Tag Archives: Carol A. Stephen

Upcoming Tree Reading Series July 24

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This item was omitted from the Notices, info and photo comes from the Tree post here:
This event takes place at Arts Court, 2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa
The Ottawa Arts Court. Formerly the Carleton C...

The Ottawa Arts Court. Formerly the Carleton County Courthouse, the building now serves as Ottawa’s municipal arts centre. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Tuesday  July 24 6:45pm Free Workshop  Stuart Ross on After Joe Brainard
A workshop sparked by the literary works of the late and magnificent Joe Brainard, on the occasion of the release of his Collected Writings and the re-release of the legendary Bean Spasms collaboration between Joe, Ron Pagett, and Ted Berrigan.
8:00 p.m.  Readings Dead Poet Reading, Open Mic and this Featured Reader:

Jacob McArthur Mooney

Jacob was the winner of 2012 Poem of the Year contest from Ottawa’s own Arc Magazine.More >

No-Comfort Zone Challenge week ending July 22, 2012

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Ok, so not a lot of comfort this week!  I saw my optometrist, and it looks like some eye issues were not all in my head…ummm…well, I suppose if you consider where the eyes are, that isn’t exactly true. But you know what I mean.

It wsn’t good news, but if I keep on the healthy eating and start exercising and lose weight, I can either prevent further damage or slow it down. (Diabetes does things to you, even when you don’t feel it) I have some changes in my eyes caused by Type 2 diabetes, is what I am trying to say. This is the first time it has shown up in my eye exam. I just have to keep focusing on the things I can do so I don’t make it worse through my own continuing denial and self-indulgence.

Healthy Eating Pie Chart

Healthy Eating Pie Chart (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cuz I tend to be an emotional eater, and often react to bad health news with more bad eating.  Chocolate in some form usually comes to mind.

On a more positive note, though, I have been faithfully checking my blood sugars and blood pressure and trying to eat properly. I’ve dragged out all the books again, and intend to really get a handle on what I can and cannot eat. And making sure my quantities are healthy too. At some point, I will add a few indulgences back occasionally, but not till I break the pattern of a little is good, so a whole lot is even better…

So one of the hard things to deal with is the guilt that if I had done a better job of looking after myself, maybe this would not have happened. Still, the numbers don’t support that. Maybe the eye issues would have started later on. But chances are they would eventually show up to some extent. I can only be glad that we seem to have found it early.

I will also go see my family doctor this week to let her know about this. I suspect I am looking at insulin injections since I can’t take the medication in tablet form. One type is hard on the kidneys, which I believe were damaged by the C Difficile I contracted several years ago. The other med has sulfa to which I am allergic.

Oh yeah, the C Difficile… well in 2008 I somehow contracted that. It’s a superbug. I had a 5% chance of surviving. So I suppose, instead of worrying about these other things, I should focus on the fact that I could have been dead. Or, that could also be what scared the bejayzus out of me, and why I am so afraid of health things.

Anyway, on a more positive note, I am doing a brief presentation this week coming on Yusef Komunyakaa at Tree Reading Series. And taking a workshop with Stuart Ross as well.

Wisdom of Thumbs and Soil

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A poem celebrating the knowledge that comes with age and experience of the world, and ancient wisdom.

2005 Powwow

2005 Powwow (Photo credit: Smithsonian Institution)

Wisdom Of Thumbs And Soil

 

Our elders walk in the way of the wise,
they know but wait to be asked
questions by those who have
forgotten their thumbs. The young
cannot sign, are left to wander in
cold wearing the skirts of summer, their
feet frozen in January snows, blue toes
poking through sandals, eyes not yet
mirrors of what and who has passed.

 

Zulu woman making pot at reconstructed traditi...

Zulu woman making pot at reconstructed traditional village, South Africa (Photo credit: gbaku)

Our elders are skilled in the craft
of beads and skins, knives curving
along the hides, knuckles curved
white under the tension of the leather,
fingertips delicate as they knot threads

 

to bind beads to a silken cord.  

 

Withering hands spin in the shadow
of grief, as the mind grows and the body fades.
Those who begin to question hear
the dead whispering stories in the roots
of trees. Those coming after will
rest among the roots of ancestors,
will take from the soil knowledge of
seed and root and branch. This tree
bears the seed of all trees yet to come,
as it was born of all trees that
have come before.  

 

Tree

Tree (Photo credit: blmiers2)

Carol A. Stephen
October 14, 2011

 

some of the phrases in this poem based
on Stephen Jenkinson’s Orphan Wisdom teachings

 

No-Comfort Zone Challenge Week ending July 15

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So for this week, the effort was to concentrate on healthy behaviours, and for the most part I saw some progress. Yay!  No chocolate (except for one cupcake last night at a 60th birthday party for a friend, poet and musician and museum guy and editor and…Monty Reid. Congrats Monty!)  Oh, and one very small sample of a chocolate ginger pear riesling sauce. Yum. Purchased a jar, but have not opened it. I’ve monitored the BS and the BP numbers almost every day, only missed Thursday. Added veggies and some salad type things, and no dessert yesterday when I had lunch out with friends.

And I tried the “coffee on the deck in the mornings” thing, but my Siamese cat, Tojo, (that’s a soft j, sort of like Tozho)  was making too much noise with his operatic efforts. Now that the weather is good (i.e. not winter), he wants  to go for walks all the time, even in the heat. He isn’t allowed to go off on his own, and I am not interested in walking hours and hours. Walking a cat isn’t like walking a dog, either. Lots of stopping. Lots of getting the leash tangled. Lots of grass eating, followed by the inevitable regurgitation (yuck!) I keep thinking that if I don’t let him go out in early spring, he will forget about it. But my brother got there first this year so it’s too late. Besides, I feel bad that he lost his best buddy Scooter last fall. He’s never been the only cat before. Anyway, for the upcoming week, I think a healthy focus again. And praying for rain. No rain in a month, just heat and more heat. Most of the lawns are completely turned to straw.

On the poetry front, I have done my first and second draft of the poem due soon for The Light Ekphrastic, and submitted my Geist Erasure Poetry Contest entry. That had been languishing for several months since I had created  it when the contest was first announced.  (Can’t really say I “wrote” it, since it is an erasure piece.)