Hummingbirds are Magical Creatures

Did you know they make a high pitched squeak when they fly?  It sort of sounds like an alternator going out on a car, but much quieter.  Seriously.

I love hummingbirds.  I've loved their tiny little colorful bodies, needle beaks, and magical invisible wings since I was little.  I have a few feeders out back, and I've yet to master the right sugar/water ratio, but I'm working on it. 

Do you have a tiny creature you love?  In truth, I also love toads, which are in many ways opposite of hummingbirds.  I would play with these toads (when in the north woods of WI in the summer), which were much more compelling than frogs in my 5-year-old brain.  They are brown, don't move too quickly, are not uppity, and blend in so well to their environment that they seem magical to me - just like hummingbirds. 

Though I don't think southern California is home to many toads, it is home to many hummingbirds.  When I'm eager to take in a natural inspiration, hummingbirds do the trick every time! 

Copyright 2010 Heather Corwin

Fuzzy Love

When I was growing up, my mother claimed to have allergies to animals except birds, so I had parakeets and cockatiels.  In junior high, I learned how to train them and my birds could do all sorts of cool stuff!  As an adult, I am proud to say I have wonderful fuzzy love in the form of a black and brown tabby cat (part Maine Coon Cat) named Stinky.

Animals are wondrous creatures.  They don't talk, thought sometimes it may seem like they do.  Stinky loves love - giving and receiving.  In fact, he more often reminds me of a dog because he'll be waiting for me when I arrive home, he'll come when I call him (most of the time), and he adores/demands being pet at long length.

Stinky has been my constant companion for the past 18 years with few challenges.  He's healthy and I expect him to live another bunch of years.  We joke that this house is really his retirement home because he goes out into the backyard garden and suns himself with no impulse to try to get out of the yard.  Yesterday, I was enjoying watching how soundly he sleeps in the sun - on gravel.

If you can't have an animal and just want a fix of fuzzy love, there are many shelters to visit including: 

Pasadena Humane Society

San Gabriel Humane Society

Glendale Humane Soctiety

Los Angeles Animal Shelters

Not every person loves animals, but I sure do.  Stinky reminds me how to love purley, be in the moment, and enjoy compainionship.  No wonder pets have proven to help people have longer, richer lives. 

Copyright 2010 Heather Corwin

Easter Addendum

Well, folks, my ingrained fear of organized religion made for an interesting morning.  I did, in fact, attend a new local church with my husband.  It was fine - no one condemned other faiths and the sermon was not pilled up in a pedantic frenzy with bows.  Thank God.

My patient husband and I walked to church.  Walking helped dissipate some of the unease in my stomach.  I was bracing for the waves of guilt that would be inflicted upon me by others - they would magically see I had not been to church in a LONG time.  (I have an active imagination that does not always serve me kindly).  People were welcoming; it was a small congregation.  I just didn't feel at home.  But I never feel at home in a church presently.  I'm working on that.

You see, I'm aware that though I yearn for spiritual support and community, I have deep rooted animosity toward organized religion.  My family has wielded religion (loosely veiled judgment) against me in the past, friends have used it as a shield of morality when attacking others unlike them, and I have used it against myself to prove to myself how unworthy I am to call myself a good person.  Now, these are rare circumstances, but they leave a bad taste in my mouth.

As I ready myself to host friends on this celebrated and holy day of hope and rebirth, I am looking at what is important to me in this day.  I can choose to work through the challenges that will be with me forever (and give myself a break), or I can run from the areas of my life that challenge me.  No coward here, I face the fear.  With my friends and family, who are all imperfect like me, we can weather the storms with love and compassion.  Happy Easter!

Copyright 2010 Heather Corwin

Find Your Voice

As I get older, I am continually surprised at how much I still have to learn about myself.  I have years of training in the body, how the body relates to the mind, sensation work, voice work, applied bodywork, physiology, anatomy, and tapping into my reservoir of feelings.  And still, an avenue filled with gems is work with the voice.

The voice work that inspires me viscerally is Roy Hart work.  I would suggest a foundation of breath work (Berry, Linklater, Fitzmaurice) prior to this type of work.  In RH work, they often use a piano to play notes and the RH instructor leads the class in vocal quality.  For example, if the instructor is looking for light and thin notes that are also high pitch, we might work with the word "violin" to carry the tone.  To be clear, the sound quality is not the goal.  In other words, the Hart people are not after helping someone sing "pretty," but rather tap into the sounds each body/soul can express.  That freedom allows a participant to maximize range and cultivate sound and support in the body.  All people, not just opera singers, want this.

I recall the morning after working with the Roy Hart people the first time, my ribs ached with movement and breath.  I didn't know my ribs could swing that much!  They felt like an accordion - and powerful.  In no other activity had I been able to get my breath to be so big or support for so long - because I was breathing in huge thoughts and could ride the breath and the thought simultaneously. 

Though the voice work I lead is not Roy Hart, I am certainly inspired by the work.  Roy Hart said, "I left (being an actor) in order to go back into the world of non-art or humanity, because I couldn't stand the split between art and humanity."  Well, artists have to be their essential human self to bring life to the characters flaws.  These breathing creatures capture the imagination and heart of self and audience.

Before you can use your voice, you have to find it.  In your own way today, using your voice at the pitch, volume, and duration you decide - call out to someone you love!  They might hear you - even in another state.

Copyright 2010 Heather Corwin

Girlfriends are Great

It's chilly out, dark, and quiet.  A perfect evening to call a friend!  Nights like this really hit home how much I have moved around.  Uprooting has deeply affected my ability to nurture and maintain historical friendships.  I am lucky enough to remain in contact with some of my friends from high school.  Not just acquaintances, these people know me.  History cannot be fabricated or replaced.  And I need local friends.  Friends to call up to laugh with, to meet for a movie, coffee or breakfast, and to do fun activities with.

Sadly, with the hurdles of time zones and children, the likelihood of me picking up the phone after 8pm to phone friends in Chicago (10pm there) is unlikely out of respect, and it's usually the only time I can cozy up to a phone.  Here many friends have children and I don't feel comfortable calling after 8pm. 

A wise person who shared tea with me this week reminded me that friendship is an activity - I have to put into it what I wish to get out of it.  So I need to choose friends and apply myself.  I am responsible for my happiness.

My plan?  I'm calling a local friend with a good heart and making a friendship date.  It's time to stop blaming moving around so much for not having heaps of great friends to call at midnight (if I needed to).  I'm making the effort - because girlfriends are great.

Copyright 2010 Heather Corwin

A New CAR!!!

Seriously?  In this economy?  A new car?  Well, friends, I have to tell you, deals have never been better.  My wonderful husband was driving around his addled Mitsubishi Diamante with the cracked windshield, sagging ceiling upholstery, and assorted dents.  His final visit to the mechanic with this loyal car was similar to bringing an old faithful dog out to pasture.  Okay, a little mixing of metaphors, but you get my meaning.

So what did we contemplate?  Toyota is having the BEST deal they've EVER offered on new cars - 0% annual percentage rate on loans up to 60 months.  That translates to NO INTEREST on a loan for 5 years on a new car.  Plus, we would be a two Toyota family which would give the new car free service up to 25,000 miles.  That's a screaming deal.  I trotted over to Toyota only to discover the cars we could afford (under $20,000) were either too small for Doug or just not appealing.  I dearly love my Prius - and I want Doug to love his car.  Push on!

So then I trotted over to Honda to see their deals.  The Civic caught my eye!   Fully loaded the Civic is just above $22,000 (U.S. News and World Reports #2 deal) and the dealer assured me we had $2,000 wiggle room for price.  However, when Doug drove the car, it was a no go.  He was unimpressed with the dashboard, interior, and handling - and he wanted more room.  No Honda for us.

Then we struck gold.  A trusted friend suggested a car broker to us who worked his magic!  He's a man who can get you things.  Broker's don't have the overhead dealerships do, so savings passed on to us, the buyer.  Magically, Brian the broker had an amazing low mileage fully loaded gray 2007 Camry Hybrid for a price we could afford; his other client had gotten a new car.  The best part?  When my husband saw the car, the glimmer of Christmas glee shone in his eyes.  Done.

April Fool's Day... How did it start?

"In 1708 a correspondent wrote in to the British Apollo magazine to ask, “Whence proceeds the custom of making April Fools?” The question is one that many people are still asking today.

The puzzle that April Fool’s Day presents to cultural historians is that it was only during the eighteenth century that detailed references to it (and curiosity about it) began to appear. But at that time, the custom was already well established throughout northern Europe and was regarded as being of great antiquity. How had the tradition been adopted by so many different European cultures without provoking more comments in the written record?

References to April Fool’s Day can be found as early as the 1500s. However, these early references were infrequent and tended to be vague and ambiguous. Shakespeare, writing in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, made no mention of April Fool’s Day, despite being, as Charles Dickens Jr. put it, a writer who “delights in fools in general.” 

Many theories have been put forward about how the tradition began. Unfortunately, none of them are very compelling. So the origin of the “custom of making April Fools” remains as much a mystery to us as it was back in 1708."

~the above excerpt found on museum of hoaxes