Me in the News??
Mood:  happy
Topic: Writing

The North Carolina Zoo sent out a press release yesterday about the Visiting Artists working in the kidZone.  I received nice placement in the release and was featured in the accompanying photo:

NC Zoo photo by Tom Gillespie 

Kristine Goad (standing left), one of six visiting artists at the North Carolina Zoo in July, engages children in her “The Whole Wide Wonderful World of Water” project. The project is part of a larger Visiting Artists Program at the zoo throughout July. Goad’s project is designed to engage children in poetry, movement, visual art and storytelling.

As far as photos go, it has some attractive elements (excluding me, of course!).  I like that it captures the size of the group, the tarp we used as the river and the ocean (such a lovely shade of blue!), and the Artist's Cove wall behind me.  I wish, however, that it was an active shot.  We are "rehearsing" sound effects here that we will use once Walter's Water Adventure actually begins.  (Walter is a water drop and the kids accompany him on an adventure through the water cycle.)  The kids look a little bored here, but I can assure you they weren't bored a few moments later when the real, 3-D story began!

You can read the full press release here.

I don't know that the story has been picked up anywhere yet aside from the blog of the Executive Director of the North Carolina Zoo Society, Russlings. 

My Life is Magic!
Mood:  on fire
Topic: Mindfulness

My first six days as a visiting artist at the zoo were wonderful.  I had so much fun, but I was really nervous getting started.  Even though I was supposed to be doing experimental work, I wanted each experiment--and the visiting artist program as a whole--to work. Each morning there was the unknown of trying to visualize how to make an activity work logistically, how to make it appealing to kids (and to parents, because, truthfully, it’s the parents you have to hook if you want kids to be given the freedom to hang out and create with you for a few minutes), and worrying that it wouldn’t work at all.  It took about three days for me to really feel like I had my legs under me.  Then, on the fourth day, the giant shape poem idea I had proved to be completely unworkable. It was really hard to not be disappointed, because in my head the activity worked and the physical poem it produced was beautiful!  I had to switch gears pretty quickly, and the physical and emotional stress of the week started hitting me.  All I could think about on Friday afternoon was how I couldn’t believe I still had to make it through Saturday and Sunday.  But then the two ideas I had on Saturday, one of writing poems in collaboration with kids at the polar bear exhibit, and one of writing collaborative stories about bears with individual kids each providing one line and coloring a cut-out of the main character, went over very well and I got a surge of energy.  The weekend ended up being really fun and exciting.

I realized it’s been ten years since I was a full-time Beach Ranger, and that was in a completely different climate, so it’s quite a shock to my body to be standing outside all day and interacting with kids in 90-degree weather with high humidity.  By the end of the week, I was absolutely exhausted.  I am so glad it worked out that I’m alternating weeks at the zoo with weeks at my regular job.  It was something of a relief to go back to the “craziness I know” this week.  And so far, my work week has been great.  We’re in the middle of publishing the third book in the children’s book series, creating a new children’s web site, and redesigning the current website. Today I tentatively set up our first author events to launch the new book in September, and yesterday the web developer and I laid out the work schedule that will allow us to launch the new websites in September, too.  I am really excited about all the things going on.  I wasn’t involved in the original design of our site, but the ideas for the redesign are mostly mine, and it is so much fun to be collaborating on the creation of something that will have a physical presence, even if it’s only in the virtual world.  The sites are going to be much more interactive than the current one, which means I’ll be increasing my workload substantially, but I’m hoping that the benefits we’ll gain from updating and changing the way we meet and interact with people will make it worthwhile.

Another magical thing that has happened recently is that I met Susan Hope a few weeks back while I was dropping off Sudie’s artwork to a gallery.  I fell SO in love with Susan’s fused glass jewelry, especially the Lavender Confetti collection that I was still talking about it when I returned to work.  A few days later, Sudie completely surprised me by leaving the entire set of earrings, pendant, and bracelet on my desk as a gift!  (My pendant is rectangular, but the earrings and bracelet are made of small, round beads about the size of pennies.)  Now that I’ve been living with Susan’s creations, I love them even more.  The only problem is that the silver chain that came with the pendant is so short it makes good on its name of “choker.”  Sudie has insisted that she wants to get me a longer chain, so I took the pendant back to the gallery today, along with another of Sudie’s finished pieces, and incredibly Susan Hope was there again!  She took the pendant and will order me a longer chain and is also going to add another link to the beautiful bracelet so it will be a little more comfortable.  Clearly, the Universe thinks I need to know Susan Hope! Maybe it’s just so I can fall in love with her glass, but I’m thinking there’s probably more to it.

I also learned that my art and nature children’s class has received enough registrations that the Alamance Arts Council is going to run it next month, so tonight I fully mapped out the outline of the course.  It’s the first time I’ll be teaching it, and I have four ninety-minute sessions to fill.  We’re going to have a lot of fun!  I’m going to try to go heavy on the visual art and the nature observer components, but still sneak in some poetry and writing.  My goal is to move kids from thinking about nature in the abstract and as something from which they are separate to personal observation and experience with nature.  I want them to see that no matter how we try to dominate and separate out nature, we are really tangled up in it.  They don’t have to forget what they “know” about animals and plants and forests and oceans, but I would love it if they learned to supplement the facts they’ve memorized with questions, and maybe a few answers, derived directly from their participation in nature.  It’s a big goal for such a short period of time, but like everything I do, it’s an experiment.

Tomorrow is the solstice!  It is also the one-year anniversary of me spraining my ankle while I attempted to celebrate last year’s solstice.  The ankle still hasn’t fully recovered and has been talking to me quite a bit ever since I started working at the zoo.  I’m not planning to repeat the injury, or the activity that led to it, tomorrow.  Instead, I’m hoping to be up and outside walking during the sunrise and then walking (not running!) Kaija at the park during sunset.  I tied gauzy, shimmery, silver ribbons around my ankles and wrists today and will cut them off in a cutting the cords ritual tomorrow night after dark. The cords are really supposed to be tied on at the new moon and then cut off at the full moon, to symbolize cutting oneself loose from past habits, ideas, and patterns that are no longer useful, but I feel like doing it now.  Everything in my life is moving forward so beautifully, but I know there are still a few things holding me back.  Mercury is retrograde in my House of Habits, making it a great time to revisit the old habits and find new ways to organize my thoughts and energy.  Before I cut the cords, I’ll make a list of what they represent. Right now, I’m thinking they mostly represent the habits that are keeping my body from being lean, strong, and limber.  I’m in my eleventh month of walking at least thirty minutes a day and my health continues to improve (my blood pressure and cholesterol have dropped steadily over the last six months and my liver function has returned to normal), but my size is holding me back from the active lifestyle I really want and has to be influencing my success as a teacher to some degree.  As much as I’d like to think people see me for who I am, I am sure some people see me first as fat, and therefore less capable, less intelligent, and less professional.  Even worse, I know it sometimes influences how I see myself.  I’d like to use the solstice to help me engage this issue again, as it is a process, and deepen my commitment to becoming healthier.  I found an old picture of me in a bikini from when I was in college.  It was supposed to be a “before” picture though I honestly can’t see why I thought I was fat!  I would kill to have that body again now.  Looking at the picture, I realized that I still have prominent trapezius musles but I can’t see my clavicle any more.  So my goal right now is simply to unbury my clavicle.  Since I seem to lose weight from the top down, I think that’s a reasonable next step.  I love that the ribbons I used are so pretty!  It will make me a little sad to cut them off, which is appropriate since some part of me will also be sad to cut myself loose of the habits that have been with me so long.  All good energy toward this endeavor will be greatly appreciated!

One last thought....  As excited as I am at how well my teaching has been going, some part of me is beginning to get jealous of how much time I'm spending planning, preparing, and leading my classes.  There's this little voice that says, "Okay, so when do YOU get to create?"  I'm approaching a place where my need to write is going to start getting really loud and cranky.  (I started both a poem and a short story this week, but "started" is a really loose term!)  A niggling little thought has crept into my mind in the last few days: I could regenerate and bliss out by going on the 2008 Big Ride Across America to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of my first cross-country bike trip!  This thought is quickly followed by, "Yeah, and I could do it better this time" which is quickly followed by, "There is no such thing as 'better.'  Better implies comparison, and Big Ride Kristine knows that comparisons are not useful."  Which is then followed by, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know--but this time I really could just use 48 days to WRITE!  And now that I'm using Advair, my asthma will probably be much less of an issue and I'll be able to avoid asthma attacks and sagging and visits to emergency rooms.  It would be so GREAT!" 

And it would be great.  I think.  I probably wouldn't write, because, as I discovered in 1998, it's difficult to write poetry when you are living it.  But then, I might have Randy's experience of expecting an amazing repeat of a prior bike experience only to find the new adventure doesn't hold up to my first....ahem, isn't that also a comparison?  I'm a little afraid to broach the subject with Hans.  He really is, rightfully, going to expect me to grow up sometime.  And I haven't decided yet whether I'd really want to spend a year preparing for a trip I've already taken once before, or whether I'd rather spend a year preparing for a trip to Italy or the Galapagos or Australia...(someplace I may not be able to afford once the true energy crisis sets in; and once that happens, I'm sure I'll have PLENTY of opportunities to explore the country from atop my little purple Rodriquez Stellar).

Happy, happy Summer to all!

Dreaming Water
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: Daily Eruptions

It turns out the North Carolina Zoo offered me more than one week as a Visiting Artist this summer.  While I would have loved to be able to do more, I was able to negotiate four weeks of extremely reduced hours from my regular job to allow me to be at the zoo full-time every other week through June and July.  I start next Tuesday.

It's been an interesting process of thinking about what I could offer the zoo, worrying that nothing I had to offer would be of interest, being offered a huge expanse of time in which to work and the freedom to explore, and then panicking that a) I don't have anything to offer that couldn't already be offered by their kidZone educators, 2) I don't have the visual art skills/techniques/manual dexterity to create professional level "art," 3) I haven't tried any of my proposed activities before and so have no idea whether they will work, and 4) that I don't know enough about all the animals I'll be interacting with or the water cycle (water is my theme) or science or art.  Most recently, I have felt like I was drowning in a sea of details, getting too hung up on small things because I was afraid of the big things.

Last night, the heaviness lifted, however, and I suddenly had a whole new shower of ideas.  I tried two little experiments in the kitchen and got up this morning and immediately tried another (the third one worked beautifully!! and I'm still thinking about what I can do with the other two.  I think I'm going to try them at the zoo and ask the kids if they'd like to help me with my art experiment and just see what happens).  I am through the roof excited again.  (I have to be careful about that because when I get too enthusiastic, energy flies out of my body in every direction and I end up exhausted and really tired of whatever idea generated all the energy in the first place.)  I had a hard time getting to sleep last night because every time I climbed into bed, I'd have a new idea I was worried I would lose and I'd have to get back up and write it down.  The great thing is that they're simple ideas for the most part, using materials I've already put on my requested list.  I finally realized on a deep level that I don't have to teach the full water cycle and make all the connections in every activity.  That's not what the zoo expects and it's completely impractical given the set-up in which I'll be interacting with kids.  I realized that I could simply play with water in every way I could imagine and try to involve kids in that play.  My job is to inspire wonder and fun and love (and maybe throw in a sprinkling of teaching).  The phrasing I think I'm going to use to explain to kids why I'm playing with water at the zoo is that I'm "celebrating" water because of all it does to sustain life.  Kids love to celebrate, right?

I think part of what happened over the weeks between when I was offered the visiting artist residency and last night was that I got overwhelmed by the word "ART."  I forgot what I had learned as the result of teaching my most recent creativity class: art is the process of asking and attempting to answer questions.  It's creative play and experimentation and immersing oneself in an environment or a material or an idea and seeing what happens.  Instead, I reverted to the definition of art that I think is probably pretty widely held--that art requires "talent" and "training" and needs to be "beautiful."  That definition has kept me from thinking of myself as an artist for a long time.  It was Owen in Seattle who first really planted the idea in my head that I, in my life, am an Artist.  He realized that the way I experience and interact with the world makes me an artist, regardless of whether anyone thinks of what I actually manifest in the world as art.

Isn't it amazing how powerful words, and definitions, are?

One Door
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Daily Eruptions

I have been watching Sundance Channel's The Green since it began, and the program is really growing on me.  They aren't really telling me anything I don't already know about the state of the environment and the planetary costs of our daily choices, but they are exposing me to lots of people and companies that are doing some very cool green things.

I had heard of the book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart but had never read it.  Afterall, I had been pushing the "cradle to grave" concept in relation to the use of toxic chemicals when I worked for U. S. PIRG in the early 1990s, so the title of the new book made intuitive sense.  Instead of thinking about the lifetime environmental costs and effects of a product from its creation to its destruction and final resting place (i.e., what negative effects will it add to the landfill it will join?), you plan each thing you create with a blueprint for how it will be disassembled and made into something else at the end of its useful life.  I figured once you groked the title, why bother reading the book?  (I didn't realize that the book was printed on pages made from recyclable plastic.  Pretty cool!)

The Green showcases William McDonough frequently (and Michael Braungart in at least one episode), and I've since added Cradle to Cradle to my pages-long list of books to read.  Here's a link to a TED speech that gives a great glimpse into what the man is all about.

What I love about him and the life he's created for himself, aside from the environmentally-friendly, amazing things he's accomplishing in Detroit and China and around the globe, is that he has found one idea that is so huge, he can do it every day and still have every day be new.  Much like Janine Benyus's biomimicry.  That's what I've been looking for my whole life.  One door to walk through, knowing the whole world waits on the other side and the sky's the limit when it comes to learning and doing new things.  I knocked on the biomimicry door a few months back, had a nice conversation with some wonderful people, and was sent back out into the world to continue my search.  I still haven't found my door, but I know I am at least on my own path.  So far, the path includes teaching and writing and helping other people disseminate their art or achieve their creative potential.  This path has been sustaining me pretty well, and I can't say whether I will ever truly have an opportunity (or create an opportunity) to carve out my own portal into some completely new landscape.  But, until I do, I can enjoy watching McDonough, Braungart, and Benyus blaze new trails.

TED and Encyclopedia of Life - How Friggin' COOL are These?
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: "Crazy Train" by Ozzie Osbourne
Topic: Daily Eruptions

MSD at http://mentaljunk.blogspot.com/ sent me these two links this morning: Encyclopedia of Life, which will be an amazing resource for learning about the life forms with whom we share this planet, and a video clip of Edward O. Wilson talking about the need for an Encyclopedia of Life at TED.com.

I don't know where to start: E.O.W. (who is one of my heroes), EOL, or TED; they're all so very cool.

Thanks to MSD, I now have a new life goal: to be invited to a TED Conference!

Also as a result of my introduction to TED, where I was happily surprised to find a talk by Janine Benyus, biomimicry goddess, I also stumbled upon lornamatic which led me to artplantae.  Fun day!

SANE Assistance Needed Now
Topic: Daily Eruptions

I received an email alert from V-Day today that I believe needs to be spread far and wide. 

The big picture message is: more than 1 in 3 Indigenous women in North America will be sexually assaulted sometime in their lives.  This is a higher rate than that experienced by any other group of women in this country. 

In addition to working to end the violence, V-Day is focusing on improving the care rape victims receive from Indian Health Service emergency rooms, direct care providers, and contract health centers.  In many of those health care settings, the nurses and doctors are not properly trained in the use of a rape kit. Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE) are needed because they are trained to respect the needs of rape victims while correctly collecting forensic evidence.

The V-Day message included a link to a letter from Charon Asetoyer, Executive Director of the Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center, requesting that we write letters to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt insisting that the IHS adopt standardized sexual assault policies and protocols within its emergency rooms and that Indigenous women receive a standard of care at least on par with that received by women in the general population.  I feel it's further important to stress that those policies be posted and that all emergency staff members be made aware of them to reduce discrepancies between policy and practice.  Please take a minute to read Ms. Asetoyer's letter and write a letter or send an email to Secretary Mike Leavitt. 

For more information on sexual assault policies and protocols for Indian Health Service emergency rooms, watch this YouTube video prepared by NAWHERC.

Private Practice
Mood:  lazy
Topic: Daily Eruptions

Was it just me, or did Timothy Daly look really comfortable in his role as Pete during last night's Grey's Anatomy set up to the Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) spin-off, Private Practice?  He had that "I'm okay in my own skin" look about him that men in their forties sometimes get.  (I checked out his bio on IMDB and was shocked to learn he's actually 51 - he wears it well!)  There is something really hot about a guy who knows who he is and isn't trying to be something else; kudos to the casting director for putting him in a role where that could shine through!  He appeared relaxed and centered (and just the right amount of dangerous thanks to his character's whole "I've been hurt before, so I'm a little unpredictable" thing), and it looked a whole lot better on him than that restrained, pensive cop he played in The Nine last fall. 

It was a little shocking to see the contrast between Grey's and Private Practice when the two shows were intercut the way they were.  I hadn't realized how gray and washed out the television portrayal of the Seattle-based hospital was until I saw it sitting right next to the overly bright, L.A.-based co-op medical office.  I found myself a little annoyed that I actually enjoyed looking at the highly lit, highly put-together depiction of the cast and set of the new show more than the muted, slightly disheveled look of Grey's (although, really, whose lip gloss lasts as long as that of the doctors at Seattle Grace??).  Given that I'm such a sunlight freak, I guess it shouldn't come as any real surprise that brighter is better in my eyes.  If I had to choose between living in Seattle and L. A. - and I've lived in both - Seattle wins hands down.  But, while I did find myself occasionally craving a thunderstorm to break up the monotony of the Southern California sunshine, the darkness in Seattle did finally drive me away.

I hate to say it, because I'm supposed to be weaning myself off of television to make time for my own creative endeavors, but Private Practice might be on my list of shows to watch when it finally premieres (in 2008?).  It's a strong cast (nice to see Merrin Dungey (Naomi) featured - I haven't seen her since Alias) with a reasonably complex set of relationships to navigate, it looks great, and I'd love to see Kate Walsh succeed in carrying the new show.  She handled her role on Grey's so beautifully.  It was fun to dislike her, and even more fun to root for her and Justin Chambers (who plays Alex Karev) getting together.  What (meaning "who") will Alex do now??

Thinking back on last night's episode, though, there is one scene that didn't sit right when I was watching it and now I know why.  When the three female doctors are waiting to see the maybe-cute-but-how-would-we-know-with-all-that-hair-in-his-eyes office receptionist Dell (Chris Lowell) walk by bare-chested, we were supposed to sit back and enjoy the show. But if it had been three male doctors waiting to see the female office receptionist walk by, we would have called it sexist and demeaning.  If it's demeaning when men do it, it's demeaning when women do it.  Feminism isn't about turning the tables and adopting habits formerly acceptable only for men, it's about treating everyone with the same respect. 

Good News!
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: in my head & I can't get rid of it: "Let 'Em In" by Paul McCartney
Topic: Daily Eruptions
I just learned that I will be a visiting artist at the North Carolina Zoo this summer!  My water cycle project was accepted, so I will get to spend a week playing with kids at the zoo doing movement, drawing, poetry, storytelling, and naturalist activities in the kidZone and at exhibits around the zoo.  It's going to require some major planning and thinking and making and writing in the next few weeks, but I am thrilled!!  It means combining for the first time ever my love of nature, teaching, writing, art, and kids.  I've done combinations of those - nature, teaching, and kids; art and kids; writing and teaching - but never all of them in one.  If my Exploring Nature Through Art class through the Alamance Arts Council fills that will be the same full combination which would mean a really exciting summer.  I found a heads-up penny and a four-leaf clover this morning while I was walking the dog and it looks like all that luck paid off!  I'm going to sleep happy tonight.

The Problem with Blogging
Mood:  energetic
The problem with blogging - with having a blog that I would like to maintain better than I do - is that most of the impulses that in the past would have driven me to want to write a poem, now drive me to write a blog post instead.  I don't actually, physically sit down to blog all that frequently, but I blog in my head every day.  I almost always have at least three posts in the works, though usually I lose interest in them or their relevance passes before I get to my computer to type them up.  So, instead of learning, as the poet Lucille Clifton did while she chased six children around all day, to keep the fragments of a poem in my mind over the course of several hours until I can find time to write them down, I keep track of my thoughts in a much lazier way, in conversational English, looking for a humorous way to present them, but not necessarily the most suprising, vivid, or linguistically interesting way.  For example, I've had the idea for this post since Friday when the after-effects of that vivid dream and the Poetry Month Poem of the Day from the Academy of American Poets at Poets.org was "Apples" by Grace Schulman.  I was in a very dreamy, rebellious mood, wanting to make something happen.  I was dying to write a really good poem myself, but rather than following that unusually strong urge, I took the easy way out and created this much less satisfying post two days later. 

Still dreaming in today's rainy haze
Mood:  lazy
Topic: Daily Eruptions

Hans let me fall asleep with my head on his chest last night. 

I dreamed I was sleeping on a sand-colored rock, barely larger than my body, in the middle of a swift, but peaceful, river.  Lovely!!