Poetry - Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

A Message from the Heart of an Elderly Person to your Heart!

Monday, April 19th, 2021

We found this in the office of an excellent geriatric physician – Dr. Hollis Day. It is quite an office with rooms in which beautiful dolls from many countries can be found. What a walk down memory lane scooping up the humanity on which we seldom stop to reflect.

“When I spill some food on my nice clean dress or maybe forget to tie my shoes, please be patient and perhaps reminisce about the many hours I spent with you when I taught you how to eat with care, plus tying your laces and your numbers too; dressing yourself and combing your hair.

Those were precious hours spent with you, so when I forget what I was about to say, just give me a minute or maybe two. It probably wasn’t important anyway and I would much rather listen just to you.

If I tell the story one more time and you know the ending through and through, please remember your first nursery rhyme when I reheard it a hundred times with you.

When my legs are tired and its hard to stand or walk the steady pace that I would like to do, please take me carefully by my hands and guide me now as I so often did for you.”

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and you can add to the above. It was embroidered and set into a frame so it was someone’s carefully thought out feelings. If you do add to this, please send your additions to us so we can add to this also!!!

WHO AM I?

Tuesday, July 31st, 2018

I suffered a loss, that could have destroyed everything I’ve built over some 30 years.

In very bad shape emotionally,
I came to your back door
and asked for your help.

You were busy and would not let me in.
You kept me standing outside your back door while we talked
I heard people inside so I knew you were busy

All that I had was on the line
if I could not solve the problem I came to you with
all would be lost for me

I would not have come
if I saw some other alternative

You went inside and came back giving me $40. and asked if that would help.
I thanked you, but did not take the money
it was not money I needed
it was help solving the problem

You said you had company and were busy
I asked who
You said your father and his family

So I went away.

My thoughts went way back
to when my daughter was just 4 years old
Her father and I separated
and eventually divorced

One day,
in desperation
shortly after the separation
I went to him
because we were homeless
and on the street

He was busy with his new ‘friend’
they didn’t have time to deal with us
he told me this was just like me
pretending to have a problem
and he sent us away.

Help came to us then
in the form of someone who always loved unconditionally
And gave unstintingly
out of the little she had
and she had very little

so we survived

and even thrived.

WHO AM I?

I am your mother!

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ED NOTE: A new feature appearing irregularly in Bettina Network’s Blog
Membeers of Bettina Network Lifestyle Community are invited to submit articles for WHO AM I?
As usual, with or without your name appearing – let us know. If you say nothing we will assume you don’t mind your name appearing.
This could be submitted as poetry, prose, a short story, whatever form you choose.
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

A BNLMember Responds to Poetry

Monday, July 9th, 2018

I loved the poem about trees. I would love to respond with my own poetry, but until that day this is what I found which i find beautiful and an addendum to Lynn O. Cohen’s poem –

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.”
– William Blake, 1799, The Letters

“I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.”
– Henry David Thoreau, 1817 – 1862

“Around a flowering tree, one finds many insects.”
– Proverb from Guinea

“Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?”
– Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

“God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, “Ah!” “
– Joseph Campbell

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

Come to me..see me..hear me..touch me!

Saturday, July 7th, 2018

Leaves moving this way and that
sounds just like big ocean waves.
i am elsewhere.
Ah! the leaves giving me
a kiss on my cheeks
cooling me
even moving my short hair

i have arrived at the ‘mentor tree’
bottom looks like gargoyles,
witches faces
But look up! many big branches
tall and strong!
parts chopped off
but see how it still grew from there

Welcome to me
i am life!
i get wrinkles
and i move on
i’ll give you shelter anytime you want.
see that ant crawling on me?
for you it would be bothersome
doesnt bother me
i let it crawl
i welcome it.

i have persisted
nor’easters, wrinkles, ugliness, parts missing.
But i keep going and growing
Learn from me.

Lynn O Cohen
A Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member
6/12/18

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

Alan Powers – A Book Review

Wednesday, January 18th, 2017

A member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community, Alan Powers is Author, Astrophysicist, Professor and World Traveller.

His book that most intrigued me was  “Giordano Bruno” – the Man Galileo Plagiarized.  Just the sub-title was enough to get me to read the book.

Alan’s wife Susan, usually is the illustrator of his covers and inside art.  Together they produce very sensitive books which usually have a bit of a bite.

If you put his name in the search box you will find a video presentation of Alan giving a lecture on Giordano Bruno.  Bruno’sname is not as well known as Galileo, but being the one Galileo plagiarized, we think it is worth reading about and listening to.

Alan Power’s Biography “The only thing Alan W Powers shares with Dr. Seuss is their place of birth, Springfield MA. Powers has worked as a harmless drudge, a college teacher of composition and Shakespeare, in Minnesota and Massachusetts. He has written a guest Safire “Head over Googles,” and appeared in two poetry films, Keats and his Nightingale and A Loaded Gun. He has been interviewed on Italian TV and radio, and American radio. As a jazz trombonist on the bench, he wrote jazz tunes based on British and American birdsong, the subject of his first popular book. With the ears of a spy, he has written verse monologs based on scandalous overheard conversations. Despite several articles on Shakespeare (and law), his lifework turns out to be translations and a biography of Giordano Bruno, who was sent to the Inquisition by one bad student evaluation. A sceptic on education reform, he says, “Good teachers get fired; great teachers, killed–Socrates, Christ, Giordano Bruno.” “

Alan’s latest book is “Parodies Lost”.

In an email, Alan sent us a bit of information about this new book which we share with you:

“Susan Mohl Powers (google her art on wikipedia) has provided arresting covers and interior art for my new book, Parodies Lost, filled with parodies of famous poets like Ashbery, Angelou, Dickinson, R Wilbur, Dylan Thomas (and the other Dylan-Zimmerman), Robert Herrick and more. The story follows my brilliant Amherst College friend Tom Weiskel, Harold Bloom’s favorite student at Yale, and a Yale Asst Prof at 25, d. at 29. Back-cover blurbs from Ron Wallace (Poetry Editor at U WI), Margie Ferguson (UC-Davis, former head of MLA), and William Pritchard (Amherst College). Brief excerpts:

“He knew–from a picture of Rod McKuen–
of all his race, the poet makes
 the saddest face. And next to a hound,
 the saddest sound.”

Wordsworth, a reflective poet pup:
“Of many words I have no need
Like all those human lies—
Say, where they’ve been. With one stiff sniff
I know, the noser knows.”

After Dylan Thomas:
“Love burst firth, froth on the sea
Foams on the rolling, beating surf.
Life burst first from the edge of the sea,
Leapt spume over land,
Arched sparkling, fell seed into soil…”

Country Western:
“I’m only a Laborer
In the Factory of Love;
I been workin’ ev’ry night
And now the job is done.
My wife she made a baby,
But I have been the one
Workin’ in the Factoree of Luv.”

“Better a beetle in a pile of dung
Than anything in a Rapper’s song.”

https://www.amazon.com/Parodies-Lost-Alan-Powers/dp/1786975122/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

After presenting at Harvard Astrophysics in October, 2013, I spoke at U Notre Dame, London, and my second book on Giordano Bruno, his hilarious play Candelaio, was performed at the Bridewell Theatre, London (4 April 14). That book is now in a dozen world libraries, including the Royal Danish Library. My Worlds of Giordano Bruno is in three dozen, in eight countries.
My Ph.D. thesis, This Critical Age (on 17C English criticism in verse form), written under Bellow’s friend Leonard Unger, is now in two German libraries, recently added at Freien Universitadt Berlin, 35 years after its publication. Also, I currently edit the Shakespeare Series for Peter Lang Press.

To buy this book what follows is the information you will need –

Paperback: 106 pages
Publisher: FeedARead.com (November 12, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1786975122
ISBN-13: 978-1786975126

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

Transforming Africa! A Poem by Esi Elliot

Tuesday, July 7th, 2015
Copyright by Bettina Network, inc. for Esi Elliot

Africa, once again is transforming into a king

Linking,

Bridging and reaching to unite as one motherland!

Embracing and lacing through cleave of nations,

Moving from collision to coalition.

Golden chains of economic cooperation that adorn the neck –

Thinking –

A crown of dazzling precious stones

Adorn the head and stirs the blood in the brain.

Creative thoughts are ablaze like crackling fireworks,

Shooting upwards with strategic zest and zeal

Signaling kingly feats.

Drinking,

Gulping down sweet wines of knowledge and education

Refreshing liquids of intellectual realization

Greatly priced and intricately styled

Prints of human capital

Rich gold bouquets of culture and empowerment

Quilts of liberalization and freedom

Milking

The belly of resources split open

To spill out the innates of prosperity

Gold, silver, diamonds, wood, ivory and precious stones

Carved intricately into vanity cases full of perks that surround the cities

Blinking

Away the tear drops that blind the vision

Eagle eyesights watchful over courts and parliaments

Eyes like colored glass-beads feast on order

A resplendent image of a million twinkling stars

Organized, prioritized, synchronized

Sinking

Dredging the stinking oasis of corrupt practices and wrong values

Siphoning the huge infected cloistered water bodies

Destroying the sandbars of barren deserts of extortions

Creating a timeless and enduring allure of a welcoming land

Winking

We did it!  Great dynasty of lucrative offers, studied elegance, colorful mosaic

Of festivals, fairs and feasts

Joyous pageantry of celebration, exuberance and fanfare

King again, oh Africa!

King again, oh Africa!

By: Esi Elliot

Dr. Elliot is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Suffolk University

 She researches  and teaches Global Marketing, Innovation, Consumer Behavior

with Degrees from:  University of Illinois (PhD)

                                     Schiller International University in the UK (MBA)

                                     University of Ghana (BS)

A distinguished scholar who uses metaphors as motivation

and a member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community!

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Shake the Dust……Anis Mojdani…

Thursday, April 9th, 2015

One thing we discovered on Easter Sunday was the poetry of Anis Mojdani.  Jonathan Fields introduced us to “Shake the Dust”. When he started the recording he had on his telephone of “Shake the Dust” everyone was talking about other things and as Anis Mojdani started his poem the table became very quiet.

We wanted to share it with you.  “Shake the Dust” is the last poem he delivers in this TEDxAtlanta talk.  Listen to the end and you won’t be sorry.  Listening to Anis Mojdani’s poetry is a great use of time.

 

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Folk Dancing and Poetry in New England!

Saturday, December 27th, 2014

589Marcie Van Cleave, the Executive Director of Folk Arts Center of New England, composes a poem which she includes with each newsletter the Folk Arts Center puts out.  Each newsletter has a new poem written by Marcie. They have intrigued us for a very long time and we thought we would share one with you.

If you are a part of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community your password gives you access to Bettina’s Menu of Events.  We encourage you to use it and there you will find events sponsored by the Folk Arts Center.  They are many and varied and when visiting the New England area to take an afternoon or evening for folk dancing is great.  Sometimes you can find them folk dancing in Copley Square, Boston and in other places around the city, as well as the usual indoor spaces they use for their folk dancing….Marcie’s poem follows:

“Thank goodness for volunteers is all I have to say

For without them FAC would not be here today.
Our programs are rich and varied, and wonderfully done
Our folk family is extended and second to none!

The recent cultural exchange with the Romanian youth
Happened after a year of hard work – and that’s the truth.
Arline and Dorina led the efforts with enthusiasm galore
We have new friends in these kids whom we all now adore.

Julia (Vail) makes sure the Saturday parties are staffed
With lots of talent and volunteers, both fore and aft.
From the musicians and programmers to the door sitters
Not a detail’s left to chance to give the office the jitters.

What would Friday nights be without smiling Lumona
Greeting all at the door with her calm and friendly persona?
What would Thursdays be without its cadre of contributors
Who teach and run music and take care of other particulars?

Our Pinewoods Camp sessions run on countless hours of work
Our scores of volunteers never blanch, nor from their jobs shirk.
Our June session is being spearheaded by Sue (Flint) with alacrity
Our 40th year will be filled both with fun and to capacity!

Then there’s the Program Committee and its bevy of beauties
Who meet every month and attend to myriad duties.
Eric and Walter (the handsome component) are joined by Wanda,
Cory, Diana, Arline, and Julia – all of whom we are fond a’!

I could go on but space is now at a premium
Plus I don’t want to delve into the region of tedium.
So for all of you who have helped in any way, shape, or form
Toward you all the cockles of FAC’s heart are indeed warm!”

–Marcie Van Cleave

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

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The Listening Ear

Monday, October 20th, 2014

Give me the listening ear.  I seek this day the ear that will not shrink from the word that corrects and admonishes  –  the word that holds up before me the image of myself that causes me to pause and reconsider -the word that challenges me to deeper consecration and higher resolve – the word that lays bare needs that make my own days uneasy, that seizes upon every good decent impulse of my nature, channeling it into paths of healing in the lives of others.

Give me the listening ear.  I seek this day the disciplined mind, the disciplined heart, the disciplined life that makes my ear the focus of attention through which I may become mindful of expressions of life foreign to my own.

I seek the stimulation that lifts me out of old ruts and established habits which keep me conscious of my self, my needs, my personal interests.

Give me this day – the eye that is willing to see the meaning of the ordinary, the familiar, the commonplace – the eye that is willing to see my own faults for what they are – – the eye that is willing to see the likable qualities in those I may not like   – the mistake in what I thought was correct – the strength in what I had labeled as weakness

Give me the eye that is willing to see that Thou has not left Thyself without a witness in every living thing.

Thus to walk with reverence and sensitiveness through all the days of my life.

Give me the listening ear

The eye that is willing to see.”

Howard Thurman

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

A Beautiful Meditation and Song

Thursday, March 13th, 2014

For a rare treat, click on the following YouTube recording.

http://I Then Shall Live)

Sometimes you hear a beautiful song with words which bring your life to a standstill and it fills you with beauty, strengthens your faith, and makes your day richer. This hymn created that for several of us.  We shared it back and forth and then decided to share it with you.

Sit in a quiet space and listen carefully the first time you hear it.  It is a prayer, meditation and the photography is breathtaking in how it matches the words.

As you listen to this you will find the events and actions and thoughts you engage in over the day change.

This Hymn with words by Gloria Gaither and music by Sibelius (Finlandia) is that rare musical match which takes place between people separated by a generation living very different lives, but coming together to create a soul stirring event.

If you would like to buy the video you can do so by going to the website www.gaither.com

May it reach into your soul and affect the way you live the rest of your life.

Once the video finishes you will have to click your ‘back’ button to come back to Bettina Network’s Blog.  We would like to do better, but technologically we are not there yet.

To get the full effect of the video, when the youtube comes up, at the bottom right of the picture you will find symbols.  Click on the one which looks like a square with spaces on the sides enclosed at the corners.  It gives you a full screen of the video and it is awesome.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

A Tribute to The Rev. Patricia Riley Colenback (1931-2013)

Sunday, February 24th, 2013

taken from “Alla Bozarth-Campbell’s – From Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey, Paulist Press 1978

Bakerwoman God

 
Bakerwoman God,
I am your living Bread.
Strong, brown, Bakerwoman God.
I am your low, soft, and being-shaped loaf.
 
I am your rising bread,
well-kneaded by some divine
and knotty pair of knuckles,
by your warm earth-hands.
I am bread well-kneaded.
 
Put me in fire, Bakerwoman God,
put me in your own bright fire.
I am warm, warm as you from fire.
I am white and gold, soft and hard,
brown and round.
I am so warm from fire.
 
Break me, Bakerwoman God!
I am broken under your caring Word.
Drop me in your special juice in pieces.
Drop me in your blood.
Drunken me in the great red flood.
Self-giving chalice swallow me.
My skin shines in the divine wine.
My face is cup-covered and I drown.
 
I fall up
in a red pool
in a gold world
where your warm
sunskin hand
is there to catch and hold me.
Bakerwoman God,
remake me.
 

And how many times, Pat,  did you say these words over others…………………..

                              “Give rest, O Christ, to your servant Pat with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.”

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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A Poem from A Bettina Guest

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013

“I have really enjoyed, learned from and look forward to reading Bettina Network’s Blog.  My contribution to the blog – as a member of the Bettina Network Community (that’s a great idea and I love it – am I going to get a membership card?) – is the following poem.  I keep it all over my house – on the refrigerator, in the bedroom, in my pocketbook, because I need this kind of reminder and inspiration a lot.  I do often take my environment with all of its goodies for granted.  Hope it helps someone else.”

                     A Thanksgiving Prayer – by Samuel F. Pugh

 Oh, God, when I have food, help me to remember the hungry
 When I have work, help me to remember the jobless.
 When I have a warm home, help me to remember the homeless.
 When I am without pain, help me to remember those who suffer.
 And remembering, help me to destroy my complacency and bestir my compassion.
 Make me concerned enough to help, by word and deed, those who cry out for what we take for granted.

I found this in a pamphlet put out by the Salesian Missions in New Rochelle, New York

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Poetry – Valerie Gillies

Tuesday, October 16th, 2012

copyright 2012 Marceline Donaldson

We experienced a wonderful, brief, impromptu concert of troubador harp music by daughter accompanying her mother’s poetry recitation.  It was a magical time.  We thought we would share with you a small glimpse of Valerie Gillies’ poetry.  She has several books of poetry, if you are interested and would like to read and know more about her work.  “Her poems are rooted in an elemental world, and take from nature a lightness as well as a terrestrial substance. At the technical level her experiments with the musical dimension of poetry increase its diversity and resonance: she sees message and form as indivisible.”

They were in Cambridge for a Celtic Conference which brings in the most interesting, talented and gracious people.  We look forward to their arrival every year.

copyright 2012 Valerie Gillies

FRUID WATER

Tune:  “Logan Water”

“Fruid Water, furthest of all from the sea,

yours is the voice that means far more to me

than the salty wave flowing up the beach

of a great stretch of ocean I may never reach.

Little I care for foaming breakfers on the shore

or the surface calm that moves so much slower

if I hear your notes that are sweeter than the surf

of all the different waters of the earth.

 

I don’t need to see the whale or sea-wrack,

the flight of the gannet, the diving of the shag,

I long to watch your trout or your owl flying low,

on your banks I hear the sudden hooves of the roe.

Each of us finds that you can quench our thirst,

stream and surrounding terrain belong together from the first.

In the face of the light you become, through your quality,

like an eye reflecting us in transparency.

 

Huge masses of water roll in the oceans,

deep currents circulate, of gigantic proportions,

but where you flow freely and trickle over stones

you play with waves in rhythm, vibrate and sing along.

Out of vapour you have come back to liquid,

you return in your course every time to Fruid.

Evaporting, loop with air currents and precipitate:

between earth and heaven you mediate.

 

Your moving form issuing from the hills

twists in strands of water changed like turning veils;

they make a rope that spirals down the glen,

new water falling through it to refresh men.

I can tell by the current as it swirls along

where it comes from, what rocks cause its tensions,

and I praise your wave shape through which the water flows,

for they remain the same, and rarely go.

 

From “The Chanter’s Tune” a book of poetry by Valerie Gillies                                                                                                                                                        Published by Canongate Publishing Limited Edinburgh Scotland

Republished here with permission of the author/poet

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.


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