A Sputnik Moment

President Obama, in his State of the Union Speech, spoke about a sputnik moment --our generation's time to rise to the challenge in an ever changing and competitive world. The call to innovate and educate while not new, was needed. There was a concern from the pundits as to whether everyone would 'get' the reference to sputnik. Hello--there's google and yes,'young people' will look it up if they don't understand the reference.

I also found the opening moments inspiring "each of us is a part of something greater - something more consequential than party or political preference."

It is up to all of us, regardless of age and politics, to do something to institute change, peacefully, thinking of Gabrielle Giffords and in memory of Christina Taylor Green.

Let's each of us do what ever we can to acknowledge the joy Congresswoman Giffords feels in working for her constituents and Christina's excitement in meeting Giffords so that their efforts are not in vain.

Thank You

The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where the stand in times of challenge and controversy.- Martin Luther King Jr.

Flowers in the Desert

I spent the last two days of 2010 reading. For me,  reading is the best way to slow down and begin a period of introspection.

Recommended by my dear friend, Mercedes, I chose "The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir" because I longed for the warm sun of the desert and I was looking for a way to quiet my mind after the holiday rush and focus on my goals for the coming new year.

Sometimes the best way to find clarity or a solution is to literally walk away. I walked with Silko as she spoke about her thirty years in the Tucson desert, feeling blessed to be there and how she made friends with the rattlesnakes, pack rats and bees understanding the tenuous balance that existed between the wild and not so wild. I listened as she worried about the approaching development and destruction of the desert by bulldozers, painting small white crosses on boulders to ward off Machine Man like she had seen in the petroglyphs left on the boulders by the ancient people centuries earlier. I cried when the owls raided her aviary and killed her beloved macaws.

Silko explores the sacred and mystical quality of turquoise.

"When I was a child, people at Laguna and people in Spanish-speaking villages nearby used to paint the doors and window frames bright turquoise blue to keep away witches. The Spanish-speaking people used to save the bright blue stamps that sealed the Bull Durham tobacco bags, and whenever they had headaches they wore the bright blue stamps on their foreheads to stop the pain."

Thrilled whenever a piece of turquoise appeared on the trail, she returns home and places the new found treasure on her desk among the other treasures, writing or painting about that particular piece of turquoise and where she had found it.

With the recent shootings in Tucson, I am recalling the peace I felt as 'walked' with Leslie and the strength I get whenever I am in this part of the country, envisioning bits of turquoise being left by the ancient people for those harmed and lost as well as their families in the hopes that their pain will be eased and the healing will begin.

toujou isit la

Still here...

my thoughts and prayers are with
... the people of Haiti as they work to rebuild after the earthquake.