Happy Holidays, 2002
December 1, 2002
In keeping with the millennium spirit, most of you will be reading this letter in the style of the early 21st Century – that is, off of our web page at http://geocities.datacellar.net/heartland/woods/6504. Here are highlights of our lives since our last letter.
Ember, our Border collie mix from the pound is now 4 ½, and continues to be the love of our lives, and a highlight of every day. Her daily outing often means a delightful walk on the beaches of San Francisco.
Joel bought a video camera to get lots of footage of her running at the beach, running in the woods, running in the snow, leaping fox-like after hidden small beings in the woods and ice plants; unfortunately Ember doesn’t “play” well when you point the camera at her – oh well.
You can see Ember at www.geocities.com/heartland/woods/6504/indexe.htm
On the weaving front, Laine had the privilege and honor to weave “regular” and “high holiday” torah covers for our Kehilla synagogue. She was challenged to create in new ways, and try new fibers and new solutions to a different problem than her usual tallis weaving. Word-of-mouth orders continue to come in for her tallitot, and Laine does all the weaving she wants to do. Check it out at: http://geocities.datacellar.net/heartland/woods/6504/Indextallit.htm
Laine has been expanding her creativity with appliqué quilts,
clay tiles with engraved drawings for a far off kitchen remodeling, some clay
spice boxes shaped as pomegranates, and has done some sketches and water
colors. We forgot our camera for a
to Europe, so Laine got a sketchpad and water colors and did her own drawings of
the trip highlights. It was really
a pleasure to watch these evolve – some were very quick, less than a minute
“gesture drawings” from a train or boat, and others were longer detailed
drawings, and some were watercolors from a hotel room window. They’re on the web under the heading http://geocities.datacellar.net/ Page under
construction!
In addition to keeping up our Pilates fitness work, Laine has led us into the world of Chinese healing medicine. Our acupuncturist organized some classes with a Chinese physician Xi Gong master. Xi (“Chi”) Gong is a way of doing simple exercises that stimulate the same basic energy meridians as in acupuncture. Joel is sure a few minutes a day of Xi Gong can really make a difference in how you feel. Laine also led us to Feldenkrais, which is a very gentle body work focused on muscle awareness through movement. We’ve both benefited from this, and it has been very helpful for Joel in reducing tension and muscle spasms.
Laine was co-chair of Kehilla Synagogue from early 2000 through September of 2001, which kept her quite busy, initiating a strategic planning effort to handle our expansion, while Joel developed a Finance Committee. Laine also started a Members Committee, and then became a core member of the Strategic Planning Committee, which will release its recommendations at the end of this (2003) winter; she’s writing an article on this planning process. We continue to really enjoy this Jewish Renewal spiritual community, and find it very renewing and refreshing.
But the really BIG news for Laine began in mid-2001 when, after doing several years of “spiritual direction” with our founding Rabbi Burt Jacobson, Laine was accepted into the first Jewish program to train spiritual directors. Spiritual direction consists of contemplative listening with an open heart, and the “director” or guiding person is helping another person discover or widen his or her own spiritual pathways. The centerpiece of the program is four separate “intensive” residency weeks over two years at the Elat Chayyim Jewish Renewal Center in the New York Catskill Mountains. More about the first New York trip (pre-9/11) below. Laine now guides two “directees” and is finding her own spiritual horizons opening wider at every turn.
Joel’s work at J.D. Edwards (enterprise and supply chain software) continues to go well, and he is now the global “solution architect”, a key pre-sales resource, participating worldwide in the companies major sales deals. Of course, this means a lot of travel, but his job has always had a lot of travel. Currently, he is sharing his time between high tech electronics opportunities (often around Chicago or Minneapolis) and Life Sciences (often in NY/NJ). However, when he does get to work at home, the workspace is pretty special. See pictures at http://geocities.datacellar.net/heartland/woods/6504/indexj.htm
One side benefit of being away is that we value our time home together more highly, and have really been able to set aside most Saturdays as real “Shabbat” time, not answering the phone, shopping, etc., and spending the time really engaged together. We try to spend time in the garden, and it continues to be a pleasure; the grasses grew taller than ever this season, and the wildflowers were mostly poppies, but lush and thick. See pictures at http://geocities.datacellar.net/heartland/woods/6504/indexj.htm
Back in April 2000, we stayed for a week in April at Lake Tahoe at Laine’s family cabin. There was still plenty of snow in the mountains, and we “discovered” cross-country skiing again. So Joel worked in the early mornings and we got a late afternoon trail ticket and skied for an hour up at 8,500 feet at the end of the day. Ember was allowed to join us on the trails, and she loves running through the snow, smelling things, and generally “herding” us around, so there’s no worry about her getting lost while we ski along the trail.
Shortly afterwards, we went back to Orcas Island in the San Juan’s, off the coast off Seattle, and stayed at the fabulous Spring Bay Inn, a delightful place on waterfront acreage run by two California park rangers. Each day is organized around breakfast in your room, and then a daily guided kayak tour starting at their beach, followed by an extravagant gourmet vegetarian brunch. They have a piano, and one of them sings and plays political satire on the guitar. You can find them at http://www.springbayinn.com/, or as the t-shirt says htub://SpringBayInn.zzz
In late Summer 2000, Joel had a business meeting in Paris, so we first took two weeks of vacation in Europe. Joel’s back had a small spasm the first morning in Paris, and after gamely trying to get out to Rouen, we came back to Paris where Joel slept for several days on a delightful street in the Maraise District, listening to the street sounds and a saxophone player. Meanwhile Laine spread her wings and discovered Paris on foot, visiting the Jewish Museum, the Picasso Museum, Notre Dame, Saint Chapel, and many wonderful shops, bringing back treats and “in-room” food. Laine also did some delightful sketches and water colors of the buildings and rooftops across the narrow street from our hotel window.
Our nephew, Michael, was also in Paris at that time, and we
made several outings together. Then
we took the train to the Loire Valley, and visited the great chateau of
Catherine de Medici at Chenoceou.
The second week, we went by train to the Rhine and Mosel river valleys,
stayed in delightful small hotels, traipsed through several ruined and still
working castles, drank wine of course, and had a terrific time. We ran into an American who was taking
time off, and using the same guidebook; about nine months later Joel found
himself sitting next to him at an industry meeting in California! We passed through the lake town of
Murten, Switzerland on the way back, and Laine’s sketches of the entire trip are
on the web at http://geocities.datacellar.net/ page
under construction.
We were back in Europe six months later when Joel got a sales incentive trip to Monte Carlo, which is mostly a lot of very expensive over-developed high rise condominiums and glitz. The highlight of our visit was when the entire ceiling of a banquet room slide back and opened completely to the sky so we could see fireworks in our honor, exploding against a starry night. We then got a car and took off for Tuscany, passing through Barga in the mountains, Lucca in the valley, Sienna for a night, and on into the countryside. Our driving book of Tuscany suggested staying at a 12th century castle that was now a B&B. Turns out it had just opened for the season, and was down a dirt road outside the small town of San Quierrco de Orca; this “Castello de Orca d’Ripa” overlooked miles of countryside just turning green in the early Springtime, and was about a 1,000 feet above the Orca river valley, to which we hiked for a wine and cheese picnic lying on giant boulders in the middle of the river. We got as far as Umbria and Derutta, where we bought some wonderful painted “majolica” style pottery, and finished up in Venice, with a visit to the glass island of Murano.
In summer of 2001 we were on to New York City, prior to the first Elat Chayyim (http://www.elatchayyim.org/) “intensive” week, visiting Michael again as he was now working in NYC. We walked all over New York, found Joel’s ex-JDE manager Jeanne for a late night Italian pastry and dark coffee feast, and explored lots of lower Manhattan on what was the start of a New York heat wave; we were very lucky because about a month later this became “ground zero” on 9-11. Joel had always complained about the idea of going to Elat Chayyim, on the grounds that summer in NY would be humid and miserable; he kept saying he would have “no expectations”, insisting he had moved away from the East Coast “for a reason.” In fact, NY had one of their best summer’s ever, until he arrived and brought the heat with him! So much for negative karma.
But our time at Elat Chayyim was marvelous, and very spiritual; as Laine’s program got underway she began to know the 29 others in her group, and her three teachers. Joel had a terrific time, taking one course on “joyful chanting” and another on the music and songs of the Breslov Chassidim. The high heat and humidity did not dampen his spirits at all! Joel actually learned how to sing! And then he got to “jam” on the piano with a flute player and two guitar players, being joined at the end by a percussionist who had been a member of the famous Shlomo Carlebach “Holy Beggars” band, and who returned in summer 2002 to be a teacher at Elat Chayyim when we were there again.
Miraculously, we were in San Francisco on 9-11, with Joel home because Laine had a minor diagnostic hospital procedure that morning; otherwise, he probably would have been on the road and stranded somewhere for that awful week. And fortunately, we did not know anyone personally who was directly involved in the 9-11 tragedies.
In Winter 2002 Laine returned to Elat Chayyim, and saw Michael again in NYC. And then we were back at Elat Chayyim in Summer 2002 for another of Laine’s Spiritual Direction residencies; this time Laine stayed on for a second week and took a course, and Joel joined her for that week, taking a course from Rabbi Gershon Winkler (http://www.walkingstick.org/) who is a unique personality, teaching ancient Jewish minority opinions and writing about a new concept called “Flexidoxy.” Back in San Francisco, Laine is expanding her spiritual background with a yearlong course in Traditions in Jewish Healing, taught in part by the same Rabbi Winkler.
We’ve been host to a string of visiting nephews, and perhaps some nieces in the future. Daniel, the second oldest teenage son of Joel’s brother Larry, came out twice while in remission from Hodgkin’s Disease, and helped us “find our way” to Alcatraz over Joel’s objections to tourist sites; however, we all a great time there. His younger brother, Kevin, came out over a Christmas break, and headed up to Tahoe for a couple of days of snowboarding/skiing with Joel; their highlight was walking behind the top of the bowl at Alpine Meadows to get ‘way over to the right’ where they were able to jump in over the edge of the bowl. We also gave Kevin a full Asian eating tour of SF: Chinese, Japanese, Dim Sum, Thai, and Vietnamese. Then Josh, the college age son of Joel’s sister Roberta, came out for Spring skiing; he and Joel got a great private lesson at Alpine Meadows, and spent the next two days in the steep and deeps of Squaw Valley. We’re looking to more visits in the future, and may see Roberta’s high school daughter Megan this summer.
In 2000, our wonderful friend and carpenter John Almond transformed a dirty dingy 6 ½’ at the peak attic space into two very cozy rooms; now we spend time in the “Perch”, a pinewood paneled room, filled with the craftsmanship, love, and attention John brought to this room. This room is for spiritual times, meditation, reading, and writing with a-dip-it-in-the-ink glass pen at an antique writing table. Ember loves sitting in front of the window, surveying the street, searching out cats and other intruders.
In 2002, John also worked with Laine to design, and the build
and painstakingly install new living room windows that kept the tone and faith
of our old house, but are fresh and new, and give us a much better view. Check out the pictures at http://geocities.datacellar.net/lostarts.geo/gardenandhomepixalbum.htm
One of the wonderful teachings from Gershon Winkler is to appreciate and be present with moments and times of uncertainty; he calls this the holy place of uncertainty, pointing out that that when all is certain and known, then there is no room for further Creation. Thus, being in a place of uncertainty is a reminder that you are continuing to carry out the original Act of Creation.
We wish everyone a new year filled with joy and meaning; may you encounter these uncertain and sometimes frightening times with a sense of possibility in every moment.
Joel & Laine Barbanell Schipper,
146 Swiss Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94131 (415) 239-2725
Lost-Arts@SBCglobal.net Joel_Schipper@JDEdwards.com