Courage is…: Joannie Rochette & Petra Majdič

olympics 2010 joannie rochette

The greatest achievement of this 2010 Winter Olympic games wasn’t Canada’s first Gold medal, or its last, or any other Gold or Silver medal awarded in the Olympics. The two most courageous performances in the Olympics netted Bronze. One was a battle as much with emotional trauma as with any […]

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Sheryl Crow is strong enough to be my man…

Sheryl Crow ~ Tuesday Night Music Club

Sheryl Crow, I don’t know, she’s got something going on, and has been one of my muses at critical moments. She writes and sings like a broken angel, with equal measures of strength and vulnerability, passion and fear, hope and futility. Some of her music is exquisitely beautiful — notably […]

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Black and white, darkness without light: a spiritual journey begins on a Three Dog Night

Seven Separate Fools ~ Three Dog Night

The joyful melody and playful rhythm will be all too familiar to my mother, and the eldest of my sisters. I was about 12 when this song came into my life, the first 45 rpm record I recall owning. I spun the disc hundreds of times…maybe thousands…playing it again and […]

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Peter Gabriel & Ken Follet: Fear, the mother of violence

Peter Gabriel ~ Scratch

A while ago I was reading Ken Follet’s The Pillars of the Earth. Set amidst the brutality of the English middle ages, it’s interesting to see how all Follet’s characters experience fear, and more interesting how they respond to it and how, oftentimes, they are controlled by it, particularly the […]

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The party has already begun: 2010 in Vancouver and I Believe

2010 Vancouver Olympics

They’re here. Turquoise jacketed volunteers and orange vested police converge on the city. They’re here. They’re everywhere. Tomorrow, the world’s biggest winter party and carnival begins in this grey, wet city. Is this the first winter Olympics ever held in a place where the grass is green? Where the vines […]

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Deva Premal: the tranquility of Gayatri Mantra

The Essence ~ Deva Premal

A day of stress and frustrations and, in the end, a recognition that I’m not ready to move forward on a course of action requiring a one-year commitment…not just yet…not without a more careful consideration of the options and possibilities. So, a little something to calm the soul….

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Deva Premal sings The Moola Mantra: a gift of love

The Moola Mantra ~ Deva Premal

A couple days ago, this mantra played during a peaceful, energetic, meditative moment while in a healing session with my chiropractor. It reminded me, as it often does, of the woman who gave it to me. It was my introduction to the grounding peace and tranquility of mantras. As I […]

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Fleetwood Mac and my summer of love

Fleetwood Mac ~ Rhiannon

I can’t remember how I met her. I think it was possibly on the boardwalk, or in the arcades at Weirs Beach. I do remember my buddy Brad and I hitching part way around Lake Winnnepesaukee so I could be with her. It was the summer of ’76 on the […]

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Gabriella Cilmi: Lessons to be learned and feel a little safer

Gabriella Cilmi ~ Lessons to be Learned

Gabriella Cilmi (pronounced “chill me” — and she does give me chills) was all of 17 years old when she co-wrote and recorded this song and others on her debut album, Lessons to be Learned. This is no Avril Lavigne, or Miley Cyrus, or Britney Spears. Cilmi has a soul […]

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