Karen’s 15 Books that had a great influence on her life.

Karen Sharp was a good friend of mine who passed away and this list she sent me gives me a boost. I have been thinking about her lately and I wanted to share a little bit of her. See, she was a good mentor to me, and I am continually working on my 15.

15 books that influenced my life-Karen Sharp

Sunday, August 9, 2009 at 9:20am

Rules: (Really!) Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you.

1. Louisa May Alcott's books
It was her world more than Father Knows Best that I wanted to inhabit. Massachusetts and Rhode Island family & living some years in New England gave me my best ever memories. There really were attics that took up a whole floor (houses built in 1700s and 1800s) with sea captain's chests of treasures from 18th & 19th century and earlier China. Dress forms from unknown ancestors, trunks and trunks of treasures from baubles, clothing of bygone eras, beads, cast off furniture, bolts of fabric, letters, books (some of the best I've ever read.) My appreciation of history burst into life long bloom with that first attic visit. Yep, I was born in the wrong time. Of course I wouldn't be alive at this age had my life been then....(A friend calls me the Southern Yankee.)
2.Mythology. Great Grandfather in that New England family got me started reading (and reporting on) mythology when I was a very young girl. Read everything in the Providence library had on mythology by time I was in 6th grade. I have no doubt it influenced me in ways I cannot imagine.
3. Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene-
To this day I love female mystery series (me too -I'm quoting Faith)
4. Childhood reading biographies of independent and high minded people who made a difference like Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, Will & Charlie Mayo, St Francis, —continues to this day, although now I read mostly bios and auto bios of writers and artists. Led to going back for another degree in history when I was 50.
5. The Search for Meaning in Life, Victor Frankel- read when I was 22. Have reread several times. His concentration camp experiences—how someone can live through horrors beyond imagination and stay sane and part of the solution.
6. The Paintings of Henry Miller: Paint as you like and die happy, Henry Miller. Title says it all.
7. Learning How to Learn: Psychology & Spirituality in the Sufi Way, Indries Shah. Wonderful teaching stories.
8. The Bible. Wish I had read it cover to cover at a much younger age—it might not have taken me to late middle age to understand a lot more about people. I had the compassion down pat, but cover to cover bible got rid of delusions about always looking for the good in people. Sometimes seeing that above all else is a killer.
9. Brave New World and Animal World...and here we are...
10. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain Learning to laugh at self, with others, absurdity of life in so many layered ways
11. 100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
12. Graham Greens' books – made me think a lot more about relationship to God and nature of my own beliefs than the hundreds of books on spirituality I acquired and read over the decades.
13.Lady, Thomas Tryon. A wonderful writer able to tell a story with moral and human messages without being at all pedantic. Makes you think when you close the book for the last time.
14.Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights by Bronte sisters. Wish I had never read them at a far too young age. I think they inspired a very unhealthy attraction (no longer there thank God) to Byronic emotionally (and otherwise) unavailable dark and brooding men.
15.I go back to books by Isabel Allende over and over. And, especially book and articles written about her and her latest memoir The Sum of Our Days. Her life has been no ordinary: out of the box, out of the cultural expectations/breaking the rules whether by choice or DNA or fate or whatever – and, therefore, she comforts and inspires me.

Carmi-White County high school-1965

University of Michigan-1970

SIU Carbondale 1978

Kent State 1983

UCO 2000

Amena’s Totem

I found this on a How To website, crafts for kids. Quite  interesting.

How to Draw Animals on Totem Poles

Totem poles are intricately decorated spiritual symbols of the northwestern Native American tribes. Drawing a totem pole can seem daunting at first, but if you use a basic frame made of simple geometric shapes, drawing a totem pole can be done with relative ease.

Things You'll Need:

• Paper
• Pencil
• Black ink pen
• Kneaded eraser

Instructions

1. Step 1

Draw a vertical line down the center of the page. Add two curved horizontal lines to the side of the vertical line.

1. Step 2

Draw an oval with a flat top and the start of the vertical line. Draw two parallel lines around the vertical guideline. Add wings with curved lines under the curved horizontal lines.

1. Step 3

Draw the details on the bird section of the totem pole. Add a beak with a rectangle on the top oval. Add the eyebrows with two rectangles on each side of the top of the oval. Add the eyes with two ovals. Create the eye mask on the bird with rectangle that is curved on the bottom edges.

1. Add a curved line inside each wing. Create the legs of the bird with two oblong ovals. Add the feet with three small oblong, thin ovals for the claws.
2. Step 5

Draw the bear section of the totem pole under the bird. Draw the eyes and eye mask as you did before with the bird. Add nostrils with curved teardrop shapes. Draw the lips with two sets of horizontal parallel lines. Add the middle teeth of the bear with four small rectangles in between the teeth.

1. Step 6

Add the fangs with triangles. Add the side teeth with two rectangles on each side of the mouth. Draw the hands with two parallel lines that tilt up diagonally. Add three circular lumps for fingers on the end of the hands.

1. Step 7

Detail the totem poles with decorative designs. Add small ovals with circles inside them to the upper wings. Create the feathers on the bird by drawing vertical lines extending down from the middle curved line in the wings. Draw two crescent shapes on each side of the bird's chest. Add scales to the claws with six curved U-shaped lines on each foot. Add ears to the bear with two diagonal rectangles coming out from the top sides of the bear's head. Add two small circles to each cheek of the bear.

1. Step 8

Ink the entire drawing. Let the ink dry and erase all of the pencil. Darken in the eye on the bird and the bear. Add two horizontal ovals to the belly of the bird. Round off the feathers on the birds wings by making the rectangles come to a point.

7:38 PM

Wolf

Loyalty, family, intelligence, and leadership.

Raven

Magic, creation, knowledge - Raven is the protector of light

Frog

Represents health, wealth, energy, medicine, and cleansing

Deer

Compassion, peace, kindness, and gentleness

Thunderbird

Represents power and mystery; the leader.

Life Lived

Note: I don’t think I like the word use microcosm

A Sort of Microcosm (small scale version) of life lived

Experience – challenging , thrilling , demanding, to put time into it, not give up on you and where you are going with this, the focus, rewarding, finality, accomplishment, answers, exhausting, the discovery

The finished objective is as much a question as an answer

It resists translation or paraphrase(to be a rephrased version)-to refuse to be subsumed by anything not itself:

A refusal to be categorized or classified by anything not of itself.

I really like the definition for it.