Celebrating Chinese New Year with friends...

Celebrating Chinese New Year with friends: Sometimes when I walk through the upstairs hallway I think I can hear Mengting talking to her family in China. Or I think I see the light under the door and peak in to see if she needs a cup of tea while she is studying.

This was the Lion Dance at Trine a few years ago.

I took Jonah to the celebration at Trine this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the link to this week's column on Chinese New Year which happens to be today! I hope you enjoy it. Tonight is my own Chinese New Year celebration at my old house. Just click on the above link.

Thanks to my editor, Mike, and to all my readers.

Happy New Year's!

Everyone took home a lovely saying on a small piece of cardboard!

 

When Death Comes...

When you visit my house, one of the first things you notice are all the
poems taped to my kitchen cupboards. I love sharing my love of poetry
with all who visit. This poem by Mary Oliver is taped to my cupboards. I
also featured it with my students this week. Last night I spoke to the
Rode Scholars telling stories from around the world. There is always
time for questions and one question was about my passion for stories,
poetry, literature....it simply lead me into the recitation of this
poem. So...I share it with you today. This version is Mary Oliver
reading her own work. The last line is the most poignant...

Pete Seeger - We shall overcome

We sang this song at both rallies on Saturday. First we sang on the square in Angola, and then we ended the Ft. Wayne rally singing this song...holding hands. I can't get it out of my mind...and why should I?

Enjoy Pete Seeger.

Yesterday was just amazing!!

Yesterday will love long in my memory! The folks in my small town were amazing...yes, amazing, lifting their voices in chants, in songs, in friendships.

After a wonderful rally on the square we headed to Ft. Wayne to participate in the rally on the court house lawn. The weather was really flawless for January. 

It is hard to describe the energy that surrounded all of us. It was absolutely electric. Thank you to everyone who participated, cheered us on, and made hats for us.

I have many photos from the day, but I will share just a few with you...

I just have to say I couldn't sleep one wink last night...

Here I am with my BFF, Kathy. Our friend, Malinda, made our wonderful hats

 out of old sweaters.!!

 

 

 

Just a birds eye view of the Ft. Wayne march.

One of my favorite signs held by a lovely young ladt on her first march!!

Until tomorrow...

Join us as we exercise our constitutional rights...

Join us as we exercise our constitutional rights: We sit knee to knee in the late night hours. The candle burns. The rain falls. Our small, worn copies of The Constitution held between our hands.

Here is the link to this week's column. Just click on the above link! I hope you enjoy it and join us in Angola this morning as we stand with the Women in Black against violence. We are also going to the rally in Fort Wayne at 3:00 followed by a diversity fair.

Thank you for reading this week. And don't forget to keep a copy of the Constitution in your back pocket!

THE JOURNEY by Mary Oliver

I offer this up to all my sisters all over the country on this day...

What stories will survive when we’re gone?

What stories will survive when we’re gone?: “Tell me another story,” pipes up a pint-sized person every day of my visit. I should say every hour of my visit.

Where do our stories go?

 Here is the link to this week's column. This is a topic that has been swirling around in my head for months now. I am sure we will discuss it much more as well!

Please add your comments or send me your stories. I must say since this appeared on-line, my mail box has been full of stories, and I would love to hear yours.

Just click on the above link, and thank you for reading.

Lou Ann

Full Wolf Moon arrives with Nannie of the Year

Full Wolf Moon arrives with Nannie of the Year:

My small suitcase is packed once again. It is full of treasures for little girls … Goldilocks (the puppet), books, a beautiful seashell, and a small bag of glitter. These are the treasures that Mary Poppins herself would carry in her satchel. My little girls, Holly and Brianna, love these small treasures, but the first thing they will ask is this question, “Nannie, will there be a full moon tonight?” I am the Nannie with all the celestial answers. Maybe because my Earth Sky map of the full moons is taped to my closet door. Sometimes I have to tell the girls that there will be no full moon while I am visiting. Their disappointment is as if it is my fault. They do take it personally.

This is the waxing gibbous moon taken just two days ago by
my poet friend and photographer, Michael Czarnecki.

Here is the link to this week's column. Yes, the full moon for January is almost here, and I love it as much as anyone!

As always, just click on the above link, and thank you for reading. Where will you be watching the full moon???

Lou Ann

We must take care of one another this year...

We must take care of one another this year: “One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.” And so starts my favorite Christmas book, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas.

 

 

 

These are the very ice skates I got when I was ten!

As I finally get around to posting my New Year's column, I sit in my lovely studio listening to Pachelbel's Canon in D. It seems to be the perfect music to listen to as I recall with such fondness the skates in the picture. Yes, those skates were my Christmas gift when I was ten. I have loved them all my life although I have not been skating in a few years. So, I say, why not? Perhaps this winter I will try again.

I want to wish you the happiest of New Year's events and thoughts and please, take good care of each other, won't you?

As always, thank you for reading. Just click on the above link and there it is!

Lou Ann

Christmas stories bring traditional warm to the home

Christmas stories bring traditional warm to the home: Tonight, if you are like me, you will be reading to your children or grandchildren, or perhaps to yourself. My own readings will consist of the Bible story of Mary and Joseph, “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by Dylan Thomas, poetry by Robert Frost and, of course, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement C. Moore.

I took this photo when Santa came to our town!

Dear Friends,

Above is the link to this week's column. Just click on and there it is. Enjoy! I always appreciate you reading the column. The only difference is that it was Aaron who read to his boys this year, not me. I said it was fine, and I listened with actual tears in my eyes as I passed the tradition down and let him read.

This was an interesting Christmas season for me. I loved every minute, and I enjoyed every minute. I do not think I missed anything from Santa coming to town to concerts to my open house to cookie baking to quiet time in my old house. This is my contented Christmas with life and with myself. 

Merry Christmas to all of you.

May joy find you wherever you are.

Love.

And it's a wrap...

After the last show of the season.

 

 

 

This has been a wonderful Christmas season for me with lots of stories and performances. I really do love them all. There is so much magic in the oral tradition. Thank you to everyone who hired me...listened to me...cheered me on!

But sometimes the best things are just what happens down the street! Last night was my last show for the year, and I got to tell stories with my musician friend, Gerry Ferrell. We sang and told stories to a lovely audience at Cahoots Cafe down at the end of my street.

Just as I was finishing up Twas the Night Before Christmas Santa and Mrs. Claus appeared as jolly as ever! The children were so delighted. Their eyes lit up like...well...like Christmas trees!

Oh, the magic of Christmas with children. It never fails to amaze me. 

We all need this magic from time to time. We need to learn from the children around us. Lucky me that I am often surrounded by them.

Happy day to you. May the blessings of this day guide you into the once-again darkness of winter.

Lou Ann

Happy Solstice!

The early winter morning sky.

Today is the Winter Solstice, and it is probably my favorite day of the year. I love winter...I love the early darkness...and I love the Solstice.

Last Sunday night my old house was full of folks. We started with a potluck and moved on to reading poetry: Tennyson, Frost, Burns, Thomas, Moore, Dickens and others. We lit the Christmas tree and sang O Christmas Tree in German...all the versus. 

We ate more and then played music til the wee hours of the morning. There is nothing more wonderful than a house full of friends and family celebrating the darkness of winter.

I woke at exactly the moment of Solstice this morning, 5:44. I guess I am definitely in tune with this world.

Happy Solstice! As Leonard Cohen said, "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

My Christmas tree with the candles lit. The picture does not give justice to the beauty.

 https://www.facebook.com/annie.thomaseyster/videos/10207823235954607/

Give this link a try for a beautiful rendition of Silent Night around my Christmas tree.

Happy Solstice.

Reliving an earlier Christmas

Reliving an earlier Christmas:

 I have a lovely old house.

This is a print of a painting of my old farmhouse. The original was painted by Tara Rinkle Homan. This lovely print was my Christmas gift from Adam and Tara. I love it so much.

Here is the link to this week's column. I was asked yesterday about the inspiration for the column. First of all I dearly love the old stories of my young children and our celebrations. Secondly, I met a young woman at the store this week who had that "deer in the headlights" look. I stopped to talk with her. She was so worried about Christmas with her children because she had so little to give them. I told her this story and other stories about what children really need. They need us, they need time, they need stories and, well, magic. Those qualities I gave to my children.

Enjoy the column. Just click on the top link or the title and it will take you to the KPC site. As always, a thank you to my editor, Mike, who makes me look like a good writer.

Until tomorrow.