Late morning or early afternoons- but my schedule is a little sporadic. The only times I can count on consistently are 5am or 11pm ! But that 11 PM is getting spotty as I age 😴 I try to use those times to journal

Thanks for holding space this morning, Valley - and Cate!

Sorry - I just saw this ! I was in midst of sending postcards to voters. I guess I need to put alerts on !

I’m trying to switch the words I’m using to/about my body from noticing and naming all the aches and pains and extra weight and so much discomfort to words of encouragement- words to acknowledge what it still does well, words to remind it that it has healed magnificently in the past. Words to cheer it on to build back strength and flexibility and ease I’m replacing the harmful magnifying glass that I’ve been peering through - enlarging the problems in my perception and having Drs look through the magnifying glass with me. I will choose my wand from my very giving trees - and maybe make one next time I’m in the ceramic studio. Lemme know if any of you ever wanna come over and make a wand - our ceramic studio is always open.

@Valley Jane I also make rattles - we can make wands and rattles !! Or wands that rattle !

What a time to witness and learn from. I grew up in a civilian family in Hampton - surrounded by Air Force, Army and Navy families from all the bases in the area. I remember wearing the POW bracelets of my schoolmates fathers. And hearing their stories through their children’s tender perspectives. As I was in a family of all girls we were not under the threat of the draft - and my father was already near 60 years old and had served in earlier wars. I remember the coverage on our tvs. The first time the realities of war were showing up in our living rooms. Before that, it was from newsreels at the movie theaters. It was all so shocking and heartbreaking and disturbing and felt so senseless. And it was. And then to learn about it from the perspective of Wolfgang later on. I met him when he was just a few years back from Viet Nam. (Twenty years before we became the couple we are today) He was drafted two weeks after becoming a citizen. And he became a citizen in hopes of getting a student loan for college. His citizenship ship exam was oral and consisted of only three easy questions. His hours of studying had been for naught. They wanted his demographic. He got caught in the middle of all that- his draft notice arriving when he returned home from the weekend at Woodstock. He went from the place of propagating PEACE and LOVE to a bootcamp where they shaved his long hair and forced him to learn how to use a gun and shout “KILL KILL KILL”; he went kicking and screaming. He had tried to move to Canada before getting his citizenship but they wouldn’t let him stay. He didn’t have enough money. When he returned from Viet Nam he was spit on at the airport. He understood why they spit; the spitters didn’t understand that he had been forced to go. Two weeks after returning from Viet Nam the artillery hill he had been working and living - in the fumes of agent orange- was obliterated. I think about teenage me from that time and I think about the youth and what they are witnessing now. How will they respond? What is waking up in them in the midst of the current insanity?