Closed for the Season

I've just hung up my sign, "Closed for the Season."
What's closing?

My desire to blog.

What's the Season?

The undefined period of time I will not be posting.

Thank you, dear readers, for your attentive and loving support of my writing and my work. I encourage you to consider creating your own blog...a most incredible experience, which, also incredibly, is free. Thank you, Google, for the gift of blogspot.

Let me know if you do open a blog...I just might pop in and leave a comment.

Much love to all on this May Day. May peace prevail on Earth, and let it begin in our lives today. Bethany

The World Welcomes President Obama's Leadership

Thanks to my friend, Bubloo Sen, I am speaking to women's groups this weekend in Bangalore, on the American electoral process and how we came to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president.

Given the worldwide reach of CNN and other cable news networks, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Indian citizens are so tuned into the nuances of the Obama campaign. Everyone seems familiar with the Chicago sea of faces celebrating victory on election night and the gathering of three million Americans for the January inaugural.

But listening to Indian women talk about the US election of the first president of color, I became aware of an important distinction: their interest in President Obama's win is not simply because of media coverage, or because of Obama's color. They, like those of us who voted for this remarkable man, are drawn by HIS MESSAGE.

For years, America has been the promised land for those seeking material comforts. Obama's campaign message was not about comfort or consumption, and we all were relieved. All world citizens are hungering for a message about community, service, sharing and protecting resources. Americans are tired of the American Dream that is little more than the Pursuit of Stuff.

After my Friday night program, a new friend named Bulbul said I had "Confirmed what I believed" about the leap America made in selecting a new President. Like me, she is hopeful and excited that the US has moved to another level of living....where resources are more equitably distributed, where we take decisions and actions based on similiarities not differences and our attention is focused on "We" not "Me."

Yes We Can.

Happy Nursing Mother's Day

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an article on the internet that provided me with the only reason I can think of to wear an under wire bra:

DETROIT (Reuters) - A 57-year-old Detroit woman avoided serious injury when the under wire on her bra deflected a bullet shot at her from next door, police said.

The woman, who lives on the West side of Detroit, saw a group of men breaking into a neighbor's house on Tuesday morning. When the men spotted her, one of them fired a shot at her, a police spokesman said.

The bullet struck the under wire on the woman's bra and that saved her from a more serious injury, police said.

"It did slow the bullet down," said Detroit police spokesman Phillip Cook. "She sustained injuries but they're not life threatening."

The woman, who was not identified, was treated at a nearby hospital. The suspects in the shooting drove away.

While breast cancer is a major killer of women worldwide (400,000 annually) we still don’t know what causes it.   Close to 40,000 women die in the U.S. every year from it.

I wonder about tight bras, especially ones with wires, causing lymph to pool and sit, full of waste and toxins, in the fatty breast tissue.  The lymphatic system is the body’s sewer system.  It is meant to flow, to pull all that is no longer of value from our cells, tissues, organs, and blood and dispose of it!

What if, in the name of glamour, women are unknowingly creating a dirty, scummy poisonous pond on the chest?

Beyond my suspicions around the under wire’s link to cancer, I am sorry any woman consciously chooses to wear something so uncomfortable.  In my thirties, when I thought I was my breasts, I owned a few of these torture devices.  Ask any woman who wears one, she’ll tell you one of the main reasons she hurries home each night is to free herself from its strangling clutches.

All last week, though I doubt it was an intentional build up to Mother’s Day, the media obsessed on Miss California’s breasts: first, that they were man made and paid for by donations, and secondly, that she sorta, kinda bared them for a camera.  Is it really against pageant law to showoff your silicone?

Am I the only person who remembers the life giving purpose of breasts?  Not for pushing up or out, photographing or filming.  Mammary glands are for feeding babies.  Ask any of those wonderful lactation consultants who help young mothers.

On this Mother’s Day, I thank my own mother for nursing me, giving me such a great, healthy start on this Earth.  I thank my now grown son, for the privilege of feeding him the same way, launching him into the world with strong immunity and an excellent ability to heal.      May more babies spend time on their mothers’ breasts.   And may the media and under wire bra manufacturers let breasts be!

Click here for more about the momma and baby camels pictured.

Sharing Our Vermont Home in India

Indian hospitality is so over the top, unless you experience the graciousness, you can't possibly imagine it. Returning from my three plus weeks in Hyderabad to Bangalore, my suitcase is full of gifts, many from people who do not have $13 a month to buy groceries. I'm not kidding.

Knowing full well I would meet such loving people and not be able to reciprocate by inviting them to my Vermont home, I made a plan. I would bring a bit of Vermont with me.

What did I bring? Little handmade sachets, full of dry balsam needles. I cut the tree down in our woods last fall, and dried the needles in paper bags. In January, my mother, Kay Greeley, and I sewed little bags and filled them with the fragrant needles...topped off with a few decorative bags.

In the past three months, I have given more than 12 dozen bags away across India, to folks I meet on trains, at church, in yoga classes, through friends, at workshops and especially in Hyderabad, at the meetings with the hardworking mothers.

As I hand out the sachets, I always say, "Take a deep breath and sigh. Relax. Now you know what it is like to be in our Green Moutain woods, this beautiful smell of Christmas trees. If you ever do have a chance to visit our home, you will recognize this relaxing fragrance from today!"

Cheerleading Dreamers

Visiting with hundreds of brown eyed children and teens here in Hyderabad during this season’s Youth Camps, I learn their names and then ask, “What are your dreams for your life?”
(Visiting a joyous family in their hut. Hindus, they recently shaved their heads for religious reasons. I wonder, would I be able to smile as they do, living in the slums?)
Raised in the poorest conditions, few of these kids appear to have considered their dreams.

Looking to India’s high earning 20 and 30 year olds for an answer, many boys and girls reply, “IT (information technology), engineering, computer software.” But are these professions what most teens are passionate about or even possess any natural ability for doing?

This past three weeks, I have been volunteering with the Care Foundation for Children and Aging, an international charity that supports more than 250,000 worldwide. My family sponsors children in India; we’ve had sponsorees in the Philippines and Guatemala, too.

What makes CFCA unique and successful is that it focuses on educating children and their mothers. Mothers who have learned a trade and bring needed income to the family view the world more positively, and are a great asset to the family. We all know the power of an encouraging parent, teacher, coach or other authority figure in our lives. I still salute my eighth grade English teacher, Mary Vinton, who told me, when I was 14, “Of course, you are a writer.”

“I am?” I thought with excitement. Up until that moment, I had thought of myself in the traditional ways children do…as a daughter, sister, Girl Scout. I was actually a writer? What a mighty woman Mary Vinton was in my life. She saw something in me and woke me up to myself.

When I consider what small contribution I can make in the lives of India’s children, I believe identifying and underlining their strengths, talents and interests can be a great gift. Beyond sending $30 a month to children through CFCA, we sponsors pray for and uplift poor families, knowing their health and well being will shape a large part of beloved India’s future.

(Mr. and Mrs. George Reddy with daughter Mary, of Hyderabad We learned yesterday Mary passed her exams and is now a medical doctor! Our family joins Mary's celebration, as my husband was blessed to fund her medical school education.)
If you saw Slumdog Millionaire and were moved by the plight of slum children, why not move from merely watching the life of India's poor to improving it? Families who live in slum housing that is smaller and far less comfortable than an old van or SUV await your love and attention.

Oh, let us all remember the power of encouraging words, and express them often! While I wish I was heading up the Gates Foundation, my resources are limited….fortunately, my capacity to cheerlead dreamers is limitless.

Making Healthy Choices, Creating Good Conditions

A few years ago, a then-11 year old friend of mine said she was having trouble staying in a particular home because, "I can't make healthy choices here."

What great environmental awareness, particularly for such a young person!

So many of us continue to stay in place and with people who are not good influences, keep us feeling powerless, unhappy, angry or worse.

Just this week, another friend told me that her entire childhood was defined by hearing how much she disappointed her father...from her grades, to her handwriting, to her table manners. "If I dropped a fork on the floor at a meal, I shook in fear," she recalled.

Children are rarely able to protect themselves from such abuse and neglect. And because this pattern is established early in life, where the one who "loves you" is also your harshest critic and judge, such abused children often select lovers and life partners who are equally cruel and hurtful. We seek the familiar, regardless of the pain, in the name of love.

Waking up to this conditioning is both freeing and startling! On one hand, we are gladdened with this new awareness, as it means we can stop the madness. But on the other hand, we can have trouble accepting the adults who hurt us; sometimes choosing to lash out or reject them. A good reminder is to remember that, in most cases, all of us are doing the best we can. Parents who damage their children are almost always damaged children themselves...part of a long line of abusers. What a great moment in a family history, when a generation comes along that vows, "The abuse stops here. I will not continue such unacceptable behavior." With this commitment, we can also find some compassion for our abuser, seeing them as much a victim as we see ourselves.

Awake and aware, we are able to create good conditions for ourselves, choosing and developing an environment where we are supported, encouraged, understood and loved. Like the hothouse flower who needs the right temperature, proper soil and adequate water, each of us can learn what we need to blossom and bloom!

Photos and video from a visit April 22, 2009 to Child Haven International, an orphanage on the outskirts of Hyderabad. We brought 120 pure fruit bars, 30 pounds of green grapes and 15 big watermelons to share with the 115 children.Thanks to friends and yoga students who donated the fruits, toys, clothes, shoes, books, jewelry and more. The lovely girl in the pearls is one of my sweethearts in India, 13 year old Sneha, who wants to be a doctor. Who will support her dream? If you are interested, leave a comment. Med School is about $1000 year here!

Endless Timeless Dance of Joyous Creation

Most of my life, I've been a seeker. A seeker of meaning, purpose and an understanding of this breathtaking Cosmos.

In 1986, I became a Christian, a giant leap in my developing faith life. I became smitten by the message of Jesus. So straightforward, so beautiful, so all encompassing. Knowing he dined with prostitutes, tax collectors and lepers...three of the least appealing groups of his time...made me even more drawn to his teaching to love one another. Period.

In her new book, The Secret Magdalene, Ki Longfellow has taken on a giant task...sorting through thousands of pages of history and conjecture, to create a picture of the life of one of Jesus' closest friends, Mary Magdalene.

Please let me share what I consider the heart of the book, on page 351, some of Magdalene's musings:

“Plato taught that the first principle is intellect whose only function can be to think and the only possible object of thought must be itself. But I must ask: why, then, did it act? Does it not seem more likely that the first principle is not intellect, but Consciousness, which being aware, would not only think, but feel and, in feeling, would desire to express itself? All reality is that expression. The stars and all they contain, the earth and all that goes on it, man and every moment he makes or thoughts he thinks. Nothing can be separate from Consciousness, and nothing can be ‘fallen.’ There can only be the myriad expression of Consciousness, which is neither good nor evil, but is infinite experience.

“God is not a being outside the Self, not has it gender, nor it is burdened with a desire to find fault or to test, or a need to command obedience. God is Consciousness---which is All There Is. And we are how it knows itself in all its infinite variety. God is an endless timeless dance of joyous creation. All this, so that God might know itself---and glory in the contemplation thereof.”

I don't recall reading anything better or more lovely. To underscore my agreement, I include a picture from a recent village welcome I received, part of that endless timeless dance of joyous creation Mary Magdalene describes!