Welcome to a World of Spiritual Harmony

An article in the New York Times today caught my attention: Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits. Being a natural anarchist, I’m always happy to learn about times when traditional methods / the way we’ve always done it has been proven not to work.

A number of journals and scientists were quoted. Special study areas, focusing intently all evening long on one subject, and on only one part or problem of that subject aren’t effective. You might cram all night and pass the test - but you won’t know much about any of it at the end of the week. Better to move around a bit, from one room or area to another, during a study session. Better to look at several parts of perhaps several topics, and let your brain make various connections between them. Better to study hard an hour a night than do all the studying at one time. And take a test before the test if you can.

All of these worked way better than our traditional picture of students sitting there for hours going over and over the same material. “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing,” the researchers concluded.”

The article drew this awkwardly phrased conclusion: “None of which is to suggest that these techniques — alternating study environments, mixing content, spacing study sessions, self-testing or all the above — will turn a grade-A slacker into a grade-A student.” Since we weren’t talking about motivation, we could have just skipped this part.

But I liked the article, because it suits the way I have always learned. Popping into the subject and then out, reading 3 or more books at once, looking at all aspects of questions, and finding ways to take it all apart and put it back again. All done at my own pace and timing.

So all those kids and parents making themselves crazy trying to learn by the rules - which are also really disruptive of family life - need to start paying attention to what feels right to them, and allow learning to happen in a more natural way.

Another reason why we need the paradigm shift - so we can quit living by other folks’ rules. And pay attention to our own inner wisdom.

I’ve had a little poster on my fridge for a pretty long time. I really like it, but it’s just time for it to move on. I have no idea where I got it, or who the author is. I’m going to put it in the Give Away Basket, so next time there’s a gathering, someone else can take it home. Here’s what it says:

Be Smart. Be Healthy. Be Happy.

But be smart first.

Then you know how to be healthy.

And frequently happy follows.

Be smart first.

A. R. Kesler

P. S. from Patricia To me, smart means getting the emotions out of the way and looking at something straight on. Then you can see clearly what’s going on. And make clear decisions about it, without being all roiled up. It’s a lot easier to be happy that way, to my way of thinking… So that’s obviously why I liked this little piece, and how it ended up on the fridge. That - and the fact that there’s a cute little partly green graphic at the top. : >

My DC grandson is in town this week. He pops in 2 or 3 times a year for a week or so, we see movies, he goes to Kings Island with his cousins, we all eat a year’s worth of Skyline in that week.

Kyle loves Skyline. If he ever moves here - as we discuss pretty often - at least one meal a day will always be Skyline time.

He arrived around midnight Saturday night / Sunday morning. The rest of the family was in bed by that time in their various houses. I was still up, because Kyle was going to stay here. And he wanted his Skyline hit right then - if it wasn’t too late for his grandmother. No way was I going to say it was too late. So there we were at 1 a m, at the Clifton Skyline, with me eating their vegetarian black beans and rice.

The whole group of us saw Inception together on Sunday, with Skyline before and after. And I had the black beans and rice over a steamed potato. Monday was a day with cousins and uncles, car shopping and suit shopping. Then for supper, we went to Dewey’s for that great house salad and the Edgar Allen Poe, half and half with Kyle’s pepperoni and extra cheese. We came back to the house and did his semi-annual Tarot card reading.

Tuesday we hit Skyline before seeing Cyrus - I had the black bean burrito. Since I was teaching an Intuitive Development class that evening, Kyle hung out with cousins. Wednesday was lunch in Glendale with my sister at the Indian place, Taj Mahal, in Springdale. And a Second Degree Reiki class for me, with Kyle and his grandfather going to the Reds game (where I’m sure he had Gold Star coneys), so Kyle could see the Nats new star pitcher, Stephen Strasburg, beat the Reds. Exactly what he had in mind. Today they saw the day game, and played a round of golf.

We’ll see what happens tomorrow! And see how many more ways I can have those black beans and rice.

Well, last Friday, July 9, was about 7 weeks since my birthday. And I still had 2 celebrations that day - one with my seester, the middlest of us, and the other with one of my fabulous adopted daughters. Having had all sons, and now all grandsons (who are wonderful people, of course), I early on began to look around for my daughters.

Susan and I visited the new tea room / coffee shop that Bonbonerie has opened in the space where the former coffee shop was on Madison. Except now, we walk in through the back, passing the old tea room on the way. It was just perfect to spend time with her, and catch back up with our lives. And the food was, as it always has been with the Bon, just excellent.

Sister Maureen and I went to Take the Cake Deli - I knew she would love it, and she’d love the long tables, to which, I’m sure, one of these days she’ll bring all her friends to enjoy the great food as much as we did. She’s just gotten back from Ireland - so I got a little baggie with a shell and some sand from Galway Bay. Plus other wonderful stuff - lots of it green. And then we wandered about for a bit, doing a little shopping around Northside.

And there is at least one more birthday celebration to come, since Carolyn and I haven’t scheduled our time together yet - our birthdays are just a couple of weeks apart, but can be celebrated at any time!

Nearly three years ago, I attended the first of The Beloved Community fundraisers given by Over-the-Rhine Community Housing, a group I truly admire. They were unveiling and selling a gorgeous new art tile, just completed by the newly-resurrected Rookwood Pottery. The numbered and limited edition tile represented so many reminders of that old and beautiful neighborhood and was a lovely blue-green. It was also $150. So I didn’t buy one.

Last fall, I was in Canton at the Ohio CDC Association annual conference. They were having a raffle - and one of the many prizes was one of those wonderful tiles. I won three different items on Wednesday evening, and six on Thursday. I won almost everything given away. But not that tile.

Then, at our CDC Association of Greater Cincinnati annual Awards Celebration a couple of weeks ago, it finally came home to me. My wonderful Board members, having heard the story of the non-winning in Canton, presented me with one of the tiles. Wow! Made me so happy. And I was so surprised and amazed. It really made my heart happy.

p.s. That’s what I get for teaching people how to pull off surprises. They really learned well! : >

So it got a little hot! It was still a perfect day. We could have used a bit more breeze, but all the great conversations more than made up for that. And I loved the way all my friends (from all the different pieces and eras of my life) spaced themselves out so nicely from 3 to 7 p m.

There was always just the right number of folk, lots of interesting food (thanks so especially to
Carolyn!), interesting gifts - Shirlene’s granddaughters gave me a dragon - and then put it together for me - and constant serendipities. Lots of folk who hadn’t seen each other for a while showing up at pretty much the same time.

And one new friend brought a feast of cupcakes. An entire plate of spaghetti and meatballs - all cupcakes! And tiny popcorn cupcakes, cupcake ears of corn. Food appearing as needed, one bowl emptying, to be replaced by another.

Several friends brought contributions for the Friends of Patricia fund at the CDC Association, Just one great happy-ning after another. Exactly the fabulous day I wanted to have.

Thanks, Everyone! xoxox

Billie Jean was here in town a couple of weeks ago, receiving one of the Beacon Awards at Major League Baseball’s Civil Rights Game, with the Cincinnati Reds. The town also hosted the event last year - and everyone I know was very proud and excited about it, buying tickets to the luncheon where the winners spoke, and to the game the next day. And I loved Krista Ramsey’s editorial in the Enquirer titled Thanks, Billie Jean, for your impatience.

I remember Billie Jean’s impatience as she pushed for the Title IX legislation, which provided equity for girls in sports. I remember her determination in starting the Virginia Slims tour, which morphed into the Woman’s Tennis Association, and helped push for equality for women players at tournaments. She also started World Team Tennis, which has never come to Cincinnati, but provides lots of fun and interest for fans, and a break for players in the middle of the summer. Most major cities now have have their own mixed team.

She won the 1972 US Open, and then announced she wouldn’t play in 1973 unless the women’s and men’s winners earned the same amounts. The strategy worked! The world was just beginning to change then toward equality for women, and America was slowly, slowly beginning to move in the right direction.

Mostly, of course, I remember her match against Bobby Riggs, dubbed The Battle of the Sexes. On September 20, 1973, Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs took to the court at the Astrodome in Houston. It was exciting - I was glued to the set. And most people were sure a woman couldn’t beat a man at tennis - or at anything. We were still weak and whining as far as the culture was concerned. And then - she didn’t just beat him. She wiped him out. Hurray!

She was smart, he was slow. She was focused, he was arrogant. Astonishing, the push, the jolt that evening gave to women. We just didn’t have to take it any more. That evening, plus the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (where women were added late in the negotiations) and Title IX, created the era we’re now in. Once it was someone’s job to track the dollars spent on women’s sports, and someone’s job to push for equal pay for equal work, cranking up the bureaucracy toward equity, the ball started to roll in our favor.

And that ball was the tennis ball Billie Jean King smashed ‘right down Bobby Riggs’ throat’, as Krista says in her editorial. A real game changer, that match.

I’ve had a great time this week talking about how I’ve learned to work with the weather. As a matter of fact, that’s the title of one of my seminars at the Victory of Light Expo this weekend. Victor asked me to be on Waves of the New Age, hosted by Judy Peace, with him, and we had a lot of fun. Judy is so wise in spiritual matters, sees so deeply.

Then when Scott Sloan on 700WLW wanted to have a topic from the Expo on his show - Victor suggested me again. (Thanks, Victor!) So I spent about 20 minutes last night on talk radio, and had a terrific time. I realize that teaching people how to work with the weather is a little off the beaten path. I’ve been teaching myself for a pretty long time, and I’m used to it. But I can see how it could sound strange to other folk. : >

So Scott had a good time asking questions, and I had a good time with the answers. I talked about how I had just worked with the rain for the Heart Mini-Marathon, so it stopped while the runners were out there, and about tennis matches not rained out, plus Second Sunday on Main - and the one time it was nearly rained out.

Then he brought up earthquakes, and whether that disaster could have been changed. I said that I was sure psychics there knew something awful was coming. If there was a ‘psychic hotline’, it seems possible that others of us around the planet could have worked to mitigate the disaster, shifted it to a less populated part of the island perhaps. I don’t think we’d want to totally prevent the earth from letting go of some of that pent up energy, but maybe we could do it in a less destructive way.

So I’ve been thinking about that. I’ll keep you posted as my ideas develop.

Dream Group is a different experience each time, though a couple of us have been part of the group for nearly 20 years. We meet twice a month on Saturday mornings, to talk about our dreams and assist each other in understanding the layers of meanings, puns and jokes, and outcomes of our dreams.

This morning, 4 of us gathered at a member’s home. Our routine of eating first as we settle in, then bringing each other briefly up to date about where we are in our lives, and then going on to talk about our individual dreams was interrupted - as our hostess, telling us about her very stressful week, managed to add to that stress by slicing her finger rather badly. Using both Reiki and pressure on the wound, plus having another dreamer send energy to her immune system to ward off shock, we got the bleeding to stop momentarily. A bit too soon, I took my finger away.

We continued on with our dream routine as we re-applied pressure, got a bag of ice together, and cleaned up the blood spots. Rescue Remedy pastilles (like gummy bears) helped to relieve stress for the wounded one. About half an hour later, after talking about two dreamers’ dream, the pressure was stopped again, and we had to cut off all the material we had applied throughout. This time, it held, and we used hydrogen peroxide, then a cotton ball right on top, held on with bandaids put on very tight, to successfully cover the wound.

The last two of us talked through our dreams. Some striking similarities, as often happens. And we finished by each drawing a few Tarot cards from the deck that lives in my purse, and getting even more advice from the Universe, in addition to what we had already garnered from dreaming.

Another helpful and enlightening Dream Group morning. With just a bit more excitement than is customary.

So I celebrated in the usual way - making Irish soda bread to take with fresh organic butter to every meeting I attended for about a week and a half. What fun!

I love making Irish soda bread - have a recipe from an Irish cookbook that I alter and add to as it feels right. This year, it was better than ever. I learned how to fold in the buttermilk faster and easier, with less dough handling. That’s what my cookbook writing friend says is needed - bread doesn’t like to be handled, according to her.

So it was a great week - can’t wait til next year.