Columbia

Unintended Changes

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Yesterday afternoon, I was taking a little break and decided to flip through various WordPress themes and accidentally saved a new format. I suppose that’s as good a way as any to force me to adapt and update and change. I’ll take it. It means that the page might be in flux for a little while as I keep tweaking themes and ideas. I’ll try to settle it over the weekend sometime when I have a little more opportunity to focus on it.

Last evening, I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Leroy Hopkins talk about the Columbia area’s history of resistance to slavery, specifically through the Underground Railroad. Most of the abolitionists who were actively shuttling people north through the area on the Underground Railroad were black, he said. Dr. Hopkins is a rare genius, with a wealth of information and connections to draw from. I really struggle with going out into the dark and the cold in this season of the year, and it was a real challenge for me to actually go, but I am glad I did.

Gratitude List:
1. Historians
2. People who fight for the safety and wellbeing and rights of others
3. The story Dr. Hopkins told last night of a group of 100 African American women from Columbia who marched to the Hotel Bletz in Mountville to rescue a group of enslaved people. This has captured my imagination. There really should be a ballad.
4. Opening: hearts, windows, minds, doors, possibilities
5. Cardigans and kindness

May we walk in Beauty!

Let Me Learn

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

DSCN8834

May I learn to walk today
the way that butterfly walks
down sunbeams and breezes
in a purposeful meander
from shimmer to glory to shine:
desire to desire

to speak in the manner of fox
who listens all day from her home
in a hole beneath bramble
quiet and quivering,
and speaks only in the dark
a fierce and joyful bark
that tingles the spine
and calls out the wildness

to dream the dreams
of the ones who will become,
there in the round stones
of shell, patient, breathing,
until the moment is ripe
for breaking open the houses
that have held them protected.

Gratitude List:
1. Hearing the fox scream from the bosque in the midnight.  Terrifying and thrilling.
2. The Underground Railroad history of Columbia.  We went to see a train layout at the Columbia Historical Preservation Society yesterday and got into conversation with a man who is an expert on Columbia’s role in helping people escape from slavery.
3. These halcyon days of Winter Break that are almost at an end.  It has been time out of time.  Many mornings for snuggling.  Lots of play and chatter.  (In the interests of balanced reporting, it must probably be noted that there has been yelling and grouching and sulking as well).
4. Dream-messages
5. Moving on to new chapters.

May we walk in Beauty!