Welcome to a World of Spiritual Harmony

The Ice Queen is another Alice Hoffman, which in her use of language and oddball situations, lives up to her previous work.

But perhaps she had made her characters too odd and unappealing for my taste. Only occasionally did I connect with heroine. I connected more with her love interest, the man of fire. The ending of the book was much easier to reach into and share space with.

There is a way in which her books are fantasy, but all are well grounded in the everyday of roads, houses, kitchens, none of it fantasy. It is the characters who, particularly in this book, make choices that leave them ever more isolated even as they’re reaching out. She is exploring a different universe in this book, though the trappings are familiar.

If you haven’t tried Alice Hoffman yet, I’d suggest starting with another one.

So many of my friends were telling me that I needed to read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert that I began to believe them. Normally, best sellers don’t do it for me - they’re seldom exploring anything new, but are popularizing ideas that have been around for a while.

When one friend finally showed up with the book in her hand, I put down all the other volumes I was in the midst of (don’t you read several at one time?), and started in.

Elizabeth has blended in the food, the spiritual practice, the intimate love in new and interesting ways. She is willing to say out loud what most of us would not, and is a willing experimenter. So while she’s popularizing ideas, she’s doing so in a new format. Which I really enjoy.

In addition, I like the layout of the book. Each section includes 36 stories of many lengths. The 3 sections mark the 108 segments on a string of prayer beads, which is its own kind of spiritual journey.

Elizabeth refers back to previous materials, winds in and out of her stories, weaves threads from various pieces together. Intriguing and interesting. Her spiritual experiences ring true.

The only weak part is the very end, where she has indeed found love in Bali, and is likely not quite so honest with herself - and with us.

A great read, overall!

Weekend before last, I was walking around the lawn and woods, noticing strangeness. There were blossoms on the honeysuckle - and several violets in the lawn. I also noticed violets in friends’ lawns. And all the marigolds were still blooming. Yet there were no tiny buds at all on most of the trees, where they should have been. At that point, we were still in the drought, which now seems to be behind us for a while.

Hawk flew over the garden one day last week when I startled him by opening the door, starting to feed the birds. Whenever I look out and nothing is happening in the yard, I know there’s a cat, a hawk, maybe the fox - something keeping the other critters still. I was glad to see Hawk, because he hadn’t been by in a while. And I haven’t seen Fox since October.

Now that we’re having a real cold snap - though the pansies seem fine with it - maybe all the flowers and trees will get back to normal. What a relief that would be.

But maybe we shouldn’t count on it. There was a dead coyote out in the street yesterday, clearly hit by a passing car. And as all of us who pay attention to totem animals know, Coyote is the Trickster.

A dead coyote on a Cincinnati street. What could be weirder than that?

November 22 has been a sacred day to me since John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 - 44 years ago.

I remember that weekend, with the TV on and following events as they unfolded. I remember feeding son Terry in his high chair - he was about a year and a half. It seemed not right that life would go on, that babies needed to be fed and laundry done, even though a true light had gone out of the world.

To quote William Butler Yeats, in his Easter 1916, “All changed, changed utterly.” Camelot collapsed, our dreams of that good and perfect world were gone in an instant. The deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy 5 years later confirmed that there was no going back.

That no miracle was going to save us - that we had to work to make this a better world. With no guarantee of the outcome.

In these dark days, when there is no leadership in the White House, it is good to remember the days before November 22, 1963.

Thanksgiving is fun and different each year - which is even more fun! I only have to take one dish to the family feast, held at the home of my sister’s daughter Cyndia, out in Westchester. Somewhere out on the edge of the world, but I’ve learned how to find it.

Brussels sprouts were on my mind, so I took myself to Wild Oats to find them. Which took some work. They were hidden behind the asparagus, which made me figure they were conventional (meaning not organic), and indeed they were - but they were on my mind, so I trusted that.

I had emailed Carolyn of the Perfect Brew for her ideas, and called that email up on my screen this morning. Blanch first, suggested Carolyn. Then saute in olive oil (I used olive and canola), plus a little garlic and sea salt. Then at the end, per her instructions, I added rice vinegar (didn’t have balsamic) and a bit of brown sugar.

Super wonderful - and so much fun to make that I decided I’m going to cook more over the winter. I normally live a life where I occasionally dust the kitchen stove and the sink, since they are never used except to heat water for my wonderful collection of teas.

The saying on the October page of my Tibetan calendar (which I can’t turn over ’til I’ve written about it) is Radiate your loving-kindness to every living being without any discrimination - The Buddha.

For me, there is a lot to think about in sending loving energy out to the planet and all of us sentient beings who belong to it (stones, insects, thunderbolts, rainforests, persons). Everything is alive and full of energy, whether we can see that or not.

It feels good to meditate / muse on all that energy and all those sentient beings. But this Buddha statement always reminds me that I can love with out liking.

For instance, the Hawk who’s currently visiting has his part to play in the natural order, and I don’t interfere. But the fat cat who feels the need to hunt birds for sport is not welcome - and I definitely do interfere.

And then there’s the current administration in Washington, who have changed my country into unrecognizable territory. Loving-kindness is much harder work when it’s heading that direction.

Have you been to the Gateway Quarter yet? Vine Street just north of Central Parkway. Some wonderful new stores there, rehabbed apartments for Art Academy students, a brand new energy.

I’ve only been to one of the new and unique stores - Park + Vine, which hosted a meeting of EarthSave, a great vegetarian / vegan group I often attend, a couple of weeks ago.

The store calls itself ‘a green general store - where being green is easy’. And indeed it is! I mostly shop in health food / natural foods places, but still found a number of items I hadn’t seen before. And there’s a wide array - groceries, cleaning products, clothes, health and beauty items.

The store feels great - wonderful sustainable bamboo flooring, lots of light, good energy throughout.

My favorite purchase was a fair trade, sustainably made broom from Thailand. And you can guess what actually made me buy it - yep, there was a pattern in green woven into the broom. It is so beautiful! I really enjoyed putting the old broom in the garage, and hanging this one in the pantry.

When the friend of mine who cleans the house showed up a few days later, her question was ‘Are we really going to use this to sweep?’ And indeed we are. To me, beauty and sustainability belong together - and were so easy to find at Park + Vine!

I cannot believe it! Nearly the middle of November - some trees have turned colors - but most in my yard are still green (except where they turned brown during the summer). They’re beginning to fall without turning color.

There are actually flowers on a number of the honeysuckle bushes / trees. I had read that this was happening, but still couldn’t believe it, even seeing it right in front of my eyes.

The big hemlock in the front yard looks striped. On each limb, one or two long branches hanging down will be green, then one or two brown and dead. I do not want to see what this giant looks like in the spring. I am sad already.

Plus the fact that the chipmunks normally go down for their long winter’s nap in late October. They are still running around out in the garden, and in and out of the stone walls.

I’m expecting the cabbage will keep growing through most of the winter, which is a plus. One of the short term benefits of global warming. But still an indicator that the times, they are a-changin’.

Just got home from an all-out Shakespearean romp! The Cincinnati Shakespeare Company has Cymbeline running as its Halloween play, billed as ‘a most chilling fairy tale’.

Having read the lengthy synopsis, I was ready for the twists and turns. What I really enjoyed, though, were Director Brian Isaac Phillips’ program notes - providing a little perspective on this seldom-seen production.

Cymbeline has enough devious behavior for 4 or 5 plays. And has Giles Davies as the wicked queen’s son, Cloten. The role gives Giles ample opportunity to go right over the top in gaining the biggest laughs of the farce/comedy/drama/ tragedy.

Corinne Mohlenhoff is also excellent - what a treat she is - royal princess one minute, page wandering in the forest the next, with great comedic timing in evidence as well. And this is perhaps the bawdiest of Will’s plays, with very explicit comments and comedy.

The company, as always, is first rate, with Josh Stamoolis taking honors - he’s been with the company less than a year, and is obviously a major talent.

What a great evening! (Preceded by a wonderful meal at Myra’s Dionysus.) Too bad there’s only one more chance to see it - the matinee tomorrow, Veteran’s Day.

A yummy production by one of our newest theater companies, Caroline, or Change features probably my favorite female actor in Cincinnati. Even though she hasn’t performed here in maybe 3 years.

Taylore Mahogany Scott plays Caroline, the African American maid of the Gelman family in Louisiana in 1963. Scott is actually young and gorgeous - but as Caroline she is exhausted, overwhelmed, grindingly poor with 4 children, and spends her days with her washer, dryer and iron in the Gelman basement. And a backup group of 3 singers, ala The Supremes (one of them also plays The Moon).

Young Noah Gelman lost his mother to cancer, and now has a New York stepmother, which allows his clarinet-playing father to retreat even further from the world.

The staging is superb, the action is nearly non-stop, especially in the beginning, all the pieces tie and re-tie into one another. And then JFK is murdered in Dallas, and even the bus driver is dazed and in mourning.

Keep in mind that this is a musical! And you’ll love the music.

The play runs into November 18. Get yourself down to Over-the-Rhine and see it. New Stage Collective is right where 12th Street deadends into Main Street. A unique theater and stage area, even for quirky Cincinnati.