I recently found this journal page about my dear beloved & departed friend Bill Kreidler when we were roommates at a large Quaker conference. His death with AIDS in 2000 brought me the largest grief I have known. This journal was the beginning of loving him against the rush of time and illness, and feeling […]
Marshall and I have just had a week vacation at home, a decision of budget and simplicity. There was much need of rest, deep rest, spontaneous rest, and some fun- but no planning or effort or schedule. His work this spring reached 70 & 80 hours a week with counseling graduate students applying to his college, teaching […]
It took a month to get the annual Beethoven Letter out- much longer than usual. Partly because my office systems were not kept up over the last few years with all my QUIT work, so address updates delayed me. Also I’ve 3 different computer programs for Email, paper mail addresses, and bookkeeping so it’s hard to find […]
Getting my annual letter out was very difficult. Sabbatical since Thanksgiving spoiled me- staying away from my desk, not even thinking about my trauma or torture work. I’ve been very successful. But now face the office mess- 10,000 emails from the last 30 months have to be culled for new addresses- yes, 10,000. 80 pages of street address labels […]
There is a gearshift in this sabbatical that I am learning, though very slowly. It’s the question of reverence for the self rather than for service. I learned over many years to kick into a spiritual gear of attention for guidance and cleansing whenever work came to me either in teaching or touching. This became a second skin […]
Dear Friends, Sabbatical is very wonderful and different. Each month I find a lower gear in resting from overwork. It began with a trip west to see Marshall’s family in Southern California- some time in the desert, some time at the coast, and the start of abandoning my desks, computers, emails, and phones. My sabbatical […]
I don’t know why I have a small excitement for shopping at thrifts stores. Maybe it’s the long shot of finding that lovely old thing that has somehow survived until now and isn’t too broken or worn for me to enjoy at some ridiculous price. As this sabbatical began I found a small stuffed Bugs Bunny positioned […]
I’ve begun to paint the interior of our house. In so many ways this is a 3 dimensional metaphor of the sabbatical itself. When I think of how wonderful it will be as it’s accomplished, I’m delighted. But when I think of moving, cleaning, repairing, organizing, sorting, learning how to fix, etc- it’s almost too much to begin. Organizing […]
So, what would be a good beginning to a sabbatical, a sabbatical for rest and to change highly productive and very unhealthy habits of over-work? Travel. So, best to marry someone from a warmer place and go home for the holidays and someone in the midst of his second masters (tuition-free) who has to bunch his vacation […]
SABBATICAL CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF TRAUMA WORK