Sunday, December 25, 2011

Light one candle and think of the light and the future

This year I have had the opportunity to do what I have always wanted to do on Christmas, sleep, think of the year behind and pray for the world next year. 

What a year past for me ..with nothing but troubles, difficulties and sorrow reliving much of the past..and yet I am able to say that by sitting and thinking today, Christmas of 2011, ..I am able to look to the future... but with much concern for the next generation.

We are but creatures of what we see, how we are brought up, and what we need to accomplish..but we sometimes fail to stop and look for the "light" as many spiritualists would claim.  An inner light, something we "are" without all our worldly goods and problems.

So I went to the google page and typed in "light one candle", a phrase given to me by a Native
American friend on a holiday season when her nation recieved death threats.  She said in her holiday card, "light a candle" and pray for inner peace and understanding...and peace.

I typed it in and out came folk music.  Something I have been involved with all of my adult life and something I am wanting to go back to.  As they say "everything old is new again"..and as I say "history always repeats itself"..but need..is always there..understanding is always needed and if we as a people loose "HOPE"..we are lost as a people.....

I have included a link to what I found on the web..Peter Paul and Mary and a song "Light one Candle".

Do it..be alone with yourself..be alone with the world and look to how we can make the future holidays better for the whole world..but most of all for the children of every persecuted nationality, religion, political conflict and county...try it..try coming to peace with yourself..realise that we all have too much if we are able to view this blog...light a candle and pray for the world in which we live.......bsm

go to this link to view..http://youtu.be/3yZ1zxtbOJE
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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Mother Cope close to home...

Today it was announced that Mother Marianne Cope would be raised to Sainthood, what was need was two miracles that could be investigated and attributed to her.  Mother Cope entered my life however a number of years earlier when I was caring for my 90 plus year old mother and my friend Chris who was dying of breast cancer.

 To care for my mother in Syracuse and to take care of the house and try to see to Chris' needs in Eaton, NY, I was forced to hire home aides for my mother from time to time. Among these was a very wonderful young woman that my mother loved.  It eventually came that in order for me to spend the night in Eaton I would hire her to watch my mother overnight. 

On those occasions the two of them would talk and pray and watch TV.  She shared my job with her other jobs and was super competent - some one I trusted ma to overnight.  One day in December of 2005, she announce to my mother and I that she was going to be named as one of the miracle cures of Mother Cope.

In fact she was going to go to Rome and meet the Pope to celebrate with others from the convent in Syracuse, Mother Cope's beautification - the step before sainthood.

She (Kate) went off on her trip to Rome and during that week my mother took a turn for the worse..I took her to the hospital where they said they would send her home to die.  They set up hospice and I took her home.  She was close to death as far as I could tell one morning and I knew Kate her aide would be coming back on Wednesday so decided to write Kate a note and tell her to come over as soon as she could so mom could still recognise her and see her.

I had day aides who watched her while I went to Eaton, on my return that day the aide said that Kate had been there..came right over from arriving home, she had placed a rosary blessed by the Pope around ma's neck and put a pin depicting Mother Cope on her pillow and exclaimed. that by Friday "she should be up dancing!" We all laughed, that's Kate..that was why ma loved her. 

The next morning I had to return to Eaton for Chris, and later on my return her aide said, "Mary your mother woke up and said get me up and out of this bed."  I did.

Not only did mom get out of bed, but she improved and lived until January of 2008..  When asked about dying she said she wasn't ready yet, she had "issues."

I don't know what the issues were, nor do I know what happened, was it her strong will or could it actually be attributed to Mother Cope...I'll never know..

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Christmas week 2012

Well this has certainly been a cold start to the week, I am up with wood fire raging and pellet stove at the other end of the kitchen "Pelleting" and the temperature is 5 below zero..near the house..which general means it is much colder near the creek.  I decided to eat chili and blog.

Right now I am working on my traditional Holiday Card which this year has turned into an impossible task.  Trying to be uplifting in the year of trouble, disasters, evil and wars has frankly worn my inspiration out.....I started singing Anne Murray's "A Little Good News Today" song. http://youtu.be/CBpwyH9EzXM

 Some baby at nine months molested, woman doused with flammable liquid and torched, military flying home while Iraq politics starts to deteriorate...and almost everyone has asked..why did we go there in the first place....a good question.

I hate to think the answer to that is really Dick Cheney and Haliburton and OIL!

Politics aside the homeless have increased greatly in number this year brought about by an economy run by crooked people and poor management.  This cold night is especially hard on them...and Occupy..Occupy what?????????

Right now I am lucky to be occupying my kitchen with a bowl of hot chili and a wish for a better future...I wish I had a magic eraser to make it back to spring again..this winter is cold for more than one reason!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

A Safe Haven

Few people including myself (until last month) know that there is a Safe Haven Museum on the grounds of historic Fort Ontario. Even fewer know what the museum is about....I decided to take a quick trip to the museum and try to bring word of it to the public. 

The day was beautiful which allowed me the opportunity to take pictures inside and out for a video.  The story went on from there as I found out that there was a made for TV movie staring many notable people including Anne Bancroft and Martin Landau, recreating the story of Safe Haven and the woman who wrote the novel "Haven" about it.

The woman was Ruth Gruber and Ruth is an unbelievably remarkable woman...she is 100 years old and has written many books on her experiences and the story of Oswego and the Fort Ontario Refugee camp..America's only "Displace Persons" camp.
The reality of this secret sort of history I think is because over the years it has been pointed out that this was a shameful part of our World War II history.  History that included locking up our own Americans of Japanese decent.

Yes with the WWII raging, with concentration camps being liberated leaving thousands homeless and starving, nations from all over the world took in refugees from the Holocaust and displaced persons, but we did not......it took massive political pressure to take in only the 982 souls who would reside in Oswego until the end of the war in a camp at Fort Ontario......they were then to be sent back to their homeland at the end of the war....go to http://www.historystarproductions.com and read more about this...and how they were saved from deportation....

And as for history repeating itself..well the big topic of discussion today on immigration rages....now however it is not about Jews..it is about Mexicans....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Gruber   http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/10/15/141325143/a-woman-of-photos-and-firsts-ruth-gruber-at-100

Thursday, December 1, 2011

The Girl Who Silenced the World for 6 Minutes

Mike Nortman posted a video entitled the Girl Who Silenced the World for 5 Minutes and after watching it I immediately knew that there was a tidbit of hi David Suzuki's daughter.  Now to make this even stranger the reason I knew this was because of a concert cut I heard of my favorite singer and songwriter Gordon Lightfoot.  It was a cut recorded in Toronto at Massey Hall called "The No Hotel:.  In the song he introduces it as written in conjunction with a trip he took with Sting and Dr. David Suzuki to Manaus  in Brazil.  The sound is a hoot with great ethnic rhythm, I love it........

After hearing it I did some research...historians always do this type of stuff....and found that Gordon Lightfooot and Sting were honorary members of Suzuki's Foundation, and that Suzuki was an award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster and geneticist. He is renowned for his radio and television programs that explain the complexities of the natural sciences in a compelling, easily understood way, and that I had also seen some of his documentary work on Discovery Channel.

Severn, his daughter who at age 9, founded the Environmental Children's Organization (ECO), a group of children dedicated to learning and teaching other youngsters about environmental issues. So it was that in 1992, at age 12, Cullis-Suzuki and her friends Michelle Quigg, Vanessa Suttil, and Morgan Geisler...raise enough money on their own to attend the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. ( The place she delivered her speech that became a video hit!)

Severn Cullis-Suzuki presented environmental issues from a youth perspective at the summit, where she was applauded for a speech to the delegates....the video.....

Today Servern Suzuki is full grown, married with children ..and with much to her credit.. she co-hosted Suzuki's Nature Quest, a children's television series that aired on the Discovery Channel in 2002 and she helped launch an Internet-based think tank called The Skyfish Project. As a member of Kofi Annan's Special Advisory Panel, she and members of the Skyfish Project brought their first project, a pledge called the "Recognition of Responsibility and much much more.

Whew...makes you kind of feel like you never did anything as a kid.....

And so things like this just make a historian's day! It is also fun to say..I know this answer...

Link to Gordon Lightfoot's concert cut...http://youtu.be/e3-NBajUNxw

For more information on both she and her father go to Wiki and enjoy the read!

As for me..back to jacking my basement....still working on flood damage......for video of flood...at my house... http://youtu.be/HW5NZXAGuD4