Christmas Morning

ISBN ### What is your water saying?

ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-8980-1

I recently posted about my friend's gift of Masaru Emoto's "The Hidden Messages in Water" and now I can post to say I've finished the book. I enjoyed it and I'm glad I finally read it. In many ways, I sort of alluded to this in my previous post, it was more to me than just reading an interesting non-fiction text. I made my own memories and created my own meaning for these crystals, instead of only remembering our memories and our meaning. Very cathartic and also very appropriate for an approaching new year.

For those not familiar with Emoto's work, his basic premise is that all energy is vibration. "The entire universe is in a state of vibration, and each thing generates its own frequency, which is unique." He goes on to say that water visibly responds to words, music, and other vibrations by forming crystals. Positive words, music, images, vibrations, etc. form whole, clear crystals; while negative words, music, images, vibrations, etc. form incomplete, murky blobs. Emoto has photographed these crystals, or non-crystals in some cases, and he includes pages and pages of photos in this book (and more in two previous books he self-published years ago).

Human beings are about 70% water and from there it is his proposition that we are impacted by words, images, vibrations, etc. just as the crystals. Furthermore, we in turn impact the entire planet (also mostly water) by our own words, music, vibes, and so forth. It's a beautiful concept and one by which I already live my life...but not with an understanding of the chemistry of crystals. It was interesting to read about his experiments and to see photographs of the perfectly-formed crystal that heard "Thank you" and the completely deformed blob that heard "You fool." One of my favorite moments was seeing the crystal that heard "Let's do it" compared to the one that heard, "Do it." I loved that.

He says that we start out as fetuses made of 99% water. Perhaps that is why babies en utero respond to Mozart piped through headphones on the mom's belly? Interesting thought. Another interesting point is his answer to the question of how to live a happy healthy life. He says, "purify the water that makes up 70% of your body. Water in a river remains pure because it is moving. When water becomes trapped, it dies. Therefore, water must be constantly circulated. [...] So when your emotions flow throughout your body, you feel a sense of joy and you move towards physical health." Nothing new to those who study chakrasana yoga or even some meditations, but I like how simply he phrased it. My interpretation of circulating emotions is giving and creating. In other words, getting the energy/movement/circulation outside your own body. "The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation!" (Jonathan Larson, anyone?)

Emoto's message that it's up to us to pro-actively make a positive impact really resonated with me (no pun intended). He writes, "Pollution originated in our own consciousness [think the collective unconsciousness taught by Jung]. We started to think that we wanted a bountiful and convenient lifestyle at any cost, and this selfishness led to the pollution of the environment that now affects every corner of the globe."

A Closet Scrapbooker

D.I.Y greeting cards, by yours truly. Hours and hours of cutting, glue gunning, mixing and matching funky paper, sorting orphan buttons and scraps of ribbon...who knew? I'm not a scrapbooker by any stretch of the imagination. I find it perfectly useful to store old photos in shoe boxes and new photos in digital iPhoto albums...and yet here I am home for the holidays playing arts and crafts in my mother's office all night. I cranked up Regina Spektor (Begin to Hope rocks my socks and if you can listen to "Us" from Soviet Kitsch without bobbing your head, you have no soul), grabbed a glue stick, and went to town. I have to admit that I do think some of these cards turned out pretty well. I've always enjoyed creating collage and mixed medium pieces, so I may have to suck it up and admit that there's a closet scrapbooker inside me just waiting for permission to break free.

Something about the mix of grandmother's couch flowers and punk polka dots is endearing to me.

I love the anarchy of three different prints and a ribbon that doesn't match any of them. "Anarchy," says the dork rockin' a glue gun and die cuts on a Saturday night.

I don't care where you're from, it does not get more scrapbooky than this card. But come on, tell me those colors aren't yum-my.

The colors and texture didn't turn out well in this photograph, but imagine this as a brown/rust/pink rose on antique parchment-like paper. It's so granny with the lace and buttons I can smell moth balls just looking at it.

Aesthetic Awakening

I posted about the gift from my friend that shocked me out of my creative stupor; however, it wasn't until we finally closed up shop for winter break and my time was my own that these re-awakened creative impulses began to manifest. Regular readers of this blog know that I've been overhauling my bedroom and redecorating top to bottom (Thank you, Baby Jesus, for fulfilling my every Christmas wish when on the eighth day you created IKEA). While combing the wide isles of the mother ship I found this delicious treat. Alright, so it's hanging in my living room and not exactly part of my bedroom beautification bonanza, but it is so me and so perfect for my space. My bellas will know what I mean when I say this, but I saw it from across the store and ran to it singing, "This one time, in Rome..."

Just having this painting hanging in my home was enough to inspire me to create create create. I've had two small canvases hiding in my "random box of creative arts and craft crap" for well over a year now. A few days ago I decided it was time to paint. I'm not claiming to be an artist and I'm not claiming these acrylic trinkets are headed for Tate Modern, but I will say that they are also now hanging in my living room and they make me very happy.

ISBN ### Forgiveness is all I have to offer

ISBN 1-4019-0896-9

About a year ago I was watching a Wayne Dyer special on PBS. He was promoting his new book slash speaking tour, "Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling." At one point he told everyone that he wanted to introduce someone who inspires him. A strikingly beautiful African woman walks on stage, confident but quiet, stands front and center and proclaims: "My name is Immaculee Ilibagiza. This is the story of how I discovered God during one of history's bloodiest holocausts."

Immaculee is a rare Tutsi survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. One half of one percent of Tutsi women survived. The Rwandan government estimates that more than one million people were killed in approximately 100 days. The historical and political story of the genocide are well published, but in superficial summary: Hutus staged a government coop and country-wide ethnic cleansing campaign, slaughtering their Tutsi friends and neighbors, men, women, and children. Immaculee survived 91 days hiding in a Hutu Pastor's home with seven other Tutsi women in a closet-sized bathroom. She shares her story in "Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust." In her own words, the story of "Left to Tell" is her realization that "being spared is much different from being saved...and this lesson forever changed me. It is a lesson that, in the midst of mass murder, taught me how to love those who hated and hunted me - and how to forgive those who slaughtered my family."

"Left to Tell" creates an incredible arc, leading the reader from Immaculee's memories of her childhood, her family, and their village here Hutus and Tutsis lived in peace, to her formative days at university, to the genocide, and finally her life 13 years after the genocide. The book does not shy away from the difficult, bloody details of those three months in 1994. I respect that it doesn't gloss over these events or even give readers a break from the intensity. I couldn't put the book down, finishing it in about three days. As painful as it is to read, there is a power in the book that compels you to not only reach the end, but reach the end quickly. Even though the general history of the event is well known, something in the book calls you to discover what happens to Immaculee, her country, her friends, her family.

The women hiding in the bathroom could not speak and could only move to re-situate themselves once each day for fear of being discovered. Hutu soldiers searched the Pastor's house a number of times and, based on rumors circulating through the town, called Immaculee by name as they hunted specifically for her. The picture on the left shows Immaculee ten years later in that same bathroom, clearly amazed that seven women survived three months in that tiny space. As described in "Left to Tell," throughout the 91 days she spent in the bathroom Immaculee prayed 10+ hours a day, worked her way through her rosary again and again, read the Bible over and over, and trudged through an intimate argument with God...all trying to make sense of what was happening. Reading about her experience in that bathroom is life changing, but it is the closing chapter of the book that shook me to my core.

Within weeks of the end of the genocide Immaculee was living in the capitol city of Kigali and working for the United Nations. She had begun to look toward the future and imagine a new life. She realized, however, that try as she might she could not yet move on. To this end she visited her friend Semana, a politician in charge of arresting and detaining the Hutu killers, and arranged to meet Felicien, the person who killed her family.

"Semana pushed Felicien into the office, and he stumbled onto his knees. when he looked up from the floor and saw that I was the one who was waiting for him, the color drained from his face. He quickly shifted his gaze and stared at the floor. 'Stand up, killer!' Semana shouted. 'Stand up and explain to this girl why her family is dead. Explain to her why you murdered her mother and butchered her brother. Get up, I said! Get up and tell her!' Semana screamed even louder, but the battered man remained hunched and kneeling, too embarrassed to stand and face me. His dirty clothing hung from his emaciated frame in tatters. His skin was sallow, bruised, and broken; and his eyes were filmed and crusted. His once handsome face was hidden beneath a filthy, matted beard; and his bare feet were covered in open, running sores."

Can you imagine what you might say to this person? What emotions would you have surging through your mind and body at meeting this man? Immaculee writes, "I wept at the sight of his suffering. I was overwhelmed with pity for the man. [Semana] grabbed Felicien by the shirt collar and hauled him to his feet. 'What do you have to say to her? What do you have to say to Immaculee?' Felicien was sobbing. I could feel his shame. He looked up at me for only a moment, but our eyes met. I reached out, touched his hands lightly, and quietly said what I'd come to say. 'I forgive you.'"

Naturally, Semana was stunned. He returned Felicien to his cell and then approached Immaculee, "How could you do that?" She replied, "Forgiveness is all I have to offer."