On the flight from Toronto to Heathrow I read a funny article in the Telegraph by Richard Alleyne about the effect of voices on plant growth:

"Talking to plants really does help them grow, especially if the speaker is a woman, horticulturists have found.

In an experiment run over a month, they found that tomato plants grew up to two inches taller if they were serenaded by the dulcet tones of a female rather than a male.
 
The findings vindicate comments made by Prince Charles that he talks to his plants although they suggest that for maximum results he would be better off recruiting the Duchess of Cornwall.

Appropriately the most effective talk came from Sarah Darwin, whose great-great grandfather was legendary botanist Charles Darwin, one of the founding fathers of the RHS' Scientific Committee.

She read a read a passage from the On the Origin of Species and beat nine other 'voices'.

Her plant grew nearly two inches taller than the best performing male and half an inch higher than her nearest competitor.

Colin Crosbie, Garden Superintendent at RHS, said: "We predicted that the male voice would be more effective but it turned out that the ladies were far better than the gentlemen.

"We just don't why. It could be that they have a greater range of pitch and tone that affects the sound waves that hit the plant. Sound waves are an environmental effect just like rain or light."

The experiment began in April at RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey, with open auditions for the public to record excerpts from John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids, Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream and Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

A variety of voices was then picked to play to 10 tomato plants over a month. Every plant was played a voice through headphones connected to the plant pot, and the conditions for all the plants remained the same throughout the experiment. To ensure the experiment was fair, two control plants were also left to grow in silence.

The results showed that women on average saw their plants rise by an inch on their male counterparts. Some men were so bad that their plants actually grew less than a plant that was left completely alone."

When I was in B.C. recently I found out about Lucy, an elephant who is totally isolated, in a cold climate zoo and not doing well physically.  A  group of writers (including Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood) are trying to have Lucy moved to a better place.

Here is a link to a news article, published May 23.

On Zoocheck Canada there is a letter written by the writers to the Mayor of the City of Edmonton - it's really worth reading. There is a link on this page where you can email the Mayor.

As some of you know I have just participated in an extraordinary workshop led by Deena Metzger and heard some of her personal experiences with elephants in Africa and elsewhere -- she's written about them too, beautifully - given what I know from Deena I can't help feeling Lucy could do with all the support we can give her, even if it's to send our love to her.


Not an elephant, but another wonderful being, Frosty the Parrot. There are lots of 'dancing' parrots on YouTube but I think Frosty is the best one:

I think this is the longest 'space between blogs' I've ever had. I've still been going through a strange, desert like time. Maybe I should think of it as 'dessert' instead, particularly given what I'm going to write now...




A couple of weeks ago, I telephoned a dear friend, Shayla Wright. It was so wonderful to simply be 'heard'. No sympathy, no fixing, just pure acknowledgement of what I was going through. Later she sent me a beautiful prayer she's been working with. At first I felt, oh no, I don't want to do that... too much hard work, It's too long, too many instructions...I'm too down etc etc. (hah hah). Well, I did start doing it. And I was blessedly reminded of how wonderful it is to just sit, and be. The day after I started doing the prayer, I got another short story acceptance for publication. No doubt coincidence, but one of the things I asked for in my prayer was 'encouragement'. Another dear friend had said to me that I sounded more discouraged than depressed, and that really rang a bell ( and helped how I felt about what was going on ). Anyway, I have been doing the prayer quite often, and things have been moving.

Deeply moving. In all ways. The support I've gotten, particularly from the people here at Gaia and Diving Deeper is just flooring me. Because of them I might be able to go to a truly awesome writing/spiritual retreat given by Deena Metzger in Los Angeles next month. This retreat will be 'using the tools of writing, story telling, dreaming, prayer, silence, and divination, we will seek to move more fully into the writing paths that each of us have been called to on behalf of the planet and the restoration of creation. We will address our personal healing if and when it is necessary to remove the obstacles to fully embracing those paths, though the emphasis will be on global, rather than personal, healing.'

And even if I cannot go to it, I feel the movement towards my own reconnection to self has begun, and from there, well, anything can happen.

 I am so grateful for how beautiful people are and have been with me (you know who you are...).

Another teacher of mine suggests just sitting in a state of 'gratitude' - even if you don't feel you have anything to be grateful for; that the energy of gratitude is one of the most powerful things on earth. Actually, if you tune in, there is always something to feel grateful for, isn't there?

I'll copy the prayer below. It's Shayla's, and you can find more of her work and writings on her website at http://www.barefootjourneys.net/.

Prayer-opening to the field of love/intelligence

It’s easy to think of prayer in a way that makes it seem like something archaic, precious, or irrelevant. My experience has been that if we can drop our ideas and beliefs about it, it is actually something quite natural and spontaneous, something we have all done at one time or another, without even calling it prayer. Another way of approaching it is to call it simply 'asking for help.'

I’m going to describe it in stages, but these are not linear. They spiral around and intersect with each other as you engage in this kind of praying from your heart.
Stage One: Sit quietly and take a couple of minutes to relax, feel your body and your breath, and open to your experience, just as it is. Allow your whole being to soften, and allow your awareness to open as well. You don’t need to focus on anything, just let the field of your awareness be wide open.

Stage Two: Maybe you already know what you want to pray about. It could be a dilemma or struggle in your life, a place where you need help, support or guidance. If you’re not sure, just listen inside your own being for a minute or two, until you feel what your prayer is going to be about.

Stage Three: In whatever way feels most natural to you, allow yourself to open and acknowledge the vast field of love/intelligence. (or wisdom/compassion) You might have your own name for this field--the indigenous traditions call it the web of life, with which each being in the universe is connected. In India they call it Indra’s Net. Everyone of us has experienced, at one time or another, a sense of this field, the infinite web of life that interconnects us all. Most of the time we walk around behaving as if it does not exist, because it is invisible. We can’t  see it, touch it or taste it. When we ignore it, we lose touch with one of our deepest resources, because the nature of this field is that it is loving and it is intelligent. See how it feels to acknowledge this field, even if your conditioned mind knows nothing about it, or remains quite sceptical about it's existence.

Stage Four: Ask this vast field of energy, of consciousness for help. Make it clear what you need, what your request is, what your difficulty is. Be honest and vulnerable. Don’t be afraid to express from your heart how much you really need help or guidance.

Stage Five: Take a few moments to be clear about the fact that you do not know how this vast and mysterious field of love/intelligence will respond to your request. You just have to stay open, curious, receptive, and willing to receive what comes, in whatever form it appears.

Stage Six: Let go and carry on with your day, or night.

Stage Seven: Offer this prayer up to the field as often as you feel moved to do so, and ask yourself, “Am I really willing to receive this help, in whatever way it comes to me?”

Whenever I'm feeling down I find myself surfing the net for new music. Or something funny. I found something funny - hilarious actually - at the wonderful Steve Don't Eat It! Blog. Steve searches out the most repugnant or unlikely food available, eats (or drinks) it, and tells us how it was. Examples include breast milk, Cuitlacoche (a black fungus that infects corn fields) and Beggin' Strips (bacon shapes for dogs). Steve is a very funny writer doing a very strange thing.

After that, I did a stumble on 'music'. I found something that may be old hat to you but is not to me. Leekspin.com. It's an animation of a girl spinning a leek. That's right, a leek. Go on, I dare you. I couldn't stop listening. Totally addictive.

Then I tried to find out WHAT it was. Clearly I'm behind the times. She's the Loituma Girl. She's "a Flash animation set to a gibberish section of the traditional Finnish folk song "Ievan Polkka" (sometimes misspelled Levan Polka) sung by the Finnish quartet Loituma. The animation of Loituma Girl is taken from episode two of the Bleach anime series. In the clip, Orihime is twirling a Welsh onion (negi) while talking to other characters. The scene is an instance of a recurring joke surrounding her character, in which she wants to cook something so unusual that it seems almost inedible."

Then, of course, I go find this Finnish Loituma group. Here is the best vid of them I could find, and I think they are stunning.

This started off as a thread in Diving Deeper: A Writing Workshop. I wanted to get rid of that horrible January blog (not that the blog was horrible, but January wasn't a highlight of my life), so I thought I'd expand a bit on the thread.

We have just moved. Again. We have moved more or less exactly every 6 months for the past 2 years. These were not just house/apartment moves, but COUNTRY moves. For the 5 years prior to that, we lived out of suitcases, moving all the time. For the +- 13 years before that I lived in about 5 different places, but all in one city, Toronto. Before that, well, from time of birth I lived in too many places and too many countries to begin bothering to tell you about.

Suffice to say, it's a LOT. And for no specific reason other than the haphazard nature of life. So I can't blame my job, my husband's job or my parent's jobs. Just life. Things working out. Things not working out. Invitations. Dis-invitations. Spur of the moment decisions. Other people's spur of the moment decisions.

Now, I rather like being on the road. The time I've spent living out of a suitcase I don't regret. But as soon as furniture or large unwieldy objects come into the picture...ak.

We have moved into a very large house. The largest house I've ever lived in. It must be upwards of 250 square metres. This is partly because it has a full attic, which serves as one enormous room. But there are four bedrooms downstairs and two bathrooms. And just two of us.

We just moved from a 49 square metre cottage. The difference is VAST.

I can turn around in the bathroom! I don't hit my elbow on the wall! I have a choice of more than three places to sit !(before it was: bed or kitchen table or office). I can do my stretches and not have husband step over me trying to get to the other side of the room (house). We can cook together! We can invite people over! We can get lost! I'm getting fit just walking around.

There are some problems, of course there are. We are renting half-furnished. See below.



But... these are views from outside my office and our bedroom window ( apologies for the photos, I took them with my computer)




Behind the pond is a rushing gurgling river, which you can hear all the time...



This is just a small corner of the living room... those armchairs come with a sofa the size of my previous office. They are also SO ugly, but strangely comfortable.

I don't know how long we'll be here, but we don't have any plans to move in the near future or even the far distant future. I do sometimes wonder what I'm doing in a cold northern semi functioning (in some ways) country, but I simply don't have the energy to consider a different plan. We tried hot and beautiful (south of France) and that didn't work. So. Maybe actually being in a house that we like will help.

We are even going to get our stuff from Toronto shipped. A whole apartment of stuff that's been in storage for over 7 years. I will have outgrown my clothes (or out coloured them or something), we will be able to replace some of the hideousness, and have some of our favourite things about us, like our VITAMIX :-)

That's planned for later this year, in the meantime we have SPACE. if not SUN. For HOT, I need to follow in my brother's footsteps and go to Brazil. Why he's there and I'm here I've yet to figure out. Mind you, he's got mosquitoes.

I keep checking the calendar to see if January's over. I keep thinking we are nearing the end only to find out that we are not even half-way.

It seems to be a 'difficult' month. I know several people going through depressions, hard times and the like. Three people close to me (in one way or another) have died. Admittedly two of old age, but one from a suicide. Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of a dear friend, (neither a suicide or from old age).

I personally can't seem to get up much enthusiasm for anything. I've been sick since the 31st of December, and know of several others in the same boat. I do seem to be getting better, and am a little more enthused otherwise I wouldn't be writing this blog. Other than that it's pretty much 'going through the motions'. I"m fine, it's not a big thing at all, but it does seem to be an all-over thing, at least for many.

I did a quick search and found some statistics for the late 90's - (American).

"In 1995, January had many more deaths than any other month (220,000). It was followed by March, April, and December. (February would have been second if it had had 31 days instead of 28). The month with the least deaths was September (178,000), followed by June, August, and May. The top day for death in 1992, the most recent year for which daily data are available, was January 3, when 7,422 Americans died. That is about 25 percent more than an average day in 1992."

I'm also wondering if a general low feeling is catching.

New Scientist published an article on the 30 December last year called "How your friends' friends can affect your mood" -  the implication being that it's not just your friends or people you know who can affect you.

"it is becoming clear that a whole range of phenomena are transmitted through networks of friends in ways that are not entirely understood: happiness and depression, obesity, drinking and smoking habits, ill-health, the inclination to turn out and vote in elections, a taste for certain music or food, a preference for online privacy, even the tendency to attempt or think about suicide. They ripple through networks "like pebbles thrown into a pond", says Nicholas Christakis, a medical sociologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, who has pioneered much of the new work."

I have just heard that a dear friend of mine, Ruth Burgess, may not be with us for very much longer. She is well into her 80's and has had a full life, but I do feel sad. I feel sad mostly because I knew she appreciated our contact and in the last years I did not make much more of an effort other than birthday and Christmas cards. I could have picked up the telephone but I didn't. (She lives in Ontario, Canada). This is a reminder to me, to all of us, not to 'let things go' until it's too late.

I first met Ruth in my early 30's. At that time I was trying to supplement my then husband's income from teaching martial arts by cleaning houses and giving personal health and exercise guidance. Ruth lived alone in a small apartment in downtown Toronto. I came to her to clean but soon was hired to help her lose weight and ease the pain of arthritis by gentle massage.

I enjoyed my time with Ruth - she never minced words and appreciated good conversation and laughter. She loved good films, books and art. Her rooms were small but decorated vibrantly, as if from a bygone age, one of high society, dances, gallant men and fiery, beautiful women.

Ruth was a fine painter, and her grandmother was Ruth Payne Burgess, a highly regarded painter in the early 1900's - from 1905 to 1910, she served in New York as president of the National Association of Women Artists. She was also president of the Art Students League and active in numerous other New York art associations.

Ruth (the granddaughter, my friend) had lived a full and exciting life in New York & other countries before her life in Canada ( I don't remember the details, but I think her husband was a diplomat) . I think she always missed traveling and her life in America. In Toronto, she was one of the first ( if not the first ) female real estate agents. She also sold jewelry in Cartier's where she met many famous people. While I was massaging her knees she would regale me with stories of charming and not so charming men who came in to buy jewels for their wives (and mistresses). Donald Sutherland was one of her favourite customers.

Over the years Ruth became more and more immobile. She relished any news of the outside world, particularly if I had gone traveling. She was in my life and very supportive when I went through a very bad patch, with my then husband extremely ill in hospital and the subsequent break up of our marriage.

In some ways Ruth reminds me of my grandmother, also an artist and a feisty woman not afraid to speak her mind. I did not have a good relationship with my grandmother and she died in my early teens. Perhaps Ruth mended something there for me.

Ruth once told me something I will never forget (this about 15 years ago) - I was very depressed about my life, feeling I was going 'nowhere'. She said, "but you are a very successful person'. I treasure this moment and have passed her words along to others who needed to hear the same thing.

Soon after I left Toronto ( about 7 years ago) Ruth went into a home as she was no longer able to take care of herself. I knew this was a step she feared - her independence was very important to her, as was having her own things around her. I think her health went slowly downhill.

Ruth loves eagles. These beautiful birds are a symbol of strength, ferocity, vision, endurance, inner strength and transcendence. I wish for her at this time of passage all these things, and freedom from the physical pain I know has been her daily companion these last years.

I am sorry I have not been a better friend.

November is over. NaNoWriMo is over. It was such an intense and amazing experience - not just the writing, that had its up and downs, but the community of Diving Deeper NaNoWriMo'ers. About 15 of us did the whole thing, and that includes achieving the 'winning' status of 50 000 words. Several achieved that amount waayyy before the deadline, in fact Leigh-Anne (quietlaughter) did it in 10 days and Ayla shortly afterwards. (Leigh-Anne created the wonderful collage below). What was so wonderful was how everyone 'showed' up, supporting each other and sharing their process.



The only time I've experienced something similar is during spiritual retreats. A level of vulnerability and openness and caring. while engaged fully on a personal journey. If you take a look at our daily threads on DD you will see what I mean (eg Day Thirty). We had nearly 2000 posts in a month on the nanowrimo board.

Because of the amazing achievement of the group as a whole, the NaNoWriMo team asked me to talk a little bit about the group - the interview is here. Several people read that piece and joined Gaia just to sign up!

I did get the 50 000, and carried on writing. It wasn't always easy by any means. I had a workshop in Amsterdam mid month, which was spent largely battling a fairly serious gum infection.

But, thanks to my dogheaded stubbornness and competitive nature, I did it in 17 days. So far I have about 75 000 of something, I'm not sure what it is. It's not finished yet.  Draft title, "Only God, My Dear" (from Yeats) If you want to ruin your eyes you can read what I wrote during the month, it's here under 'novel info' - be warned, it's chick lit and completely unedited. I thought I might swing for 'Literary Fiction' but it's not, it's pure, unrestrained chick lit.

The rest of the time I was with our gang on DD, (apologies to the rest of Gaia, just not enough of me to go around...)

...or listening to Rai ...." a form of folk music, originated in Oran, Algeria from Bedouin shepherds, mixed with Spanish, French, African and Arabic musical forms, which dates back to the 1930s and has been primarily evolved by women in the culture. Raï literally means opinion but is colloquially used as an interjection along the lines of "oh, yeah!""

Here are three of my favourite YouTubes.

The great  Khaled, also known as 'Cheb Khaled' singing the beautiful 'Abdel Kader' with the politically engaged Rachid Taha and up-and-coming Rai superstar Faudel in what must have been an amazing show in Paris in 1999, called 1, 2, 3 Soleils:



Rachid Taha singing Barra Barra, which you may recognize from the film 'Black Hawk Down':



And again, Rachid Taha singing one of my favourites, Ya Rayah:




This next one is worth watching for Rachid Taha's amazing Oud player, Hakim Hamadouche in the first part of the video, "Yames" (which I'd love to find on CD, but can't. If anyone knows where I can get it let me know). Hakim sings beautifully and should, I think, be heading up his own show. Rachid Taha comes on later, rather the worse for wear. I've been trying to find out how he got from being the man in the above videos to this one. He apparently has muscular dystrophy, and certainly he drinks. He's still a star, but it makes me sad to see him like this.

I watched these videos of Nick Vujicic and felt moved to tears.

Nick was born without arms and legs.

If you are ever feeling sorry for yourself, or think that you have too many limitations in your life, or you feel everything is 'not going to be okay'...watch these:










There are many more you find on YouTube....

well, perhaps that's not a fair title to this blog. It's the best I could think of.

Ever since I posted my ...the best of the web blog I can't stop listening to Peter Nalitch.

Now, there are a few YouTubes of him, but, unless you speak Russian or read Cyrillic, it's kinda hard to find out much about him.

I think he's got a great voice,and something more - he's got that special quality I've spoken about before (Time for something beautiful,Chocolate Jesus, The Great IZ)- something more than simply playing music, but 'inhabiting it. These singers and musicians always make me smile when I'm feeling down.

So, back to Peter Nilitch. His song "Guitar" seems to have taken the net by storm, well in some parts of the net. It's what I posted before, I'll post it again:



But there's more if you look.. wanna shiver in your liver?




some soulful ones like this:



And...




and some pretty boppy ones:



And .. what? Russian rap??:




To the almost blues-ey:



Well. Maybe I've got weird taste in music, but I think he's great. He's cute, he's got a great voice and a great band... and, I believe, is only 'out there' live and on the 'net. If you like him, spread the word, he deserves to be known.

ff you want more check out his website:
Peter Nalitch. (and learn some Russian... but there are some English pages)
His YouTube account is here, there are several of the better videos on "two playlists":
http://www.youtube.com/user/hanurpriehal