The Team Option

Posted by Sagittarian Seeker on January 3, 2022 in children, collaborating, Community, Education, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

January 3, 2022- I sit here in my living room, and think that a year ago I was in the company, of first a pack of coyotes, howling and warning me not to go any further east-then amongst a small family of cattle, who let me pass after I spoke to the bull, in a low and steady tone. I was then alone, wandering steadily south and west, through the night-until eventually I reached the highway-and by 9 a.m., the following morning, I was back here in Home Base.

That was one struggle made in solitude. I did not have the same experience today-as I was pitching in with the first day back, at our local middle school. Today, and tomorrow, my charge is a young man with whom I have worked on several occasions before. His inherent, and infectious, blithe spirit is coupled with an intense work ethic-so we got much accomplished today and will do so again tomorrow. Besides, the students collectively are glad that I am here, sharing their morning cold and gradual return to a structured environment-after the two weeks of time off, that brought varying degrees of happiness and cheer.

I also talk with my colleagues, and hear stories with a common thread-Stress, leading to burnout and the departures of many who started the academic year. I could, very easily, jump back in and be on the job more or less fulltime, thus chucking the messages I receive from my spirit guides- and the plans emanating from that counsel. I would then be one finger in the dike. Such false egotism is not the answer to the larger problem, however- and is barely a bandaid, no matter how much the kids and I love one another.

Classroom teaching, especially in the Special Needs classes, must be reworked. High stress situations-with much of the stress caused by Federal and state reporting requirements, and by the egos of those who enforce these mandates, call out for teaching to be accomplished by two certified instructors in EVERY class. There also need to be paraprofessionals, as there are now-but these individuals also deserve both continuous training opportunities and a serious upgrade in pay. Even when, as in this school, the students respond quite respectfully and consistently to a grounded, well-organized learning program, the team approach allows for due attention to be paid to extrapedagogical concerns-like record-keeping for the powers that be, without the least jeopardy to the students’ well-being.

For now, I will help out in certain schools and classrooms, in the months and days when I am called to stay close to Home Base. Enough other people are doing this, around the county, that most classrooms have one form of coverage or another, on most days. The long term, though, calls for a serious reworking of the classroom format.

A Brief Look Backward

Posted by Sagittarian Seeker on December 31, 2021 in children, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Education, Family, Historical, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 31, 2021- Betty White chose an awkward time to leave, but it was her time. It was almost a fitting end to a year that took us up, down and sideways-and turned us every which way but loose. I don’t want to say that last one too loudly. We could use a few more years of Clint Eastwood being among us.

As it was, there were a number of people dear to my heart, some of renown and some not, who left this earthly plane in this year now itself winding down. My extended family whittled down, just a tad: My aunts-by-marriage-Sabina Kusch and Dorothy Madigan; Aunt Dorothy’s stepson, John-one of the cousins closest to me, over the years; Charlie Kusch, Jr., another cousin who made his friends and family laugh, much as his father did before him. Diane “Dee Dee” Bean- was the first girl I ever dated-not that it ever worked out. Richard “Dick” Dow, was a next door neighbour, from childhood, who kept his family home and his father’s business running, until he could scarcely move, himself. Two educators from my scholastic past, Anthony Struzziero and Eugene Hughes, both of whom I knew as fair-minded administrators. The bulk of the losses were fellows in Faith, Baha’i teachers, one and all: Val Latham, Jr., Gisela McCormick, John Eichenauer III, John Kolstoe, Joel Oron’a, Ethelene Crawford, Wilfred Smallwood, Donald Streets and Dwight Allen. I lost a car, and gained an SUV.

It was not a year defined by loss alone. A grand nephew, named Liam, came into our lives, early on. Strong new friendships emerged. I was able to return to California and Nevada, after a year’s hiatus. I made two long trips across country, both largely around the sale of our family home, and mother’s voluntary relocation. A week spent in Texas was a perfect springboard for my seventy-second year. I was able to pay respects to those fallen in the name of freedom, though not to the extent I might have. Still, time spent in north Tulsa and in Minneapolis was a step forward, for this one who preferred solitude, for so many years.

Our community has held its own against one or another viruses. As if to seem a strange return of normalcy-the flu is back. The nation resisted the temptation to default on democracy. Both major parties are learning that complacency is dying out among the masses-and a moribund attitude will not fly. We Baha’is paid homage to ‘Abdu’l-Baha, marking one hundred years since His passing-and renewing our commitments to live as He did. That renewed spark of Faith is finding its way to friends of other religious traditions as well-as witness the Baptism, on Christmas Eve, of a man who had found his fortunes sinking.

We did not master disaster, and there were far too many lives lost-in California, the Pacific Northwest, western Canada, Montana, Louisiana, Kentucky and Illinois. The latest conflagration, in Colorado, took no lives, but left another pair of communities with scenes out of a war movie. Two dozen other countries, from Mexico and Peru to Kenya and Indonesia, saw tragic losses in both infrastructure collapse and from the forces of nature. Then, there was/is Ethiopia, a country I only recently was hoping to visit in a year or two. Now, it is riven in pain, and we can only pray for sane attitudes to rise to the fore.

2021 will be history, in short order. How different the year that is thirteen minutes away will be, depends largely on how many of us have absorbed this year’s lessons-and to what degree.

The Fruits of Glasgow’s Flowering

Posted by Sagittarian Seeker on December 28, 2021 in collaborating, Education, Entertainment, Inspiration, Travel, Uncategorized

December 28, 2021, Santa Fe- In any meanderings, one never can be quite sure as to what will be encountered-especially in a quality museum. The greater part of this morning brought a new appreciation for the creativity of the Scottish Lowlands, a place I’ve yet to see.

After sleeping as if on a cloud, at Albuquerque’s Monterey Inn, I headed back to Old Town, and Blackbird Coffee House. Breakfast was put off a bit, as I grappled, along with a nice family from Texas, with the parking registration machine-which was out of paper. Fortunately, neither of us were visited by a parking warden, in the time spent enjoying a meal. Blackbird delivered nicely, as it always has.

Following quiche and coffee, I headed over to the Albuquerque Museum. As it happens, the headlining exhibit is showcasing The Four, a pair of related married couples whose heyday was Glasgow’s fin-de-siecle, when the great British port and industrial giant was in full ferment-followed by full flowering, from the 1890s until World War I. Charles Rennie Mackintosh, his wife, Margaret Macdonald, her sister, Frances Macdonald and brother-in-law, James Herbert McNair were the prime movers behind the neo-Renaissance of the Scottish Lowlands at the turn of the Twentieth Century, thus becoming known as The Four. They drew their influences from previous groups of Glasgow artists, notably the “Glasgow Boys” of the mid-Nineteenth Century, but also the Celtic Revival and Japonisme artistic movements, which emerged in Gilded Age Britain. The Four were also called Spook School, by more conventional art critics, due to their distortions of the human form. As an architectural designer, however, Charles Mackintosh relied largely on rectangular sketches. His great buildings, including Hill House and the Willow Tearooms, of late Victorian Glasgow, chartered by the entrepreneur Catherine Cranston, as well as The Lighthouse, now the site of Scotland’s Centre for Design and Architecture.

The Four were completely-rounded artists, producing not only buildings, but ornate and solidly-constructed furniture, a variety of paintings, fabric art and metallurgy. One of their prime acolytes, Anne Macbeth, was largely responsible for bringing embroidery into its own, as an art form that became a staple in secondary school arts curricula.

The Mackintoshes eventually relocated to London, while the McNairs, remaining in Glasgow, found their fortunes fading. Frances died in 1921, after which her disconsolate husband destroyed nearly all of her work. Charles and Margaret kept their body of work in trust, and it remains curated by various art galleries in Glasgow and in London.

Those of us who have the fortune to visit the Albuquerque Museum, until January 22, are thus treated to an appreciation of Glasgow’s fin-de-siecle flowering.

There is furniture:

Exaggerated high-backed chair, by Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Embrodidery and book jacket, by Talwin Morris, a friend and pupil of Charles Mackintosh

“Summer”-a romantic painting by Margaret Macdonald

Wood panel, using gesso, entitled “The May Queen”, by Margaret Macdonald

Gesso (pronounced JE-so) is a hard plaster of Paris compound, usually applicable to sculpture or painted wood.

Copper art, shaped by repousse’, attributed to Frances Macdonald McNair

Repousse’ is the process of hammering a metal piece into relief, from the back side.

While the Glasgow Style itself faded, after World War I, the influence of The Four was long felt, as far afield as Vienna and Dresden, as well as here in the United States. Art Nouveau developed alongside Glasgow Style, and was profoundly influenced by the work of The Four, and any of the more than 70 other adherents of the Style.

After ninety minutes of immersion in the work of the Mackintoshes, McNairs and their colleagues, I spent an hour or so with New Mexico’s own avant garde. There are provocative depictions of religious themes and modernistic expressions of Native American spirituality. Young Indigenous people love science fiction as much as any of their contemporaries. I leave you with a depiction, by Tony Price-not a Native himself, but one inspired by Indigenous lore.

The Colours of Winter

Posted by Sagittarian Seeker on December 27, 2021 in collaborating, Education, Hiking and Nature, Historical, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

December 27, 2021, Albuquerque- There was plenty of mud in the foreground, which did not stop some of the younger members of the crowd from finding their way down a short trail, to the first overlook, in the northern, Painted Desert section of Petrified Forest National Park.

I left 66 Motel, to the cheerful strains of “Come back again”, around 9 a.m. It is always good to have doors remain open and bridges intact. Twenty minutes later, I got a similarly cheerful greeting from the gate guard at Petrified Forest’s north entrance. Whether it is because they are just cheerful, positive-thinking young women, or because of something in my own aura, these types of exchanges are what help brighten even the dreariest of skies.

Nature also provides relief from the grayness that precedes a winter storm. Here are scenes from each of the Painted Desert’s viewpoints.

Painted Desert Inn (closed due to omicron)

Pilot Rock, close-up, from Pintado Point

These scenes are composed of Chinle Sandstone layers, first formed 227 million years ago and making up the bottom layers of the formations, with Bidahochi Sandstone, formed as recently as 4 million years ago, comprising the top layers-including Pilot Rock and Blue Mesa (in the southern area of the park). I have seen other colour blends, at the Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, the Paint Pots of Yellowstone and Bumpas Hell, in Lassen Volcanic National Park. Like each of those, Painted Desert is unique.

Some vocabulary: Tiponi is a Hopi word, signifying a badge of authority-usually a sacred ear of corn, given to a priest or matriarch;

Tawa is the Hopi word for Sun Creator.

Chinde is the Dineh word for ghost or remnant spirit.

Pintado is Spanish for “painted”.

Nizhoni is the Dineh word for “beauty”, especially that found in nature.

Whipple Point is named for Lt. Amiel Whipple, a military surveyor who passed through this area. Fort Whipple, in Prescott, now a Veterans Administration Hospital, is also named for him.

Lacey Point is named for Congressman John Fletcher Lacey, of Iowa, who successfully worked to protect the Petrified Forest, which he termed “Petrified Forest of the World”.

The Painted Desert section of the park could easily take up a whole day, in periods of mild weather. I was there for a bit more than two hours. After a quick lunch at the Visitor Center Cafe, the drive across New Mexico was broken only by gassing up at a Flying J, in the small settlement of Jamestown. I was berated by a homeless man who wanted me to take him and his cart to God knows where. There probably wasn’t enough room in the Vue for that cart, so not being a saint, I kept on going.

Once here , in Duke City, a welcome nap evened my keel and a short walk around Old Town brought a soothing smooth jazz performance by a lone saxophonist and a lovely dinner at Little Anita’s, on the north edge of OT. As my mother told me yesterday, life is good.

Free Speech

Posted by Sagittarian Seeker on December 22, 2021 in collaborating, Community, Education, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

December 21, 2021- Speakers at a Right-wing convention, in Phoenix, have offered both plausible and ridiculous points of view, over the past two days. I did not attend the gathering, but do find it a good idea to keep an eye on the proceedings. An informed citizen keeps abreast of what all fellow countrymen are thinking and saying.

I concur with Voltaire, and Evelyn Beatrice Hall , in defending the right of a person to say whatever is in mind-with the caveat that threats representing a danger to self and others require the notification of public authority. Said authority should keep watch on those who advocate violence and act to prevent such violence.

Thankfully, thus far, Charlie Kirk and company have not used this particular forum to encourage hateful acts against their opposite numbers. There have been calls for avoiding university-level education ( a questionable appeal to self-education, at best), which I view as an excessive reaction to the real and imagined “speech codes” that some have intellectuals on the Left have either suggested or instituted. IMHO, it is education, enlightenment, that will eliminate microaggressions and untoward speech aimed at People of Colour, immigrants and sexual minorities. Codified speech only lends credence to otherwise bogus claims of “reverse” racism, sexism, etc., by those on the Far Right. Patience remains a virtue, to some degree.

Similarly, I defend the right of Christians to wish others a Merry Christmas, and of those others to say “Happy Holidays”, or to offer no seasonal greetings at all. No set of words, or lack thereof, should be taken personally by the hearer.

Freedom of speech is sacrosanct. Liberty of action is an entirely separate matter, and one whose contents pre-suppose acceptance of logical consequences. May the Turning Point USA convocation end peacefully, with the knowledge that the best will win the ongoing contest of ideas.

A Small Laboratory

Posted by Sagittarian Seeker on December 13, 2021 in children, collaborating, Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

December 13, 2021- The young lady doubted herself, as soon as one of her actions as “producer” of a school newscast was challenged by a teammate. It is a minor issue and I’m sure that the regular teacher will help set things right, tomorrow-in plenty of time for the broadcast. This is a little laboratory, scheduled at the end of the school day, representing an ambitious effort at tapping into the technological precocity of many eleven-year-olds.

Life itself is a laboratory, and many of its experimenters fall back on the opinions of those around them, when engaged in uncharted territory. This is all well and good, when someone is mature enough to have trust in both own abilities and in the process of peer review. The peers also need to exercise good judgment, and maturity, in their own work.

Had I ten extra minutes, it would have been time well-spent to sit the group in a semicircle and make sure everyone understood the process. As there was only enough time to actually put together a preliminary product, for the regular teacher’s review and critiquing, tomorrow, we made do with what there was-which except for the small error, was quite good. The fledgling producer will learn to listen more carefully and the earnest critic will learn patience-and hopefully to shed any sense of rivalry.

In the laboratory of life, both the feelings of people during the process AND the final result are equally important.

Acker Night, 2021

Posted by Sagittarian Seeker on December 10, 2021 in collaborating, Community, Education, impediments, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

December 10, 2021-

For some, it was a chance to engage in a mass dance performance, based on the pop song “Baby Shark”. For another singer, it was a chance to regale an infant girl and her family with that same silly little tune.

For most, the evening was a chance to raise funds for arts education programs in our area. It was also a chance to get yet more photos of the magnificent light display on Courthouse Square. I have posted such photos, in years past and may yet get better shots this year.

For some, it meant crowding into Raven Cafe, The County Seat, or other such eateries, to relax as much as one can in a standing room only setting. There were also those who stood in a long line, outside a real estate office, where live music was also on offer. Then, there were those places, like two of our three downtown bookstores, which opted out of the festivities. Bill’s Pizza had no choice in the matter-Omicron is believed to have come calling, earlier this month and one of the best little pizzerias in Prescott is temporarily closed.

For me, it meant taking in a couple of performances, and leaving a tip in each fund-raising jar. It was quite a crowded event, but with so many places opting out of this year’s participation, the mood was a bit more subdued.

I think, though, that Acker Night will endure, and be a fine fundraising event for years to come.

Fibonacci’s Tower

Posted by Sagittarian Seeker on December 10, 2021 in Education, Entertainment, Striving

December 9, 2021- Having supervised three mathematic classes, the past 1 1/2 days, one of my favourite concepts comes to mind. The Fibonacci sequence, devised by Leonardo of Pisa (aka Fibonacci) in 1202, was one of the harbingers of the Italian Renaissance, bringing Indian mathematical concepts to a European forum. Leonardo Bogollo was the son of Bonacci Bogollo-thus his nickname, Fibonacci (“fi” being short for “son of”).

The process is actually quite simple. Starting with the number 1,(though some mathematicians begin with zero), each number is added to the one before it, in the series. Thus, 1+1=2; 2+1=3; 3+2=5; 5+3=8; 8+5=13; 13+8=21, and so on, through the infinity of numbers. The sequence also operates in a negative direction.

The sequence has uses in poetry and in music. In fact, the original device was used in organizing Sanskrit poetry. It may also be the structural device for an expanding tower, or for a pyramid built in reverse order. Further information on the Fibonacci Sequence may be found here: https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/fibonacci-sequence.html.

Happy counting!

Standing One’s Ground

Posted by Sagittarian Seeker on December 7, 2021 in children, collaborating, Community, Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

December 6, 2021- Two things of note, one personal and the other of wider import: Today marks forty-one years since I met Penny, in Zuni, NM. Former Senator and Presidential candidate Bob Dole died yesterday, at the age of 98. Both people suffered mightily, in the course of their lives. Both people were notable for not giving an inch, to anyone who pushed at their boundaries.

This came to me, all the more clearly, whilst working with seventh graders at a nearby middle school. There was a fair amount of obstinacy, that comes with being twelve. The difference, though, is that the insolent ones were fairly easy to set straight. More discernment was in order, in dealing with those who had a fair point to make, in their disagreements with policies and expectations.

This is the beauty of a day with those for whom adulthood is the light at the end of the tunnel. For all the concern with a dearth of formal civics education, the fact is that those at the tail end of Gen Z and the advance guard of Alphas have begun to do their own civics homework-both with regard to rights and to responsibilities. Group members at a table keep one another in check-not in a “crabs in a bucket” manner, but with the view towards “a tide that lifts all boats”.

There is a process, at the school, for correcting undue insolence, and it works. There is also the caveat that the teacher is the adult in the room, something that is not universally followed by all teachers, everywhere. I follow that caveat, having long ago seen the consequences of behaving otherwise. So, when a student, with a strong sense of both personal power and responsibility, questioned something I was doing, reason prevailed with both of us. No adult is diminished by acknowledging a child who stands their ground, in a judicious manner.

She left the class, at period’s end, on good terms.

Seventy-One and Counting, Day 3

Posted by Sagittarian Seeker on December 2, 2021 in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 1, 2021- The little long-haired dachshund, standing outside the small cafe, looked over her shoulder at me, as I sat by the window, and smiled as if she knew me from somewhere. Our last dog, of the same breed, was euthanized eleven years ago, at the age of seventeen. Lady had severe arthritis at the time and could not move without screeching. Maybe canine energy flows through the Universe, the way human energy does, or maybe the animal could just sense that I was taken with her sweet expression, as her owner looped the leash around a chair leg, while he went into the nearby herb shop.

Catch-up. This morning, in particular, was set aside for paying the rent, recycling old newspapers and going through the freezer & refrigerator, to make sure any overlooked stale and rancid stuff was tossed. The afternoon was a bit quieter, visiting a bit with friends from Prescott Valley and helping my Hiking Buddy get some of her product to the P.O.

Duplicates, triplicates, etc. Checking the contacts on my i-Phone, I see that nearly all of them were entered at least twice. So, after locating the ‘delete’ tab, at the bottom of each ‘Edit’ page, I managed to start clearing the redundant entries. It’ll probably take a half hour to get through the whole list, including surname changes and removing the names of those who have passed away. This is what happens when importing data from one phone system to another, and getting no confirmation of the import, at first. Retrying was apparently unnecessary.

Stocks in Trade. It most always happens that those with a heavy investment in the stock market use the last trading day of any given month as their pay day. There is always a lame excuse: “Because of ____________ (fill in the blanks)”, but the reason is the same. In essence, this is how some folks pay their bills. The rest of us just bide our time, leave our investments alone and sooner, rather than later, the funds are on the upswing again-until the next end-of-month or day before a holiday.

Whose Body Is It? The Supreme Court Justices weighed in on the matter of whether abortion is a choice or a matter of government restriction. There was no “final” decision made on the matter, but here is the thing, imho. Life begins at conception AND the matter of whether it proceeds to birth lies between a mother and her physician, with hopefully some RESPONSIBLE and informed input from the father. A rapist, or an incestuous man forfeits any claim to having been responsible. It falls to the mother’s moral compass, as to whether the child should be carried to term. Again, in my humble opinion, genetic testing should NOT be the basis for such decision making, if gender or potential disability are the criteria for opting to abort. As a man who is past child- siring age, I recognize that my opinions are not exactly going to be solicited. However, I conclude with three points: 1. A fetus is not brain-dead, despite the statement made to that effect by one of the Supreme Court justices. The level of brain development should have nothing to do with the mother’s decision. That is the stuff and nonsense behind the odious theory of eugenics. 2. Devaluing a person because of gender is precisely the reason why pre-birth testing is also odious. People in societies where women and girls are historically devalued should not be given license to indulge in pre-birth slaughter. 3. Finally, I have yet to meet a mother who opts for abortion who is NOT scarred emotionally by her choice. It is arguably the most terrifying situation in which a human being may be placed. The last thing she needs is to have government in the driver’s seat. The forces of education and nurturance need to be in place, very early in the life of an adolescent -boy or girl and definitely need to be there for a woman who has to make the decision. Regardless of the choice made, the woman needs to be enveloped in love. Too much can, and will, go wrong when a patriarchy or detached bureaucracy-including SCOTUS- imposes its dictates on the lives of women who are of child-bearing age.

That’s my take, and I’m sticking to it.