13th Moon, ceramic wall sculpture by Tammy Vitale

I’m off – in more ways than one, but the one I’m talking about is travel to Washington State for the part-time job to attend the River Rally where there will be tons of networking with other folks working to save rivers and some really great workshops.  I am taking the camera and hoping that at some point I will get out to see some of the scenery – have my walking shoes just in case, but no rain gear (maybe rain gear – I just have to find my poncho).  The Rally list includes rain gear.  After all it is the Pacific Northwest.  I understand rain there is sort of like death and taxes.

I don’t have room for preposting so I will have to be quiet for a few days here, but will be full of good things when I return.  One of the programs I will be attending is on the spirituality of water.  I’m really looking forward to that as I have worked on that in the past with my friend Sara Leeland (see here for my August 2006 post on the subject).  Along with artist Vicki Rhoades we put together a chapbook of poems chosen from people in the community writing on Water…, specifically the Chesapeake Bay although the original impetus was to write about the aquifers which are our source of water and fast depleting – mostly thanks to a cone of depression from the Patuxent River Naval Base, but also because of heavy development in our area.  As it turns out, the earth cannot sustain an unending number of people.  Imagine that.

Son called yesterday.  From rehab.  He finally got in the day before.  Do I have to say how pleased I am that he persisted, on his own, until he got in?  I am aware that this is a first step.  I believe he is too.  But it sounds like he has bought himself a moment to relax:  "Mom, I get to eat and sleep.  And eat more."  He is aware of the need for a change of "friends."  I know that this is a step in a happier direction for him.  I was happy to hear from him, since silence usually means things aren’t going that well.  And it has been very silent since our last conversation when I said "no."

Anyways, here are some previous posts – if you dole them out to yourself, you will have enough to see you through daily until I return should you so desire:

Emphatic Art

Relax

Loving What Is

Ten Reasons to go on Vacation

Art and Gender

It was fun to go back and see what I was writing last year!  I’d go back to May but then I really have to page through things…there outta be an easier way to keep this stuff cataloged!

thought for the day:  1.2 billion of earth’s people do not have access to clean water.  In the human family, this means that one person in six lacks safe fresh water.  How would you choose which family member would be without water?

Every day, Americans flush 2.8 billion gallons of fresh water down their toilets.  Enough for about 2 gallons a day of fresh water for each of those 1.2 billion people.

Where does the rain go when it falls in your yard?  does it stay in a puddle?  Does it flow into a stream?  Does it reach a river?  Can you track the water in your yard to the closest river?  (excerpts from Water… edited by Sara [Ebenreck] Leland and Tammy Vitale, design and art by Vicki Rhoades)