Category: VT Community
New to Vermont
This fall, the Vermont State Colleges system offered free classes and training to Vermonters whose jobs were affected by COVID-19. I'd earned a university degree almost four decades ago, but since I could no longer lead in-person classes and needed to brush up on my online skills, I enrolled for two courses at CCV.
One of those courses is entitled Storytelling & Media and we were recently assigned to make a mock podcast so I interviewed a family member from Portland Oregon who had just moved in with me in Southern VT.
Despite the thirty years between us, Bex and I are both writers and passionate about social justice which made for easy conversation on everything from Black Lives Matter to what it means to tell a new story and find the space to tell it--in Vermont: Bounty: Southern VT
I wanted to share some of the nourishing fall programs & events happening in our area of Southern Vermont (and online.)
First, my longtime friend/artist/mystic Jess Weitz is offering two online programs: Inner Landscapes: exploring our psyche through the landscape and Archetypal Doll Making, the latter also in person at the River Gallery School where Jess leads Art & Meditation classes as well as daylong retreats.
Secondly, in addition to her weekly WORD CAFÉ gatherings in downtown Brattleboro, my gentle, soulful & talented neighbor Robin Marie MacArthur is offering a 6-week Fall Writing Workshop for poets, fiction & non-fiction writers which she describes as (and to which I can attest) “supportive, encouraging and semi-formal.” www.wordhousebrattleboro.com
Lastly, our esteemed teacher & dear family friend Scott Willis is offering his Hits The Spot Yoga Teacher Training/Immersion Program in 2019-20 which was for me (in 2012), a touchstone during a time of radical personal change & opportunity. Scott’s mastery, style, humor & compassion continue to inspire my personal practice & teaching.
We are so fortunate to have the depth & breadth of artistry, creativity & service in our area. When you enroll online or in-person for an ongoing class (or travel for a single-day event), it’s a win-win-win. You support an artist/teacher, they, in turn, support you, while the work that is shaped–on the mat, on the page, on the canvass–nourishes consciousness, connection & community.
Yours in abundance & gratitude,
Kelly
Links:
Jess Weitz, River Gallery Art School
Robin MacArthur, Wordhouse
Scott Willis, Hits the Spot Yoga
and on the coast in Maine, former Vermont neighbor/author/friend:
Jodi Paloni, Maine Coast Writers Retreats
…Sweater-weather writing workshop, (leaning) into moments of nature, exploring the narrative of place, how outer landscape can mirror the inner landscape of our narrators, how setting can be leveraged to evoke an atmospheric tone in our poems and prose. We’ll write about the beauty we see before us and the grief we experience when we remember what’s at stake for our beloved planet. We’ll walk the magical coastal trails for peace of mind, healing ritual, and creative self-care. A hearty harvest menu will shore us for our forays.”
A People, Divided
Small Talk
My husband explains to me, again, how small talk is emp/f/phatic communion (I always get the word wrong.) So every few weeks, especially if I’ve had caffeine, I give it a try, and just the other morning, the cashier at the Co-op played along.
“We brought the ice packs because it’s so warm out,” I joked, as she rang up our groceries.
“I know,” she said, “It was really cold at our house this morning.”
“39, at ours,” I added, and then we both spoke at once, so “communed” had we become, with the same beginning sound too, except that what came after her “B,” was: BEAUTIFUL; and what came after mine: BRUTAL.
~
Stranger Angel
Waking to 39 degrees and not being among those who celebrate such disregard for gardens (and summer souls), I meditate on this guy, who was waiting for someone at the farmers market on Saturday morning, leaning shyly, I thought, against the compost with his bouquet, while l just as shyly asked if I could photograph him before escaping the crowds.
~
Procession
I’m not much of a boater, but seeing them on the road in August is like seeing a hearse drive through town, carrying summer.
~
Surrender
45 after 44 has been so excruciating that I can barely think about 44. But for this, I’ll make an exception:
His & Michelle’s summer playlist:
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Warming Again
Goldfinches in the cherry tree
Last light on the birches
Bread salad with basil & heirloom tomatoes on the table
~
Tomato Legacy
My mother, my grandmothers, my great grandmother…
~
39
About this time of year, the chaff is separated from the wheat, and those who delight in the sudden plummet of heat, without regard for the life of tomatoes and basil, are thus made apparent; just as 45 made apparent so many things, which is what I thinking as I biked up to the farmstand for Sunday morning scones, shivering; And while my disdain for their disloyalty to summer may not be as strong as my disdain, say, for those who (still) champion 45, they had that very morning, chilled and cloud covered as it was, come alarmingly close, particularly with the forecast of 39.
~
Antidote
Summer gratitude collage—an antidote—not so much to grief, which is necessary & fruitful—but to pissy attitudes of not enough (my own.)
backroads
skunk crossing.
bats flitting.
mouse jumping.
fox barking.
moon waxing.
june ending.
~
deer in the North as I head to the woods shower
owl in the West as I dive into the pond
crickets on the ground
geese in the sky
This Vermont Life 