Breakthrough: Raphaella Swims in the Gulf

I'm 62 yrs old and today was the first time I went swimming in the Ocean. It was actually the Gulf on the West Coast of Florida but, hey, it counts! I'm from Minnesota - Land of 10,000 Lakes. No oceans there. When I ventured out to LA in the eighties, I was excited to go to the Santa Monica Beach. I stood in the water about calf high and suddenly was pulled in by an undertow. Yikes. Scared me silly. I thought it was a riptide until today when my friend, Susanne explained the difference between an undertow and a riptide. But, alas, I never again ventured out past the shoreline.

Years later, here I am living in Venice on the Gulf. I enjoy walking on the beaches so I invited Susanne to Caspersen Beach yesterday. She asked about swimming and when I explained that I "didn't know how to swim in the ocean" she said she'd go with me and show me the ropes. Her friends suggested Manasota Beach because of the lifeguard and flags indicating safety of the water. I did some research online last night and met her at 8:30 this morning. Surprised the lifeguard wasn't on duty at that hour of the day, we were emboldened by a dozen senior citizens hanging out in the water about 30 yards from shore. We put on our goggles (and I my noseplug) and entered the water. It was perfect and warm. As we waded out, we felt it was perfectly fine to swim lengths between the seniors and the shore, within the two buoys that we felt marked the safe swimming area. Off we went - seeing the shells on the ocean floor and the fishes swimming around us, tasting the salty water, hearing the seagulls and people talking, and feeling the silky water on my skin, I felt exhilarated. It wasn't just the sensory thrills, but the joy of doing something I didn't think I could do. So easy it was. So freeing. I'm basking in gratitude tonight.

Costa Rica report from the Rasur Foundation and the Academy of Peace

So many butterflies. They´re everywhere here. We did some major organizing today, cleaning up, building bathrooms, making steps in the garden, removing air plants from the cashew trees, and a lot of planning. A lot of physical work from 6am - 6pm. Hard rain in the afternoon but overall the weather is more pleasant than Venice this time of the year. Not as humid. Later in the afternoon I went with Charlie (from the University of Peace) to the site of the September summit to plan signage. Tomorrow I´ll begin to paint. Note: I won´t be able to post my photos until I return home next week. Just checking in to say we´re all doing fine.

Hola from Costa Rica

We arrived safely, forgot to change our money at the airport, met our hosts at the Rasur Foundation, settled in and made plans for our work week. Cyndee and I are rooming in the tin-roofed treehouse. Other than waking up at 1am, 3am, 4am, 4:30am and finally getting out of bed at 5am, we slept well and enjoyed the different sounds of a distant land. We walked with David down to the bakery at 5:45 to get our morning bread.

A Walk on Casperson Beach in Venice, Florida

What a beautiful beach to walk on. I discovered it yesterday while looking for a beautiful and new place to take a walk.

I'm going back today to write, walk and meditate.

See more pictures on my Flickr pages.

UCLA Study on Friendship Among Women - By Gale Berkowitz

The article I’ve copied below was sent to me by a friend (how lucky I am). I found it interesting so I’m passing it on to you with my thoughts. I enjoyed reading most of Gale Berkowitz article on the UCLA Study: Taylor, S. E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A. R., and; Updegraff, J. A. Female Responses to Stress: Tend and Befriend, Not Fight or Flight. I loved the findings of the study and Ms. Berkowitz’s comments about that. However, I don't agree with her consensus with Ruthellen Josselson in the final paragraph. I would respectfully say to both Gale and Ruthellen, please speak for yourselves. Enjoy the new study, align your friendships with what we can empower women to create for themselves/ourselves and please … don’t perpetrate another negative stereotype of what women do on the rest of us.

I, for one, don’t accept it. I value my friends and my friendships as I value my self, my family and my work. I’m careful to choose friends I can make that kind of commitment to. For me, valuing my women friends and friendships is a conscious choice I made long ago when I realized that if I wanted a friend I had to be a friend and that meant honoring my friends with my time and energy as I honor myself and would like to be honored by them. It was after a thoughtful discussion in 1997 with a friend about friendship that I wrote my poem, “A Friend.” Here’s Gale Berkowitz’ article about the Taylor-Klein study at UCLA so you can explore the conversation in your own mind, and among your women friends.

UCLA STUDY ON FRIENDSHIP AMONG WOMEN - By Gale Berkowitz

A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special. They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our tumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help us remember who we really are. By the way, they may do even more.

Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research---most of it on men---upside down. "Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible," explains Laura Cousino Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. "It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers.

Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than just "fight or flight." "In fact," says Dr. Klein, "it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the "fight or flight" response and encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead. When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect. This calming response does not occur in men," says Dr. Klein, "because testosterone---which men produce in high levels when they're under stress---seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen," she adds, "seems to enhance it." The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in a classic "aha!" moment shared by two women scientists who were talking one day in a lab at UCLA. "There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded," says Dr. Klein. "When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto something." The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientist after another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs. Klein and Taylor discovered that by not including women in stress research, scientists had made a huge mistake: The fact that women respond to stress differently than men has significant implications for our health. It may take some time for new studies to reveal all the ways that oxytocin encourages us to care for children and hang out with other women, but the "tend and befriend" notion developed by Drs. Klein and Taylor may explain why women consistently outlive men. Study after study has found that social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol. "There's no doubt," says Dr. Klein, "that friends are helping us live." In one study, for example, researchers found that people who had no friends increased their risk of death over a 6-month period. In another study, those who had the most friends over a 9-year period cut their risk of death by more than 60%. Friends are also helping us live better. The famed Nurses' Health Study from Harvard Medical School found that the more friends women had, the less likely they were to develop physical impairments as they aged, and the more likely they were to be leading a joyful life. In fact, the results were so significant, the researchers concluded, that not having close friends or confidantes was as detrimental to your health as smoking or carrying extra weight! And that's not all! When the researchers looked at how well the women functioned after the death of their spouse, they found that even in the face of this biggest stressor of all, those women who had a close friend confidante were more likely to survive the experience without any new physical impairments or permanent loss of vitality. Those without friends were not always so fortunate.

Yet if friends counter the stress that seems to swallow up so much of our life these days, if they keep us healthy and even add years to our life, why is it so hard to find time to be with them? That's a question that also troubles researcher Ruthellen Josselson, Ph.D., co-author of Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's Friendships (Three Rivers Press, 1998). "Every time we get overly busy with work and family, the first thing we do is let go of friendships with other women," explains Dr. Josselson. "We push them right to the back burner. That's really a mistake because women are such a source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they're with other women. It's a very healing experience."

New Butterfly Faerie Girl 5x7 print by Raphaella Vaisseau

Inspired by face painting at Art Circle, I first made a drawing in pencil and then painted with watercolor on paper. I love her bright eyes and spirit. This Butterfly Faerie Girl is saying, "I am strong, beautiful and I am free. I invite you to be awake and see my spirit all around you. I bless you as you walk in nature. I bless you as you are touched by the magic of butterflies. I bless you with light and aliveness. Be well and know that you are strong, beautiful and free."

Enjoy!

New Cat Painting by Raphaella Vaisseau

My girlfriends and I meet once a week to create art together . We make art & crafts to enjoy creativity and friendship for the sake of creativity and friendship. However, we also make things to help raise money for the Venice Cat Coalition and the Key West Cat Society and their work to reduce the cat overpopulation through TNR (trap/neuter/return).

So far we've made jewelry, collage, drawing, painting and last week we learned face painting. Tomorrow we're making cat toys. I've been loving this weekly communion with my friends in the spirit of creativity. Last week I started a new Etsy site (Rescue Cat Club) for us to sell our creations for the cats. I'll let you know when it's up and running. Meanwhile, enjoy "Diana".