Entering the Red Tent

For the last decade, my daughter and I have been going to the Northern California Herbal Symposium in Laytonville, California. Every year we go and I leave with my “cup runneth over.” My entire being vibrates with love and support. Simply being with 400 women that are connecting, teaching, healing one another in a safe beautiful nurturing environment is Bliss. I got loved up so’s I can keep spreading it and always focused of protecting & healing Gaia.

The following text came to me via my grrlfriend Mandy, via Allison via Emma Schubert who I believe wrote it.

THE BODY-MIND CONNECTION…THEY TEACH IT AT STANFORD!!

” I just finished taking an evening class at Stanford. The last lecture was on the mind-body connection–the relationship between stress and disease. The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford) said, among other things, that one of the best things that a man could do for his healthis to be married to a woman whereas for a woman, one of the best things she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends. At first everyone laughed, but he was serious.

Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physically this quality “girlfriend time” helps us to create more serotonin– a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well being. Women share feelings whereas men often form relationships around activities. They rarely sit down with a buddy and talk about how they feel about certain things or how their personal lives are going. Jobs? Yes. Sports? Yes. Cars? Yes. Fishing, hunting, golf? Yes. But their feelings?– rarely. Women do it all of the time. We share from our souls with our sisters, and evidently that is very good for our health. He said that spending time
With a friend is just as important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym.

There’s a tendency to think that when we are “exercising” we are doing something good for our bodies, but when we are hanging out with friends, we are wasting our time and should be more productively engaged– not true. In fact, he said that failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking! So every time you hang out with a gal pal, just pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for doing something good for your health! We are indeed very, very lucky. Soooo let’s toast to our friendship with our girlfriends. Evidently it’s very good for our health.“
Emma Schubert

Party Logo

A Pisces~Aries Cusp Equinox  Extravaganza Equinox is approaching, the sun  is here, the Zodiac will  begin it’s  calender anew as we shift from the  Mystical Wise WATER of Pisces to the  Dynamic FIRE Energy of Aries.

March 19, 2010, the Blessings, in the spirit of the Temple of Yes,  hosted yet again another fabulous party for the clan.  We celebrated the Shimmering WATERS &  the  Sparkling FIRES that have manifested in our   community for this Equinox Extravaganza at the Temple of  YES!

This one is  particularly for our friends that are celebrating their birthdays:

Scotty Eerkes
Sun McNamee
Shimmering  Wolf (our most honored Pisces 3.18)
Gil Spencer
Gigi Hess
Cindy  Toone
Daniel Kottke
Daniel Mollner
Gayla
Michael  Santa Cruz
Carrie Toder

The Aries will be shared their talents in many ways…

DJ Feral  (ww.djferal.com) with be spun delicious hip shakin’  grooves for two  rocking sets.
Daniel Mollner will be rocked the dance floor with  some of his fav’s.
Gigi Hess and Daniel Kottke  mellowed us with  some classic grooves  on the piano.
Hostess extroidinare Angela  Blessing blissed us with her medicine  songs.
Chillout Grooves and  special LED decor by Scotty Eerkes.
and Tunnel of LOVE at midnight!
Cosmic Digital Media Green Screen Portal was provided by Sun and Al.

Decor by Joegh Bullock of Anon Salon  and Sea of Dreams.

A FIRE & WATER alter created by  Shimmering Wolf.

Here’s a series of TwitVids from the Event.

Fire & Water The Party begins.

Fire & Water the party continues with Suns’s cousin Joe.

Tour of the Dance Floor

The Cuspies get the Cake!

For the last six months I have been having the time of my life working with Zumba.

Renee Rappaport Menard is our fabulous teacher.

I made this little video as a motivational tool to get my mother to do Zumba.  Avi is a my inspiration.  He’s 78 years old man who is shaking bootie with all of us.  He says his arthritis is better than ever.

photo credit: avlxyz

Stop struggling!  I say this to you only because I am saying it to myself.  I feel that I have made the shift from trying to control and letting go.

Last night, my 18 year old wanted to go to a college party on a school night and final night.

Naturally I said “No”.  He pleaded, begged and did a great job of arguing until my husband caved.  The deal was struck.  He could go but if he wasn’t ready to go to school in the morning on his own — grounded for a month.  The stakes were set high!

Guess what happened.  He got up, showered and ready to go before me.

About a month ago, a very smart and great counselor suggested I read a little book, published in 84 for Teenagers, Stop Struggling with Your Teen by Evonne Weinhaus and Karen Friedman.

The following is a few highlights from the book.  Basically, you and I want to remember, the goal is cooperation not coercion.

A good place to start is to discuss with your teen the consequences for their behavior before the problem occurs.  For example, if you teen begins to drive, let him know what will happen if he should ever drive under the influence of alcohol.

When dealing with problems involving drugs/alcohol use, consult a professional.

When problems involve the law, insurance, drugs, etc. you need to know the facts in order to protect yourself and to relate consequence to your teen.

Make sure you are willing to follow through with whatever “consequences” you decide to implement. Failure to do so will minimize the significance of the problem.

Big advice for the Santa Cruz culture: Don’t try to deal with the problem while your child is under the influence of any drug.

Action Step: Identify the parent’s part of the problem. Create a paragraph that you can use to turn responsibility over to your teen and address the parent’s part using some of the helpful skills and a statement of action.

Try to begin with negotiation whenever appropriate. Encourage your teens to come up with ideas about how a problem could be worked out as well as the consequences will be if they don’t fulfill their part of the agreement.  The more input your teen has in setting up reasonable rules and consequences, the more chance you have that it will work.  This works great with young children as well.  It’s amazing how my kids always come up with harsher and more imaginative consequences than I would.

Follow the four steps in order:

Step 1-Negotiating

Step 2-Insist with persistence

Step 3-Take action

Step 4-Partial strike

Parents often become discouraged and angry and want to start with the partial strike to shape up their teen you should resist this. Your goal is to work toward cooperation – not coercion.

Letting Go statement:

You are going to have to be the one that takes care of yourself.  I can’t do that for you. I wish I could convince you how dangerous drinking can be for you, but I can’t force you to stay away from alcohol.

Your feelings and thoughts:

I feel scared knowing you attend parties where alcohol is served, and I worry about your safety on the road.

Offer help:

I am willing to pick you up or pay for a cab if you’re in a position where there are no safe rides.

Address parent’s part:

These are the house rules, I expect you to walk in from parties sober. I expect you to be driving home with someone who is sober.

Action Step: Identify the parent’s part of the problem. Create a paragraph that you can use to turn responsibility over to your teen and address the parent’s part using some of the helpful skills and a statement of action.

Guidelines:

Letting Go statement:

I’m exhausted playing detective trying to convince you to stop smoking pot.

Address parent’s part:

I’m taking you in right now to talk to a counselor who can help us determine what level of treatment is necessary.

Your feelings and thoughts:

I’m doing this because I love you

My friend, Maksut Maksutovic-Maksa is a musical genius, retired professor of Music, from the University of Nis, and teacher of music and many trubaci bands. I met him a few years back in Serbia when I was visiting Danijela Vesalinovic’s family in Arilija. Danijela is a sublime trumpet player and leader of the Danijelin Orkestar. Maksa is their teacher.

Recently, the Russian Prime Minister Dimitrij Medvedev came to Belgrade on October 19, 2009.  On this same day 65 years ago, at the end of World War II, the Russians liberated Belgrade from the Nazis.  It was a great reason to put on show. Maksa got 100 trumpeters, and 40 drummers and other various brass musicians to fill out the orchestra, together and during a week’s time he was able to get all the musicians to play together, beautifully. B92 produced the concert that took place in the main Belgrade square “Trg Republica” also called the Konj or Horse referring to the statue of Knez Mihajlo riding a horse.

Maksa specifically chose 50 “white” Serbians and 50 Romi Serbians.  Half were from Uzica a nearby town known for its penchant of turning out amazing Trubaci bands and the other half were from Southern Serbia.  He wanted to showcase the fact that music transcends racial identities.  We are working on telling his story of the bringing these two peoples, two cultures together to this extraordinary event.  As Maksa puts it, see how hard it is to try to get three people to clap together and then think about  40 drummers and 100 trumpeters playing together.  It boggles the mind.

One person, lucky to be at the concert, described the sound rolling like thunder.

Below are the Youtube videos of this “never been done before” new world record.

COCEK ZA 100 trubaca

PETRIJIN VENAC

SVILEN KONAC

Kaljinka

Rjabinuška

KOLO RUMENKA I GOCINO KOLO

Volga Volga

Kada padne prvi sneg Da zna zora

Za Beograd

Click here to see David talking about his new business venture.

He liked it!

I’ve been very busy getting our paperwork together. Something I found:

Every day I remind myself the my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other (wo)men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
Albert Einstein

Dear Friends,

I’ve migrated all the KZSC radio shows, Artists on Art,   blogs have been moved to Artists on Art, or www.artistsonart.net.  Please go there to hear, in entirety, all my past radio shows and blogs about the great guests I’ve been honored to interview.  It’s going up on a year.

This blog is an extension of my website miljkovic.org that concerns my art.  Here is where ideas that are working their way around my head are finding a way out.

The blog is called Nada’s Musings because that is my name.  I go through thinking about my name in waves, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.  Anything can trigger it, ussually someone asking or hoping I’m not from a spanish speaking culture. (a side, I wonder how you say nothing in Portugese)

A the top of this blog is the symbol characters for my name in Chinese.  My name means “hope” and nothing and whole lot of other things like she swims, el nada, morning dew, the sound of eternity, pajama rope that ties at your waist.

Click here to view the talk that was the first in the Next Space Nuts and Bolts of Business Brown Bag Lunch Series.