our country is now going into a long cold sleet of winter just as it experienced during the McCarthy era of the 1950's.  How many generations and decades will that take for a new direction and what will that ne?  That remains the question. But I remain hopeful for the young people who believe in this planet and equity its residents; that they will bring about a springtime thaw and throw off the greed, fear, hatred and intolerance.  

What are you grateful and hopeful for today?

The OGT Daily #63 All the Shades of Green

 In spite of the venal power grabs and outright cruelty assaulting us every day in the news, we can still rely on the verdant signs of spring. The skunk cabbage rising in the marshy grass.

The translucent green leaves emerging.

The clumps of grass that will soon become lawn.

Moss and lichen on the stone walls. You just need to slow down and see it.

What's growing that makes you glad?

The OGT Daily #62 Night

 I had the extreme pleasure of attending the Boston premiere of the new documentary Soul on Fire about the life of writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel. It was produced and directed by Oren Rudavsky who is a Judaic scholar in that most of his films are about Jewish people or Judaism is some way.  I was the editor of one of his first documentaries about what was left of Yiddish culture in Eastern Europe in the 1980s.  This film was called At the Crossroads and was co-produced by klezmer artist Yale Strom. It was the second of the three films I edited before retiring to be a mother.

A small klezmer band a wedding in the 1990 film At The Crossroads about Jewish life in Eastern Europe.

Before that I had assisted Oren and another sound editor making sound effects for the after school horror series Tales from the Darkside. We were both is a place of still developing our careers. It was totally ironic to me that I should see him all these years later after a random invitation to see this film at the Coolidge Corner Cinema, in Brookline, MA.

It could not be more timely. I have never read Night - which was Wiesel's first work, the testimony of his witnessing life at Auschwitz as a youth.  It is so dark and so real that I have been afraid. But the time has come. Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize for the courage to not be silent or indifferent to the pain and horror he witnessed as a young teen boy entering the camp with his parents and older sisters in the 1940s. His 10 year old younger sister, Tzipora, was immediately killed as useless to the work life of the camp.

This film addresses Wiesel's core message which is to not remain silent, but to always speak up in the face of inhumanity. What is important here is that Wiesel himself states in his address to the Nobel Committee that he includes both Jews and Palestinians in his call for remembrance of horrors done to them. Oren, as filmmaker, reiterated this message to the crowd at the Coolidge Corner Cinema last night, quite clearly. Perhaps this film will help spread this message, just like Dr. King's, that we must care about inhumanity to all members in our community of humans.  Some people (Christian, Jewish, and Muslim) cannot seem to remember this simple idea.

Animation of Joel Orloff from the film.

My husband and his film partner, Lisa Gossels received an Emmy award for their documentary The Children of Chabannes about Jewish children rescued from the Nazis in France during WW II. On September 9, 2001 (two days before the World Trade Center attacks) Elie Wiesl was the one who presented the Emmy to them. 

The circumstances that brought us all back together, me, Lisa, Dean, and Oren to watch this new film about Wiesel's life seemed prescient and important given the current headlines and where our leadership is headed.

I am grateful for this visionary who was able to witness the darkest night of the soul and live to tell us about it and for Oren retelling his story.

What stirs you heart in this current climate?

The OTG Daily #61 Meditation on Blue

 It seems time for a meditation on blue. Blue things, blue colors, the presence of blue or bleu or blu or 'azraq or bue or goluboy.

I collect blue things. It was my color, a family color...a sort of dusky grey blue I associated with my name and my grandmother's sweaters.  As a teenager I wore blue and black as a uniform, now I have a preference for orange yellows and pale greens.  But blue is always the staple, the calming element. The color of the sea, of the ocean, of the bay, and the reflected sky on the river.  The color of the clear sky itself.

Blue can be associated with sadness (I feel blue) or depression, but also intuition and the mother archetype in Jungian terms. 

Blue is the harmonic color of the fifth chakra "vishuda" located in the throat and associated with our sense of voice and ability to speak our truth.  In ancient times it was associated with wealth, commerce, and royalty because lapis lazuli and cobalt were precious commodities from the east. Indigo dying was a specialty craft and only the wealthy could afford it while browns were easily had from other plants. 

  

 I associate blue in association with red with democracy or whatever remains of it. Blue is the dream and presence of equanimity.

It's composite color on the color wheel is orange and thus my attraction to the more golden spectrum may be a sign of balance. Then there is the mixing of blue with gold, orange, or yellow to make green the color of growth. 

 
Blue things around my home ground me in the body and have a mystical appeal as the light passes through them and then there is blue ink and the anchor of many thoughts that might other fly away like so much dust.

What is the color of your gratitude today?