Who Is Lobsang Dolma?

This precious little girl with the cute ears and sweet smile is Lobsang Dolma. She came into our lives by way of a Tibetan store opening in downtown Corvallis. This is how it happened:

I recently read the book Kundun, the biography of the Dalai Lama and his four brothers and two sisters, all of whom have been engaged in the movement for Tibetan independence since the Chinese occupation of Tibet began in 1959. The hope I saw for the Tibetans—a people whose culture is on the verge of extinction--is in the children, living in exile but being raised in the traditional Tibetan way. How, I wondered, could I support that in happening?

Then, quite miraculously, the Corvallis Gazette-Times ran a story ("Tibetan Store Opens for the Holidays") about a store in downtown Corvallis whose purpose is to raise money for a non-profit called Tibetan Living Communities (TLC). Among other things, TLC funds projects at the Manjushree Vidyapith Orphanage in Northeast India.

TLC is one of those wonderful examples of what a small group of dedicated and passionate people can do. Nancy Fireman of Napa, CA, is the founder along with two Tibetan monks. Her sister, Sylvia Fireman of Sweet Home, and Sylvia’s daughters Shauna Gray and Lisa Rennie of Eugene volunteered their time to staff the store for the month it was open. They had a beautiful inventory of handmade paper and journals, jewelry and scarves, prayer flags, CD's of Tibetan chants and music.

On one wall of the store they had photos of and information about children at the orphanage who needed sponsors to pay for their food, clothing, and schooling. The first time I looked at the photos there was a sweet little 7-year-old boy who caught my eye, but then I spotted Lobsang Dolma, and BAM!, I fell in love. Five of us in the family decided to go in together on the sponsorship, which makes it quite affordable, $72 a year from each of us. I love the personal connection, i.e. I'm emailing with the founder of TLC and she answers all my questions plus more. We are encouraged to write to the child we sponsor and send photos of our family, and twice a year we'll get their report cards and responses from them, translated into English by Lama Thupten, the founder and director of the orphanage.

The more I learn about the orphanage the more hope I have for the cultural and spiritual survival of the Tibetan people, through the support and education of the younger generation. And seeing what the Fireman family has created gives me hope for us humans!

In the foreground of the photo above is the orphanage's classroom building and in the background is the dormitory (ground floor is girls' and top floor is boys'). On the roof of the dormitory are solar panels, installation funded by TLC. Before the solar hot water system was installed, none of the children had ever had the luxury of a hot shower!



Lama Thupten Phuntsok, after receiving a Ph.D. in Buddhist Philosophy from Gyumed Monastic University, taught at an Indian government school before founding the orphanage in 1998.




Here's a view of the girls' dormitory. I love looking at it and thinking about Lobsang Dolma living there. All the children who live there are Tibetan Buddhists. They are provided a modern education, but paramount importance is given to the growth of compassion and a kind heart.




Presently there are 108 orphans, including 10 physically disabled children, taught by a staff of eight. Part of the orphanage's mission is to provide for children with disabilities who would otherwise not receive an education in their remote region of India. Lama Thupten hopes to expand the facilities and staff over the next few years so as to accommodate at least 200 children. If you are interested, they have two wonderful websites with sooooo many photos: TibetanLivingCommunities.org and ManjushreeOrphanage.org.

As my sister and I were talking this morning about Lobsang Dolma, I realized that adding her to our lives has already brought us joy. There was already so much for us to be grateful for, and now there's more.

Happy holidays, and a poem below, titled Pray For Peace, by Ellen Bass, is my holiday gift to you. Thanks for reading this, and for being part of our lives,

Valori

Pray for Peace

Pray to whomever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah. Raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekhina, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.

Then pray to the bus driver who takes you to work.
On the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus,
for everyone riding buses all over the world.
Drop some silver and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latte and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

To Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, pray.
Bow down to terriers and shepherds and Siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.

Making love, of course, is already prayer.
Skin, and open mouths worshipping that skin,
the fragile cases we are poured into.

If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.

When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheelchair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:
less harm, less harm, less harm.

And as you work, typing with a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard
with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas--

With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your VISA card. Scoop your holy water
from the gutter. Gnaw your crust.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.

http://www.ellenbass.com/pray_for_peace.php

If ya gotta turn 50, this is the way to do it

Here's my whole family (minus Courtney, home guarding the cat or vice versa, and my dad who died in 2003). Starting from the left: nephew Justin, me, nephew Lucas, Maya, Ben, Eder, Aaron, nephew Matt, mom Jeannine, sister Kissy and her husband Paul. Kissy had her birthday party at this beautiful old mansion that is now the African American Museum of Art and Culture. The photo below was taken of us forming a receiving line, about to start greeting the party guests as they arrived. As we all know how hard it is to get families together these days, spread as we are across the country, you can imagine how precious this picture is to me.




Here's the funny I mentioned earlier. Kissy meets herself in duplicate.




You can see by her expression and body language how much she loved this little joke. (That's her on the far right in the elegant black dancing dress.)




And below is the Life of Kissy collage. It was such a gift of love and so much fun to make. Took forever, plus lots of help from Courtney, because I scanned in a bunch of old family photos, plus ones from Kissy's blog, and then dug through all my old photo albums. I highly recommend that everyone scan their old family photos into their computer, before the pictures have faded and disintegrated. Great way to preserve them, and impetus to start using them.




Kissy gave a beautiful speech at her party, paying tribute to all her family members and many of her dear friends. I followed her speech with a toast--"To Kissy...." and read the story below that came from her blog. I said, to me this screamed Kissy/Stephanie/Doojie (people know her by different names). She doesn't just enjoy the Cheesecake of Life, she IS our little cheesecake.




Looking back over it, I have to say that my sis put on a great birthday celebration. She insisted that we all be there--no flimsy excuses allowed--and so brought our family together for a very precious time. Plus she got all her friends together, in a beautiful setting, and gave them lots to eat and drink. She and Paul had made a fabulous CD of music from the span of her life--music that really meant something to her and brought back memories--and it was great for dancing. All her hard work and planning payed off. We all had lots of fun and it was so wonderful to celebrate and honor her. Thank you, Kissy!

That's it for all the travel to Maryland stories. (I should have told the one about my sis almost getting arrested at the airport by Officer Doody Head, as she called him. Or the one about Eder and Lucas walking from their hotel room two miles to a Safeway for diapers and being turned away at the door because it was 10pm and they were closing.) But suffice to say, our travels were not without adventures.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you enjoyed it anywhere near as much as I enjoyed sharing it,

Valori

Hooray! Maryland photos arrive!

Just as I had given up, I looked on my sister's blog (www.doojies.blogspot.com) and, lo and behold, there's photos from our trip. Here's Maya, cooking up a storm, for my birthday dinner at Kissy's. Two good friends of my sister's have the same birthday as mine, so Kissy and Paul threw a dinner party for 20. It was a mixture of their friends and our family.



Standing at the left is my nephew Justin and to the right is Eder. To the left of me is Anne Marie, mother of the other birthday girl, Glennis. On the other side is my mom Jeannine.




I won't even re-hash how sick and grumpy Ben was the entire trip. Below you can see how cute he is even when he feels like poo-poo.




When Kissy took us to the inner harbor in Baltimore, we started along the walkway next to the water and right off we saw this comedian/magician about to begin his act. He literally was grabbing people as they walked by and dragging them over to watch his show. I think he liked us because we sat down voluntarily. Anyway, we asked him to come over and take our picture and this is what we got instead. A steady stream of abuse from him. Lucky he was cute, and oh so funny. We all laughed so hard through his whole show--it totally made the trip a success.




As I mentioned before, Kissy's best buddy Janine (who, by the way, has the same birthday as Kissy's!) had loaned her SUV so that we could all get around together. The night before we left was the night of Kissy's birthday bash and we had put two great big stereo speakers in the back of the SUV. Then after the party it was raining so hard that we decided to unload them later. But then the next morning my sis had to take her son Lucas to the airport and, running a little late, taking the speakers out got postponed again. Then as Kissy was careening towards home to load all of us up for the next trip to the airport, one of the speakers crashed into the back side window. In case you are lucky enough not to know, tempered glass shatters into a million pieces. Two million, if it's a big window like this was.

Soooooooo....Kissy and I took about three deep breaths, and then went to work making a cardboard cover for the inside of the window and another for the outside. As we duct-taped, we reminded each other that this is not a brain tumor. It will get fixed. It's just money, etc. Below is a testimony to our combined artistic talent.




Then, lickity split, we were off to the airport and on our way home. Slowly, though, because airplanes don't fly on time anymore. Or at least not when you're traveling with a sick baby. But I vowed not to mention that anymore, so...

Stay tuned. There's more coming,

Valori

John and Yoko, amaryliss bulb & hunkering down

Last Wednesday, the 5th, was Maya's birthday. Happy birthday, Maya, big number 26! I could reminisce about how many hours I was in labor, etc, but after 26 years I guess it's time to let that go. She's totally worth the many hours of excruciatingly painful labor.

Poor girl, though, it was a less-than-glamorous celebration that night. She got stuck in an important meeting at work ("How important?" we asked) just when we were supposed to meet for dinner at her favorite Thai restaurant. When she finally got there, it was raining so hard she couldn't see that she was stepping out of her car right into a huge puddle, so that one shoe, sock and lower pant leg were soaked. Then, welcome to dinner with a tired and cranky baby boy named Ben, who was not particularly interested in sitting sweetly in a highchair. Basically my mom, Courtney, Eder, Maya and I shoveled down our pad thai and hit the road, before Ben totally melted down.

But luckily there's a happy ending to the story. Saturday evening we all met at Maya and Eder's for birthday cake and ice cream. Then Aaron, Courtney, Mom and I took Benny off to look at Christmas lights and stay the night at our house, while Maya and Eder went out with their friends to party. The End.

December 8th was Courtney's brother Steve's birthday. Happy birthday, Steve! (Steve has a little bitty grandbaby living with him, so his birthday may have been hijacked by a baby too.) But it was also the 28th anniversary of John Lennon's death. Only this year did I learn that the FBI had hounded John Lennon towards the end his life, threatening him with deportation, because of his anti-war activism.

Being exactly the right age to be a Beatlemaniac, my girlfriends and I each had a Beatle that was our favorite, and mine was John. I was always crazy about him. But in December of 1980 I was on a slightly different planet (Skykomish, WA) and had limited contact with the outside world and so John's death didn't have the impact on me it might have at another time. Now it seems like an incredible loss.




Speaking of remembrances, my sis sent this beautiful amaryliss to Courtney after his dad died. It is making quite the show in our kitchen these days.




It is the season when, of course, Courtney becomes quite animal-like: busy beaver, squirreling away wood--you get the picture. Anyway, it is a wondrous thing. Courtney keeps the hearth fire burning, bakes the squashes he grew in our garden, hangs the laundry on the clothesline by the wood stove to keep humidity in the house. It all makes our little scene really work well for us.




As soon as we moved to Corvallis we joined the Hour Exchange, the local currency system, which also turns out to be a community. Through the Hour Exchange Courtney met someone who cuts wood, and so....TAAA DAAA! A beautiful cord of maple delivered to our doorstep, and artfully stacked by Courtney.




The plants have all come indoors for the winter now. So much so that we had to give away our sofa to make room for the giant jade trees we brought from California. Anyway, we had bought a two-person bean bag chair (called a love sack) at a garage sale and didn't really have room for it and a sofa. So now we have the papasan on one side of the wood stove and the love sack on the other. Suffice to say that it is deadly if you sit in that bean bag when you are tired--there is no getting up. From the bean bag I can watch Courtney cooking dinner (God bless him!) and the geese flying overhead (as seen from our skylight in the kitchen or through the sliding glass door) and the fire roaring in the stove. And I'm really in heaven when you add my laptop to that picture. What a life.




No, this is not the cover of a famous cookbook. This is Courtney holding a bowl of his fabulous chicken soup, made with squash and parsley from the garden. I couldn't resist a shot of these vivid colors and great presentation. You too could enjoy such delicacies if you come to visit.

Happy winter, and I hope all who are reading this are enjoying good health and great happiness,

Valori

Part II of Travel Story--Tribute to Kissy

Alas! No more travel photos have come my way--none of Kissy's birthday bash or of her fabulous home. So I've decided to improvise. One of my birthday gifts to Kissy was a big black tri-fold poster-board collage of her life. I started out on the top left with her baby photos and moved across her life to the bottom right corner of these modern times. Below is one of our annual Easter photos. Good thing we have this documentation because, otherwise, who would have believed how our mother dressed us (and then had the nerve to take us out in public, and to church, no less). Not much else to do in San Angelo, Texas, in the 50's. Dear goodness.




Kissy's husband Paul had heard of a very cute idea and decided to do it for Kissy's birthday party, which was to make about 30 copies of the photo below (Kissy as a junior in high school) and and had them mounted on paint stir-sticks. While I spirited Kissy out of the room, Paul passed them out to everyone and, when she came back, they were all holding her face in front of theirs. It's hard to explain how fun that was--I wish we had the photos of everyone standing there with Kissy's face on their body. You'll have to take my word for it that it was very funny. Try it sometime.




Below is Kissy on some beach around PG or Carmel, with her son Lucas, who will be turning 24 on Dec 14th. What a beautiful pair.




Since mine and Kissy's birthdays are only three days apart we have had many joint birthday parties as adults. Well, I don't know if adults is the right word, but below is a photo of us cutting our cake together at a party in Carmel Valley and that's her son Justin between us. He's now 21 years old.




And here's the sisters with our mom and dad at Maya and Eder's wedding reception in May of 2003. That's Eder in the background all the way on the left.




So that's a little touch of what was on the collage board. I think there were about 70 photos all together. They certainly didn't tell the whole story of Kissy's life (that would have taken several more tri-folds) but there were some fun shots on there and lots of good memories. And the more I look back on it, the happier I am that all of us were able to share in the memory of her 50th birthday and that we made the cross-country journey.

At times, though, I was suffering from a critical mind and my own harsh judgments of how Americans live. It all seemed much more evident on the fast-paced, high-priced, crowded East Coast. (My sis would agree-she's wanting to move to Nebraska, to a slower and saner tempo.)

Luckily I had taken a wonderful book with me, titled The Best of Buddhist Writings 2004. So I was able to maintain some level of Buddhist perspective of impermanence. We're all here for such a brief moment called life. Everything is in a constant state of change and decay and rebirth. You can't really attach to any of it. That helped my critical mind relax and enjoy.

But it did give me time to think about values while out there in "America" and away from the safety of Corvallis, OR. I was danged happy to get back to our little home and go back to the sanity of my simple, sweet job. As Maya and I were entering the Portland Airport (after the trip from hell, trying to get home and being thwarted at every turn), we saw Powell's Books. And in front of the store was an impressive recycling set-up, which included a food composting bin. We looked at each other and said "Ahhhhh! Back on Planet Oregon!"

And, almost as a welcome home gift to me, right after I returned, Courtney and I canceled our garbage service. It turns out that between recycling and composting, we don't make enough trash to warrant a weekly pick-up (or even bi-weekly). Somehow that gave me so much joy. Lightening our footsteps here, bit by bit. Really without planning or intending to do so, when we moved to Oregon, we started to eat what's in season. Shopping at the Co-op and at the Farmers Market supports that and makes it easy. We share our one little gas-efficient Hondita and try to be thrifty with our driving. We've got a ways to go to zero-emission, but we're heading in the right direction.

Thanks as always for reading this, and stay tuned because I have more coming down the pipeline soon,

Valori