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By Kathleen DesMaisons, September 1, 2010 1:10 pm

September first has always been an incredible time for me. Maybe the time of new shoes and pencil boxes, the heart’s delight for every sugar sensitive child. I used to wear my new shoes to bed because I couldn’t bear to take them off.

Sept 65. Getting ready for my wedding.

Sept 70 Moving to NH for graduate school

Sept 78 Moving to RI to start a new job

Sept 85 Moving to CA to start a new life

Sept 90 Falling in love

Sept 96 My mother dying, and getting a PhD

Sept 97 Contract for PnP

Now the changes are internal….2010 a deep, deep shift. The chaos and rumbling of the last year and settling and quieting into a deep knowing…Nothing is formed and everything is formed. What a strange place. My task is to focus on the food. Do the food, nano steps, and life works. That simple.

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By Kathleen DesMaisons, August 31, 2010 4:27 am

Whew, I was floored to see that my last post was from May. I think Ranch started an internal change for me that was very, very deep. It just caught me off guard. And it was so big that I couldn’t even be talking about it. There seems to be something going on in the universe, something very big, but without words. I know that many people are talking about some great *shift* thingie, but this is different for me.

This week I was the National Geographic special called Trouble the Water. It is in commemoration of the 5th anniversary of Katrina. It was so powerful that I couldn’t speak about it for a couple of days. How could this have happened? How can it still be happening? How do those of us who are so affected by this respond..I don’t have answers yet. But I will.

I know that doing the program is somehow tied into this. We have been asking about the meaning of step 7 – how do we shift from steady into awakening and then empowerment. How do we move from awakening into action.

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By Kathleen DesMaisons, May 26, 2010 9:25 pm

I drove across the river to deliver a puppy to his foster home. One the way home, the sky was midnight blue and the moon was coming up over the mountains. Coming down the hill, all of Albuquerque was shimmering, the water in the Rio Grande was reflecting the moon.

The air was still and quiet. All told, it was breathtaking.

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By Kathleen DesMaisons, May 15, 2010 4:52 am

Folks from all over the world have arrived in Albuquerque for our annual seminar.  We had our first session last night. It was just lovely seeing everyone. I love ranch and am always filled up by this event.

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By Kathleen DesMaisons, May 9, 2010 6:47 am

My mother would have been 98 this mother’s day. I am thinking about images…

My mother was directing plays in the Tucson Little Theater. They would make the sets by creating a wood frame and then stretching canvas over it. The wood was connected with little corregated fasteners. She taught me how to nail those in when I was pretty young. Then the stretching and then the painting. The painting was done to create the backgrounds for scenes. Since many of the plays were shakesperean, many of the sets were English castles. We build the sets from drawings my mother did. So she understood scale, color, imagination, depth and construction. And that was before the actors and actresses were even there. Rehersals were long and demanding. I got that before I was eight, just from watching it all. Hmmm, how to plan and create a production. Many people, many skills…sounds like Ranch <smile>.

My mother wrote plays, drama about the struggle of the human spirit, drama about history. She understood about the art of using dialogue and conversation to convey ideas. My mother, the uber introvert, could create scripts to tell a story of the deepest human struggle. One play called *shatter the dreams* I think perhaps was a story about her.  I will go and find that little play in the boxes of writings I have, read it and reflect with her in spirit about that story.

I have been doing ancestry.com to follow the mother story. A few weeks ago while I was in Vermont, I drove over to Peterboro, NH where my mother’s mother owned a farm called 4 winds farm.

The apple orchard

I stood at the top of the hill looking at the apple trees below and one huge maple that I know was there when she was. And I looked at the barn. I know it was old and designed by someone thoughtful. Perhaps my grandfather who designed barns. This one had the most artful little set of windows above the door. Handblown. I imagined my grandmother being there with the eight children and 4 servants for the summer. I just learned about the 4 servants because their names were listed in the census record for that summer of 1920. She was 46 and there alone with the kids and the farm while my grandfather was off in the city.

I imagine how I have been shaped by the DNA of these women. These stories. It is a good day for mother’s day.

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By Kathleen DesMaisons, May 8, 2010 5:10 am

It’s funny, someone asked me why I wasn’t posting more..I think it is because my inner life has been moving so deeply. I have been processing old woundings in a new way. And I have been doing what I thought was regular life getting ready for Radiant Ranch next week. You know, getting folders done, making sure all the logistics were ready.

I had decided to to some keynote presentations this year. (Keynote is the Mac form of Power Point), so first I had to learn how to use it. Then I had to learn how to use the projector I just happened to have bought from my son when he upgraded. Logistical stuff.

I started working on the actual content a number of weeks ago. I am doing three presentations. One on the steps, one on the addiction amoeba and one on emotional healing. I got the first and the last set to go and have been frustrated with the amoeba one. It just seemed too complex. I have pages and pages of notes and simply could not sort how to get my feelings about it out.

I spent several weeks recruiting a graphic artist animator. Had 20 people respond to an ad I put on Craig’s list. Most of the material was so boring. I called 2 guys. One of them answered. I met with him yesterday. he is sort of the opposite of those of us in the program. He listened as a groped through an explanation. He told me that he does 3-D animation and what the usual and customary fees are. I sort of gulped. I ventured the possibility of perhaps we could start with a concept, a sketch. He said that would work.

He went home to think. I came home to draw. I went on youtube for an hour and looked at pictures of amoebas. Dear god, the photography we have available is stunning. The pictures of the steaming awakening something. Everything got really simple. My heart said, *Ok, look, Kathleen, ranch is next week. Let’s just draw some stuff and play.* So I did.

This morning, I was dreaming. I got up and sat down at my desk, and I knew exactly what I can do to create the presentation for ranch. I have to skill to make some visuals and I certainly h

Helping with creativity

ave the

skill to tell the story. So this morning I did a story board. Ronan got up and came and stood by my leg while I was drawing. he does that. Then he brought me a SOCK! then he went and shook and sneezed on Pepper. Then he played bite the head with her.

This is regular life here. I will go make breakfast, let them out. Take a shower, do my 10:10 walk and then come back and make a presentation about the addiction amoeba. Then I will do laundry, go to the grocery store and  work on ancestry.com.

regular life works for me.

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By Kathleen DesMaisons, May 1, 2010 8:53 am

I wonder how many of you learned to say Rabbit, Rabbit on the first day of the month.

Where ever did that tradition come from? Ah, well the wonders of google, LOl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_rabbit

So now I wonder if people just read it without hearing it spoken, does the good luck endure.

It is a nice rabbit day in NM. My wild bunny has been seen many times this week.

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By Kathleen DesMaisons, April 29, 2010 6:11 am

Got through jetlag, had a good night’s sleep. The energy is gathering here. I am working with the material for the Emotional Healing Class. It is complex, multi-layered and very, very deep. This task of sorting out how to present it without diluting it is a hard one.  Usually when I do it with the science, I am pretty easily able to convert. This stuff is so nuanced that I really have to pay attention.  It is a challenge…but like a challenge in the art studio…how to work with the medium, the light, the heat or cool of the day. I so have the vision of the piece, but I don’t want to force it, so it means working with the material, feeling it, listening, waiting. And people think we just *write* LOL.

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By Kathleen DesMaisons, April 28, 2010 9:29 pm

I spoke to my ex husband to night. He told me that today would have been his mother’s 89th birthday. I said, *you have got to be kidding! this is your mother’s birthday?*  I am thinking, I have known this man for almost 50 years and I never made this connection because today is my Father’s birthday. He would have been 99. Is that just too amazing or what.

Then I went to Whole Foods and bought pork chops and shrimp and 2 rib eye steaks that I will ask David, my son to grill. Mostly I got wonderful veggies. Bright, colorful, singing. Tomatoes were on sale, so was asparagus. It makes me smile to think of lunch tomorrow.

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By Kathleen DesMaisons, April 28, 2010 4:02 pm

I spent 5 days in Putney. Saw my son who lives in Northfield, MA – that woas delightful. He lives in a dorm with many male students..they make a lot of noise, those boys do, LOL. It was nice to see how they feel about it…deep appreciation and respect. Then went up to Putney to visit my daughter and her husband. They also live in a dorm there…the window in the living room is the whole wall and there are many birds that come to the feeders. MANY birds..a cardinal, a woodpecker, a tufted something, yellow finches, and a black bird with a pokey beak. It was astounding to watch them all..and to watch the squirrels leap to grab the feeder.

Went to a dance concert at the school. It was spectacular. jen gave me a tour of the school – the arts rooms, the stained glass room, the sculpting room, the paper making room, the jewelry making room. The arts room smelled of paint and thinner. All the kids do this stuff, and science and math and poetry and dance. I kept thinking how it would have changed my life to be in a school like this.

They have a barn with cows. They sell the excess milk to the cabot cheese company. They collect maple sap and make maple syrup.  They hang their laundry on the line outside in the green field where the cows come. Their gym is powered by solar panels so the building has a zero footprint..

My daughter is the college counselor, doing matchmaking to find the right school for the right student. Maybe mom and dad are pressuring the kid to go to Smith and Jen talks with them about this extraordinary little place in Indiana that teaches dance and creativity that will fan the spirit of the young guy who wants to be a dancer more than anything else in the world.

I saw my daughter as a full and rich adult, doing work she loves in a place she loves. We spent wonderful time together…went downtown to the huge city of Brattleboro and had grilled asparagus and some kind of special fish. Went to Java Joes for a decaf latte while she used the wifi to send a letter to some school in Illinois who was waiting on a report. Regular life embraced. jen planted flowers in the garden where her husband had planted lettuces the weekend before. Mike made us breakfast on Sunday morning so we sat at the table looking out at the green and the birds.

I was looking at a little house I could have bought. Drove down on Sunday night to meet my son’s new girlfriend, and then back up to Vermont. It is very, very dark in rural vermont at night. It kinda freaked me out. Jen and Mike were kind and said, sleep in our soft bed tonight, we will take the futon. it was an act of sweetness. I decided not to get the house, but the weekend was a miracle.