Ole's for lunch

 

While waiting for my friends at Ole's for lunch. 

They came right after I took these photos! We had a good time! And there was clean hot air to breathe!

The palm trees creeping into my photos!

 

Not interested in War Memorials, and I sure know next to nothing about Queensland, or Southport. So where else can this image from Sepia Saturday take me in my images of yore?

Let's consider the lonely palm tree. It actually looks like another one bit the dust right next to it. So I'd guess the remaining palm proved itself more flexible to withstand some strong winds.

My family in 1969 at Busch Gardens, Tampa, FL. (L to R) my Mom, then oldest son, Marty, then Dad, then me hoisting younger son Russ. It was obviously wintertime! Bright sun and cold air. But there are a few palm trees in the background. I note that myself and sons are wearing our coats from when we lived in Connecticut, just the winter before this!

Go back another 32 years, and there's my father (with hair!) posing on a branch of a live oak (probably) in G.State Park in 1937. I think that's Garner State Park...a CCC work. It's in Texas, before my mother and father married in '39.

Not sure if these family members are standing in front of a huge palm tree, or some other tree, in San Antonio, TX . (L to R) My dad, then my mom, (Mat) and my grandmother "Mom", then grandfather "Pop." All dressed up for Christmas!

When I was engaged to this young man in Tampa FL, in about 1973 I took this photo...we broke up a few months later. I learned the hard way to not have a romance with a person with whom I worked.

My 3 sons, Tampa FL, 1981...Marty, Russ and Tai. (Russ was bending down and wasn't really that short!)

An album of shots...camping in lower r, but the rest of these shots are from St. Augustine, FL. The little boy is Tai, my youngest son. I sometimes scanned a bunch of photos at the same time, then planned to edit them with my photo editor, but I don't bother most of the time...so you get a small album at a time! 

And if you look closely, you'll see the bottom left photo has Tai standing next to a cannon at the fort in St. Augustine (Castillo de San Marcus) on a visit several years before we moved there. That will link back to the Sepia Saturday photo!

Hazy still on last Sat.

 Looking towards the golf course, the sky still was hazy. You can barely see the Blue Ridge mountains in the distance!

A party was happening in the picnic shelter at Lake Tomahawk...but those clouds sure were dull compared to other July photos around noon.

Sure hope the fires are put out in Canada and the northwest of the US. I feel so bad about the many square miles of lost forest. These blue slopes are much closer than the ones behind the golf course.

flowers

 A medium bouquet from the Tailgate Market

Some Dahlias, and even Queen Anne's Lace, some Zinnias, and one sunflower-like-bloom. Unfortuately the sunflower drooped right away...so I'm going to add some of that sugar-solution that comes with some bouquets...maybe it will help.

That was Sat.

This was Mon...

I had noticed other sunflowers in their bouquets looked droopy, but I had a fresh one. I did cut a couple of inches off the bottom of the stem...this is so sad.

By Tues. I had to throw a few things away that were shedding all over the table.

Last Saturday morning in Black Mountain

 

One of the MudBuddies, with her beautiful wares on display

A choice of three sizes of bouquets...I got a medium size.

It may have been in the 80s, but most of the displays were shady for this week's Tailgate Market.

Morning notes

Back to doing morning walks. 9:30 am, 75 degrees F and hazy/muggy, but some breeze helped me up the hill. Up to the entrance to the parking lot, then look at the flowers planted by the first 4 apartments...but not to take their photos today. Then the wonderful surprise nature gave me on the way down the hill.

I heard them first. 8 lovely Canada Geese honking as they fly, coming over the trees. Then their shadows cast across the driveway before they flew in formation across the sky...and then the bit of moisture that hit my forehead after they'd passed. Fortunately it was just moisture, not poop. Thanks guys. Good to see you too!

Basil is on it's way out. So I've clipped the tops about 6 inches, and am trying to root them in water inside.

The volunteer Four O'Clocks have survived the Japanese Beetles, and one (the tall one on the left) is beginning to bloom. The original seed pack said they had a good scent, but somehow I've never been able to pick it up. Today I didn't even smell the marigolds.

As I took a few pictures of my own porch flowers, I heard sirens in the distance. I went inside, then realized the firetruck had come up the driveway where I'd just walked. Did I miss the ambulance? They always come together, though most of our calls are for the Medical team rather than fires. Ah, there comes the ambulance. I didn't wait around to see where the EMT's went. 

I gladly came inside to my lower humidity air conditioned kitchen and fixed my breakfast of granola and blue berries with rice milk, and my second cup of coffee (this week with just honey it it.) I'm trying to wean myself from milk products, and sugar is not good for me, but I can't do coffee black.

So I've made a start. Of "Just Do It."

When news on just one topic is depressing

From PBS News Hour Science Desk, Sat. July 24, 2021

" Moderna is evaluating the efficacy of potential booster shots designed to further protect recipients against new variants of the coronavirus. Earlier this month, Johnson & Johnson announced that its vaccines so far appear to offer strong protection against the more-transmissible delta variant.

"Ongoing trials at the National Institutes of Health are examining the safety and efficacy of mixing different COVID-19 vaccines by giving participants booster shots manufactured by a different company than the one that developed their initial shot, or shots. Someone who was first vaccinated with two doses of Pfizer's vaccine, for example, might receive Johnson & Johnson's as a third shot. 

"Federal officials are also evaluating whether to greenlight booster shots for those who are immunocompromised, but have not yet made a decision on that possibility.

And...

"Moderna is evaluating the efficacy of potential booster shots designed to further protect recipients against new variants of the coronavirus. Earlier this month, Johnson & Johnson announced that its vaccines so far appear to offer strong protection against the more-transmissible delta variant.

"Ongoing trials at the National Institutes of Health are examining the safety and efficacy of mixing different COVID-19 vaccines by giving participants booster shots manufactured by a different company than the one that developed their initial shot, or shots. Someone who was first vaccinated with two doses of Pfizer's vaccine, for example, might receive Johnson & Johnson's as a third shot. 

"Federal officials are also evaluating whether to greenlight booster shots for those who are immunocompromised, but have not yet made a decision on that possibility.

I am so disgusted that people are risking not only their lives, but that of so many others, children included, by not getting vaccinated. 

For instance...

"In Arkansas, where only about a third of residents have been fully vaccinated, health care providers there are grappling with trauma and burnout as they once again face a deluge of severely ill, unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. Nationally, about half of all Americans are vaccinated; the state’s vaccination rate ranks as third-lowest in the country. 

We saw the results of the pandemic on health care providers early on, many doctors and nurses dying from the virus. The states where few people are vaccinated are still doing this to their health care workers. 

And as these quotes show, national efforts are just "wait and see" about the Delta virus...and getting booster shots. This article doesn't even mention the newer variant, Lambda.

------------------------------------

So we (myself and friends) are back wearing masks here in Black Mountain. One friend was working at the Tailgate Market and said she pulls hers up just when people get close to her. For me, I had mine up to avoid the smoke particles in the air...another trigger to immunocompromised people.  

But do we just hide inside our houses? Do we listen to all the other topics of the news and cower?

Not I. I'm needing my friends, and one of the best ways we meet is over a casual meal at a local restaurant. Most of the time we eat outside, I'm not wanting to be around unmasked individuals, especially if I'm unmasked for eating.

And I am pushing myself to do some bodily movement these days. Just at planning stages, but I want to return to chair yoga at the Lakeview Senior Center next month!

 

The ideal woman

 

A Gibson Girl...one who personified the ideal woman as drawn by Charles Dana Gibson from the 1890s to the early 1920s.  The hourglass figures were achieved by use of constricting corsets which most women would wear when in public. When World War I came around, women wanted to wear practical clothes and not these constraining kinds, so the corsets disappeared, except for fancy ball gowns which remain an exception to this day.

By the 20's the fashions let women not only feel more natural in their attire, they sometimes went so far opposite the "Hourglass figures" as to flatten themselves in the flapper styles.

In the film industry, Marlene Dietrich became very popular in the 20s and 30s....and she was able to illustrate how feminine a woman could look in men's top hat and tails. She portrayed a cabaret singer thus as well as other leading ladies in many films...and was often considered a "vamp." She then was active in the 40s in inspiring the troops of the US and other countries against her native Germany. She had become an American citizen in 1939. She lived a long life, and made many films...dying at age 90.

Shown below is an ad using her pose for a British cigarette pack which had more photos enclosed. It's a good example of the slinky dress styles of 30's film stars.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday this week. Lots of interesting old photos may be found there!

And another topic having to do with women, but not so much their dress styles as their place in society and religions...here's Carol Christ talking about Why Women need the Goddess (9 min.)

Susans and Cone Flowers

 

Are these Black Eyed Susans? Or Brown Eyed Susans?

They were planted in a garden, rather than occurring alongside a road, if that makes any difference!

Next to the Susans are some Cone Flowers, or Echinacea.

Cone flowers are the same as echinacea, right? According to various sources, when looking up Echinacea, or the other way, Cone Flowers...they are the same. I don't know how to make any herbal help for colds, but many cough drops do say they have echinacea in them...so apparently people do think it helps. Here's where an herbalist would help!

Flowers are welcoming at the office

 

The office at my apartment complex

New Zeeland Impatients are doing very well ...

The original house (2 stories) has been turned into the office and "Club house." There are also 2 apartments above the office.

One of many butterfly bushes on our grounds...but there are just a few bees here today

The wrap around porch has hanging planters of flowers in the summertime.

And a couple of begonia planters by the door to the office.

And I'm sad to have just heard that Roger Galtry, our maintenance man since I've lived here, has quit to work somewhere with higher salary. I'll miss him.

One less pill!

 Being finished with antibiotics finally! That was the third (I think) time I've gone through fevers and awful coughing this year...and the medical people don't think most of them were pneumonia exactly. I've had 7 COVID tests that all were negative since this stuff started.

So I'm kicking up my heels today!

This is a morning shot of my front porch...you can see the Hostas in bloom at the base. And I had 3 Gardenias on my little bush in a pot. I need to harvest some of that abundant Basil (to the left of the petunias)

Feeling ready to greet the world again...but I do remember what led up to these episodes. I was beginning to exercise each time. I did maybe one or two days, then bang, sick again. So not this time! I'll do walking. And taking my inevitable photos of the scenes I want to share with you. But I'm staying away from those treadmills for, I don't know, at least a month. Then we'll see if that's ever going to be part of my life.

I'm sort of doing the plant based eating, but have moments when I  happily have what seems to be delicious to me...after all, I think being rigid about anything is not healthy. I do want to increase my eating at home to avoid some of the prepared foods that aren't always the best ingredients. But I'm taking it easy on myself!

Hope you have a wonder-filled day!

PS, today's map of smoke from fires in Canada and the west...HERE.  We have polluted air warnings here in NC...so my walks will wait, and I'll watch exercise videos (and maybe do a bit of stretching).

Where I buy some groceries

 I've shared in the past that I go to an Aldi's down the road in Asheville.

This week I've also gone to a discount grocery which often has bargains of past-dated items. Some are perfectly ok, and there are also scratched and dented things on the shelves. And some aren't really any lower in price than other stores. So it takes being more aware of what you put in your cart.

On the other hand, it's small and very personal.

Hopey & Co. Grocery (apparently they want to be called Hoppy's, though I always pronounce it the way it's spelled!)

They were called Amazing Savings until some other store that already had that name took them to court and they had to come up with this one. There's also one in Asheville, but I've never been to it.

I sometimes want something, and they no longer carry it. And sometimes (like this week) they have some unexpected tidbits that I add to my freezer. They are offering more and more plant based foods in their freezer section. This week there were many pizzas, with fake meats on them. I didn't get any of those, but picked up some Falafels, blueberry waffles and some ice cream-like stuff (maybe not non-dairy) that sounded a bit decadent with words like chocolate and cheesecake in it.

Another lunch out

 Friends who have gathered following their work Saturday morning, allowed me to join them for lunch. They had had a good market of selling pottery for 3 hours, including setting up and taking down the displays.  It was fun to renew some old friendships with them.

Black Bear Restaurant in Cheshire Village of Black Mountain NC....

There was also outdoor seating in the shade, but we gladly enjoyed the air conditioning.

They have great hamburgers, but very little for the vegetarian...so I had a salad. Of course you can always eat a salad!

A bouquet of pills and a stream

 

Every morning...the larger ones are mostly vitamins!

A view as Flat Creek passes by the restaurant

Flat Creek, Black Mountain NC

The bridge railings have some rubber mats still drying on them, but pretty little petunias!

This has been this week. I loved going out for early lunch with at friend at Ole's. Had a lovely taco salad! I'm feeling much better and am almost through all the antibiotics! Taking things a day at a time, of course, but just catching up on housework after being sick is my main task. Have mainly been a home-body, so not much of new photos to share.

The wonderful world of Ukuleles

 

I would love to know why these guys all have earmuffs on. And maybe I should know the young guitarist sitting on the floor in the middle, but I'm not sure.

But my very favorite Ukulele player recorded this, and I'll share it with you. IZ or Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.

The original photo is suggested by Sepia Saturday. Come see what others have thought to share from their own files...

A goddess who shared with everyone has stepped into the next room

Carol P. Christ 12/20/45 - 7/14/21

"A beloved daughter of the Goddess who contributed so much to Her rising in these times. She will be dearly missed by her friends and family and the many, many people she influenced with her writing, speaking and tours of Crete. Rest well in the arms of the Mother, you have transitioned to a beloved Ancestor.

*******************

Carol Patrice Christ (December 20 1945 - July 14 2021) is a feminist historian, thealogian, author, and foremother of the Goddess movement. She obtained her PhD from Yale University and has served as a professor in universities such as Columbia University and Harvard Divinity School. Her best-known publication is "Why Women Need The Goddess".[2] It was initially a keynote presentation at the "Great Goddess Re-emerging" conference" at the University of Santa Cruz in 1978. This essay helped to launch the Goddess movement in the USA and other countries. It discusses the importance of religious symbols in general, and the effects of male symbolism of God on women in particular. Christ calls herself a "thealogian" and as such has made an important contribution to the discipline of theology, significantly helping to create a space for it to be far more inclusive of women than has historically been the case.The term "thealogy" is derived from Ancient Greek θεά (theá, “goddess”) + -logy [3].

Christ has written five influential books on women's spirituality and feminist theology and was a co-editor of two classic anthologies: "Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality" (1989); and "Womanspirit Rising" (1979/1989). The latter included her essay Why Women Need the Goddess.[4] Both anthologies included feminist religious writing from writers from a very diverse range of religious backgrounds. She holds a PhD from Yale University. Carol P. Christ has taught at major universities in the United States, including Columbia University, Harvard Divinity School, Pomona College, San Jose State, and the California Institute of Integral Studies. As director of the Ariadne Institute, she conducts pilgrimages to sacred sites in Greece containing artifacts of matriarchal religion.[5] She has for many years been a resident of the Greek island of Lesbos, the home of the poet Sappho ..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Patrice_Christ

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Alexis Masters on Facebook

July 14 (atgdnSpoYesonustcoforrmerdayuid i) 3:4erfdh6 cmPlM  · 

"My beautiful friend, Carol P. Christ passed away at 12:11 am on July 14, 2021. This photo (below) is Carol as I knew her best, radiant in love, statuesque and happy. This is how I will always strive to remember her. We first met in 1981 and became fast friends. That friendship lasted, as the best ones do. I was blessed to be with her as she transitioned from this life to whatever lies beyond. Carol had her own ideas about all that, but in my way of thinking, she has gone on to something and someplace far better than she knew in this life. All Hail to her beloved Goddess, boundless love to the countless women whose lives she enriched and will continue to enrich, and my prayers that the legacy she left us all shall live on. May her magnificent mind continue to enliven our quest for knowledge and wisdom. Much love to all who knew and loved her. She will be missed but her voice will sing true through her many writings forever for women all around the world.

*******************************************

I've read and listened to her words ever since I first started studying Goddess histories...or should I say Goddess her-stories! What an intelligent and warm sharing woman she has been for all these years...writing columns frequently, as well as many books and chapters in books. I feel a hole, a space, that her passing has left, where our material universe is changed by her death, a gap that she had filled without my thinking about it, but now I know that was where she was in my own life.

Barb Rogers

((((((((((((((((((((())))))))))))))))))))))))

From Facebook on July 16, 2021

Carol Patrice Christ, 1945-2021

“In Goddess religion death is not feared, but is understood to be a part of life, followed by birth and renewal.” -- Carol P. Christ

Carol Patrice Christ died peacefully on July 14 from cancer. Carol was and will remain one of the foremothers and most brilliant voices of the Women’s Spirituality movement. At the conference on “The Great Goddess Re-Emerging” at the University of California at Santa Cruz in the spring of 1978, Carol delivered the keynote address, “Why Women Need the Goddess: Phenomenological, Psychological, and Political Reflections.” Christ proposed four compelling reasons why women might turn to the Goddess: the affirmation and legitimation of female power as beneficent; affirmation of the female body and its life cycles; affirmation of women’s will; and affirmation of women’s bonds with one another and their positive female heritage (Christ 1979).

Carol graduated from Yale University with a PhD in Religious Studies and went on to teach as a feminist scholar of women and religion, women’s spirituality, and Goddess studies, at institutions including Columbia University, Harvard Divinity School, Pomona College, San Jose State University, and the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she was an adjunct professor since the inception of the Women’s Spirituality, Philosophy and Religion graduate studies program in 1993. Christ published eight profoundly thoughtful and inspiring books, several in collaboration with her friend and colleague Judith Plaskow, whom she met at Yale:

-Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest (1986)

-Woman Spirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, anthology co-edited with Judith Plaskow (1992)

-Odyssey with the Goddess: A Spiritual Quest in Crete (1995)

-Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality. Anthology co-edited with Judith Plaskow (1989)

-Laughter of Aphrodite: Reflections on a Journey to the Goddess (1987)

-Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality (1998)

-She Who Changes: Re-imaging the Divine in the World (2004)

-Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology. Co-authored with Judith Plaskow (2016)

Christ’s first book, about women writers on spiritual quest, is a book of spiritual feminist literary criticism that focused on feminist authors Kate Chopin, Margaret Atwood, Doris Lessing, Adriene Rich, and Ntozake Shange. She discovers four key aspects to women’s spiritual quest: the experience of nothingness; awakening (to the powers that are greater than oneself, often found in nature); insight (into the meaning of one’s life); and a new naming (in one’s own terms). She emphasizes the importance of telling women’s stories in order to move beyond the stories told about women by the male-centered patriarchy. Her concluding chapter speaks of a “Culture of Wholeness,” that encompasses women’s quest for wholeness, and she adds that, for this wholeness to be realized, the personal spiritual quest needs to be combined with the quest for social justice.

After first travelling to Greece in 1981 with the Aegean Women’s Studies Institute led by her friend Ellen Boneparth, Carol fell in love with the country. She chose to live in Greece, first in Molivos on the beautiful island of Lesbos, and then moving recently to Heraklion, Crete. She had a passion for saving the environment and was active in the Green movement in Greece. she also had a love for swimming in the Aegean and sharing Greek food and wine with friends in Greece and from overseas.

Carol’s fascination with Crete, ancient and modern, led her to found the Ariadne Institute for the Study of Myth and Ritual, through which she offered an educational tour, “Pilgrimage to the Goddess” twice annually. These tours introduced many to a direct experience of the ancient Earth Mother Goddess in Crete (goddessariadne.org).

In her most recent article, for the Encyclopedia of Women in World Religion: Faith and Culture, Christ wrote about the Goddess religion and culture of her beloved island of Crete, and the roles women played in that “egalitarian matriarchal” civilization. Her eloquent words speak not only to the Goddess religion of ancient Crete, but also to the spirituality and ethical values she also cherished, which are much needed in our own culture today.

As discerners and guardians of the mysteries, women created rituals to celebrate the Source of Life and to pass the secrets of agriculture, pottery, and weaving down through the generations. The major rituals of the agricultural cycle involved blessing the seeds before planting, offering the first fruits of the harvest to the Goddess, and sharing the bounty of the harvest in communal feasts. These rituals establish that life is a gift of the Goddess and institute gift-giving as a cultural practice. As women controlled the secrets of agriculture, it makes sense that land was held by maternal clans, that kinship and inheritance passed through the maternal line, and that governance and decision-making for the group were in the hands of the elders of the maternal clan. In this context, the intelligence, love, and generosity of mothers and clan mothers would have been understood to reflect the intelligence, love, and generosity of the Goddess.*

*Carol P. Christ, “Crete, Religion and Culture” Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture across History [2 volumes] edited by Susan de-Gaia | Nov 16, 2018 ABC-Clio Santa Barbara 2019.

Obituary written by Mara Lynn Keller, PhD and Ellen Boneparth, stating, Please feel free to forward to your circles or post to newsletters or to the press.

** Additional information from Laura Shannon:

We are planning to offer an online memorial/celebration of Carol's life on her birthday, December 20, 2021. Details to follow.

Everyone is warmly invited to share memories of Carol, pictures too if you have them. Please email them to Xochitl Alvizo at feminismandreligionblog@gmail.com (the email must include 'blog'). Xochitl will add them to a running tribute post which she has set up on FAR and will update regularly. (Thank you, Xochitl.)

The Goddess Tours to Crete, which Carol led for over twenty years, will resume in Fall 2022, and will be led at Carol's request by Laura Shannon with support from Tina Nevans and Mika Scott, following the template which Carol created. Donations to the Ariadne Scholarship Fund in Carol's memory will be gratefully accepted by the Ariadne Institute for the Study of Myth and Ritual, the 501c3 non-profit educational and charitable organization which Carol founded. Donations are tax deductible in the US. Ariadne Institute, P.O. Box 5053, Eugene, Oregon 97405. www.goddessariadne.org

Filmmaker Cheri Gaulke has just posted this beautiful video of an interview she and Anne Gauldin conducted with Carol during her Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete in September 2019, the last tour Carol led. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhbV5ow0SUM

This weekend, Carol had been planning to present her new paper, 'A Working Hypothesis for the Study of Religion in a Minoan Village: Theories of Harriet Boyd Hawes, Marija Gimbutas, and Others' at the Symposium of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology and the Institute of Archaeomythology in honour of the centennial of Marija Gimbutas. Participants will be able to hear a recording of Carol reading this paper, with access to the recording (and all other conference proceedings and materials) for a year. Information and registration at https://symposium.womenandmyth.org

May our beloved Carol, fearless pioneer in feminist thealogy and Goddess studies, rest in peace. She will live on in her writings and in the memories of thousands whose lives she touched and changed through her words and teaching.