In Memory of Special Friends

Another tragedy hit today. A friend from the past posted on Facebook that Ben Butler suddenly passed away. Ben and I had a close friendship and more back in the high school years. After my high school reunion, he wrote me here and we got caught up. He had gone to Oklahoma State University and then graduate school and was nearing his PhD in his field. He had been very successful since leaving Hugo, Oklahoma. I am saddened at this news.
I had received emails from him on the email connected to the blog. Over the weekend, I was at a training seminar in Philadelphia. We were asked to release anything that might be in the way of going forward during the weekend. The first thing that came into my mind was the grief I have had since January.
I last wrote for my blog on December 31, 2010 when my husband and I had returned to bury my sweet little pet, Precious after a Christmas visit with my son. I knew then that my friend Brenda, also a friend from Hugo, OK, was near her time to make her transition. Brenda died on January 11 from breast cancer and bone cancer. And my writing has been on hold since.
I get up each day and feel this underlying feeling of grief. I go on, but the hurt is still there churning and looking for sometimes very inconvenient times to rise to the surface. I would hear Brenda in my head telling me she would come around and drop in but only if I didn’t start crying. If I cried she would leave. It was comforting to feel her presence around and her beautiful laugh. But sometimes I have just had to go ahead and cry. I tried to put the grief aside on Friday night, but weepy and grief stricken feelings resurfaced in my dreams.
Sometimes, many times to be honest, I didn’t get up very easily. I am not one to get into depression and didn’t recognize it for a while. But it was what it was. I was depressed. I didn’t write on the blog. I didn’t write new stories or continue the stories I have started. Some people might call it a writer’s blog. I call it a time to heal losing the best friend I ever had.
I am very sad to hear of Ben’s death. He was 58 or 59 as he was a year behind me in school. He was a great football player in high school and a good saxophone player in band. And he was a friend. I am sad that Brenda and my little Precious are no longer here. But one of the phrases that is going into the end of one of my books is “Silly humans, there is no death!” Their Lights will shine on forever, for the soul, the Spirit of God, is infinite. I will never forget you my friends. As for me, it’s time to write again. I am back world!

Random thoughts for Aug 31, 2010

It is the end of August and in a way, the end of the summer. It has been one of ups and downs, rain and very hot weather. There have been joys - seeing and spending time with my oldest son last week and my daughter the end of June. We built a natural swimming pool/pond and did very well. Then the hot weather hit and there wasn't much landscaping going on. We took some time off to visit my mother-in-law for her birthday and my father-in-law's birthday, Aug 20 and Aug 18 - 2 Leos that like to be the center of attention even at 80 and 82. It's no wonder they divorced 37 years ago.

Kansas provided nature at its finest with swarms of thousands of dragon flies, butterflies of all colors, grasshoppers flying in your mouth, praying mantises in abundance, cicadas keeping you awake on the warm nights, gold finches, night hawks, and blackbirds, and a parent coyote giving the pups a singing lesson on full moon night. Sunsets were varied and beautiful as usual. We tried to stay up many nights in a row to see the full moon next to Mars - no Venus - no Saturn - no the last official claim was Jupiter. I lost track of which one it actually was. On Thursday night it was supposed to be the biggest. I stayed up. It got to a certain point in the sky and then they started moving across the sky in the same position - it never got close. Then someone said the idea that it was going to be as big as the moon was an Internet hoax. On the other side of the sky Mars, Venus, and Saturn were almost lined up and bigger than Jupiter. But the night sky was full of stars and clarity. We saw something move across the sky several nights in a row that kind of bounced around with one big white light. We have noticed this before in Kansas. It doesn't move like an airplanes and they moved across the sky in opposite directions as the strange light. The airplanes usually have 3 lights, a red, a green and one white - not as big as the bouncy thing. We always end up wondering if our eyes are playing tricks on us when it starts bouncing around.

It was good (sort of) to see the family. The dynamics were the same BS and several people make no effort the have a better idea. In the midst of all of that, as I was able to get online, I found out that a high school classmate had passed away suddenly. He regularly posted on the class website funny stories and was in his own way quite a writer. (See previous post.) Before my trip I learned that my favorite published writer, Ted Andrews had passed away last October. I was very sad at the news of both of these men about my age.

I found myself screaming inside "Life is too short and can end without a warning for all of this childish petty bickering. Yes, all the drama gives you something interesting and different to listen to but find some joy to focus on and some love - if nothing else the beauty of the land!" But it isn't my place to judge or to tell others how to live their lives. I found myself increasingly hiding away in our little vacation like house and riding alone on the red 4-wheeler to the farm. It was fun except when that white pick-up truck would come flying down the dirt road and I would eat limestone gravel dust for five minutes. One day I put on sunblock before I took off for my ride - I had arms that looked like they had a coat of concrete on them after the dust from the trucks.

I am back in Georgia now. My 14 plus year old cat, Autumn just came by for a little holding - she doesn't like holding very often - and her kisses on the top of her head. She gave me some smiles and licked my hand and now she is washing me off of her. But that is Autumn. Zeus and Oden are more affectionate than usual and Precious is her usual hug me self. The dog is still mad at me and not eating yet. She does this for a few days when I leave her - though Buzz stayed here and she wasn't alone. She just has such a good pout when I displease her. When the act doesn't get anywhere she eats all of her food as long as no one is looking.

So life goes on. I choose to see the beauty and enjoy it. I want to make some changes and my husband and I want to produce income in more consistent ways. There are things we want to do and places we want to go. I look at it this way. If life as we know it is going to end in 2012, then let's live it up. Who knows what kind of life we will end up in next time? I choose to believe in moving forward to a new and better idea - right now right this minute. It is all good and all God. There is only One Power and I choose to use it for happiness. Katherine Ari

Mistakes and Moving Forward

MISTAKES and Moving Forward

Everyone makes mistakes. That is called being human. Many things others do are regarded as mistakes when there is just lack of understanding. Unless any of us are as famous as Michael Jackson, no one can know what his life was like. I remember a person once that told my parents all sorts of things about me that were nonsense because the person did not understand what we were doing.

People read things that are assumptions by a reporter in the newspapers or magazines and then gossip about what they read – not knowing the whole story and what really happened. They tell others and they tell others and each time the story is repeated, it changes – we all like to tell a good story. Do we all remember playing the game of Gossip when we were kids? The end story was always different .

The story may have been years ago but these talkers keep talking about what they think they know wanting to sound important not thinking how their words are hurting others and in turn hurting them. But these are mistakes also and we all make mistakes.

I think about some times when I lost it, or had a meltdown. I don’t like myself very much for being so over the top. Of course, in a heated argument we justify our behaviors and say that the unkind things we said or did were justified or provoked. But is it ever okay to spew hurtful words or do anything to invade the space of another being? [It doesn’t have to be another person as it could be a pet or even a plant.]

We are tired or stressed out. We don’t think clearly and do something unkind or inconsiderate. Sometimes, the act is so bad that the consequences are major, even life changing. But life goes on and one has to move on. It isn’t easy to forgive yourself and then there are those pesky gossips that just won’t let it be in the past. I want to yell at them – let the PAST go people – see me or see us as we are now and see how much I have changed. I know I have grown. I know what I did wrong and I am committed to not repeating those errors again. But if I bring up the past trying to get them to let it go, then I am guilty of living in the past. I am whole, perfect, and complete and I live in the now with love. I learned from my mistakes and grow. Today I am loving and kind and artistic. I move on!

Look at the One in the Mirror and Make a Change

It's 9-11-09, eight years after the terrorist attacks on New York. So much has happened since then. It was so surreal and you kept asking "Is this really happening? It just can't be real, but it is real. And what's going to happen next?"

We mourned. We came together and helped each other. And many, many good things have happened since then as well as many not so good. Many changes have come about because of it but it wasn't necessary to kill innocent people to bring about those changes. But people still don't get it.

Hatred never is necessary, but yet people still choose to hate, to be intolerant, to hold on to bigotry, racism and judgments, to work for separatism, to destroy, to act like they can tell others what to believe, what to listen to, who to love. But it is not just the "other" places. It is just as prevalent here in this country - in some cases more so. Can't they see that the very hatred they are angry about is their own hatred reflected back to them?

One of the Michael Jackson songs I continue to hear is the "Man in the Mirror". The best way to make a change is to change yourself. I personally like President Obama and I think he really is sincere. The medical system needs change and I ask readers, what are you doing to make the change? Fighting these new ideas is not helping unless you can suggest something better.

What are you doing to make the change about hatred and intolerance? Are you still being judgmental about people being judgmental? Am I? Are you giving love and respect because you want to be loved and respected or are you expecting it without giving it out? Do we stop anymore 9-1-1 attacks by war and more hatred or do we stop them before they happen by opening our eyes and making changes inside?

I hear people on Facebook looking for every reason they can to put our President down. I guess I was guilty of that with President Bush as I did not like his politics. (Although I would NEVER have been disrespectful if I had met him. He WAS the President of the United States, an honor.) These people who find loopholes in the health care ideas are the very ones that have suffered many health problems because the health care was not adequate for their problems.

I think of it like unions. There were these big companies that followed big plantation owners that got big and powerful by using/abusing the laborers. The unions came into power to protect the laborers. Then the power structure swung the other way. The unions became corrupt and too powerful. Either way, the government has had to step in. On the plantations, slave labor was wrong and eventually the society and the government stopped it - for then.

Big corporations and big medicine and big pharmaceutical companies have been making their money and the individual has suffered. The government is having to stop the Bernie Madoff's and the insurance companies but they aren't attacking the drug companies. Some effort to stop the current cheap labor also known as slave labor is coming around in the effort to stop illegal aliens from taking away the jobs of natural born Americans - but the real issue is SLAVE labor! But the media isn't saying let's stop slave labor because the politicians and lawyers and people with money like their cheap - slave - labor. They defend their rights to only want to pay a grown man $60 a day for hard work when they are getting $250/hour or more.

We are spending over $18,000 a year for insurance. The deductible is very high. Benefits have been reduced because our children are not in college and over the age limits. And we are healthy and spend less than $200 a year on health matters. But we have to keep the insurance because we might have an emergency even though we don't go to the doctor because we can't afford it because of the high deductible.

The corporations and high medical care have gotten us into these problems because of their greed. The government is stepping in to try to help the whole of society. You can label it socialized medicine or attack it because you are a Republican or a downright bigot. Maybe you talk a liberal talk but just plain walk a path of intolerance and fixed ideas you don't want to change. Your life is unhappy and unhealthy but you don't want to let that Black president come up with a new idea. It doesn't matter. You and I are all entitled to our own opinions.

But then that is a big part of why 9-1-1 happened. We ARE allowed to have our own opinions. We have so much to be grateful for. We have the government that will step in and try to do what it takes to protect the people of this wonderful country rather than continue to allow the government to suppress, control, and deny individuals their right of birth to choose and control their own destinies. We have all heard that, "You can't fight city hall - they make the rules and only they can change them." Well, that is the bottom line. City hall or the government itself is the only way that the government can change BUT we do have the way to get the government to make it change itself. It is NOT by hatred, more judgments, narrow-mindedness, and terrorist attacks. It is not by disrespectful behaviors liking screaming out at President Obama or teaching our children that is it okay to be rude to the President of the United States. It is not by telling more lies and undermining all attempts to make some changes by manipulating the media and the American public.

I'm looking at the one in the mirror. If you want to make a difference, look at the man in the mirror and make a change in what you see. Thank you, Michael, for reminding me what I NEED to DO.

Believe in Yourself and Believe in Others

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND BELIEVE IN OTHERS
by Katherine Ari July 12, 2009

My children are ages 21 to 27. I work with teenagers at my spiritual center. Because of this I have many teens and young adults in and out of my home and my life all the time. I love it. I love seeing them as they unfold their talents and futures as the next adults running the world. They have so much knowledge, talents, and new perceptions.

It is sad when other adults discount the youth. They see them doing things that are “weird” or wearing strange clothes and bucking the established system. But it has always been a natural thing for the next generation to do things differently. They get to the age they desire autonomy from their parents. They strike out and seek to find a way to be different from their parents. Some parents have forgotten and try to exert more control. “You have to be in control,” another parent told me one time.

“Why?” Why should I think as a parent that I should control their bodies and minds and force them to see things through my eyes. When I say this, it doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize that their brains are still growing and forming. They still need guidance and limits. Sometimes it as simple as telling them their brains are still growing, but I must recognize they have their own way of thinking.

It’s kind of like coaching a soccer team that I did many years ago. When we were at practice that was the time to teach them how to play the game. When we played the games that was the time to rely on what they learned at practice – but as children, there was always more to learn. We adults have to know when to teach and when to shut up. Being a parent is not controlling – it is teaching and loving.

One of the things I heard was children not believing in themselves. “Oh, I can’t score. They would get mad at me.” “I’m afraid.” The thing that many coaches and parents alike don’t realize is that when you don’t believe in the abilities of the child, they know it. When you have little chats about this child or that child, they know it. They feel it. I heard another teen counselor making “poor ugly child” comments about a boy that was actually in her family at camp. She was in her mid-thirties and did not have children herself. Inside I was screaming, “Don’t you know that if you feel that way about him that he feels it!” It was an overheard conversation and not the time or place to try to tell her.

It is just that they know without knowing why they know. It is important as adults that we never, never say or think anything negative about a child, because they feel it if we do and it becomes their self-worth, self-esteem, and their core belief – all false ideas. If you don’t believe in yourself, ask yourself where does that idea come from? It is usually someone else’s idea and NOT the TRUTH.

Thought on Michael Jackson

I watched the memorial to Michael Jackson yesterday and was reminded of the humanness of the famous star. I have thought about his unexpected death a lot and wanted to share my final feelings about him.

Thoughts on Michael Jackson
by Katherine Ari July 8, 2009

I have spent many hours thinking about the unexpected and untimely death of pop star Michael Jackson since June 25. It was sudden and unexpected but yet not surprising that he died young. But I am saddened by it.

I personally really liked his music and his performances – though I never saw him in person. He was extremely talented, energetic, and entertaining. I saw his videos and his performances on TV. I watched some of the interviews over the years. I saw the pictures in the tabloids. And I looked in his eyes as he talked. I saw a loving and kind child – no, not a man. The rest of what was said about him including the accusations and trial was all influenced by the observer or writers. I do NOT know the truth because I never met him nor talked to him. I had my own interpretations of what I saw but they are colored by my own beliefs systems and experiences. I unknowingly talked to a couple of pedophiles over a period of a few weeks. There were similarities between them. I didn’t see that in Michael’s eyes.

There used to be this woman living in my neighborhood that was a gossip and busy body. Behind her house was a rental house. A lady was living there for a while and she had frequent late night visitors. The gossip lady decided she was dealing drugs and called the police on her. My interpretation was that the woman may have been doing something illegal but it wasn’t drugs. She moved away.

The next renters were a family with children. The children acted strange and out of control. Their mother never came out of the house. She stayed hidden. The gossip didn’t understand why she was so reclusive and so she decided to call the police again and told them she was dealing drugs. If she didn’t understand the behavior, they were dealing drugs. I had another interpretation myself. The mother was mentally ill but not in treatment. I had worked with children of mentally ill parents before and they acted the same. My point is that when the gossip woman didn’t understand something she judged it based on her own fears and judgments – not on facts. And that is what the media did about Michael Jackson. They, like the busy body, form opinions based on limited knowledge and then put it in print. No one could ever understand what being as famous as he was from a young age was like. There have been several people who did know Michael Jackson personally. But when they talk to the reporters, they have different stories too. The fans, and I was a fan, will never know and it is a loss to the world of entertainment. The jury did not completely believe that he was guilty.

I know something else. I am married to an extremely gifted artist. He is different. If I had met him sooner when he was a child and if we had known then what we know now about believing in ourselves, my husband could have become a famous artist. But if he had become known the world over and famous, I doubt if we would still be together. He couldn’t have handled attention from fans and the media. He is probably not famous because he really doesn’t want to be. I refuse to project my beliefs on what Michael was or wasn’t, but I know because I live with a highly sensitive and creative person that he couldn’t have handled fame with that kind of recognition nor could he have handled hundreds of millions of dollars. If he had created at the level that Michael Jackson created with his talent, he also would have died young or ended up in a mental hospital.

Edgar Allan Poe died young. Elvis died young. Mozart died young and he was probably considered the greatest musician and performer of his time.
As Elton John sings, “their candle burned out long before their legend ever did.” There is a writer, Linda Schierse Leonard, Ph.D., who has written several books in including The Call to Create and another Witness to the Fire. In the latter book, she has researched several famous creative people. Some of them met their inner demons, overcame drug and alcohol addictions and became better at their art or talent. And some of her subjects did not overcome them and died young.

We can get an idea of how hard it was to be Elvis or Michael Jackson but we can never understand just how extremely hard it was. Having what society and psychology books say are normal lives did not exist for them. And there was no one that could help without their own belief systems and projections and they weren’t famous. We think that kind of fame and fortune might be exciting but we really have no idea the things they had to sacrifice that we take for granted. They had to be that famous. It was what they were here for.

I admire what Michael Jackson accomplished and that he lived to the age of 50. He had a very difficult journey and he was good at his job. Whatever mistakes or errors in judgment he made are none of my business. I wasn’t there and I could not walk a mile in his moccasins. I am sad for the three children and his family. I honor his talent. There was nothing like it.

Grandma Eva - memories

Grandma Eva's birthday was July 3, 1903. She made her transitions in 2003, five months before her 100th birthday. She is on my mind this week and I included some little fond memories today.

Grandma Eva – memories of a special little German Irish lady
by Katherine Ari July 8, 2009


Grandma Eva was at her tallest 5’ tall. When she was 88, she had a heart attack. She lived with Grandpa Roy who was 90 in their home in Vermillion, Kansas, a town of 120 as posted on the road sign. Only about 50 of those actually lived in the town. So a medical helicopter airlifted her to the nearest hospital in Onega, KS. When she was put on the chopper, she had some new Nike’s with her. They transported her on to the hospital where they did quadruple bypass surgery on her heart. None of us had high expectations for the prognosis. She was after all 88 years old and had a gray color to her skin for many years because of the heart problems.

Grandma Eva made it through the surgery with flying colors. Her skin lost the gray color and she was out walking three miles a day after she returned home. But evidently someone in the helicopter also didn’t expect an 88-year-old woman to make it, because when she woke up, she didn’t have her new Nike’s. They weren’t with her personal things. The medic service was called and no one would own up to taking the shoes. Every time she had to return to the hospital, the doctor would ask her “Did you ever find your shoes, Eva?” “No,” she would answer. “I’m still looking for them.”

- Eva loved to garden and she loved to cook. Even when she was 92 or 93, she would insist that we come over to her house for dinner. We always tried to dissuade her by taking her out to eat, but we had to let her “feed” us at least once. The meal was always friend chicken, German scalloped potatoes or mashed potatoes, cold slaw, and a mid-west standard in Kansas as well as Oklahoma, some sort of Jell-O salad.

My mother was a great Fried Chicken maker, but though I am a pretty good cook, it isn’t one of my strong points. So Doug volunteered to help her in the kitchen. He got to the stove and started working with the chicken in the skillet. “Oh no, you don’t have the chicken fork. You can’t fry chicken without the right fork,” she quickly corrected him. She pulled out this very sharp table fork and handed it to Doug. The fork had been her Great-Grandmother’s fork and everyone had used it for frying chicken. Chicken just wouldn’t be right if you didn’t fry it with that 200 yr. old fork.

- Eva had known we were coming. Our children were her only great-grand children. On a good day, she had baked cookies – 2 different flavors and put them up in the freezer. She had oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip with black walnuts and pecans. She didn’t give them to us until we were leaving heading back home to Georgia. She said they were for the trip home. Well, let me tell you that they didn’t make it very far. She put so much love into everything she cooked. I don’t know what else she did, but those chocolate chip cookies were the best tasting chocolate chip cookies we ever tasted. They tasted like a Snicker’s bar but they were homemade cookies. It would have been nice to get the recipe, but there was something more in her batter that couldn’t be put on a card. It was a little thing. I don’t think there were more than two or three cookies for each of us, but what a dear memory – so special.

- In Kansas, the farmers are so spread out that the towns are all very small and far apart. They have a good home health care organization for elderly people to travel to the towns. The nurses and helpers take them home meals, provide nursing care, take them to the beauty shop, and take them to doctors and to the dentist. There are sometimes 3 or 4 different caretakers that come by daily. Her main caregiver was a woman about the same age as Doug and I. She told us about some of the things Eva would pull on her. One of the caregivers had come all the way out to Vermillion for an appointment for Eva. Eva left a note on the door that she had gone to the dentist. She was home. She just didn’t want to be bothered. And she pulled that on another one a day or so later. Our friend found out about it and had to get on her about it. “If you pull that stuff again, I’ll put you back in the nursing home in Centralia. Don’t you be putting notes on the door that you have gone to an appointment when you are home!”

But when Eva did have to move to the nursing home, she did the same kinds of things. “Grandma Eva, why don’t you go out in the sitting room and watch TV or visit with the other people?”
“I don’t like to be around those OLD people,” she would answer. She was 98.
“Grandma, the nurses told us you are supposed to go see the doctor today.”
“I’ve been trying to get away from him all day.” She would say as she dodged his office.

- In Kansas around that area, there are white people of German and Swedish decent. There weren’t any other nationalities around when Doug was growing up so he never heard anyone making derogatory comments. When Eva was in the nursing home, she got to watching TV soaps. Doug was quite surprised when she would start complaining about African-Americans and White mixing on the shows. She was always such a loving and sweet person; he just didn’t know she was so “opinionated” about the races mixing.

He gave me a look and then said, “You know Grandma, Kathy has Choctaw and Cherokee blood in her.”
She got this sweet little look on her face and said, “Oh, that’s nice.” And she didn’t say anything else about the races she didn’t like on TV. It was just her generation and the society she lived in.

- As I said, Grandma Eva loved to garden. She always had flowers and fruits and vegetables in her yard. They also had black walnuts trees. Grandpa Roy would sit out in the backyard picking them out for hours. He was a tall man and had a pretty hard time getting around in his 90’s. One day he had been out there shelling walnuts while sitting on a bucket. When he decided he had shelled them as long as he wanted, he tried to get up. He couldn’t get up. He called Eva to come help, but as I said earlier, Eva was a small woman. She couldn’t get him up either.

She went to the basement and got a rope and tied it around his waist and the other end to the car. She was going to pull him up by driving the car with him tied to it. Luckily, a neighbor saw what they were doing before she took off. After that Doug’s dad took the car keys and car away from both of them. – and not too soon after that, put a padlock on the door to the basement.

- Roy died when he was 96. He was in a special section of the nursing home and she was in another area. They had several times over the years gone to the home on their own, stayed a while until they felt stronger, and then checked themselves out again to return to their own home. So when Roy died, she went back home again. We were there visiting and at that time my father-in-law was living with his girlfriend in another town called Olmsberg, Kansas. It was about a 40-minute drive away.

We were there for our usual family visit and we had been invited to Dale and Betty’s house for the day. We picked Eva up and drove over. While we were there, it started raining really hard and rained that way for about 5 hours.

It is very flat in Kansas and when it rains that hard for that long, the creeks and rivers quickly overflow. Then the roads are flooded and you have to take alternate routes to get around in the spread out farm country. When it was time to go home, we couldn’t go back the way we had come that was on a small two-lane county road.

We had to go further north and take US Highway 36 from the Marysville turn back toward Seneca and then angle around to Vermillion. There is a road that they call the Axel Road that goes straight off US Hwy 36 to County Hwy 88 to Vermillion, but with the rising rivers and flooded other roads, Doug felt that the Axel road would also be flooded out. We were driving back on US Hwy 36. We would drive a little ways and Eva would say, “Now when you get to the Axel road, that is where you turn.”
Doug would answer, “I know about the Axel Rd., Grandma, but we are going on around tonight because of the flood. I expect it will be flooded out too.” She would say okay.

Three or five minutes later, she would say, “Now when you get to the Axel Road, you turn there.” Patiently Doug would answer the same way. Five minutes later, she would say it again. Doug kept his cool and patiently kept answering her the same way. She must have said it 12 times. I was in the back with the kids and we just looked at each other, rolled our eyes, and smiled. Doug just kept answering her the same way. It wasn’t an argument. She just kept saying the same thing like a broken record. He just thought it was because she was old and being forgetful or something related to her 95 years of age.

Then we got almost to the Axel road. Again she said, “The Axel Road is where you turn. They fixed the bridge a few years ago. It is high enough now that the water won’t be over the bridge.” Doug was thinking, “Yes, I know the bridge is higher but if the water is out of the banks, it may still be over the road before or after the bridge.”

But then he thought, “She just keeps insisting. Maybe she knows something I don’t know. If we go down the road and it is under water, we can just turn around. Then maybe she will listen to me.” So he said, “Okay Grandma, we’ll go on the Axel Road.”

We did. There was no problem. “Could it be that being so old and close to the other side that she had a sixth sense about those things?” We wondered. She wouldn’t stop saying it and she was right.

- Grandma was in Onega again in the hospital when she was around 98. We would drive over there every day to be with her. The drive on the country roads was 30 or 40 minutes. Grandma Eva had adult onset diabetes. Doug’s dad has diabetes. My mother and grandmother had diabetes. Doug and I woke up that morning and both of us were thinking about diabetes. We were talking about it while we were in Vermillion. When we arrived at the hospital 45 minutes later, Eva was napping as usual. Suddenly, she opened her eyes and grabbed Doug’s arm. With intensity she looked at him in the eyes and said, “That diabetes is a horrible, mean disease. You better take care of yourself and your family. You don’t want to have to deal with diabetes!” Then she relaxed and went back to sleep. “Woo – woo!” That is what we call a woo - woo; again she was close to the other side and just had a sixth sense that only a 98 year old would have.

- Eva was sweet and generous. She was patient, a good cook, and a good gardener. Every caretaker that she had ever had called her everyday at the nursing home or the hospital. She never said a cross word to anyone even when Roy was being his meanest. Yes, she made her comments about things she saw on TV or about the doctors she wanted to avoid, but at 98, she would get up daily to take care of her roommate who was 101. Doug grew up on Grandma Eva’s fried chicken and homemade pies. We all always felt her love. When she was 99, the family gave her 99 plus one to grow on long stem red roses. “We’ll give you another 100 on your 100th birthday,” a family member said.
“Oh, I don’t think I’ll be here for 100,” she said. She was right again.

SEVEN PAINTINGS - mascara alert

I want to warn you that this story is long and may bring up some emotions for you.

MASCARA ALERT!

SEVEN PAINTINGS by Katherine Ari

INTRODUCTION – the setting

In 1999, one month after my mother passed away, we began to attend a small start up spiritual community in Douglasville, a suburb of Atlanta, GA. We loved the teaching of the Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes and began classes. In August, 2002, let’s just say I had a personality conflict with the staff and we discontinued our membership there. We went forward, or so we thought, and had our own spiritual group for a short while. But we had no idea that we were headed for a life changing and challenging period.

The end of the year there was a big trauma and we closed our business. There was a lot of pain and sorrow. In January, we decided to give what was then called the Atlanta Church of Religious Science a try. We had attended various metaphysical thought centers and we knew it was a larger community. I walked in to the lobby in a state of tears and vulnerability. I met a lady named Nancy and she introduced me to the assistant minister, Chuck. It was a frequent occurrence for people in crisis to turn to the ACRS for help. Many people have turned away from traditional churches. But when the life events are hard, it isn’t unusual for seekers to turn to some sort of alternative way to get through the challenge. It didn’t take us long to decide we had a new spiritual home.

We joined a business support group and started going to classes. We attended faithfully every week and made a lot of new friends. They didn’t care what our issues or problems were that brought us there. They strive to practice being in the now and not judging anyone. There were no dogma rules and a lot of warm and loving people.

The year 2003 was the worst year of our lives. We saw two different psychologists and had some sessions with Chuck and the senior minister, Paul. In February, we lost Grandma Eva. I pride myself for my knowledge of my pets and other animal communications, but I miss interpreted what my little Sheltie, Joseph, was trying to tell me in May. He had a problem that could have been corrected if we had caught it two days sooner. When we finally discovered what was wrong, it was too late. We had to euthanize him. A Couple of weeks later, Doug had to “take care of” his sick pet chicken.

We were struggling financially and going through an incredible amount of personal growth while paying bills and raising 2 of our 3 children. The events of 2002 had more stuff in October and it was more sorrow. Then in November, when we were on the way to recovering again, a most unexpected tragedy occurred. Doug’s younger sister had a brain aneurism. Although, the surgeon was able to correct the blockage, a week later she started having strokes. The doctors determined that she was over 50% brain dead. They made the decision to take her off life supports the day before Thanksgiving. She was 48.

According to one of our psychologist, we had gone through what is considered major life events. What most people have is one at a time. We had six in one year. But we carried on. We considered the alternatives – keep on or die. We chose to live and find a better way to do that.

The classes as well as the friendships we had formed at the Spiritual Living Center of Atlanta (the named changed) had given us a new way to see things. I know I was stronger and so was the rest of my family. In May, one year after we lost our little Joseph, we knew we had to euthanize our dog George.

George came to us as a stray, a rescue. He was a red-orange, mixed breed of Chow Chow, Retriever, and maybe a little German Shepherd. He came to us with his own little stuffed monkey security toy and a world of personality. George developed skin allergies after a few years at our house. We had to keep an E-collar on him to keep him from itching himself bloody and feed him masses of Benadryl daily with a few cortisone shots. Several times we thought it was so bad that we needed to euthanize him, but he just kept saying, “Not yet.” In May, 2004, his condition worsened. It was time.

Perhaps because we had done everything we could to alleviate his problem it was a little more expected than Joseph’s death. But I was stronger and my consciousness had changed. It hurt and I cried a lot, but this time I didn’t have the guilt and regret. And somehow, the changes in me made it easier to cope with what had to be done. It hurt but it was okay.

SEVEN PAINTINGS - the story

Sometime in 2004 or 2005, I had this urge to paint one day. It was like a really strong inner push and it had to be done. I got out my watercolor block and paints and brushes. “What am I in the mood to do today?” I pondered as I sat down with brushes, pallet, and water in my hands.

Painting for me is usually inner directed. I just let whatever wants to come out go on the paper or canvas. Most of the time it is abstract and frequently I don’t know what or why I am painting.

I sat by our pond and watched the gold colored koi swimming around in the clear water. The one that is the most obvious is a big butterfly koi with a long flowing tail. They don’t hold still long enough to paint them as they are, and what captured my imagination was the end of his tail swimming away.

Now begins the symbolism and as the paintings emerged, the meanings and messages became more and more meaningful. Water is the symbolic seat of all emotions. A golden fish is a symbol of prosperity but in this case, it was more the movement away from me and the end of a particularly emotionally deep time in my life. There had been so much confusions, pain and sorrow – and growth. I began. I painted the first painting.

When I haven’t painted for a while, it usually takes me a couple of paintings to get the creativity flowing and to get the feel of the brush again. After I painted the simple koi fish in the water, I just cut loose. There was an explosion of color, of all sorts of chaotic emotions bursting through my hands. It was time to go deeper and I was ready to paint.

Then I heard a faint whisper inside my head. “Paint another.”

The sunrise on a hill with a tree emerged. First there was the green. Then there was all the yellow. I looked at it and saw the green was a tree swaying in the wind on the side of a hill. I had painted a sunrise of a new day of my life journey. The hill appeared because growth is an upward journey. The new energy was coming to me as if in the wind.

“Keep painting,” the inner voice whispered again. Okay, another picture is trying to emerge. I began to have a feeling for certain colors. There were ocean blues, a blue evergreen tree, and a blue sky that was more like the water in the bay in the Florida Keys. It wasn’t like I set out to paint an evergreen. It was that one appeared. Then a couple of shapes appeared in the sky part of the painting. One was shaped like a turtle and the other was shaped like a seashell. “A turtle, a shell and a beautiful shade of blue tree,” I said to myself as I looked at the almost finished watercolor. “What’s this one mean?” I knew and tears began to fill my eyes. My sister-in-law’s name was Deb. Her color was that brilliant shade of ocean blue. And her favorite thing to collect was turtles and she always had seashells around her house, inside and out. She lived in the Florida Keys surrounded by her colors and turtles and shells and fish. I thought, “This is about Deb.”

I heard a voice again. Deb in spirit form was there with me. “Don’t cry. You need not be sad. I’m okay. I’m here. Everything happened the way I expected it to happen.” I could feel her saying that the painting before me is where she is now. I knew it was the truth. I knew she was there with me talking to me. “Tell Mom and Dad not to worry. I am really happy. It is really pretty here. I love you all but I had to go. I wanted you to show them this place. It has everything I love. Tell JoAnn (she called her mom by her first name) to stop feeling guilty. It wasn’t her fault. She did all she could do.”

I sat there sobbing for what seemed like a long time until the tears began to dry up on my face. “So that’s why I had to paint today. Deb wanted to make an appearance. I had some unfinished grief to let out and it wanted to come out in the painting.” I sat quietly satisfied that I had done some needed healing work and with the messages to share with my in-laws.

“Keep painting!” There was that inner voice again and this time it was even stronger. “What, haven’t I done enough? Surely the painting where Deb is was enough.”

“You are not finished. Do another.” The inner voice answered determined for me to continue.

“Okay. What colors am I in the mood for this time?” The background was a neutral shade of light yellow – kind of like a golden light that surrounds something or someone that is just special. There were these pairs of shapes in different configurations. One shape was a combination of oranges and reds. The other was a mix of purples. At first, it didn’t seem to be anything but some of my favorite colors in a simple abstract painting.

I sat looking at it. Why did I have to paint this painting? It took a while meditating on it and feeling a little tired. Then I saw it. I thought I had cried out all my tears on the last painting, but I had only just begun.

The night before we carried George to the vet to receive “the shot”, he was suffering so much that I could take the E-collar off and he didn’t even have the energy to scratch. He lay outside our back door on the concrete having difficulty breathing. I put an exercise mat beside him and lay with him on the cold cement. He usually had so many sores that he didn’t get petted very much. We would touch his head but not his back and body. It was kind of yucky and probably a little painful for him as well. We had decided that we couldn’t put it off any longer.

I gently stroked his entire body. I felt tumors all over him. The vet and my husband said that they were cancer and had grown into his lungs. They had grown very rapidly, possibly because of the steroid shots and the allergy pills, having taken over his body in a short amount of time. He was lying still because he was having a hard time breathing. Tears fell down my face but I didn’t want to lie there with him to cry. It was just my way of saying goodbye. I knew it had to be done this time. I just gently massaged him to try to make him comfortable.

George was reddish orange when his hair was healthy. My favorite color has always been purple. These little shapes on the painting were the positions of my body and George’s that last night together. In most of them I was touching him in some way. But the last, we just lay side by side and I let him go. I had painted the last night. “Oh my, this is me and George!” I didn’t just sob this time. I cried and I cried hard. I am crying now as I type.

I had handled his transition very well. I didn’t’ have regrets or doubts. I missed him – still do – but there was no other choice. We had given him all the love we could give and all the medical attention we could find. We fed him and loved him dearly, so much that we could not make him suffer through a long dying process. But here was this inner urging to paint this little painting, to grieve, and to heal. There wasn’t any denying it. I had to grieve and remember George and my last night. “I love you George.”

I cried a while. I took a breath and sat there feeling drained. “That was quite an experience,” I told myself.

“You are not finished.” The inner voice again was urging me on.

“No! You have got to be kidding. I am tired. Haven’t I grieved enough today?

“You are not finished. Don’t think about it. Just paint. Just paint!”

I painted #6. I had no idea what I was painting – just painting. When I finished, I looked at it. What I saw was an adult shape in a fetal position surrounded by a green vine – signifying growth or new growth or a birth happening. I was going through a re-birth process. I felt the tragedy of several deaths, not just Deb and George, and was ready to emerge as a new person to new beginnings and fertility – green new growth.

The inner voice was probably about to tell me, but I didn’t wait. I was ready to finish this journey and take care of the every day business of living. I opened my hands and my heart to a rainbow of new life and new colors and painted one last picture that said, “This self-exploration is complete for today. It began with the end of an emotional pool of hard life experiences – the tail of the fish in the waters of emotion – and ended with open hands releasing energy in all the colors of the rainbow. I felt the vibrancy of the rainbow coming from my soul and going out to the world.

Katherine Ari

Concentric Circles

This painting is directly influenced by Paul Gonyea, Senior Minister of the Spiritual Living Center of Atlanta, GA. His Sunday morning topic was about Concentric Circles. Life is not linear, it is circular. Our lives are a series of circles of experiences, growth, challenges, and in each circle of experiences we grow into another circle that is bigger. Each of us has a different set of "circles" or experiences that are colored by our belief systems and core ideas. And surrounding our unique Circles of Life are bigger circles that make our lives intersect with each other. Look closely at the whole picture. There is One set of circles the is in every single circle. It is One Power. It is Creation itself. It is God. It is infinite.

Katherine Ari Wheelus Dannels

Healing Colors

I an a color addict. I love color. It isn't that I want to attract attention to me or my work. It is just that I love color. I love blues, turquoises, greens, purple and especially love bright red. In fact, my daughter says, "Red is your Black!" I don't look good in black but when I wear the right shade of red, no matter what the style of the garment is, I get compliments. I do get attention. I know that I wear it when I need to get noticed.

I heard a woman who sells real estate say one time when she had a meeting scheduled where she needed to get their attention, she alway wore her black blazer. That wouldn't work for me. And some marketing people say, "Don't wear red to an appointment" for whatever their belief system is about red.

But for Katherine Wheelus Dannels, red is GOOD, really good. I actually painted this with a particular person in mind. She had been told she needed to have some reds and blues and greens in her home. For her at the time, the Painting above was of her healing colors when she needed to really get fired up.


The second painting was using a similar color scheme and style for her on days when she needed a more gentle subtle influence around her.

Katherine Ari Wheelus Dannels

Sailboats in Maine Harbor

A few years ago, my family had a cousin getting married in Maine. They rented us a wonderful little two story cottage on one of the thousands of bay harbors. I had never been to Maine and found people painting watercolor and oils everywhere - of the water, of nature and sea life, of lighthouses, and of course all kinds of boats and ships. It was an artist's paradise.

I sat looking out the big bay window of the living/dining area of our temporary home - hey, it was summer and the unofficial state bird - huge mosquitoes - mass attack you if you sit outside in the mornings - and was playing around with my watercolors. I am not much of a representational painter, but I made an effort. It looked like something a second grader would do and one that wasn't very good. I stoped trying. I just let the colors and paint brush lead me.

When I was waking that morning, just before I opened my eyes, I had these flashes of these little yellow triangles pass before my sleepy eyes. I started with the colors of the triangles, fitting them together as I had seen in my half awake eyes. The colors started swirling around the triangles. I loved the way it was easily - gently fitting together. The finished painting expressed color the way I like to express color.

I looked at it and then my eyes wandered back out to the bay and the water. I thought about it. The day before, there was a class of small catamarans with white sails hit by the bright yellow sun moving around in circles in the fairly shallow waters of the bay. The students were learning how to steer and were kind of going in all sorts of directions, stirring up all sorts of swirling colors in the dark water reflecting the sun and the colors of everything in the harbor. There were those bright yellow and red outlined sails of the catamarans.

I looked again at the watercolors on my paper and saw in my own way, I had painted an abstract interpretation of the boating class. If you go to an art gallery around there, you don't see many abstract paintings. This is one of my favorite paintings and I think one of the best. And that's the way a lot of my art evolves. I have an urge to paint and after it is complete I realize what my inner painter was creating and expressing.

Katherine Ari Wheelus Dannels