The Invitation
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or
have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you're telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithless and therefore be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes"!
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone,
and do what needs to be done for the children.
It doesn't interest me who you are, how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
-- Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Thursday, September 21, 2006
got a note from Kyle Brown in Bville...
I know some of my family met and knows Kyle Brown, and this am when I opened my email, there was a wonderful note from him. He is doing well, and will write more later, but wanted to say hello and I am to pass on to Jake a big howdy from Kyle... so Jake... Hello from Kyle!! enjoy the day...
Music Lessons Boost Kids' Brains.... Grandma Ann sent this too me this am..
Music Lessons Boost Kids' Brains
Sept. 20, 2006
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(WebMD) Music lessons may foster brain development and improve memory in young children.
Researchers have found that not only did the brains of young, musically trained children respond differently to hearing music, but musical training also appeared to improve the children's memories over the course of a year.
"That the children studying music for a year improved in musical listening skills more than children not studying music is perhaps not very surprising," says researcher Laurel Trainor, in a news release. "On the other hand, it is very interesting that the children taking music lessons improved more over the year on general memory skills that are correlated with nonmusical abilities such as literacy, verbal memory, visuospatial processing, mathematics, and IQ than did the children not taking lessons," says Trainor, a professor of psychology, neuroscience, and behavior at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario.
If further study confirms these results, it could give parents good reason to put up with the hongs and screeches of aspiring musicians.
In the study, published in Brain, researchers compared brain responses to music and other brain development measures in 12 children between the ages of 4 and 6 over the course of a year.
At the start of the study, half the children were enrolled in Suzuki music school; the other half did not take music lessons outside of school. Researchers found developmental differences between the two groups during the year-long study.
As expected, children taking music lessons showed greater improvements in melody, harmony, and rhythm processing than those not studying music. In addition, musically trained children showed a greater brain response to hearing a violin tone in an area of the brain involved in attention and sound discrimination.
But researchers also found that children taking music lessons showed greater improvement on a nonmusical general memory test in which they had to listen to a series of numbers, remember them, and then repeat them back.
"This is the first study to show that brain responses in young, musically trained and untrained children change differently over the course of a year. These changes are likely to be related to the cognitive benefit that is seen with musical training," says Trainor.
SOURCES: Fujioka, T. Brain, Sept. 20, 2006; Vol. 129: pp. 2593-2608. News release, Oxford University Press.
Sept. 20, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(WebMD) Music lessons may foster brain development and improve memory in young children.
Researchers have found that not only did the brains of young, musically trained children respond differently to hearing music, but musical training also appeared to improve the children's memories over the course of a year.
"That the children studying music for a year improved in musical listening skills more than children not studying music is perhaps not very surprising," says researcher Laurel Trainor, in a news release. "On the other hand, it is very interesting that the children taking music lessons improved more over the year on general memory skills that are correlated with nonmusical abilities such as literacy, verbal memory, visuospatial processing, mathematics, and IQ than did the children not taking lessons," says Trainor, a professor of psychology, neuroscience, and behavior at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario.
If further study confirms these results, it could give parents good reason to put up with the hongs and screeches of aspiring musicians.
In the study, published in Brain, researchers compared brain responses to music and other brain development measures in 12 children between the ages of 4 and 6 over the course of a year.
At the start of the study, half the children were enrolled in Suzuki music school; the other half did not take music lessons outside of school. Researchers found developmental differences between the two groups during the year-long study.
As expected, children taking music lessons showed greater improvements in melody, harmony, and rhythm processing than those not studying music. In addition, musically trained children showed a greater brain response to hearing a violin tone in an area of the brain involved in attention and sound discrimination.
But researchers also found that children taking music lessons showed greater improvement on a nonmusical general memory test in which they had to listen to a series of numbers, remember them, and then repeat them back.
"This is the first study to show that brain responses in young, musically trained and untrained children change differently over the course of a year. These changes are likely to be related to the cognitive benefit that is seen with musical training," says Trainor.
SOURCES: Fujioka, T. Brain, Sept. 20, 2006; Vol. 129: pp. 2593-2608. News release, Oxford University Press.
Another thought for the day....
I envision a future where more of us will call ourselves artists and work together to make an art concerned with the primary issues of life. I envision a future where art is once again honored for its power to inspire, teach, transform and heal. I envision a future where all people dance together, where the circle is open enough for both children and grandparents. --Anna Halprin
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Townes Van Zandt... a Texas singer/songwriter was taken with Morning Glorys...
And I now know why. They are each unto it's own, an individual beauty! NO two are alike at any point. All are amazing in their presentation. And I must admit, I am smitten with this amazing love of them as well. Grandma Moffat did another awesome job of raising them by our front door. The heat worked against her and the drought.. but just look at the beauty that is there...
Enjoy... Stan
Enjoy... Stan
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