The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“People where you live,” the little prince said, “grow five thousand roses in one garden… yet they don’t find what they’re looking for…”
“They don’t find it,” I answered.
“And yet what they’re looking for could be found in a single rose, or a little water…”
“Of course,” I answered.
And the little prince added, “But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.”
Find The Little Prince on Goodreads
Crocheted Playground
Toshiko Horiuchi-MacAdam
As an artist I had been exhibiting my work in museums and galleries. At the same time, I was searching: what do I value in life? Who am I? Why do I create these works? Why do I pour so much energy into my work? Throughout this time I created a few works of importance, but at heart I was not fully satisfied. One day I was exhibiting a 3-dimensional open-work textile sculpture I had created in collaboration with a friend. Some children came to the gallery and climbed into it. Suddenly the piece came to life. My eyes were opened. I realized I wanted just such a connection between my work and people alive at this moment in time (not a hundred years from now). I realized I was in fact making works for children.
– Toshiko Horiuchi-MacAdam, Japanese fiber artist, in an interview with ArchDaily
Healing Quote of the Day
- Photo by Darla
No more Hurting People.
Peace.
–Martin Richard, 8 years old
Killed in the Boston Marathon Bombings
I Have Seen the Rain
Pink
We have seen the rain together
We survived the pain forever
Oh it’s good to be home again
It’s good to be with my friends
Oh it’s good to be home again
It’s good to feel the rain
More by Pink
Youtube Post by PinkMusicPage
What Does It Mean To Survive?
Kara Swanson
Photo by Nicki Varkevisser
We hear the word all the time. In this brain injury community, especially, we toss it around and heap it and don it. Survive. Survivors. TBI survivors….
I was wondering how it is that so many of us feel so blessed and gifted of this life after injury while so many feel so cursed and struck down.
Is it simply a matter of severity of injury?
I think part of it, at least, has to do with how we view what it means to survive. What our own definition of it is and how that evolves over time.
Think of your own situation…What words and phrases come to mind when you think about surviving TBI?
I hear from so many survivors and, for many, the term “survived” is personalized, surrounded by and thrust into a tangled mess of phrases that include, “Got stuck with,” “End up dealing with,” “I lost…,” “I can no longer….,” “I don’t have…..,”
Perhaps it is our personalized definition of the word which plants the seeds for our recoveries, successful or not. Perhaps it is how we define what has happened to us that sets the tone for how the rest of our lives will be.
I think two things are important regarding this: One, it’s knowing and searching and being aware of how we have defined our survival. And two, it’s seeking to redefine it and to help sculpt its meaning over time.
A definition, by its very nature, is the answer to the simple question, “What is it?”
I’m sure most of us have a similar definition of brain injury at the beginning. What is it? It is scary. It is painful. It is life-changing. It is horrific. It is unfair. It is all-consuming. It is confusing. It is and it is and it is, a thousand times over.
But what is it now?
What is it six months later? A year later? Five?
How does your definition of surviving change and how have you sought to change it?
I close my eyes and picture the word “survive.” While I can recall the words I first associated with my injury, I no longer feel the emotions attached to those words.
Instead, the words and feelings and phrases which come to me now are:
To emerge.
To shed.
To transform.
To blossom.
To change.
To reach.
To improve.
To prioritize.
To sift.
To reveal.
To love clearly.
For me, to have survived, is to have been given a gift greater than any I could have imagined before I brushed past Death.
I don’t simply wear “Survivor” around my neck like the anchor of some unjust sentence.
I celebrate it. I dance with it. I giggle with it. I drink umbrella drinks with it. I pull it near and hold it close. I dust it and clean it and polish it.
What do you do with your survival?
I’ve had seventeen years to practice and, granted, to survive does not mean to recover from all of our symptoms.
Recover. Heal.
We can enjoy those things, even with symptoms that refuse to leave. Refuse to flee.
Today my legs started doing their silly “I have no bones” thing around 2 o’ clock. I came home and napped. I gave the napping no permission. I did not invite it.
It came and swallowed me up and sat on me.
I napped.
But I don’t require all the symptoms to heal in order to define myself as recovered.
It is the changing definition of survival. Of recovering. Of living.
I have survived many things. I survived a serious carbon monoxide scare as a kid. Sexual abuse. My parents’ many strokes and their deaths. Losing my house and my perfect credit. My catering career.
There was that drunk driver who rear-ended me and that breast mass and that near-miss in the intersection on vacation.
There was that abusive relationship and that statistics class in college and that horrible bout with food poisoning. There was the bad hair of the 80s. Double pneumonia. That adrenal gland tumor and every time Michigan loses to Michigan State or Ohio State or Notre Dame.
I survived them all.
What have you survived? Brain injury. Divorce, perhaps. A medical scare. A lost job. A car accident. An abusive spouse. A felony conviction. A hazing. Bullying. Lonliness. Desperation. Depression. A broken heart.
Life and living is the very definition of surviving. It is what the living do.
We survive.
In the absence of survival comes our death and so, when we survive, it is not the dreaded anchor around our necks. It is not some awful curse and sentence.
It is the opportunity to live. And to live better.
To put a day or seventeen years between us and the things that we survive.
To embrace the emergence of transformed selves.
To come through.
To come out of.
To emerge.
Definitions reflect that particular moment when something is described and characterized.
Definitions are meant to change. Able to change.
For the brain injured, begging to change.
What does it mean to you to have survived?
Kara Swanson is the author of I’ll Carry the Fork!: Recovering a Life After Brain Injury . This post was reprinted with permission from her blog.
The Healing
Jonathan Odell
Plantation mistress Amanda Satterfield’s intense grief over losing her daughter crosses the line into madness when she takes a newborn slave child as her own and names her Granada. Troubled by his wife’s disturbing mental state and concerned about a mysterious plague that is sweeping through the plantation’s slave quarters, Master Satterfield purchases Polly Shine, a slave woman known as a healer who immediately senses a spark of the same gift in Granada. Soon, a domestic battle of wills begins, leading to a tragedy that weaves together three generations of strong Southern women.
Rich in mood and atmosphere, The Healing is a powerful, warmhearted novel about unbreakable bonds and the power of story to heal.
–Amazon Book Description
More about The Healing from Goodreads
Touch and Go
Ray Yoshida
A descendant of Japanese immigrants, Ray Yoshida (1930-2009 ) was born on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. His studies at the University of Hawaii were cut short when he was drafted into the army during the Korean war and stationed in Japan. After he was discharged, he moved to Chicago where he received degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Syracuse University. A few years before he died, he returned to Hawaii. Of his art, Mr. Yoshida said, “Canvases become the visual gathering place of my fragmented self.”
More works by Ray Yoshida
If I Don’t Write
Roya
Photo by Cordelia Persen
I asked my soul last night,
“What happens to you if you don’t write?”
My soul was in deep thought
I said again, “Answer me…
Pardon me!
I asked if you don’t write,
what will happen?”
My soul’s eyes were full of tears.
She sat in front of me and said,
“I can’t imagine what will happen
but I can understand when I don’t write
I am like a dry river.
Fishes say goodbye.
I am like a thirsty tree waiting for water in a desert —
I am like an orphan child searching love of parents —
I am like a broken lover —
I am like a blasted Kabul street full of blood.
“When I can’t write,
It is hard to say —
but it is my only identity.
I can’t stop writing because
when I can’t talk —
when I am very alone, I am not alone.
With my writings I write about
things I can’t talk about.
When I write
I feel fresh
I wear my favorite dress of my desires,
sit under the tree of my thoughts
and I write and write.
“I stop?
Maybe
when I am not able to breathe.
When…”
Roya is an Afghan Poet and Writer.
Reposted from the Afghan Women’s Writing Project (AWWP): Giving voice to Afghan Women because “To Tell One’s Story is a Human Right”
Peace of Mind
Boston
A tribute to the city of Boston: Your first responders, your law enforcement, your people and your spirit.
More music by Boston
Youtube Post by Martin Diaz
Music Artist Dylan Fant
You can surround it with bigger venues, flashier lights, cars, and other wonderful things, but when all is said and done, all that matters is the music and the time you got to spend with your buddies performing it for anyone that cared enough to listen.
A self taught musician, Dylan Fant, can’t remember a time when his life wasn’t about music. He had amassed an impressive cassette (remember those?) and CD collection before he even picked up his first set of drumsticks at age 14. After mastering the drums, he went on to learn guitar, bass, piano, mandolin, banjo and lap steel. He has written and recorded several songs where he plays every instrument and invites guests to sing vocals. This collaboration has allowed him to meet and work with a number of gifted singers. Over ten years ago he formed the band, J Minus, with other talented musicians in the Seattle area. Shortly afterwards, he started his own recording studio, 1 Shot Studio in Woodinville. When he’s not producing songs with J Minus or recording at 1 Shot, Dylan is still hard at work creating music in side projects, such as Trading Voices. Healing Hamlet was able to catch Dylan in a rare free moment to talk about his life in music.
Photo by Jason Hover
Your long list of titles includes musician, songwriter, recording artist and producer. Your band is called J Minus. Who is J Minus? When and how did this band come together?
J Minus is a project that I started back in 02. It was originally just a side project for me, so I could write and produce my own songs while I was drumming for other artists. It became much more after I wrote a particular song called After Midnight. That’s a long story…you can read it in more detail at my blog. Now, it is a group of four members (myself, Trevor Wheetman, Chris Mongillo, and Myer Harrell) that bring it to life…although it seems it’s now ready to return to where it began. One of the members is moving to Nashville and the live side of the project will be put on hold. There are chances that we may meet up for some shows here and there, but for the most part it will be returning to a studio project. I can promise at least 1 more album.
In your band bio, titled “Sideways to the Top”, you describe your band’s work as ”worthwhile in and of itself”, with the mission to “move listeners to laughter and tears with music”. What have you learned over the last ten years about making a difference in the music world, staying true to your muse and how to measure success?
I have definitely learned a lot during my time with music. I guess the main thing that I stress to the artists I work with today is to just be themselves. Don’t worry about what’s going on around you in the industry. Just do you, it’s the only way you’ll ever be happy with your work and feel the wonderful feeling of expressing yourself. Nothing beats it. You’ll never be able to figure out what other people want to hear, so don’t worry about it. Make something that you want to hear and be proud to share it with whoever wants to listen.
Dylan and Trevor Wheetman
Before J Minus there were other bands and musical endeavors. Did you always know you wanted a life in music? What was your journey to get to where you are now? Who provided inspiration along the way?
I was in a couple projects before I created J Minus. They were the reason I created it though. I wanted something of my own that couldn’t be taken away from me if I grew apart from the other musicians involved, like I had in the past. I was sick of starting over.
In 2003, you officially launched your own recording studio, 1 Shot Studio. How do you find running your own business in the music industry?
Running the studio is almost as fun as getting to be the artist yourself. I don’t get to spend very much time on my own songs anymore, but I still get endless enjoyment working with and helping all these new artists get their music going. I guide them the best I can using the knowledge that I’ve gained. I give them all everything I’ve got with hopes that they will follow their dreams and be as happy as I am today.
In 2008 you began Trading Voices, a project featuring different female vocalists and supported by local musicians. Where did the concept for this project originate? Did you write and produce all of the songs? What else can you tell us about Trading Voices and the talent involved?
Trading Voices was started because I had a bunch of songs that I love already written for a female vocalist. In 2006, J Minus actually did have a female vocalist in the band, so I was in that mode. It didn’t work out with her, but I didn’t want to just trash the songs. I held on to them for awhile and eventually just started another project with them. It’s been on hold for awhile because of life and work in the studio, but I’ve been gearing up on bringing it back to life and making it my main focus outside of the studio.
You have produced your own music videos, such as Congratulations You Suck. Claymation and pyrotechnics! Is making music videos as fun as it looks?
Yes, it is as fun as it looks!….at least for me it is. I love things that take a lot of time and patience to figure out. I worked on that video for 4 months without ever having any background in videography. I am very proud of outcome and proudly display the clay figures in the studio.
In what ways has your family been creative and supportive?
My family is extremely creative and artistic. My mom was a professional artist when I was a child and my dad does cabinetry, but he’s always been very inventive with how he does things. They have supported me 100% on my journey and there’s no way I would be where I am today without their never ending support.
Any hobbies or interests outside of music?
I’ve made my living playing, recording, and producing music for the last 11 years. I don’t really have time for other interests and hobbies because the path that I have chosen takes up all my time just to survive and grow the way that I want to.
Trading Voices with Taylour Chanel
What other artists have you worked with and what people/artists have inspired you?
There are many that have come and gone over the years. I feel like a get a lot of inspiration from the artists I’ve worked with, more so than anyone famous. I get to work with people in the studio that are just trying to find themselves, not fit into a mold and sell records…at least most of the time. Artists that are still chasing their dreams.
If you could record with any artists (dead or alive) who would they be?
I just don’t think in those terms for some reason. I really like the natural flow of meeting new people and seeing what happens. If I don’t know someone, I don’t know if I’d care to work with them. It’s all about personality match for me.
Given unlimited resources and musical talent, what would your dream project be?
I’ve really already done it. I would have liked to tour out further with these guys if we had the money and resources to do so, but it just wasn’t in the cards. Ultimately though, I got to watch my own personal music come to life and play it with 3 other guys that I consider some of my closest friends. You can surround it with bigger venues, flashier lights, cars, and other wonderful things, but when all is said and done, all that matters is the music and the time you got to spend with your buddies performing it for anyone that cared enough to listen.
What’s the best way for us to keep up with your next projects?
Facebook is where I actually do updates nowadays.
Keep up with Dylan Fant on Facebook for J Minus and Trading Voices.
Listen to J Minus on their website or Reverbnation.
Listen to Trading Voices on Reverbnation.
Learn more about 1 Shot Studio.
A Sampling of Dylan Fant’s Music: