Blog
what comes to mind by Michaela von Schweinitz
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Got your ticket for Burning Man?
If you have been to the Playa before you know what to do (the ten principles) and not to do. In other words, you know what to expect. You think. I was baptized in the dust bath of camp Animalia, the motto of last year. My first time to Burning Man. You know that 2023 was one of a kind. Right? First lesson I learned: Expect the unexpected. Better yet, don’t expect anything. All the planning that goes into the biggest art fair in the world happens before you arrive. As soon as you touch the ground and commit to…
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Deadline – Before and After
Maybe it’s the word itself that evokes dread the closer we get? It’s some kind of hurdle that we prepare to jump as we are approaching. To make the jump we have to coordinate every moving part to time it right. But what happens after you take the hurdle? Turns out a deadline is more than a point in time. To jump the hurdle successfully, we need to prepare for the landing. Before the deadline I am overwhelmed by fear of failure. I fret over my material, reluctant to expose myself to outside judgement. As a deadline approaches, I worry…
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Cultural Continuity
The other day at the MET we stepped into the exhibition of Africa & Byzantium. Art and household items were shown from regions around the Mediterranean Sea. We were greeted with a map that showed the size of the Byzantium empire lasting from the fourth to the fifteenth century. Another map tracked changes in political influence, from the earlier Roman Empire, to the Byzantium empire and at last the Ottoman Empire. My interest was piqued. I am currently reading, okay I listen to the audio book, House of Stone by Anthony Shadid, the late Lebanese American correspondent from Oklahoma. In…
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Can’t See the Forest for the Trees?
Hiking our forest in New Jersey is the only good thing that came out of the 2020 lockdown. We were the only ones on the trails and we came back every weekend to catch some air. With every change of the season, we experienced the forest in a new way. No matter what time of year, roaming our forest got our blood flowing and filled our lungs with fresh air. Climbing up to the Appalachian Mountain ridge, the wind cleared our minds. We watched hawks circle over the canopy of trees. Dressed in Green with an underskirt of thick brushes…
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Still believe in Santa?
Lies My Parents (Never but Maybe Should’ve) Told Me* an essay by Shukree Hassan Tilghman got me thinking. Not for the first time I remembered my conundrum of telling the truth without crushing my children’s spirit. Thinking back to my own childhood I always loved this time of year when the world was full of wonder. How I felt looking out the window searching for a sign of the Christkind. Where I grew up, the spirit that brings gifts is pure and innocent, a more juvenile version than Santa Claus. It takes Santa all night to drop presents under the trees…
