When our daughter, Gréta, called and asked, “are you interested in doing a Forest Bathing?” we said, oh yeah! We knew enough about Forest Bathing, sometimes called forest therapy, to want to experience it. After all, time in nature is preventive health care. Without it we experience more joint pains and body aches and lower […]
Edith Andersen
Welcome to my blog of ruminations and essays.
Choosing natural birth always seemed like a good idea in the planning stages and a terrible decision when in the throes of labor. As the last munchkin pushed her way into the world, I folded and pleaded for pharmaceutical assistance. “Edith,” the nurse said, “it’s too late for that now.” Boy, I hated her.
She was tall and terrifying. She wore tunics of many colors, with her mass of red hair reaching her hips. Her blood curling screams and the spear in her hand instilled terror in all who faced her.
I abhor bad news about my health. We all do. Now I started worrying, which for sure is not good for my health. I kept the news to myself and Tim. Days later, I made an appointment with a …
Julia, granddaughter of Julius Caesar, and the infamous Herodias are two women from the chronicles of first-century European history. At the same time on the other side of the world (Asia) womankind enjoyed freedom forbidden women in later centuries, and some still frown upon to this day. Reading of women’s lives in growing empires around the world familiar patterns repeat. Men go to war, establish empires, then plot and plan on how to control women’s sexuality.
After growing up in a country where hard work, toughness, and independence ranked one, two, and three on the staircase of values, and the concept of self-esteem was years in the future, immigrating and raising children in the United States was a cultural shock. In my mini cosmos, it seemed that American parents treated children as porcelain dolls. I started out as a not-fitting-the-mold kind of a parent.
When you read history, especially when you do it because you want to, you see how it repeats and repeats. What we call chaos in D.C. is patterns repeated throughout history. Politicians’ understanding of history isn’t their strong suit. The animosity between political groups is human behavior we can’t decipher because we don’t know history well enough. We throw up our hands, announcing that everything is going to hell in a handbasket. Sounds a bit like my morning shoulder exercise routine.
