blog family

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Photo by Ginnie of her "Gathering Wisdom" bronze sculpture in October getting packed for her move to the Netherlands last month; NOTE: the sculptor is Mark Hopkins - after a couple of you thought Ginnie sculpted it, but quite frankly, she is artistic and soulful enough to do this kind of work, believe me. I am adding her avatar, below, which she drew when she was a teenager. It was my idea to make it her blog avatar. I don't know what I love most about it - the free girl, the forward motion of the whole image, the sillhouetteness, I don't know, but I have admired it since I was a little girl, maybe longing to be as free as that.

Remember if you can the first time you heard the word blog. Weblog. Web log. We blog. I think my first time must have been in 2005 when my sister Ginnie started hers. (I call her "Boots" because when she was born she was tiny, her booties went all the way up to her hips, and the doctor said "She's all boots!" That's her photo, above, and the blog post about the lady is embedded in Ginnie's name under it.) Blogging hadn't exploded yet, and I just wasn't very interested. I didn't even visit hers that whole first year, I really didn't get it. What's a blog? Even so, I tried to convince our decorator sister Nancy to start one too, picturing her beautiful designs on a pretty site that would reflect her talents.

Finally in January 2006 feeling inspired by Ginnie's In Soul blog because she did such a good job chronicling her life in words and photos, and I always liked journaling (though I didn't stick with it), I went out shooting pictures of the snow, came in, picked out a Blogger template (Minima Ochre), uploaded a photo of our spruce tree, et voila! -- instant publication -- what a rush! On January 21 I will have posted here every three days for four years, something I couldn't have known I would stick with at the time, let alone turn it into an outlet for writing practice and a new hobby of photography.

I've noticed a lot of reflective end-of-year and new-year blog posts about how blog friends are real friends. I couldn't agree more, and I also wonder what we imply with that statement. Maybe we feel some guilt that we don't have more face to face contact with people nearby? More on that in a minute.

These days online newspaper columnists have blogs. Celebrities and authors have them. What is it with blogging?



Is it that in just a few minutes you can fly over oceans and continents and meet a man in Chennai, India who tells you a story about a young girl named Priya saving him from wild dogs in a lovely tribal village near Varagaliar forest? That post needs to be made into a children's story and picture book. Through stunning photographs, humor and wit, rauf opens our eyes to Indian culture, to Nature, to what is not right with India's society and ours too, and he also shows what is so very right with humans, by being the right kind of human. I hope one day Don and I can shake hands with rauf in Chennai-Madras, with the smell of curry and diesel, the yells of street vendors and humidity so high my hair frizzes up like bird feathers - oh, kinda like Priya's, below. Please do browse rauf's posts and photographs, but be gentle on him because he hasn't had as much time to blog as he used to, and comments might frighten him as much as wild dogs!

Photos of Priya by rauf

This is what we owe each other. To speak honestly, to listen quietly, and to connect. When we live like this, our life is a prayer. I could not have predicted that in four years of contact with bloggers I would travel so far and learn so much - about specific places in the world and in space, about humanity, about myself, and that I would become more curious.

Don's turkey and chickens

• I've watched my husband Don raise chickens and turkeys, gathering information for months, and blog about it. He researched some of his most valuable knowledge from other chicken bloggers - including Susie - who knew what they knew from personal experience. That is so helpful when you've read what you can at the official information sites, and now you just want to know what works and what doesn't.
  
• I reconnected here at sync with an old high school acquaintance who is now a dear friend from whom I've learned much about the world: Loring.
• Riding along with Bob, I rocketed into the night sky with conjunctions and fireballs.
  
• I've imagined joy and mischief with future grandbabies reading stories and seeing photos shared by Susie, Oliag, Cottage Girl, Nancy and Bella Rum.
• I've ached and wept over painful illnesses and heartbreak with Barry, Shaista, Renee and Shattered.
  
• I've admired and touched something deeper when Mystic Rose, Sharon, Gwen, DS, Barry, Vagabonde, Pamela, Linda, Arti, Montag, Deborah, Shaista, Oh and Shattered write.
• I've swooned over art and design posted by Gwen, Lesley, Anet, Cathy, Sharon, Sandy, Laura, Patricia, Jean, California Girl, Pamela, João, Dutchbaby, Ellen, Julie, Gemma, Jeanie, Julie-Ann, John and Maia.
• I've been humbled by the photography of rauf, Claudia, Ginnie, Peter, Leena, Sidney, Hildegarde, Anna, Alek, Sanna, Oliag, Dutchbaby, Nathan & Nancy, Kerri, California Girl's husband and Christina.
• I've heard musicians I never knew, posted by Loring, rauf, João, Cottage Girl, Claudia, and others.
  
• I've laughed out loud reading Susie, Don, rauf, Letitia, Babs and Sanna.
• I've had a hard time sitting still on this side of the pond reading posts about the France I love from Peter, Alice, Nathalie, Vagabonde, Delphine and Daniel.
• Each of you who visits synch-ro-ni-zing, I have felt you, here in my heart. I get new inspiration every day. Thank you for what you do, for helping shape this world, this gift of possibility.
  

I am happy to report that at least five of these dear friends are real. Don is my husband: real. Ginnie is my sister: real. Loring is my hometown neighbor and classmate: real. I've met dear friend Susie twice and Sanna once, and it felt like old home week: real.

As for face time with locals, I actually think I may get enough of it with Don's and my big families and my 1,000 academic advisees. But something Patricia told me in a comment got me to a gorgeous web site that supports reestablishing oral stories, to connect people with each other and the earth, called the Alliance for Wild Ethics - "a loose group of folks around the world who all share a common aim to rejuvenate a wild, animistic, participatory culture that honors the whole boisterous community of earthly life -- plants, animals, woodlands, rivers, winds, and thunderclouds -- as our real neighborhood." Apparently the site is somewhat dormant now, according to the founder David Abram, that is until he releases his next book in August. But it's worth exploring even in dormancy (like a woodland in winter). In 2010, thanks in part to Wild Ethics, while we're meeting here in our digital salons I'm going to remember to keep eye and hand connection with people and Nature firsthand.

Here's to being more wild, more free, more connected. If you have time please listen to Andrew Bird accompany himself on violin - while he sings - about becoming "this animal" in the official Rolling Stone released stop-animation video directed by Lisa Barcy.

Anonanimal

See a sea anemone, the enemy see a sea anemone
And that'll be the end of me
While the vicious fish was caught unawares
In the tenderest of tendrils

See a sea anemone, the enemy see a sea anemone
And that'll be the end of me, that'll be the end of me
While the vicious fish was caught unawares
In the tenderest of tendrils

Underneath her tender gills I will become this animal
Perfectly adapted to the music halls
Oh and I will become this animal
Anomalous appendages, anonanimal, anonanimal

Anonanimal, anonanimal
Anonanimal, anonanimal

Hold on just a second
Don't tell me this one you know
I know this one, I know this song
I know this one, I love this song

Hold on just a second
Don't tell me this one you know
I know this one, I know this song
I know this one, I love this song
I know this one

Underneath the stalactites
The troglodytes lost their sight, oh
The seemingly innocuous plecostomus though posthumous
They talk to us, they talk too much

See a sea anemone, the enemy see a sea anemone
That'll be the end of me, that'll be the end of me
Vicious fish was caught unawares
In the tenderest tendrils

Underneath her tender gills and I will become this animal
Perfectly adapted to a music hall
I will become this animal
Anomalous appendages, anonanimal, anonanimal

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