Diana Obscura

Hungryflower is Atlanta's only native and indigenous gamelon. Their music is made with arranged chromatic metallic percussion and a changing lineup of other instrumentalists. Their work includes traditional balinese music as well as original compositions by Atlanta composers. Musicians from around the world and around the country join to make haunting sounds that perplex and delight.

On October the fifteenth, hungryflower will create an altar at eyedrum from which they will evoke music.
Spirits of our age and our place will be called on - all are welcome, all will be embraced.

Be Aware.

Admission is 10$;
discounts are offered for:
- attending in formal / appropriate attire
- bringing offerings of flowers and incense for the gamelan
- visible scar
- old friend / member of daffodil

From the Dark
we Love the Light
and crave to see you there

http://www.hungryflower.net

Three deer were in my friend's backyard, at Eastland and Flat Shoals. Her neighbors rushed out, frightened. She cried with happiness: she thought it was a sign, and I do, too.

Diana Obscura
Thursday, August 24th
7 pm until 10 p.m
Trinity Gallery - 315 East Paces Ferry Atlanta 30305
http://trinitygallery.com / 404-237-0370

art opening for Steven Kenny
admission is free.

______________________

The more I look at Steven Kenny's paintings, the more I realized their surreal dream-like quality is quite simply indefineable. The paintings are haunting precisely because no words could evoke the impact of these images: human bodies and nature, juxtaposted and entangled. Like a poem, the paintings seem to have the meaning which floats next to the surface, and a tangle of deeper meanings, elusive to the rational mind.

I am not playing often lately but I felt honored to be included in this show.

Trinity Gallery, opens August 24, show through September 28, 2006 and well worth the visit.

I've heard this skill called common sense, solution thinking, and motherwit. Motherwit is the clearthinking ability to create a solution. The expression "Necessity is the mother of invention" Motherwit is greater than invention: it includes being able to feel true necessity.

I have been researching claims made about vaccines, both positive and negative, working to sort fact from fiction since 2000. What I've found has shocked me.

A friend who happened to see this protest let me know that it happened. I was not able to find any local news on it but below is something from Alabama:

http://www.montgomery-ala.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=481&Itemid=61

This is the Asheville mother's group that sponsored the rally:
http://www.momsagainstmercury.org/

The Simpsonwood transcript mentioned in the article is IMO important reading for anyone interested in this issue.

"I'm giving instructions like I'm directing a movie!" she said, laughing a little. I thought about it: that's exactly why it works so well. Even when I think that I've gotten something, like a good director, she always finds more for me to give.

We convened for the first time tonight. Reminds me of the 90s, kitchen full of food, musical instruments and dancing and loud conversations like alternate universes, animals and dogs and children drifting, delighted, from one group to another.

I'm doing research on salt for an article. I read this on the Salt Institute's website:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://www.saltinstitute.org/idd.html
Experience in West Virginia
Before 1900 endemic goiter was very rare in the Kanawha River valley in West Virginia, but soon after the turn of the century the incidence of simple goiter began to rise. A survey conducted in 1922 showed that 60% of school girls in Charleston and Huntington had enlarged thyroids. Until about 1900 all the table salt used in this valley came from salt wells in this region but around 1900 the crude dirty brown salt was replaced by pure fine white salt (noniodized) from Ohio and Michigan. There was no other change in food or water; the only change during this period was in the supply of salt. Chemical analysis showed that the crude salt contained iodine equivalent to 0.01 % potassium iodide (Refs. 8 and 10). The elimination of the natural source of iodine in the crude salt was followed by a dramatic increase in the incidence of endemic goiter. The experience in West Virginia provides indirect evidence of the benefits of iodized salt."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The original salt eaten before 1900s (referred to above as "crude dirty brown salt") was naturally full of iodine and other nutrients and you'll notice the West Virgininians were just fine until they began to eat the "pure fine white salt" supplied by industry.

This link is to a PDF which gives instructions on how to make a kudzu basket.


http://www.knowitall.org/naturalstate/html/teacher_resources/lessonplans/wkshps/pdfs/kudzu_instr.pdf.

My vet recently moved her thriving practice into her huse. I work from my house, too, something that society urges us strongly not to do: "unprofessional" "lawsuit risk". Even thought it makes a lot of sense for a small business: a single phone lines, single mortgage, no commute. A single multi-purpose space, instead of being away from home all day, and my business vacant all night, just makes sense.

I've chosen not to live in fear of spurious lawsuits, especially since they could happen anywhere. The fear of being "unprofessional" didn't stand up to logical scrutiny: if I do something well and professionally, do I need fear being labeled "unprofessional" simply because I'm doing this in my living room? Clients could just as soon appreciate the cost savings in overhead.

http://www.cityrepair.org/wiki.php/projects/ir/main

Intersection Repair is the citizen-led conversion of an urban street interesection into public square.

Streets are usually the only public space we have in our neighborhoods. But most all of them have been designed with a single purpose in mind: moving cars around.

With an Intersection Repair, that public space is reclaimed for the whole community. The intersection of pathways becomes a place for people to come together. The space becomes a Place - a public square.

The next full moon bears the name of either strawberry moon or rose moon. I believe that roses and strawberries are related botanically? They are both blooming now. The shape of strawberry flowers has an open heart, like an old fashioned rose, and the skirts on the rosehips look to me like the tops of strawberries.

There are two kinds of strawberries that I know of: Junebearing and "everbearing".

As we return to Atlanta the mulberries are gone, the magnolias and gardenias and morning glories are blooming, the fairy roses and jasmine are holding. We have green tomatoes, and the thorny patches in our yard are thick and glistening with blackberries. Little Star likes to pick the red berries.

Part of the folkore now in Savannah is how this building or that building was saved from the wrecker's ball at the zero hour by a few dedicated people, and what was not saved is not forgotten: it remains, ghostlike, in the memory of the people. Here, this parking garage is built over an original square laid out by Oglethorpe when the city was founded in 1733. Here, where this road is, the Jewish settlers here are buried.

Does our city remember? I imagined doing a Historical Atlanta tour, tour of a ghost city. I have my own tour of the place where I have lived for three years. Here is where deer, red and gray foxes and the bird said to have the most beautiful song in the Southeast lived. The kids played in the woods by the tiger-striped bolders and thought they owned the woods. Here to the northwest is where the trees on either side of the road nearly touched and I felt like I was riding my bike down a green corridor. Here, underneath these cardboard mansions, is where the Eagle's Rest apartments used to be. I knew people who lived in them. I don't know where they are now. From here, you once could see the city. And these scraped clean lots along the road were full of mulberries, astor and birds, and the air was cool and soft when you walked by them.

Even the roughest-edged stuff at XPT is inspiring. I like throw it and see if it sticks art because that voice in the back of my head always pipes up and says "You know, you could....

And some pieces fall together so beautifully that the director in my head is mercifully silent and I just watch, as if I'm only eyes. The last piece, a puppet dance based on a painting, was that kind of piece.

GREAT job, everyone.

A garden shows me, sometimes ungently, that I am not sustaining focus over time. Having a baby and a garden feels juggling while doing a sword dance.

Reading about organizational systems (much like reading cookbooks) I was reassured by the word "kaizen", defined by Doug of DIY Planner as "continuous but gradual improvement, where each minor modification contributes to the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the project."

This reminds me of how saving seeds eventually results in a plant which is adapted to the particular place where it has grown (very close to "terroir" again).

Our bodies do the same thing: eventually we become more efficient at whatever it is we do often.

Little Star's feet are stained magenta from walking through the berries, and his mouth is purple too. Bucket's white coat is flecked with magenta. All day the mulberry tree has bowed under the weight of birds flying back and forth. There are too many to count.

Also blooming is our magnificient thistles, jasmine, and the heirloom rose, marigolds and a streak of yellow flowers by the road.

The next door neighbors mowed down their beautiful circle of purple flowers but our roadside is lined with seeding wildflowers. White clover, those purple native flowers that grow on stalks with reddish-green leaves, sweetpea, several different dandelion and daisy family. I wish I knew the names of all of them. This and the mulberries ripe is one of those amazing bounties of Nature, like gathering seashells at the beach. So different from working in the garden.. I just fill my hands whenever I pass by. One kind of plant with white milkweed-like dried flowers had two ladybugs on it, and the one next to it had three, and as I looked I realized that as far as I could see were red jewels against the white and yellow green.

Every time I do an animal communication for a client, at the end, the animal tells me. "And one more thing. Tell her to listen to me."

So I am teaching free animal communication classes. Let me know if you are interested.

Sunday April 30 11:00 - 4:00
Sycamore Street, near downtown Decatur

Learn the art of vibrational work and hands on healing for relaxation
and pain relief in adults, animals and children. Relieve pain and
distress, soothe frightened or restless babies or animals, naturally,
without drugs or medicines. Ease colic and fussiness in babies,
encourage peaceful, sound sleep. Gentle energy work improves
circulation and wellness and promotes bonding. Combines well with
accupressure, massage and other holistic techniques.

Class is free, donations appreciated.
please RSVP to diana_obscura (at) mac.com / 404.241.4062

Look up events in your area: http://www.worldtaichiday.org/

http://www.shaolincenter.com/events.html
World Tai Chi and Qigong Day
Piedmont Park - in The Meadow
Corner of 10th and Monroe - behind Park Tavern
April 29th at 10:00am