Sharani

When the public library I work for in Dartmouth, MA wanted a web site redesign, we decided to try using WordPress for the entire site - not just for blogging. The intention is to have something created in open source software that can be fairly easily taught to multiple staff members.

With a push off the diving board from Aaron Schmidt and David Lee King, I dove in and got expert help every step of the way from Kathy Lussier, the Technology expert at the SEMLS regional library organization serving libraries in Southeastern Massachusetts.

The site Dartmouth Public Libraries went live on July 2nd and uses the Triple K2 theme with plugins such as NAVT.

Kerim Friedman provides a good summary of the benefits in using the Triple K2 theme for CMS in his blog post WordPress CMS.

If you are considering switching your library’s website from software such as Dreamweaver to open source software such as WordPress, our site is testimony to the versatility of WordPress for use as an entire website that is more than just a blog. Knowledge of basic CSS is helpful for creation of the site when you wish to customize the theme’s look (something I did a fair amount of for the library site), but once it is established much of the ongoing editing is easily accomplished by staff with little knowledge of website design.

The Passion Quilt meme started with Miguel Guhlin, an educator in Texas who suggested that people take a photo (their own or one from creative commons license) and caption it with what they are most passionate for children to learn.

I first came across the meme when Karen Schneider, the Free Range Librarian Blogger, shared a photo of a child reading and penned an accompanying essay Reading Sets You Free. Hands down, this is one of the most powerful and beautiful treatises on the importance of reading that I have ever come across.

Although not tagged, I was inspired to caption a photo of what I passionately want children to learn in life. As a daily meditator since 1985, I find it to be a powerful tool for growth and learning. I feel it would be very empowering for children to learn how to meditate.

Meditation Teacher Sri Chinmoy answers a question asked of him,
“What is the greatest thing we can do for our children?”

If I know that the best thing for me to do early in the morning is to pray, I will encourage my child to do this. But if I say, “No, I have come to this realisation at the age of forty, so let my son also wait until he is ready,” then I am making a deplorable mistake…
from Sri Chinmoy Speaks, Part 1

The original meme:

1. Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
2. Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
3. Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.”

Photos tagged Passion Quilt in Flickr

Photos tagged Passion Quilt 08 in Flickr

With confessed trepidation, I tag:
Pavitrata Taylor, Art Teacher and Photographer
John Gillespie, Web Designer
Kedar, Photographer and Videographer
Thomas Laupstad, Norwegian Photographer
Jessica Langlois, the Cool Librarian

When do you ever like a DVD set of a TV mini-series so much that you can unequivocally say that it is the best drama you have ever seen - despite me being only a third of the way through watching it and despite it being an English subtitle experience of a Korean program, a culture I must admit I know next to nothing about?

Such is the case with Dae Jang Geum/Jewel in the Palace, a historical drama depicting Korean court life in the early 1500’s. It originally aired as 54 one hour episodes on television in South Korea in 2003-2004. Telling the story of a young orphan girl who becomes an apprentice cook in the King’s palace, she eventually becomes the first recorded female royal physician to a King.

The drama is in part based on actual history. The Annals of Joseon Dynasty, a history of the kings who ruled in Korea for 400 years, tells of a female royal doctor. The drama extrapolated from this historical truth is a remarkable combination of palace intrigue and corruption, extraordinary scenes of remarkable cooking/cuisine, heroism, morality and love.

This YouTube video (one of the few YouTube selections using shots of the English subtitled version) features the protagonist, Jae Geum with her mentor Lady Han, one of the Court Ladies for the Royal Kitchen.

Although the above YouTube video sets the vignettes to a Celine Dion song, the actual soundtrack to the show is also haunting. I find myself hearing the music inside my head long after watching an episode. Here is the original soundtrack being performed by an orchestra.

I borrowed the first volume of the three volume set (18 one hour episodes) through inter-library loan because not many libraries in the U.S. own it. Since the lending period was short and my pals and I are totally hooked on it, vol. 2 is already on its way as a purchase from Amazon.

I highly recommend Dae Jang Geum. Already exported to 60 countries and taking country after country by storm after its airing, you truly must find out for yourself just how captivating this epic story is.

Dae Jang Geum Themepark in South Korea.

Korea Times article about the international popularity of this drama.

Internet Movie Database comments about worldwide cultural impact of the drama.

Plot Summary of the 54 episodes in English.

Like Sumangali, this is my first response to a meme as well. It started over at John’s blog from New Zealand, A Sensitivity to Things when he first posted hilarious childhood commentaries written by Pavitrata and then John added his own as well with equally humorous aplomb. At first I was reluctant to jump on the bandwagon because my childhood wasn’t all peaches and ice cream. In fact, one of my childhood facts might be about my elaborate plans to run away to the local park on a lake where I would try to imagine I could live comfortably and make do under the picnic table/cooking grill mini-pavilions scattered through the park grounds. Ah the dreams of childhood! I did at least used to worry that it might get chilly in winter time living outdoors.

But as I looked through old photos in albums and shoe boxes, my new scanner seemed to just beg for the first foray into digitizing some of those bygone days. What fun to finally live dangerously and post a photo of myself in a tutu for the world to see!
Here goes:

1. Patent Leather Shoes

My mother tells me on good authority that I went through a longish phase where I insisted on wearing dressy patent leather shoes (preferably red) regardless of the occasion or accompanying attire. I scarcely recall as much but there are photos aplenty attesting to this early fashionista side of my nature at a wee age.

2. The Swing of Delight

My favorite hangout was the backyard or school playground swingset. Whenever I felt down and out, I retreated to a session of high flying swinging, occasionally with a jump into the air off the swing for good measure. It was my personal version of sanctuary. When I first began meditating on the Eastern spiritual path of teacher Sri Chinmoy, I actually used to walk over to the swings in the park near the now 3100 mile race course and swing while singing a song to cheer me up that Sri Chinmoy wrote called Phulero Dola with the Hindu imagery of the swing of delight. In fact, I consider it a great act of restraint on my part that I have never bought a Hindu statue of Radha and Krishna together on a swing.

3. Ballet Ruled

In Michigan where I grew up, I started taking ballet lessons at the age of 5 or 6 at the Nancy Sue Whitson School of Dance which taught the Cecchetti method and continued with great devotion until my mid-teens when the teacher demanded that you give your life to ballet completely or drop out - I chose the latter. My favorite time of year was when we prepared our big recital productions. It took weeks to memorize and perfect the choreography and all the Moms had to either make or more occasionally buy the costumes. One of my favorite activities any time of the year was to while away hours in the living room that extended into a dining room, hearing a great flourish of music in my head and imagining intricate choreographed productions as I danced across the floor.

It is much to my chagrin and embarrassment that now in my adulthood I am the proverbial clumsy and nonathletic achiever despite my occasional super-sized efforts. One year I went every day to a health club and worked out with weights and other machines, ran 2 miles every day, did 8-10 mile runs on the weekend, aerobics, etc. and it still took me 6 1/2 hours to run the New York City Marathon. Maybe that super competitive ballet stage was a previous incarnation right within the current one??

4. A Doyenne of Domesticity

I loved to play with dolls, paper dolls, the clothes in the dress-up trunk in our basement and make-believe “house.” My youth and teenage years saw me quite the Martha Stewart of homemaking. For fun my girlfriends and I would host dinner parties for our parents to attend. I baby sat neighborhood children constantly - one summer full-time on weekdays for a working mom. I made and sold desserts to my Mom’s friends, worked for a catering company as my first outside job, worked cleaning houses, thought designing and stitching my own needlepoint was great fun, would spend hours stringing popcorn and cranberries and making homemade ornaments at Christmas time, the list goes on and on.

Proof yet again that morning doesn’t always show the day can be found in the eventual denouement of me as a radical feminist once I hit the ground in college and I never married or had any children in spite of all that practice in my youth. I don’t ever seem to have much energy for domesticity lately - what with working full-time and a long commute. Now if I vacuum the house once a month it is a minor miracle worthy of a blog post in its own right.

5. Learning to Read

My parents tell me that when I learned to read it became my raison d’etre. I read voraciously and without discrimination. I snuck books to bed with me under the covers, sometimes read a story at the same time as walking the mile home from school and loved to sit in a lawn chair or by the neighborhood swimming pool devouring yet one more novel. In one way at least I followed suit from my childhood in my current job as a public librarian. We don’t get paid to read books but we do get paid to read book reviews and decide what to order. Too bad I have to read the titles for the book group I lead at work on my own dime as well…

6. Forbidden Fruit

Can I blame my incurable fondness for chocolate on the childhood rule that we were only allowed to have a candy bar once a week on Sunday? While this didn’t mean we ate like raw food fanatics the rest of the week - somehow I think Pop-Tarts were a common breakfast food at our kitchen table - it did create an aura of mystery around chocolate that only increased its desirability as the “forbidden fruit.” Now even when on weight-reducing regimens, I still fit in prudent quantities of good quality chocolate as long as it is in moderation.

Well that’s enough meme for one day. Thanks John for the invitation to take a trip down memory lane. It was rather fun after all.

Wouldn’t it be great if instead of the latest tragedies, the local news headlines focused on the local sightings of baby swans, ducks and geese during the month of May? And when passing showers proliferate, the weather could offer the chance of rainbows during Spring in New England? The cuteness quotient could not be higher at this time of year. Every May around Memorial Day I can usually find cygnets, ducklings and goslings in area ponds and rivers in Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts.
This year I explored the Buttonwood Park pond in New Bedford, MA. where there is also a zoo. In two visits to the park, I have seen two families of Canada Geese - one has older goslings than the other. There is a family of swans with two cygnets. One Mallard duck family has six babies and another has one baby. It’s all happening at the pond.

Yesterday at the park, dark rain clouds dotted the canvas of blue skies with white clouds. A passing shower found me taking shelter under the canopy of a tree’s branches and I was on high alert for a rainbow but I did not see one. Nature’s beauty was hardly tarnished by its absence. The abundance of water fowl parading their children across the pond served up a heady dose of cuteness and charm all by themselves. Families with children reaching out to give bits of bread to the ducks was equally adorable. I flashed back to my own childhood trips to Kensington Park in Michigan to feed the ducks.

As May fades into summer, I bid it a fond adieu. It is definitely one of the best months in New England.

“Daughter of heaven and earth, coy Spring,
With sudden passion languishing,
Teaching barren moors to smile,
Painting pictures mile on mile,
Holds a cup of cowslip wreaths
Whence a smokeless incense breathes…

Where shall we keep the holiday,
And duly greet the entering May?
Too strait and low our cottage doors,
And all unmeet our carpet floors;
Nor spacious court, nor monarch’s hall,
Suffice to hold the festival.
Up and away! where haughty woods
Front the liberated floods:
We will climb the broad-backed hills,
Hear the uproar of their joy…”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, May Day

Everything that slows us down and forces patience,
everything that sets
us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help.
Gardening is an instrument of grace.
- May Sarton

Shortly after I bought my first home, flush with newness and enthusiasm, I planted an abundance of flower bulbs - tulip, crocus, daffodils. I added bone meal to deter squirrels from eating the bulbs and waited for the wonder of spring color the following year. To my dismay, the only flowers that bloomed from that massive planting were the daffodils. This novice gardener asked around and learned that the squirrels don’t like daffodil bulbs but that they surely ate the tulips and crocus. I was pretty dejected and my future gardening projects mostly were annuals or perennials added as an already existing plant rather than a bulb.

For at least the next seven years, I never tried to plant additional bulbs. Last Fall, I decided to research if there might not be some little-known remedy to deter squirrels from eating flower bulbs and again nearly gave up when most of what I read on the Internet declared it a truly lost cause.

With a tenacity to somehow persevere and make it happen, I finally found a site that said if you wait and plant the flower bulbs in December just before the ground freezes that the squirrels have finished their major foraging period and are not actively seeking out food.

Mother Nature and my own gardening laziness conspired together in this regard. Decembers have been relatively mild in New England the last couple of years and I’m so busy that I do not automatically think to complete gardening chores in a timely fashion. So in mid-December, I easily dug up dirt and planted tulip and crocus bulbs.

Eureka! It worked. This spring I have tulips and crocus pretty much everywhere I planted them. I am giddy with tulip mania - maybe some of it rubbed off on me when I went to Turkey last year. Tulips are the national flower of Turkey and they were revered there long before they came to Holland.

Or maybe I am harkening back to growing up in Michigan with its own renowned tulip festivals in Holland, Michigan.

Regardless of the influence, I am so delighted that I did not give up in my quest to have tulips and crocus bloom in my yard. I am camera happy to take their portraits. This post is scattered with the results of said shutterbugging.

So if you are trying to keep squirrels from ravaging your flower bulbs, take my success story to heart. Plant them late, never give up and you too will find the perseverance of tulips is possible.

Quotes from Sri Chinmoy on this theme:

Inside each one of us is a beautiful flower garden.
This is the garden of the soul. With each lesson
we learn, the garden grows. As we learn together,
our individual gardens form a tranquil paradise.
- Sri Chinmoy

God’s favourite season is spring, when new hope, new life and new creation dawn. What God always wants from Himself is transcendence. This He can do only when He exercises new hope, new life and new creation constantly.
- Sri Chinmoy

The bridge over the Padanaram Harbor in Dartmouth, Massachusetts was closed and the bridgekeeper was motioning cars to go around rather than wait. I was on a dinner break from work and in the spirit of seizing the moment decided to visit the Daffodil Reserve owned by the town’s Department of Natural Resources Trust. I was bound and determined to still take this field trip and get back to work in one hour flat. So I dashed off down the road through the scenic and quaint environs of New England coastal charm.

Flowering trees serenaded my eyes. Tulips and daffodils were blooming in yards. Leaves were almost budding on trees. I was treated to Spring in all its glory as I drove to Parson’s Reserve on the edge of the Russells Mills national historic district in Dartmouth. I lost some precious time not taking the bridge over the harbor but still managed to make a short pilgrimage to the daffodil field at the top of a hill and at the end of a path through the woods.

Last year I visited the daffodils for the first time and was sorely lamenting that this year’s blooming coincided with me being sick and not up to making field trips through the woods. I knew that the daffodils would be finished soon and as quickly as my health permitted, I made a beeline to this vista.

A field of flowers as far as the eye can see is a heady bouquet for the heart to savor. Even a short visit enchanted me and I marvel at the enduring quality of cheerfulness and sunshine embodied in this flower family.

William Wordsworth wrote a famous poem about daffodils in 1804. It expresses perfectly the sentiment found in feasting upon Dartmouth’s daffodil field in full blossom.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
-William Wordsworth

While I waited for an April 1st election to determine the continued existence of my public library job for the last 14 years, I employed every possible way known to me to help minimize my undeniable stress and anxiety about my job. I spent more time than ever in meditative practise and keenly felt my meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy helping me inwardly. I tried to remain detached yet proactive if I needed to spring into gear for a new job and possibly even a new career.

Somewhat prone to worry in spite of my best intentions, one night I fitfully fell asleep only to then dream of powerful soothing guidance as I was surrounded by flowers - especially white hydrangea- which I later learned could be found in abundance lately at the Sri Chinmoy Centre meditation grounds I frequent in New York.

The big surprise in this dream, however, was that I heard I should drink lavender tea to calm my nerves. I woke up slightly puzzled. I certainly had heard of lavender’s properties for reducing stress and anxiety, but I had never heard of drinking lavender flowers. Was there really such a thing as lavender tea? Quick Internet research showed me it certainly is also drunk as tea. Gail Kavanagh explains that “Drunk as a tea, lavender is a natural treatment for anxiety and headaches” in her article The Healing Powers of Lavender at DoItYourself.com. Lavender contains many healing properties and was widely used in the Middle Ages for medicinal purposes. Lavender has antiseptic properties, aids in healing of scar tissue, soothes bites and burns, repels insects (used to ward off the plague in the 1600’s), aids sleep and is anti-depressive.

Excited to take this prescription for calm that I received in a dream to heart, now I just had to find lavender tea. I succeeded in buying two teas that included lavender in them at a local supermarket that includes a large natural foods and specialty item selection.

One organic spearmint lavender tea that lived up to its name “Charm” from Treleela contained a very clever tea bag that opens up and rests on the cup in such a manner that it is as if the tea is infused as loose leaves instead of in a traditional tea bag. The company is based in Chicago but the tea is grown in the Himalayas in India. Here is a picture of the tea bag inside a Jharna-Kala mug inspired by Sri Chinmoy’s artwork.

I am indeed a newfound fan of lavender tea and everything lavender scented. When the lavender growing in my yard blooms this summer, I will view it with a renewed sense of appreciation and respect. Lavender’s healing properties have been used for centuries and I salute the power of this tiny flower. And I am humbly grateful that the powers of spirit intervened in my life in such a detailed and loving way - like a kindly Grandmother - telling me to drink a hot cup of herbal tea to infuse my life with greater happiness.

Each heart-bird of mine
Is a passport to the world
Of peace-blossoms.
-Sri Chinmoy

Last night a little miracle happened in my living room. I had returned from a few days of spiritual retreat and was trying to remember where I might have put a note written on a small piece of paper. I walked across the room over to where I have some files of papers, etc. and as I walked past some files stored vertically in a wire basket bought at an antique show, I looked down from above it and saw a square piece of paper inside a file folder slightly gaping open. I reached down thinking it was the note I needed.

What that paper turned out to be instead was a small original Jharna-Kala bird drawing by Sri Chinmoy done on a square piece of paper embossed with floral textured edges. In the middle was a soul bird drawing - on the right a long bird and as if tucked under its wings, two smaller birds facing the bird on the right. To the right of the birds was CKG - the form Sri Chinmoy used when signing his paintings. CKG for his full name - Chinmoy Kumar Ghose.

Sri Chinmoy drew millions of birds. When asked why he favored this theme, he said:

I am a man of prayer and meditation. For me, birds have a very special significance on a spiritual level. They fly in the sky, and the sky is all freedom. So when the birds fly in the sky, they remind me of the soul’s infinite freedom. The soul has come from Heaven. When we think of birds, we are also reminded of our Source, and this gives us enormous joy. I feel that if people come here to view these birds, their inner hunger to fly in the sky of infinite freedom will be fed.
Sri Chinmoy Answers, Pt. 3

No one was more surprised than me to find a Jharna-Kala bird drawing loose inside a folder labeled Christmas Trip Information. While I am pretty disorganized when it comes to papers and their tidy upkeep, it still seemed a remote possibility to me that I would have misplaced a Jharna-Kala bird drawing lost and forgotten in a folder for how long I cannot even remember.

I felt as if I had just found a rare and precious treasure. And I smiled because it felt as if God Him/Herself was talking to me with the sudden appearance of this original bird drawing by Sri Chinmoy. At the Sri Chinmoy Centre spiritual retreat I had just returned from, it was a tradition to have a sideshow as part of an amateur circus complete with prepared food and all manner of items for sale. Sri Chinmoy would bless certain purchases as part of the festivities. One area of sideshow included some of his art prints and original bird drawings and he would sign them with one’s name, etc. upon purchase.

Since this year was the first sideshow since Sri Chinmoy’s passing last October, I was lamenting that this special part of that tradition would never happen again. Even more so, I was thinking that there would never be another bird drawing or painting created by Sri Chinmoy. Granted, he drew literally millions of soul birds so it is not as if we weren’t blessed with a vast expanse of his artwork. Yet to me it still felt sad.

When I found an original bird drawing that I do not remember even owning, it seemed that my lamentation was hardly unheard or missed. Finding a bird drawing peeking out of a file folder of papers in the room adjacent to my living room made it seem as if a new bird had been created since Sri Chinmoy’s passing on October 11, 2007 after all.

I will certainly treasure this particular drawing with its air of mystery and miracle surrounding it. Most of all though I will treasure the keenness with which God seems to hear our every little thought and the kindness with which He responds to soothe our pangs of sadness.

Download Sri Chinmoy draws soul birds in Guatemala in 1997. Video by Kedar Misani, SriChinmoyTV.

See also examples of his acrylic paintings.

The human artist in me says:
“What is finished is finished.
What is complete is complete.”
The divine Artist in me says:
“Nothing can be permanently finished,
Nothing can be completely complete,
For in the inner world
Today’s destination and
Today’s perfection
Are the starting points to embark on a new journey
And to see the face of a new dawn.”
Here comes the message of my Art:
Self-transcendence is the life,
Heart, breath and soul
Of my Art.
-Sri Chinmoy in Sri Chinmoy Answers, Pt. 3

Photo of Sri Chinmoy by Kedar Misani.

The recent prominence of the new reality TV show called Oprah’s Big Give has brought my attention back in time to a blogging initiative from exactly three months ago today. BlogCatalog’s group called Bloggers Unite sponsored an Acts of Kindness Day last December with the intent of bloggers engaging in an act of kindness followed by blogging about it. In part a contest, one of the judges, Richard Becker, has kept the spirit alive by profiling various winning participants on his blog Copywrite, Ink.

Many of the participants weighed in on the contradiction of drawing attention to themselves and the preference for anonymous self-offering. Yet we also discussed how kindness can be contagious and that in talking about it seeds of inspiration for future kindness might grow.

One possible window beyond this conflict over intentions and charitable actions comes from Eastern spiritual wisdom. My spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy created an international humanitarian aid organization as part of his spiritual mission but emphasized that a spirit of superiority/inferiority would taint one’s efforts. Instead he taught and expressed a spirit of oneness and universality. He named the service organization run purely on volunteer efforts Oneness-Heart-Tears and Smiles. Sri Chinmoy states,

“Our humanitarian service is not our self-motivated, condescending act of charity to the poor and needy. It is a gigantic opportunity to feed, nourish and strengthen our own poor brothers and sisters so that they can, side by side, march along with us to proclaim the world-oneness-victory of God the Creation.”

Another renowned figure in India’s spiritual lineage, Swami Vivekananda, echoes the same perspective of viewing all human beings as being important in the eyes of God and that the person doing the giving receives more than the person receiving.

“Do not stand on a high pedestal and take five cents in your hand and say, ‘ Here, my poor man,’ but be grateful that the poor man is there so that by making a gift to him, you are able to help yourself. It is not the receiver that is blessed, but it is the giver.”

Vivekananda also eloquently expresses this concept of the brotherhood and sisterhood of all with his following words:

‘Ask nothing; want nothing in return. Give what you have to give; it will come back to you - but do not think of that now. It will come back multiplied - a thousandfold - but the attention must not be on that. You have the power to give. Give, and there it ends. ” Thus SpakeVivekananda

Since I felt like the Acts of Kindness Day (in my case 9 days of activities) did indeed impart a host of special blessings and learning, I eagerly tuned in to Oprah’s reality television show with the theme of charitable giving. While the three episodes I watched brought tears to my eyes in heart-rending and poignant moments, I ultimately am finding it hard to resonate to a show steeped in some of the structural limitations of so-called reality TV which pits contestants against each other, eliminates them until only one remains and seems to subtly reward outrageous interpersonal behavior over quiet integrity. I guess its value may outweigh these limitations if it spreads a spirit of contagion for giving.

My vote for a recent television spotlight on a charitable organization rather goes to 60 Minutes for their coverage of Remote Area Medical. Watch the episode here:

The nonprofit charity provides free medical, dental and vision care in weekend clinics. The relief efforts began primarily in under-developed countries but lately have concentrated sixty percent of their efforts in the United States serving uninsured or under-insured individuals. The founder Stan Brock, born in England, lives very simply and gives his all to offering health care to those in need. After you watch this video about this amazing spirit of self-giving and teamwork, I think you will agree that this effort is nothing less than heroic and makes you wish you were a doctor just so you could take part in this very worthy cause.