Green Gal

This is a remarkable video  about how scientists can use sound to diagnose the health of ecosystems. I highly encourage you to watch it, full screen, with no other windows open to distract you. Listen to what he's saying--it's quite incredible. July 18 was World Listening Day , and lately I have come across a number of sound-related articles , activities , and experiences that have made my ears more attuned to the world around me. Yesterday at camp, we did an activity called Graveyard, which can also be called Sit Spot. Each child and counselor found a space around a pond where they could stay silent and observe. We sat for twenty minutes, using our eyes and ears to become attuned to the pond. Our silence and immobility allowed birds, dragonflies, and frogs to return to the pond as though we weren't there. One camper told me a frog had hopped onto her arm as she sat silently observing its journey around the pond. Dragonflies helicoptered their ways across the water. ...

Effective teachers, educators, and mentors learn with their students, and they never stop seeing themselves as students. They are my third grade teacher who was actively involved in her community and took the time to learn about our families, to bring our families into the classroom, and to bring our class into her family’s home at the end of the school year. They are the college instructor who admitted his own philosophical questionings right there with us, giving the floor to students who were inspired by what they knew, empowering students to share and engage in class by acknowledging the value of their thoughts and passions. Even outside the classroom, every individual we meet—whether younger or older, student or teacher—has something to teach us, an ability to open up our perspective on the world so that we can make a connection and learn. Being open to listen to others’ teachings and the opportunities they bring to nourish the lives of those around them is what it means to live i...

6 November 2012 My friends live in words and some are ones I’ve met and some I’ve met when I’ve exposed their inner spines to light. Men and women friends, lovers and girlfriends. There are strangers here, whose words were striking and which I stole for my collection. Pain endorphins angst; vegetate, 12 hours scoundrel of scuffed-up wood, questioning in me the way to be or not permanence of language on printed plasticky paper on rolls in cell phone bodies, buzzing I read you under a bleached sky and wanted to write you, as you wrote to me drunk and tasting sweetness of being a breath in the night without name making errors living within our own gardens but sharing harvests to be enjoyed You become a freckle on my right pinkie and it’s okay, it’s part of our condition as writers to embrace, take what is as is as can be potential loveliness in uncertainty recalling what was as a layer under our skin and we have many layers time gives us material fuel breathe in...

We were supposed to bring a "talent" into Spanish 5 class today para el final día de clase. A poem, un canción, a drawing, a skill. My Spanish professor and I hemos hablado sobre poetry y traducción on a few occasions, y por eso decidí que I would bring in some of my own poemas, translated into español. We didn't end up sharing the talents, but we did sing La Bamba and eat cake that the professor brought para nosotros. Era delicioso. But now I have some translated poetry of my own, and I would like to share it with someone. I suppose since you're reading this, that someone is you. I just have to say that the process of translating my own words into Spanish was illuminating. It taught me that I don't know what many words really mean in English. My assumptions about connotation and my understanding of certain nuances have been shattered and rebuilt for some words. I am learning how to say what I really mean in English while simultaneously learning new wo...