amen, and amen.

Just take a look at this brilliant creation and ingenuity. It's called the Neo Nurture Incubator.



Every year, 4 million babies worldwide never live to their 1-month birthday. Healthcare specialists believe that 1.8 million babies could be saved if they could be kept sufficiently warm. Kangaroo care would alleviate this mother-to-child problem, but the problem exists that more than half a million mothers die from child-rearing complications and many more unable to provide consistent care. Regular incubators roll in an average pricetag of $30,000. Utilizing a surplus resource, old car parts, reliable incubators can be made cheap and designed geniuosly. Get this: Headlights provide heat; a dashboard fan circulates air; a door-chime and signal light system is recreated into an alarm system that alerts users when troubleshooting or haywire details get awry. Funny, as we're going goo goo for gadgets all over the place, we may have a repurposed purpose for remembering that we're here to stay for a while,.

i love that word: design. It's different than create. Sometimes creating things becomes this inert doing, unexpected, something where you supply the resources, and your inner parts craft their doings. "To design" sounds like this lifetime of intentional creations that make a daring journey out of uncertain parts. It's an elongated source of making it up, improvising, and being willing to follow the path that leads... moment by moment. Well i'm gonna take this moment and go work on my bird feeders-- made out of sticks and old tea cups... well sorta. Today, bird feeders. Who knows? Tomorrow, a flying saucer powered by solar energy that detects other earths in other universes. Life is exciting in this way. Gracias my BFF, UNCERTAINTY.

To smell or not to smell.

Being back with the old homies for a little bit this past weekend gave me warm fuzzy feelings and reminded me of the fun eclectic grooves of our college-age generation. One hilarious friend said that if we didn't all become alcoholics or universalists after we graduated we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves. I laughed-- especially seeing it befitting as we sat around and drank and laughed how life is straight up damn crazy out there in them real life woods.

Here are some findings:

1. Coffee. Beer. Coffee AND beer in a coffee shop. This is pivotal. We got the whole coffee shop persona, atmosphere that we're all like....Yeahhhh...I sit and drink coffee, write and draw. Get the creative urges flowin', converse a bit, really check out who's all at the coffee shop, give em a little Whats up nod, and ride the wave from there. Yeah, yeah, Find the wave and ride it. I nodded at the folks there, why not? If the coffee gets you too bubblin, then you got a beer that chills ya out. Genius or what?

2. Look cool, but not too cool. Edgy always, never predictable. "Try hard to not try." Love it.

3. Still true at any age... Boys are always boys. Girls are always girls. We all grow. just differently. THANK GOD.

Allison and I were on the way home and and we stopped by a gas station to grab an ice cold milk to accompany our journey. I was actually behind a fella our age in the line who was edgy, pulling the whole suave, cool thing going on. He smelled different, so i sided to the right and sort of leaned to his right shoulder to try and get a better whiff. Oddly enough, he sensed my presence, turned around in a bit of angst as if I was trying to stab him. He gave "the look". Psshhh, i thought. Why would you wear a fragrance if your didn't want people to smell it? Why would I wear a blue shirt and not want people to see that my shirt is blue? My sense of smell is extraordinary anyways. Am I suppose to consider myself a creeper from that? Nope. He wore the scent for people to smell him, so when he was aware that people were smelling him, he was offended. Maybe he has other issues but this is what this translates to me: He puts the fragrance on to make him smell good, but doesn't really think he smells good or else he wouldn't mind people smelling him. Burnnnnnn. Oh, the lessons of life.

What to do when you don't know what to do.

I just turned 24—another year and I can’t help but wonder, really? With everything going on in the world, with nature and it catastrophes, political regimes shifting and plummeting, it's easy to get fuzzy-eyed and confused. So every year at my birthday I try to make a concrete list of dreams, ambitions, goals for that year of life. 24 this year to attempt, to put out there on the line. This helps me see where the heck I’m at and intentionally reminds myself that my moments make up my days and my days make up my life. And life, I hear it’s a pretty stella thang these days…. So other than providing a KILLER list this year—I hope to make a true dedication nevertheless. And they're not really profound, life-altering attempts. They're simple, small (often sometimes stupid) small things. But if small things don't matter, what's all the fuss about atoms and quantum physics jargon? I mean isn't it through these microscopic small particles that flaunt the idea of parallel universes existing through them?

I just finished up a truly mesmerizing piece of narrative art, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Roy intertwines that if the human heart’s nature is extreme brutality, then it is also of extreme love. It is a story told in the simple, every day thoughts of children and their observation of adults’ conflicted emotional and tyrannizing lives. She is inspiring in her words, actions, HER LIFE. She puts words to what speaks my heart’s desire for this year, maybe all years—in what shines beauty and truth into every single day:

“To love. To be loved. To never forget my own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around me. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget."

You know love must be love when it comes trickling in the rains, daintily soft, but always, always flooding the river.

The world needs to know the truth. If you are a nurse, WANT to be a nurse or all the like, brace yourself. Your wits, your sanity, it's all out there-- pending, swinging out on a limb awaiting for it to be snatched by some swooping eagle that then soars to the end of the Earth to give it to some dainty kid on the beach. Not so cool.

So if I was a recruiter for nursing, this would be my honest draw-in: "What do you want in life? Do you want a rewarding and satisfying job to make all the difference in a person's life? Do you want to care for people in a way that's life-changing, life-giving? Well, what the HELL are you thinking getting yourself into nursing? GIRL, please." I would then show them the poster in the break room of the patient and nurse holding hands with the slogan--"Nursing: Where hearts and hands meet." I would next hold up a poster that is a TRUE depiction of real life nursing: A nurse held up against a wall with a fork in hand about to attack while the patient just sits on his/her bed smashing the call light over and over and over again. The slogan would read: "Nursing: Where saving lives really becomes questionable."

The irony of IV pumps exists in that when they beep, or malfunction, they do so in an attempt to make a hell of a choir out of their sounds. They must pre-arrange who is alto, soprano, etc. I find it even more lovely when I am in the room with a patient, fixing the pump and he decides to ring the call light again to let then know it's still beeping. I want to prize him with a badge of honor, thank him, I will now willingly admit myself to the Psych ward. These sort of days are when mimosas are the sweetest things on Earth.

I mean is it too much to say I imagine myself out in the meadow with 50 IV pumps, all of them singing, DINGING the hell along, and I hear the cued rap music, "Let's GO (let's Go)....If you wanna you can get it, let me know (let me know). I'm about to break this thing up. LET'S GO..." Next I pretend to be in that scene of Office Space with Michael and Peter where they beat the fax machine with the baseball bat.... playing Fight Club until the little piss pumps can pump and ding forever no more.

So how's that a depiction of real-life nursing? The irony is ever-so incredibly tormenting in that, i still want to do this. You realize that you have to give them yourself along with the lack of patience and the anger. You learn to shake your head, scream in the break room as you fling yourself from wall to wall and somehow, love them like your own family. (And anyone could be your family here in West Virginia). Because really, they are my family. I'm just like them, they're just like me, and here we are, truckin' our own little puny selves mightily along.

Conscience was once the chamber of justice.

This is what my own two eyes bellied themselves into this morning: "His demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity," said Obama. "Tonight we can say to all those who lost loved ones to al-Qaeda terror, 'Justice has been done.'" Bush called the operation a "momentous achievement" that "marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001."

My own contorted gut trembled, twisted and terrifyingly, after attempting to process the words of the forerunners of our political system.

I must question the validity of a just system that promotes murdering of murderers, despoiling the innocent by taking loot as we then parade in our prowess around in our own means of power-- regulating lands, continuing to keep the Southern Hemisphere in debt and impoverished to pay for our Northern ways of life expenditures. Half of our every tax dollar in the past 10 years has been secured to militarism defense-- all the while people have no access to equitable health care and our schools crumble in education.

We only killed 5 million people in the last 10 years, but we got the one! Yep, justice has been done. Why, America, why? You are stealing from our hungry children, wasting the ideas created from education and inevitably vanishing hope for future generations. You are staining the very sense of any sort of humanity.

We are destroying ourselves as a mean to protect ourselves.

The exploitation, the in cognizant ignorance. I am afraid your unjustifiable means of justice are rotting my soul. And I will be dead soon, rotted, and all those who feed on the ideas that at the core, life is sacred.

We must reclaim our lives America. No one is going to do this thing for us.

Ventilation, baby.

MMMM...world. Air. Spring. Sun. THEY'RE BACK. I don't think they ever went away, I just had vacated to another universe in my mind for awhile--and that universe was not all that great--- almost felt like the whole Being John Malvovich thing for awhile, but then again not really. Anyways-- I'm here and now that I'm back on the farm, EVERYBODY'S back. The rain, the birds, the geraniums are erupting, and I am at the edge of my seat waiting for the Japanese eggplant and the Kohl robi to shoot their bodies upright and glisten mightily. They are teaching me so much skill in how to posture oneself towards the sun, how to grow courageously, rooted, and to be confident. Sometimes I even imagine that all of them-- even the cosmos flowers, the broccoli florets and even Maze and Blaze the goats-- that the plants would uproot themselves and dance over to me with the goats and bunnies and chickens-- we'd all dance to Donovan Frankenreiter's "Free" and then roll down the mountain together. Welcome to Betty's imaginative world of life.

Speaking of Betty, I have had major bladder issues since referring to myself as Betty here in Appalachia. Is it a mind trick, body? I mean just because I name you BETTY doesn't mean you get to act like a old timey fart. Please, God, I don't want to wear Depends at the age of 23.

Spring also blows in a different sort of aroma in the whole hospital environment. I have had a couple of patients anticipating death pass away these first few weeks of spring, and it's such a different sort of graceful peace that tunes the room. I remember one sweet older woman who had passed through a grueling grips to breathe with continuous retractions and gasping with a 40% Venti mask on. From course chest expansions to a slow, teetering sort of calmness, her life seemed to have dissipated from within her own skin. Her body lied in an aching stillness as blazing sun rays peaked themselves through the windows, kindling light towards her form. It was re-illuminating each of her features-- as if the sun was tracing her being once again to her frame. The wind howled against the walls-- blown to shatter. The family, friends stared, hoping to see. And they must have looked for what might have been forever. Looking, looking. But we all knew. We just knew we didn't know. It's one of those seeing moments when they found jewels in the mud, stars in the sun, and sweetness in the salt water. The woman reminded me of my own grandma--- as she waded out her days in my room back in Georgia. Her personality dripping from her own sweat, speaking more than words. She was done chasing anything down, and the life force was freeing up inside her. The link between living and being dead thinner, and thinner until in her face and body and mere movement, you recognize finely the beauty of having come through.

Most of my good friends here are dead authors, just waiting for me, and actually all of us, to take their words to rewrite something out for a new generation. But one of my most special friends my grandma had told me about--- she used to speak at the university in Atlanta on her thoughts of life and how to live. Here is one of my most prized poems, as I remember it recently with these patients in these early days of spring. It's called "When Death Comes."

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Moment of Confession: I am a Junkie.

"Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure." -Rumi

Alright, I have officially come out. I'm an addict of the junkyard. I love old people, and I love trash. Not trash that is actually garbage trash, but rather old junk that just needs a little creative kick for it's sparkle and glitter and glam to shine back. This includes furniture and old sticks, trees branches, preserved dried flowers. I don't know how but these treasures somehow find me. I put myself out there, and WHAM-- they hit me. If you are a lover of the rustic/natural/vintage/thrift store/flea marketing, I encourage you to take a gander and totally steal these ideas. Reuse what's already been beautifully created. Restoration is a most glorious sight to behold. Beware though, finding treasures means you are always up for a wild adventure when it seizes you.

Here are some ideas:




These two are pictures of a found ladder made bookshelf, old sticks in the woods, and a futon and dried eucalyptus given to me by my farm friends. Seriously cheap, seriously fun.

Next:






On the left is a an old rusted stool turned nightstand. On the right are old crates found outside the bakery/antique store. Great storage. Working on sewing fabric to cover clothes soon enough.





Mmm...if you are a lover of flowers like me, let your souls soar for a taste of these. Drying flowers is super easy. Watch this video to see how ridiculously simple the process actually is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxVvjgI2YWw





And the mirror: $4 at Goodwill.













Other ideas....







Here is a window with no wind found next to a random shut-down building. How to find a beautiful cottage quilt? The Geris seriously have quilts coming out their ears-- I have never seen so many in my life. The collage on the right is an easy way to hang those posters without the frame. I just put fabric behind the poster, added some random weeds and then an old wooden frame on the other side with dried lavender on a slice of wood. Dried lavender is like light to a room. It brings the aesthetic as well as the fragrance. Sheer delight.

And last but not least....my treasure of all treasures:



Something I have never understood in my life is how we have to have a pretty white porcelain tank take up so much room for our human bodily waste to tunnel itself through. It's strange for my brain to probe. So, because flushing every time you void wastes 2.2 gallons of water when already 1/3 of the world doesn't have access to clean water, it doesn't quite make sense why we kind of make this thing of a weird sort of porcelain golden calf thing. So, in response, I have laid out old Spanish moss around and on top of it to try and recreate it's natural "appeal." It's no whole in the dirt-- but trust me, you will piss in pure peace of mind. :D

"Buy, buy, says the sign in the shop window; Why, why, says the junk in the yard."
---Paul McCartney

Press on in the world of junk dear friends! And may your imagination and creativity soar as you give and care for others amidst the process.