dianafilms

Happy Birthday Carl Jung

Where love rules, there is no will to power,
and where power predominates, love is lacking.
The one is the shadow of the other.
Carl Jung, "On the Psychology of the Unconscious", 1917

haiku

Hungry ghost feeding station,
Closed for repairs,
Indefinitely.
Whee!
(c) Francesca Prada 2009

TFTD: Zinger

Even the best projects have difficult people, just make sure you're not one of them. Francesca Prada on set 2008

TFTD

To Be of Use The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy

catharsis, comedy and the importance of laughter

without laughter there's no insight and no growth. I've often thought that comedians at the height of their talents are also healers and philosophers. Actors, artists, writers and performers can also be healers and philosophers and in some cases therapists that heal rooms full of people, even if its just for a few hours. Those two hours can be all a person needs to get perspective and be drawn into a greater awareness of the human condition.

tftd

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
Mark Twain

The Load

The Load
the shaking the sleeping the anger
the fear and tremors
the ancestors that come and go with sentence fragments
the perfume somewhere between witch hazel and morphine

staring down the skullcap until I find her eyes again
until the sinewy body glows with the last flickers of memory
until the hands can no longer hold
until even silence feels cold
and the light in the room seems bluer graying

Fling these arms around the shoulders of death
And dance and dance and dance
go around
hold on
let go
hold on
let go

around the arms of death
the matron
death the maiden
death the crone

staring through the cowl and waste until I find her eyes

I want to remember, I want your life that you should have had, to live
through me, though all of us.
I want to carry you in my body and let you live through me
to let you see more
to let you be in a healing body
to let you live longer
If I could take what life I have remaining
If I could divide that so we breakeven
so that my heart and yours would not break
so that this pain this injustice could be softened somehow
so that you only feel half the pain and let someone else carry the load
for once

(C) Francesca Prada 2006

Time off for Good behaviour

When its spring its hard to resist the call, so hiking and wandering she went to Yosemite. This is the breathless shot by Barbara Farrar.

Franny's Cold Zapping Throat Soothing Recipe

Franny's Cold Zapping Throat Soothing Recipe

Tea;
3 cups water in a saucepan
take 1 whole piece of ginger, wash ginger, slice it up into chunks, put in pot bring to a boil then simmer for 15 minutes.
Add lemon juice from 1 or two lemons,
Add Honey or maple syrup or agave nectar (both have great minerals and are not as bad for you as sugar) to taste
Optional: Add several sticks of licorice root
Optional: add stevia leaves instead of maple syrup, agave or honey
Optional: add cayenne pepper if you want to detox and sweat out your bug.
Drink all day long and just keep adding water and lemon juice and reheating it.

Hope it helps you feel better.

for food keep it really simple, chicken soup, leafy green veggies and fresh fruit like apples and orange slices.

Great Grandma Sarah's thermonuclear chicken soup (slightly updated by Francesca)

Ok, too many sneezes on the other end of the line, so here goes:

Great Grandma Sarah's thermonuclear chicken soup (slightly updated by Francesca):
In a stockpot
Clean water- filtered about 1/2 to 3/4 full keep adding water as needed
chicken stock (organic-free range)
chicken bones & chicken (same)
1 oz vinegar-helps pulls the minerals from the bone
Bring to a boil, cook at med heat until meat has separated from bone.

take out bones and meat and cool the stock skimming off most of the fat once its cool. In the old days, they would keep the chicken fat in a jar and use it to cook with. Now with all the weird stuff going on, its better not to, just toss it. Most toxins get stored in fat.

Now you can add the bones and chicken back, bring the pot to a simmer for 30 to 45 mins or so and add:
7-12 whole cloves of garlic-just score them, no need to slice
hand full of red peppercorns
star anise-gives it a nice bracing cooling undertone
2 bay leaves-take them out after 1.5 hours
2 whole red dried chilies-gives it a kick and helps detox
1 tbsp paprika-earthy feel
Some powdered Sage to taste-goes with chicken but optional
4 chopped and sliced onions-tangy and zaps colds
8 stalks of celery medium sliced-full of minerals
1 fennel thickly sliced-ditto
5 med sized carrots, sliced- beta carotene
1 celery root peeled and cubed-minerals and helps ground the soup
1/2 cup chopped up parsley the dark green chewy kind-loads of vitamin B
Italian parsley to taste as a garnish-loads of vitamin B

Optional:
Other root vegetables-helps ground the soup
Fresh sage leaves-yummy

xo
Nurse Franhead