Soul of New Orleans video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFv__vCOJio&NR=1



Forever New Orleans photo courtesy of Jacquelne Staten







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFv__vCOJio&NR=1

Lune dans le ciel nocturne~ Moon in the Night Sky

I shot this New Year's Day in the evening



And Saturday 1-2-10 in the early morning. Fascinating seening the sun & moon at the same time...

While I Am Sitting, I Am Doing Me...

Recently, I spoke to a young man who I had not seen since he was 10. When I ask him what he was doing now at the ripe age of 21, his response was " I am just doing me"...

He did not realize that he had given me my motto for 2010 except the "just" word.

"Just" like the word "but", "only", "try" "sort of", etc are words that tend to minimize, water down or diminish the sayer's intent or purpose. Unless that is indeed what one purport, I will not conscously choose to use them and work on the unconscious usage.

In fact, I want to do me awesomely as in what Dr. Maya Angleau is known for & I was privilege the 1st time I talked to her and minimized my work impatient for the payoff, she said to me "Keep on doing what you are doing & do it so well that people cannot take their eyes off of you. And the tangible results will follow".

I appreciate her for that. And she was right.

I forgot that in the year that has faded away, but this year I will keep it at heart.

2010, which is the last year of the 1st decade of the 21st year will have several milestones for me: I will enter my 60th year or 6th decade and officially become an elder.

I will have my 1st solo exhibition in 3 years opening this spring.

I will have my 10th granddaughter makng her entrance about the same time.

I will finally have fixable health challenges fixed.

I will have one of my dreams deferred come to fruition in the creation of my Burnt Toast,Sweet Tea & Thyme salons making its debut by spring. Burnt Toast wll be monthly discussion groups for women in my home featuring poets,storytellers, music, healthy consicious speakers (and yes food) & lively topics for doing one awesomely.

And create a tour business supplemental to the salons called "Wandering Moon Tours" for visitors to enjoy a less touristy more personalize flavor of a real New Orleans. I will have included in the package, places for healthy eating without losing the mark of New Orleans cusine & personalize tours of artists studios, entertainment on a budget, cooking classes.

Since I am already outgoing, talkative & personable, Wanderng Moons will aid me to provide for my 1st love of the arts,architecture& my livelihood. The langiappe is I get my healthy walking in too!

And my 3rd component will be my "Moon Gardens" a jazz flavor community garden mixing music, art and healthy gardening with meals from the garden @ the Burnt Toast salons. Also, a portion of the produce will be contributed to Second Harvest who funds many food banks in New Orleans that are struggling since the govenor cut their budget from 5 million to 500,000 for the whole state!

People should never go hungry.

It may seem like a lot but all components actally interplay with each other easely. And I get to pick & chose how much or how little I can do.

Now to dream bigger...

I also want to travel back to the West Indies, Nevis & St Kitts to be exact and walk in the rainforest again. And I want to see Alaska & Nova Scotia. How I will pull it off remains to be seen, considering it has been a rough passage for me this last year,but it is affordable to dream. But shucks, I plan to go to Paris, Moracco & South Africa in 2011 to boot, so I have to get to selling art! My grandfather's roots are in Orleans, France, so it will wonderful to see his homeland.

Jewel Diamond Taylor speaks about in creating a vision plan it must be:
1.Predetermined..2. Clear...3.Progressive... 4.Believable...5.Write it down

So here it is...

Now I am off to shot the moon.

With a camera. :=)

S'more

Moving on Up(town)

What a way to kick off the new year but to move into my more permanent dwelling. I am delighted it will be in my old neighborhood. Ironically I am just 2 blocks away from the pink apartment building & the park that was featured in Brad Pitts' love tribute to New Orleans "The Curious Life & Times of Benjamin Button" in 2008. In fact, much of this eclectic neighborhood is in the movie.

It is a walking neighborhood & if you like architecture you will be in a smorgasbord of a neighborhood even Katrina could not completely bring it to its knees,(but came close).

My place turn 100 this year, but has a 2010 face lift where it counts. But I love the cypress floors,French doors, 2 non working fireplaces that has the original ceramic tiles eye lining the hearths.

And a humongous kitchen by creolized New Orleans standards. And because of modern reconstruction, lots of closets.

So now I will itch for spring so I can put in a floral, vegetable,herb garden in (again for New Orleans), a large back yard. I will also be implementing some of my garden art for an additional lagniappe since I will be starting my Burnt Toast salons, too, in the spring.

More on that later...

Oh am I, despite a less then ideal start when took a leap of face taking a home that did not measure up to safety & health basics, am I delghted to have brought it back home!

Now to get to work...

Don't Be Afraid to Fail...

Stop worrying about what you don't have & start finding real joy in what you do have. Stop agonizing over what might happen & start moving toward the best of what can happen. The limitless abundance of the universe is yours right now to experience. Any shortcomings you come across are mostly a product of the perspective...Expand your perspective & the shortcomings will disappear...Stop being afrad to fail~ George Fraser

www.frasernet.com

Changed Waters Project: on Post Katrina New Orleans performed@ Berea College 2008

If you were to leave me
By Jacquelyn Hughes Mooney


You remind me of a sunrise," I said on the day my eyes fell on your face.
And your name becomes my mouth,
Feeling like chilled mimosa on parched lips
While Katrina winds carried on all around me.
That I be in the right place, you to me & I to you & you to thee…
I am as here as I could be gift wrapped by your words…
Like beignets & café au lait & the moonlight at 2 am.
Or champangne & grite if you please..
And a dressing gown of your voice and draped in melodic sounds of you despite it all.
If you were to go away right now it would be like the air stopped at half past not anything
If you were to leave me now I would be like Shakespeare’s
To be or not to be that is the question whirling in a drunken hurricane drink on Bourbon Street
If your were to leave me now all I would have is
A melody of silenced stringed notes…,
A cosmic symphony of no mores
That would have an audience of one
When the levees broke
Though you may never know of how I deeply you are in the marrow of my soul…
I give your promise to me
And I to you that I would never forget you nor will I allow anyone else to
Though your name may appear to some
To be quieted by time it seems
New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, Port Arthur, Lower Nine, Iowas, Illinois,Wisconsin and all the others
When the levees broke…
This is what I remembered of home today
Adaptation of original poem “If you were to leave me” for Katrina ProjectJHM 6-18-08©