Category Archives: Inspiring People

June 28, 2014 · 5:29 am

Life After Working in Education

There is life after work.  Actually there is life after teaching for 30 years in our broken down, politically charged education system….and Ms. D proves it.

How I loved this post!

I’m not sure how she survived 30 years in education except it must have been for the kids.  I’m on my 3rd year (out of retirement) and I am stunned by the amount of energy given over to politics and the pettiness with so little time left for the students.

One of Ms. D’s comments just made me laugh out loud.  She is listing things she will NOT miss about her teaching career and this was my favorite – “Endure being told that I am blunt and intimidating because I have decades of experience and am not afraid to say what I think.”

I got that in corporate America with the added insult that my behavior didn’t go down well because, and I quote, “You are a woman.”  A-bloody-mazing.

I read then re-read this post of a woman who has and is reclaiming her life and herself and I was so impressed that I had to share it.  When I finished I sat in front of my laptop with tears in my eyes and a smile on my face knowing that Ms. D probably saved a whole lot of kids from the trash heap of their parents’ and neighborhoods’ lives, that she endured…despite the odds.

I hope you enjoy this.  The Year in Review « FARMHOUSE BY THE FALLS.

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April 2, 2014 · 6:24 am

Defy Gravity with Caroline Myss

I just finished reading Defy Gravity: Healing Beyond the Bounds of Reason  by Caroline Myss but I don’t think I will ever be finished with this book.

Myss is a long-time practitioner of intuitive healing who is, also, well-respected within the traditional medical community.

Myss is also an amazing writer with an extraordinary talent for taking sometimes difficult and obscure teachings on self-healing and translating them into concepts that are clear and concise.

That doesn’t sound like much lot but it is.  In fact, it’s a huge accomplishment because it makes these otherwise arcane approaches and methods readily available to anyone who has 20 minutes a day to read Defy Gravity!

Teresa of Avila, Muhammad, Buddha, and Saint John of the Cross are all woven into this tapestry of intuitive understanding and healing.  Myss doesn’t espouse one spiritual approach over another; she moves through them, finds common ground within them and expands their sometimes parochial meanings into universal truths

Myss may well have found the path that Joseph Campbell spoke of when he said religions in the 20th century would NOT be able to help anyone until all religions found a way to bring their myths into the modern world — the world in which you and I live, work and try to get along.

There was so much to learn and think about and play with while I was reading this book that it’s hard for me to choose what to share but here are some of my favorites:

Forgiveness is NOT releasing the aggressor nor is it telling them that what they did was okay and all is forgiven.  Forgiveness takes place inside where my disappointed, abused, angry ego confronts my soul and releases its hold.  The goal of forgiveness is shattering the myth that maintains that suffering is deserving of recognition, reward and/or righteous vengeance.  Understanding the essence of forgiveness is one of the most deeply healing and liberating gifts you can give yourself.

Working in harmony with the universe influences all life; dominating just one life destroys you.

See clearly. Recognize illusion. You can visit your wounds now and again (like we all do), but you can no longer, mentally or emotionally reside in that place, continually processing wounds that are decades old.

Keep your soul intact at all times.  Look for God or the Universe in the smallest details of your life.

Stay where you belong, in the present moment.

This one is mine – born in the crucible of my own search for joy and peace:

All of the stories of my life – the ones I tell myself, my friends, my loved ones – are ingrained but….when I drop them I can see the beautiful world all around me – right in front of me – in the present moment.  And I can, literally, breathe in joy and peace.

Buy the book; borrow it, read it and just feel yourself opening up to the universe and all the potential for wonder, love and joy that are already inside you!

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February 18, 2014 · 6:27 am

Einstein in the 21st Century

There is a young man living in the Southwest who is too smart for college simply because they cannot teach him anything!

This 19-year-old is in process of changing how we use nuclear fusion. He has a vision of a pure fusion energy but is in process of building small reactors that will not fail and contaminate like the 50’s style currently in use.

Taylor Wilson built his first nuclear reactor at the age of 14 but if his mind finds a way for pure fusion, it may be our path way to the stars and beyond.

He is a prodigy. He’s working with a professor at a school for the exceptionally gifted who said, after working with the student for a while, that he “…has never encountered a smarter person than this kid. yet he is so down to earth.”

In this student, live mathematics and science and the vision to see and understand both.  He may just be our gateway to the unknown.  He may just open up a future where coal, oil, fracking and all the other ecologically destructive practices for grabbing and using energy are no longer needed.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21134540/vp/52207962#52207962

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January 11, 2014 · 5:28 am

The Creative Adult is the Child Who Has Survived | LinkedIn

I have long thought that each and every adult has the opportunity, every day, to help grow a child’s imagination and dreams or at least keep the spark of the dream alive.

Unfortunately many adults don’t even know they have this power.  They blunder through their lives wounding young souls, stepping on dreams, breaking small hearts.

The very first time I thought this, I was walking to work.  I was on 11th Street  when I heard shouting.  A big, burly woman was leaning over a tiny child, screaming at him that he was stupid, that he was worthless.

I walked over to her, got between her and the little boy and told her to find someone else to hurt.  If she wanted someone her own size, she could try me.

Time stopped for a moment.  Her eyes glittered in her angry face which was inches from mine; her fists balled up and rose slowly.  The little boy’s face was upturned, fear struggling with wonder at what was happening right in front of him.  I waited.

Suddenly all the bluster went out of her.  Tears welled in her eyes. Her hands dropped to her sides.  She talked about her lost job, her failed marriage, her fear, her sorrow, her anger.

I put my arms around her and  held her while she cried.  Slowly, we both realized that the boy, her son, had wrapped an arm around her leg and an arm around mine and was holding on, tight.

The mother and I smiled at each other. We smiled at him.  She knelt down, held him and said, “I’m sorry.”  His face turned toward me, his eyes wide and his smile wider.  When she stood, she leaned toward me, smiling, and whispered, “You have God in you.  Thank you.”

I hugged her back, told her that if she ever needed help, I came by this way 5 days a week and would be there, for her.  We turned in opposite directions and walked back into our separate lives.  But there, on the corner of 11th and Filbert, outside the Greyhound Bus Station, the two of us had worked a tiny miracle – we gave love and laughter back to her young son.

I never saw them again, this mother and child, but I know that things between them were different after that day.

I always thought that moments like this one hold the power that each of us carries, within.  I know that one word, one touch, one smile can make a change.  Now, someone has written about the power of one adult to hold one child and help them reach for their dream.

I hope you enjoy this post.  And I hope all the people in homes and schools, on street corners or buses, people everywhere understand that words, which we use so easily and hold so cheaply, can keep a child’s dream alive just as easily as they can kill it.

Think…before you speak, please. Speak when your words can help a child.

The Creative Adult is the Child Who Has Survived | LinkedIn.

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December 18, 2013 · 5:32 am

Geoffrey Canada Knows How To Save Education

And Geoffrey Canada knows how to save children and parents and communities.

I’ve written about Mr. Canada before – one of my Project 365 heroes.  But I think this man, his Harlem Project and the incredible success he has had with rescuing children, educating them and sending them off to college deserves to be revisited.

Perhaps it’s because I just finished Canada’s book – Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence.

If you want to know how to save our children, how to make our schools better, how to change, grow and heal our communities, read Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence. Then get out of your chair, get in your car or on your bike or even on your skates, go to the nearest school, step inside and volunteer to help change the children’s worlds.

Geoffrey Canada is the man behind the Harlem Project. His mind, his drive, his desire to help children, parents and the community made the Harlem project a reality. And Geoffrey Canada knows his audience; he lived in abject poverty, the son of a single mom in a neighborhood where value was assigned based on how well you fought.

Geoffrey Canada’s approach points the way to saving all the children who live in neighborhoods owned and operated by drug dealers, drug users, robbers, muggers, burglars and rapists — killers of every description. My take on his core thesis is you cannot change children who live in these communities just by working inside the 4 walls of a school; you MUST change the community, reach out to the parents, help them where they are so they can reach out and change their own worlds, one step at a time, one day at a time.

Working in one of these schools in one of these neighborhoods, I see  “throw away” children every day.  On a good day, these kids are raising themselves; on a bad day, they are being turned into mules, snitches and sometimes, enforcers.

I could stay home.  I could turn a blind eye.  I could be one of millions of people who sit at their table every morning and bemoan the ignorance, the violence the destruction being wrought in our communities and schools.

I won’t.  I get up and go to work in one of these schools every day.  I reach out to touch these wonderful middle school and high school children, talk to them. offer them   If I can make a difference in the life of just one child, I have done a good job.

So to everyone who thinks this is someone else’s problem, here’s my advice. This holiday season, give a gift that cannot be bought in any store.  Get up. Go to a troubled school.  See how you can help!

These children did nothing wrong but to have the misfortune of being born poor.  They don’t deserve to die – physically, emotionally or mentally.

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December 8, 2013 · 8:46 am

On the Path To Self Knowledge with Oprah & Deepak Chopra

In Oprah’s 21 day Desire & Destiny meditation series Oprah and Deepak ask us to answer three, simple questions:

Who am I?

What do I want?

How can I serve?

Small, aren’t they?  But I think they are the toughest questions you can ask and answer.

Each question is part of one week’s exploration.  Each builds on the other and helps you to slowly but surely understand who you really are without all the noise that people, life and even you, yourself, have heaped on the small, brave spark that waits for each of us to listen, again.

As I wrote in my previous blog post, one of the biggest things I have learned about myself is that what I really want (Day 8) is to live from my heart in peace and joy.  Today, I learned something I knew, we all know really,  but tend to forget.

In this whole world, teeming with billions of people, there is only one you.

Read that again.  There is only one you, one me, one unique person.  And if we dare to follow our path up the mountain, if we follow our bliss, each of us has within us the power  to change the world.

Don’t believe it?  Nelson Mandela changed the world — from a prison cell where he lived for 27 years, this one beautiful soul reached out and broke the back of apartheid.

How about Geoffrey Canada?  His Harlem Children’s Zone rescued thousands of children and families, rebuilt a neighborhood and reformed education forever in Harlem, New York.

What about Shirley Chisholm?  She  became the first African-American woman elected to Congress.  She fought not just for her constituency but for all people in need of a better life and she won.

Take just a moment, today, to ask yourself those three questions then listen, really listen.  The universe will send you the answer and it might surprise you.

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November 20, 2013 · 9:29 am

Selfie: 2013’s word of the year – latimes.com

Here’s how out of the loop I am…I actually had to look up “selfie” to see what it meant!

Of course, I have not posted a selfie…I haven’t even taken one.  But I do love the pictures that people share of themselves.  And I really love the openness the Internet has created.

I currently consider two women authors among my small (and I do mean small) circle of friends.  I emailed with Rita Reynolds for 6 years before I ever met her.  I Facebook with Crescent Dragonwagon, haven’t met her yet but love the person that she is.

Despite the geographical distance, these  two women have become as close as sisters.  That’s what I love about the technology we have available today.  Some people says it separates us; some say it’s dangerous.  I just think the Internet is like any other tool, the power it has depends on the hands and minds that are using it.

Think of Salman Kahn, founder of the Kahn Academy. Or consider Geoffrey Canada whose Harlem project turned a school, a neighborhood and a whole lot of lives around.  Consider our President, Barack Obama, who reaches out to a nation through technology unheard of by earlier administrations.

Selfies are a beautiful idea.  Who knows? Maybe, one day I will post one!

Selfie: 2013s word of the year – latimes.com.

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October 26, 2013 · 10:19 am

Russell Brand May Have Started a Revolution Last Night

Who knew that Russell Brand could be so eloquent, so passionate and so on top of the current political, economic and social situation in the UK and the US?

Here is somebody who explicitly calls out the current crop of do nothing politicians in both countries and says to the rest of us, rise up and revolt!

Please listen to him, all the way through.  He is articulate; his positions are based on facts and he is able to walk right around this interviewer who is trying to pillory him because he doesn’t vote.

Brand may not have all the answers but he sure as hell knows what questions to ask, what general direction our nations should be going and what’s stopping us.

Three cheers for Russel Brand!  And thanks to Gawker for making this video available.

Russell Brand May Have Started a Revolution Last Night.

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October 22, 2013 · 8:44 am

▶ Colini: The Humble Surrealist – YouTube

There are people you meet in life who change you.  Surrealist Vojen Cech Colini was one of those people for me.

I interviewed Colini for The Art Times Journal.

We met in his house, in Pennsylvania.  We sat at his kitchen table while he rifled through a shoe box of some of the most exquisite paintings I have ever seen.  And he told stories of his youth, his companions — Magritte, Man Ray, Max Ernst.

And he entranced me with his artistic abilities, his humility and his beautiful, clear vision. Colini made surrealism come alive for me.

Today, I stumbled across a YouTube video that brought this wonderful artist, this luminous man back to me – his words, his smile and his stunning images.

Today, I share Vojen Cech Colini with you and hope you find him as compelling as I did almost 10 years ago.

via ▶ Colini: The Humble Master – YouTube.

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May 5, 2013 · 6:07 am

Rita Pierson: Every kid needs a champion!

I am convinced that my current job at The New Moyer Academy in Wilmington, Delaware is a gift from the Universe.

You see,  in all my other executive positions, Director of Public Relations, Corporate Officer,  Director of Training, not one of these jobs or titles comes close to what I do now.  Sure, I used to be the boss.  I had a job to get done and I learned how to manage teams of Information Technology experts spread across the country, flying from city to city, not seeing my family for months at a time.

I drive to this job every weekday morning.  I sit at one small desk in one small school.   I am the school secretary.

And in my job, at my small desk, I have a chance to make a difference in the lives of children in my school — a school that works with an under served population of children.  A school that has brought me into the lives of these most wonderful, most challenged and most beautiful spirits I have ever spent time with.

Are some of them hard to handle?  Yes.  Are some of them angry? Yes. Are some of them sad, afraid, lonely?  Yes, yes, yes.

But each and everyone of them is special; each is a child with hopes, dreams and desires.  Each of them deserves my respect, my trust and, frankly, my love.

These small ambassadors of life have seen hardships and sorrows most of us will never know.  And they have come through.  They have found a way to patch themselves together, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to come to school against all odds, to come to learn. And I get the chance to reach out and tell them, every day, how special they are, how glad I am to see them, how very much they can do and be.

I have never been a teacher.  I have been taught.  Grade school, middle school, high school, college, and graduate school have exposed me to some wonderful teachers and some lousy teachers.  I wish Rita Pierson had been one of my teachers not because of her subject matter expertise or her curriculum.

Rita Pierson teaches so much more than lessons, words and numbers.  She teaches about the heart, the spirit and the opportunity that every adult in every school, from janitor and secretary to teacher and Principal, has every day to reach out and touch one child’s life.

Listen and learn and maybe take a chance and build some relationships, too.

Rita Pierson: Every kid needs a champion | Video on TED.com.

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