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Getting Old

April 12th, 2008
Coppyright 2008 by Marceline Donaldson

Growing old is an amazing process.  Especially when you live in a society which worships youth. It seems as though every kind of media output is focused on being young, staying young, looking young, feeling young.  There is very little in our society to help you get through this last stage from life to death.  It is even considered morbid to broach the question or to discuss anything about that process unless, of course, you are dying from some terminal disease within months and your story makes good copy.  Even AARP is marketing/insurance oriented and doesn’t really help.  You have to wade through all of those ads and some inane stories to get any kind of information and at that point the information isn’t worth the time and effort it took to find it.

We are starting another line on Bettina’s Blog about old age. It is really something to celebrate. Look at me, I am still here, still surviving, fairly healthy and I have the wisdom of the experiences I have accumulated over all those years to remember and fall back on in any set of circumstances.  I can make decisions quicker because of my years of experience; I can understand other people better because I’ve seen and experienced so many different kinds of people and I have seen them in so many different stages of development; and I am not so self-absorbed, because the years of living tears you away from yourself if you’ve been even a little bit open to the world.  My friends are much more open now then they were in their 20’s, 30’s etc.  What’s the point of keeping secrets or putting on a front for the world!  With gray hair, sagging stomach and “laugh” lines comes a slightly different set of values and a “why bother” attitude.  Some things which were important just aren’t anymore.
One thing I’ve found lately – time changes.  That is the most profound change and that is when you know “old age” has set in.  When a month has passed and you feel as though its only been a week,  you know something in your life has changed dramatically.  Talking around the breakfast table, I discovered that is a common problem.  It is a problem because you have to take on a new discipline on the administrative side of life.  All of a sudden your bills aren’t getting paid as promptly as they used to be paid because it doesn’t seem as though a month has passed.
Once through that surprising difficulty, life smooths out again because that new discipline you’ve had to take on with the paperwork side of life helps the rest.
A second bonus is – once you are several years pass menopause your tendency to gain weight at such a feverish pitch slows down.  We had one very lively breakfast conversation about dieting to lose weight and I realized dieting is a consumer boon doggle for the marketing people.  I sort of knew that years before, but on an intellectual level because I was still subject to being influenced by the way that marketing boon doggle was being used by the “thin sellers”.  Today, I have that knowing on an emotional, deep down level. Seeing this society chase after being thin makes me laugh and be sad by turn, but it doesn’t make me take a second look or give a second thought to whatever is being offered.  I must be really old.
The way to selll something these days is to pitch it as making you thinner – if you look thinner, feel thinner, think thinner – you will seriously consider buying whatever is being promoted.  If not buying it, you will look into the offer to see if it has a real hope of making you thin.
Over the long haul, it really doesn’t matter.  What is important is what you eat.  My thinnest time of life was in my mid-30′ to about 50 when my diet was vegetarian with nothing cooked. All vegies, all raw.  I didn’t have a pound of fat anyplace.    That was great.  I think I looked at myself in every window I passed to admire the image.  Now, I eat what I’ve discovered over all those years contributes to my health and energy level.  It is such a simpler lifestyle.  I would like to pass that on to my children, but aging will do that much better then I ever could.
When they were little we had this all vegie, all raw except for freshly baked bread, time in our lives and they thought I didn’t love them.  The bread only lasted a day because it was stale by day two and hard as a rock by day three so that was the stuff of many family jokes.  And everyone knows – learned from daytime television – a mother’s love is judged by the meals she cooks.  The heavier, the more elaborate, the bordering on stroke and heart attack meals she cooked, the more love she was considered to have for her family.  It took enormous amounts of time to figure out how to keep my girls eating well, what combinations were healthy, how to find all of this raw food before the “organic” revolution.
That kind of effort was totally outside of the normal, middle class American psyche of what constituted a loving mother.  Today, I look back on all the pain and grief those ideas about food caused all of us and just have to shake my head.  Who was that woman!
Currently, the most amazing times for me are those class reunion times.  I have gone to a few reunions and I can’t believe how old my classmates have become.  I look in the mirror and see myself daily, but somehow, that gradual aging is totally acceptable to me.  To see someone I haven’t seen for five years is dramatic.  They looked fairly young until the last two five year reunion cycles.  Some have died, some can hardly walk and their young relatives come with them to make sure they don’t get into trouble negotiating back and forth from their rooms to the reunion events and some are just lost.  The lost are the saddest of all.  They are going over their lives and regretting much of what they could have and didn’t do.  It is an amazing grieving process and I know they will die soon.  The look of fear in their eyes never leaves and the fun, joking person you once knew has already left this earth.
Most dramatic among the reunion crowd is to see the value change. Listening to the political speeches and ads and hoop-la, it seems as though the biggest mistake a candidate can make, which then makes that person grist for the mill to be ground into little pieces and thrown to the dogs (the media), is to change their minds.  To have a change of heart; change of decision from a few years ago; change of any kind is portrayed by the media as almost on a par with major venal sin.  They will viciously stalk a candidate to be the first to declare – you didn’t believe that two years ago!  You have changed your mind and your position you are not to be trusted.
The most beautiful thing I see at my reunions and among my former classmates from several institutions (I did get around), is to hear them talk about the changes in their lives – their value changes – how they were strong in one belief, but have now changed because of some set of circumstances and/or experiences they’ve been through which made them see things in a different light.  More then any other marker on this road from birth to death, the one which shows strongest that you are aging is that change in values, in beliefs, in how you perceive things.  From that comes a deep discernment which youth is denied.
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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

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Bettina’s Premier Beauty Secret

March 2nd, 2008

copyright 1984-2008 by Marceline Donaldson

A caveat with these beauty secrets – they are a bit magical because they only work for those who use the Bettina Network!  Others can try them, but their efficacy will be greatly diminished.
To have flawless skin without makeup or foundation try the following:
   a.  Throw out your soap.  A beautiful person NEVER uses soap.
   b.  Wash your face, without a towel or wash rag, by splashing it with warm water using your hands as a cup for at least 10 splashes.
   c.  Pour a bit of dry milk into the palms of your hands and use this to clean your face.  Rub it all over the face until the milk granules become liquid milk.
   d.  If you have time, lie down with your feet up (without rinsing off the milk).  The milk will dry and tighten your skin – a nice treatment for those pores.  And yes this can be done by male or female – it works equally well for both.  Guys, if you don’t tell anyone why your face starts to look dramatically younger and healthier, we won’t either.
   e.  After about 10-15 minutes, rinse your face by splashing water on it from your cupped hands, until all the milk is gone.
    f.  Clip open a vitamin A capsule (fish oil, not beta carotene – unless you want a very red face), squeeze the oil into the palm of your hand and gently rub this oil into the skin on your face.  If you are super careful, you can also gently pat it around your eyes.  We find this to be a great eye oil.
   g.  Clip a Vitamin E capsule, squeeze the oil from this capsule into the palm of your hand and gently rub this oil into the skin of your face.  You can also gently pat this around your eyes.  You will find the Vitamin A oil to be thin and easy to rub into your skin.  The Vitamin E oil feels and acts more like glue.  It is a preservative of the A and you get more out of everything by ending with the Vitamin E.
   h.  After half an hour or so – or anytime after that – rinse your face with cool water.  Do this by splashing the cool water onto your face using your hands cupped together and keep splashing – for at least 10 times.
   i.  Using a soft towel, pat your face dry.
Enjoy the day with beautiful skin.  – OR – you could go through this regimen at night before going to bed.  The next morning you need only rinse your face – 10 times – with cupped hands and very cool water before running out to work, shop, breakfast or a meeting!
You will see amazing results after about two weeks.  Each day, your face will glow a little longer until the result is constant and you have all the time beautiful skin.  And then throw out all those cosmetics you paid so much money for which probably really don’t work.
FINISHING TOUCH:  This regimen will give your skin a glowing sheen.  If you want a mat finish (no sheen), use a cotton ball or tissue on which you put dry milk – no powder please, you will ruin all your hard work.  Pat and very lightly rub this dry milk all over your face and brush off the excess.  In a minute or so the oil on your skin will take away the powdery look and you will have a mat finish all day.  To refresh your look, splash cold water on your face for, yes, 10 times.
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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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Legal Seafood Restaurant

February 14th, 2008
Charles Square – in Harvard Square, Cambridge
Open basically 11am to 10 or 11pm depending upon the day of the week
Sunday Brunch is served from 11am-2:30pm.
Telephone for reservations 617-491-9400

During a recent tour around Harvard Square we stopped in at Legal Seafood in Charles Square. At one time it was exciting to eat at Legal Seafood.  I remember my first trip to the restaurant when they just opened in the Park Plaza Hotel in downtown Boston.  No reservations allowed.  You arrived and waited quite a while to get in.  Once seated you ordered and paid the waitress – cash – for your food before she placed the order with the kitchen.  That was fine with us because the reputation was high and the food was fantastic.  A group of us from Harvard Business School got together for a night on the town.  We passed plates around, tasted a little of everything on the menu and had a great time.

So this day we had high expectations for our meal at Legal Seafood.  It turned out to be just ho-hum.  You can still get a decent meal there, and some dishes are excellent, but the quality is spotty and the draw backs are many.

Our first problem – our coats.  It was a cold day, we were dressed for the weather and when we arrived there was no place to put them.  Since it was a busy time of day, we couldn’t draw up extra chairs because there were none close by so we shifted in our seats with our coats thrown over the backs of our chairs and the lumpiness of that very uncomfortable.  The waitresses apologized for having no place to put our coats, but looking around the room they must have spent a lot of time apologizing to a lot of people that day.

We started with the Lobster Bisque with mouths watering from the description and were very disappointed when it was served.  With great fanfare, the small bowls arrived and the wait staff put the lobster meat into the bowls and then the hot liquid.  There was a need for these theatrics because if you hadn’t seen the little teaspoons of lobster going into the bottom of the empty bowls, once the liquid was poured you wouldn’t have known there was lobster meat in your Bisque.
When we tasted the Bisque it was thin, sort of adequate, but not great.  It tasted as though it was made of the equivalent of dry powdered milk, lots of water and a little lobster stock thrown in with food coloring to fool the eye.  Having been raised on really great Crawfish and Crab Bisque,  I was looking forward to giving my taste buds the advantage of another great dish, especially on this cold day.   Instead of the wonderfully thick and tasty Bisques on which I was raised, this one brought an abrupt end to great expectations.
We moved on to Ceasar Salad and that was barely adequate.  I look for anchovies in my salad since that is what makes a great Ceasar Salad – otherwise it is lettuce with a sort of adequate salad dressing, but please don’t call it a Ceasar Salad. The rest of the meal was quite nice, but averaging things out I would say this meal was adequate to disappointing.
We enjoyed the restaurant environment and the large picture windows where we looked out over the cleaning crew washing the middle of  lovely, large, desolately empty Charles Square with all of the clanging and loud chattering that this entailed.  Thankfully, we met several friends coming and going from the restaurant so the social side was quite nurturing, its just too bad the dishes we were served didn’t make the grade – cut the mustard – leave us feeling well fed and beautifully cared for on this cold day.
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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

 

The Labyrinth

February 11th, 2008
copyright 2008 Anne Gordon**

Before leaving to accompany our son on a trip to settle him at his first year at Harvard, we picked an angel card from the little bowl on our altar.  We received “trust.”

Embarking on a journey involves trust.  Plans are made, as are assumptions and hopes for outcomes.  But then we start and the journey unfolds under our feet.  The unexpected becomes our traveling partner.  Is the unforeseen a gift in disguise or simply a hassle, yet another puzzle to work out and consume precious time?
When a walker is first introduced to a labyrinth, he or she often hears the anxiety-inducing word “maze” instead.  The two words must be next-door neighbors in the canyons of our brains, lodged side-by-side, the result of centuries of interchangeable usage.  When a walker approaches the labyrinth for the first time it may LOOK like a maze, but it is in truth, a single path.
I first walked a labyrinth ten years ago at a Body and Soul Conference in Seattle.  I had considered myself to be a pilgrim for most of my life.  Like many, I had tasted a variety of spiritual fruits, likening these samplings to a feast for the soul.  In particular I felt drawn to the divine mystery, that personal connection to the sacred that cannot be defined or contained in dogma and doctrine.  The labyrinth, a complex but pleasing pattern painted on thick canvas, was set up in a candlelit ballroom.  Ethereal music added to the transcendent quality of the experience.  I was astounded and quite amazed that my wanderings had not led me to the labyrinth until that time.  I stepped onto, and into this sacred space and was deeply moved. Long after the words of the conference presenters had faded, the singular meandering path of the labyrinth held a place in my heart and the imagery it evoked continued to resonate for days and months.
Over the next years I sought out labyrinth walks, on permanent installations and on portable canvas.  I created a labyrinth in our yard at home and studied with Lauren Artress at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and became certified as a labyrinth facilitator.  Grace Cathedral is the home to two labyrinths, one outdoors made of terrazzo stone, another of limestone in the sanctuary.  Artress is credited with being the driving force behind the resurgence of interest in labyrinths in the late twentieth century.  Author Jean Houston had been using labyrinths for some time in her workshops, but it was Lauren who visited Chartres Cathedral in France, and with a group of friends, boldly removed the folding chairs from atop the 13th century labyrinth, walked it, measured it and brought the energy of this esoteric spiritual tool to the United States.  Credit must also be given to author and dowser Sig Lonegren and to geomancer Richard Feather Anderson for their contemporaneous installations of labyrinths.
Chartres Cathedral is an exquisitely beautiful Gothic cathedral.  It is one of the best maintained cathedrals in all of Europe and is a Unesco World Heritage site.  Famed for its architecture grounded in sacred geometry and for its unparalleled stained glass windows, Chartres has been drawing visitors for over 800 years.  It was built on a site of ancient pilgrimage, the place itself having been revered by Druids and Celts.  Work on the present cathedral was begun in 1194 and the labyrinth was laid in the floor around the year 1200.  At that early date, interest in the labyrinth was experiencing its own revival, putting its antiquity in context.  In time it fell out of favor, possibly because its use competed with the sermons.  Other labyrinths in European cathedrals were unceremoniously removed during the Age of Reason, their enigmatic, mystical quality evidently incompatible with the elevation of reason and logic.  Chartres was spared.  As a 19 year old girl I joined the millions of pilgrims and tourists who visit this gem completely unaware of the labyrinth beneath our feet.  Happily, this descent into obscurity has ended and the labyrinth is now available to visitors every Friday.  Private groups are also granted access to the labyrinth on a regular basis for study and contemplation.
The single path of the labyrinth is described as unicursal.  Its use predates the Christian era by thousands of years.  It is one of the oldest contemplative and transformational tools known to humankind and has been used for centuries for prayer, ritual, initiation and personal and spiritual growth.  Its presence and use dates back at least 4,500 years.
Labyrinths have been found on every inhabited continent.  They have been separated by vast distances and by thousands of  years, but they are connected by their enduring presence and use.
In ancient Greece the coin of the realm bore the imprint of the labyrinth.
In India, labyrinths are drawn at the threshold of homes as a protective blessing.
In Scandinavia over 500 labyrinths are located near the sea.  Folklore tells of fishermen walking them before sailing to ensure good fortune and a bountiful catch.  Anxious relatives walked them to propitiate the forces of weather when seas were rough.  During springtime rituals, young men raced one another in the labyrinth to be the first to dance with a maiden at its center.
There are more labyrinths per square kilometer in Sweden than any other place on earth. Labyrinths similar to those in Scandinavian countries have been found in Russia, Iceland and Baltic countries.
Turf labyrinths are common in Great Britain.  Many remain to this day, some continuously and lovingly maintained for over 400 years.
In the 21st Century, the beauty and mystery of the labyrinth exerts a powerful draw, calling to people the world over as it has for millenia.  A search online produces endless pages of information about and locations of labyrinths.  They are now present in dozens of hospitals, clinics, schools, retreat centers and churches.  Over 2,000 labyrinths are registered with veriditas.org in the United States alone.
The single, meandering path of the labyrinth provides the walker with the opportunity to step beyond the chaos and confusion of the modern world, into the land of the soul.  Each visit to the labyrinth is unique as is every walker.  This profoundly simple experience provides calm, centering, stress reduction, some even say healing.  it is said that a maze, with its cul-de-sacs, dead-ends and blind alleys is designed to make you LOSE your way, while a labyrinth is designed to help you FIND your way.
Because there is a single path, the only decision to be made is whether or not to walk.  Once that decision is made and the journey is begun, one is then led gently and surely, meandering to the center.  The Circuitous path captures our attention and the controlling mind takes a breather.  The symbolism of going deep into our own interiors is clear.  There is a sense of safety and security provided by the container that is the labyrinth.
People often walk the labyrinth with a prayer or an intention.  Some enter the labyrinth with a burden to release or a problem to solve.  In trusting the process of the journey, it is common for walkers to receive answers to questions they did not even ask.  The gifts are there, but often in an unanticipated guise.
Walking the labyrinth provides a time out of time.  The outer world takes a holiday.  The simple yet symbolic act of placing one foot in front of the other overlays the scattered energy and fragmented thoughts of our busy lives.  On this single path we don’t have to decide WHERE we are in the world and instead can become aware of HOW we are in the world.
The labyrinth has been called a blueprint for transformation.  The person who enters the labyrinth and the person who leaves are never the same.  A change happens in the process of the journey.  Insights and clarity are gained, calm is restored.  Healing occurs.  And often, the simple act of retreating from the din of the outer world provides the break we need to refresh ourselves, find our center and return to the world with a new outlook.
Our son now resides across the continent and our family continues to adjust and grow, drawing  to ourselves the calm that comes from trust in the journey.  Like walkers on the Labyrinth, we are sometimes near one another, though mos of the time we are apart, but we always meet at the center.
_____________________________________
**Anne Gordon is a Labyrinth Facilitator and bookkeeper in Eugene, Oregon.  She is on staff at Sacred Heart Medical Center as a labyrinth facilitator, providing monthly labyrinth walks for staff, patients and visitors.  She also offers workshops, talks on the history of the labyrinth and conducts private walks using her three portable labyrinths.  She may be reached at greeneden@comcast.net
TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG e-mail comments to info@bettina-network.com
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2/17/2008
from Sybil in Riverside, CA.
“Thank you for the article.  I wanted you to know about a labyrinth I sometimes walk.  It is behind the University of Redlands Memorial Chapel and has been there since about 2004-2005.  It is a replica of the Chartres Cathedral labyrinth in France.  Since I live in Riverside I don’t get there often, but when I do the peace from the meditation is a feeling I look forward to. Also wanted to say that – the labyrinth is the longest distance between two points while a straight line is the shortest.  Got that from someplace, don’t remember where.”
3/1/08
from Robert in Cambridge, MA.
“The other weekend my son and daughter were in town.  I thought they might like to see a discovery my wife and I made several weeks earlier – the recently opened labyrinth on the campus of Boston College in Newton (Chestnut Hill), Massachusetts.  This labyrinth is dedicated in memory of Boston College alums who lost their lives in the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York.
 
On an earlier visit to the B.C. Labyrinth, it was buried in snow, but even then the outline of its circular paths were visible to us.  Now on this later visit, the snow was gone and the still wet stone pavers of the foot path glistened in the late afternoon sun.
 
The Boston College Labyrinth is just inside the main entrance to the campus to the right of an avenue lined with impressive Gothic-styled buildings.  It isn’t visible from the roadway, but from the walkway a lovely sunken garden comes into view right next to the first building on the right at the entrance gate.
 
At the center of tree-lined green expanse is this labyrinth flanked to its left by the stone wall of that first building and just beyond it an imposing oval shaped shrub which seemed to me to mimic the circular labyrinth in front of us.  Two squat square marble pillars, topped with bronze plaques mark the entrance and exit walkways of the labyrinth.  The plaques give the dedication and walking information.  Individual plaques give the name and class of those memorialized and they surround the outer edge of the labyrinth.  It gives you goose bumps just looking at the path.
 
This was my first labyrinth walk and I felt this as a significant new experience.  Something else seemed to come over me as I took my first tentative steps along the stone pavers laid out there.  It struck me that I was setting out on a journey and one that required my close attention both to the immediate path before me and to the surroundings before and beside me.  
 
This trek is not a simple following a circling path, but one with numerous twists and turns.  In retrospect, I feel each start of this kind of journey always holds something new and unexpected along the way.  This first time, I felt intimidated by the path since I didn’t really know where the pavers were taking me, especially since periodically I was walking not toward the center of the labyrinth, but actually away from it.  Though circular, this journey was not simply going in circles.  I had always to be attentive along this serpentine journey of many sudden twists and turns.
 
The attentiveness demanded by this path had the affect of forcing all other thoughts and concerns from my consciousness.  And as a consequence of this, I can better understand why the labyrinth walk sets the stage for meditation or at least can foster an openness in our consciousness for new thoughts and perspectives which the usual busyness of daily life obscures or even prevents us from experiencing.  The winding, even meandering path of the labyrinth is not a distraction, but actually a gift which can refresh both mind and body.
 
There is also a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction upon reaching, not the end, but the center, the heart or destination of the labyrinth.  I took time there to relax, to savor as well the new perspective of the lawn, trees, that great oval bush, even the near-by Gothic building that stood hard by the labyrinth.
 
The return journey, exiting along a new, but parallel path of pavers, required the same concentration as the entry. Upon completing the labyrinth walk there was that double satisfaction of having gone both into (up) and out of (down) the circular trek which did not take me in circles, but led me both on an inbound (internal) and an outbound (external) pilgrimage-like journey.  
 
Like the mountain climbers, I felt a sense both of exhilaration and of repose at my safe return. I think my children enjoyed their experience as well.”
 
4/17/2008
from a guest who sings in the Duke University Chapel Choir
 
Duke University’s Chapel has a labyrinth they put down in the Chapel once a year – usually during April.  You can walk the labyrinth in the chapel from 8am-5pm, but only on that day.  To find out when the next labyrinth walk takes place you may go to the Duke Chapel web site and put your name on the list serve or you can call the Duke University Chapel Coordinator at 919-684-8111.
_________________________________________________________________

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

 

Bread – Bettina Style

January 20th, 2008

copyright 2007 by Marceline Donaldson

from experiments dating back to 1970

Needed:

An Electric Mixer
3 cups warm milk (or apple juice or any other liquid)
3/4 cup sugar (or honey or 1/4 cup molasses plus 1/2 cup sugar)
2 packages yeast
2 generous tablespoons Liquid Lecithin
Organic Whole Wheat Flour
Sea Salt
3/4 cup oil (organic canola, olive, butter or your choice)

How to:

1) Put milk, sugar, lecithin and yeast in the electric mixer. We prefer using molasses, although the others are good for a change of taste. Let this sit until it starts to bubble so you know your yeast is working. Maybe 5-10 minutes. Add oil and salt.

2) Gradually add 5 cups Whole Wheat Organic Flour while blending with the mixer on medium for five-to-seven minutes. We use the PADDLE of the electric mixer for this stage.

3) Be careful beating this dough. We find if dough is not beaten enough it will either not rise or it will take a very long time to give a very small rise: if it is beaten too much it will be rubbery. Tread a fine line.

4) Add three additional cups of flour – more or less – and continue beating with mixer USING DOUGH HOOK until bread pulls away from bowl and begins to look a little elastic. If you prefer you can knead the dough by hand.

Kneading by hand is good if you are having an emotional or spiritually hard day. By electric mixer is good if you have other things to do, are pressed for time and/or have an appointment with your therapist to work out your problems. Kneading is cheaper!

5) Put dough into a greased bowl.  Pour a little oil on top and gently rub the oil all over the dough so its surface is covered.  Cover the bowl with a towel and let it rise for one and one half hours (approximately) – until it looks at least doubled in size.

6) Cut or tear the dough into three pieces and knead each piece into a shape which fits into a glass bread baking pan. Glass because it will not react with the bread or leave minute residue on the bread surface (like aluminum would). We stay away from aluminum when we cook anything! We only bake in glass pans.

We remember Alzheimers wasn’t even on the radar before young couples were given whole suites of aluminum pots and pans in the 50’s and they became the sparkling and exciting wedding, shower, birthday, anniversary present. It may not be relevant and might be just our imaginings, but we are sharing our reality and the reality of our friends with you – so relevant or not – we stay away from aluminum in cooking.

7) One good characteristic of this dough is that it can be made into anything. So put two pieces of the dough into two glass bread baking pans and knead your favorite things into the third piece of dough: try a stick of softened organic butter (salted or unsalted, your choice) and then sprinkle the dough with raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, chocolate chips, coconut, sugar, etc. Then knead until those are all incorporated into the dough.

Form into a shape to fit the bread pan. Store-bought raisin bread pales by comparison to your own home-baked version.  Of course, you grease all of your pans with butter before putting any breads into them.

Or – you could make cinnamon buns by rolling out 1/3 piece of the dough until it is of a good size. A rectangle works for us. Thick or thin depends on whether you like your buns to have lots of dough or a little dough and lots of other stuff.  Spread the rectangle with softened organic butter and sprinkle heavily with cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins, prunes, apricots, figs, etc. then roll the dough – jelly roll fashion. Once rolled, slice into thick slices to put into a rectangular glass baking dish – cover and let rise until doubled in volume.

Bake the bread at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. (possibly more, but seldom less)

Before you take the rolls out of the oven – mix powdered sugar with milk or cream (heavy cream is heaven here) to the consistency of a very thick liquid. Once out of the oven, brush the sugar and cream mixture over the rolls and let them sit for a few minutes to absorb the liquid. If there are leftovers, they can be reheated. These buns are wonderful either freshly baked or reheated. The little addition to taste from reheating comes from the crispiness of the toping which doesn’t happen with freshly baked buns.  We sprinkle a little water over the buns before reheating.

If you are Catholic, a little holy water while saying a prayer over your buns, please!  It’s good for the digestion!
For an excellent savory bun:  fry chopped onions, celery, green and red peppers, garlic and ground beef in about two tablespoons butter in a cast iron skillet.  If you are kosher, make that organic Canola Oil or better still Olive Oil.
It is extremely important that the ground beef be organic.  Let’s not set up for ourselves the possibility of eating road kill here – or worse, growth hormones to make this a dish that would pack on the pounds as those growth hormones go from the ground beef to you.
While this mixture is cooking, stir it a bit and sprinkle it with sea salt, cayenne pepper (keep that black pepper away from your food), thyme and oregano (to your taste, of course). Spread this mixture on the rectangle of dough. We have a heavy hand doing this because we like it better with lots of spread in those jelly-roll like slices.

As above for the cinnamon buns, roll this savory dish jelly roll style, slice it into thick slices, put them into a rectangular glass baking dish, cover and let rise until double in volume!  You will have a sumptuous breakfast, lunch or an evening snack!  They also reheat beautifully.

NOTES on BETTINA’s BREAD

Of course, all the ingredients MUST be organic – flour, milk, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg,(especially all the seasonings) and on and on. Otherwise – why bother – you can get bread made from contaminated ingredients in any bakery or supermarket. This bread is pure, also restorative (you will be surprised at the increased size of your bowel movements) and the taste is amazing. This bread will be soft, light in texture, beautiful to look at – if you made it right.

Bread takes lots of trying until one day you get it – the process clicks – and you will then be able to turn out loaves of bread in-between all the other things you do – without feeling any extra strain and enjoying the results.

Contrary to popular mythology – this is not an exact science. Bread making varies with the person making it, the weather – sunny and dry, hot, humid, cold, etc. The ingredients also vary depending upon your taste, diet, what you have on hand at the time and your mood, which is why some choices are in parenthesis.  Besides our choices – you might have others. I’ve heard about chopped olives and olive oil; walnuts – if you have northern taste buds; or pecans – if you have southern taste buds; chocolate chips; – let your imagination soar.

Many of us are either afraid to make bread or we think it is so over our ability and/or time constraints we don’t try. When did all this happen?

It seems to me as cooking and baking became more commercial – money making instead of family feeding, it was taken over by male chefs and corporate types and the media took up the bludgeon to beat it into women that bread baking was way over their heads and they shouldn’t try anymore. “Why bake when you can buy” became one of many slogans which depleted our pocket books and our health.

What was the prevailing wisdom? Didn’t it go something like —– those who baked for generations should give up the task and turn it over to those who had never baked and whose interest was in turning bread into a profit center by using inferior and/or synthetic ingredients and all kinds of artificial equipment?

Under their hands and tutelage, bread for the upper classes became as white and light as possible resulting in that well known commodity – “Wonder Bread” and its cousins. Its a wonder our parents and grandparents lasted as long as they did and were able to be fruitful and multiply.

Before that time, bread was justifiably known as the “staff of life” or the “stuff of life”. It is nutritious, restorative, filling and it taste good.

The best, most nutritious bread was relegated to the poor and became known as “peasants bread” – one of the nicer epitaphs which some corporations tried to put on its tomb stone.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT searched the country for a recipe for a good, nutritious bread and found one which included molasses. The bread she found was made by poor country people. She took the bread and the recipe home to the White House and gave up “Wonder Bread”, that popular and expensive loaf which was eaten exclusively by her peers – no one else could afford it.

They thought the whiter and lighter the bread the more prestige to the family serving and eating it. Of course, health problems followed – which were either unknown or little known before that time, but it was a small price to pay for the prestige of serving this bread that looked and tasted like cotton.

Today, the rest of us put our pennies together and spend more then we should trying to imitate the habits of the wealthy of Eleanor Roosevelt’s day, without being aware of the history and without knowing why we have this cultural preference for cotton-like bread.  I am sure we all know people who look down their collective noses at that good old “peasant-type bread” and are hard-pressed to say why!  Better to give up this lifestyle – of making nutritious and delicious bread – and buy from bakeries and into the next generation also from super markets, then to be considered socially and culturally from the wrong side of the tracks.

However, do be careful, because once you start baking bread it will become an addiction. There isn’t much better than a slice of bread you’ve made — right out of the oven — covered with organic butter.

Enjoy – it is worth the effort.

Note:  I owe a deb of gratitude to the many bed and breakfast guests who tasted, commented on, suggested and generally helped me improve this recipe over many years.
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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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Republican Women Unite

January 5th, 2008

copyright 2007 The Bettina Network, Inc.

It is time for a revolution! And for some basic change!!!!!!

I’ve noticed as the hair turns grey, many of you get on the “blue” band wagon and put the traditional laundry bluing in your hair.

It is beautiful, with the silvery blue look that it takes on – however – you have been cast as being “red” – from “red” states and all of that. So take your political assignment seriously and start to look the part. (Society has made an interesting symbolic choice for you, especially given the fact that when we were young, “red” had a different meaning. If you were from a “red” state, McCarthy would probably have called you up before his House on UnAmerican Activities Committee).

So it is time to change your hair and publicly acknowledge your party affiliation. Not in a hat wearing, banner waving, slogan yelling way, but far more subtle and much more sophisticated. Political Correctness is important in this modern world, so instead of the laundry bluing, which is really more characteristic of Democratic women with their “blue state” origins than it is of you, get out your bottle of beta carotene – the vitamin A capsules from carrots in oil – and let us start a politically motivated health and beauty change.

This is also very healthy and good for your hair, unlike the bluing, which dries it out – or the hair dye, which is probably the cause of so much cancer in women – the beta carotene costs only pennies. You can give the money you save to charity.

For the few pennies this costs we could convert many women to Republicanism from welfare, the homeless, from the lower-middle-income category. This is also an excellent plank to add, under the diversity section, to the National Republican Party Platform when it is drawn up.

How to achieve “Republican Hair”?

1. Wash your hair – any good organic shampoo will do.

2. Wipe it with a towel to get the excess water out. Don’t dry it, just sort of wring it out.

3. Clip the tip of a capsule of beta carotene – making sure you have the kind with the oil inside.

4. Squeeze the contents of the capsule into the palm of your hand. This will turn your palms orange for a little while, but ignore that, it is healthy for your hands as well as your hair. If you really get carried away you can clip another capsule to put on your face. You will have to rinse your face with lots of water before going out to avoid stares, but your wrinkles will be gone! Well sort of gone!!!!!

5. Lightly and gently rub your palms together and then put the beta carotene oil in your hair. Rubbing your hands over your hair the way you would with any oil. You want to make sure you have a good, but not excessive application.

6. If your hair is shoulder length or longer you will probably need two capsules. If you add the facial you will need three!

7. Don’t blow dry your hair. This will defeat the purpose as the heat from the blow drying will get rid of the color. It will also probably get rid of the vitamins which you want to feed your hair on the way to making you politically correct.

8. This works best if you set your hair on rollers and let it dry naturally. After a few treatments with beta carotene, drying will be quick because your hair won’t hold all that water after washing – a plus for our side. Younger Republican Women won’t understand this since they have this wash and wear hair. They could reach political correctness if they put the beta carotene in their hair and instead of blow drying before leaving home, they went about their business with their hair still wet from the shower – as many do. (And we wonder why the number of people with pneumonia has skyrocketed of late.)

The rollers are well understood by that upper-middle-aged generation, which the young and haughty will join soon enough.

SOME CAUTIONS:

A. This hair treatment will help you understand why our female ancestors wore those frilly, dainty, lacy, shower-cap-like
contraptions to bed. If you don’t do the same, your pillow case will be orange in the morning! Although mine washed out just fine, yours might or might not.

B. The red color will last two or three days at most. The Vitamin A benefits continue much longer, but the color fades. It doesn’t exactly disappear, but it just sort of fades leaving your original hair color, with its grey looking as though it has a blond overcast. To make the color go away completely, simply wash your hair – and then start over again.

A PERSONAL NOTE: My hair color faded at breakfast in the midst of an exciting conversation. Folks around the table were a little awestruck as they watched my hair fade from carrot red with darker red streaks to its original dark brown with grey streaks. Although the color didn’t entirely disappear. It just sort of faded, leaving my original hair color with a blond twinge.

The health benefit? My hair has never been healthier. With all the other thngs I try, this one definitely helped old hair turn young.

Enjoy!

when asked to give our names and a paragraph about our bed and breakfast, we declined. Normally, we wouldn’t hesitate, but this being a political year with a highly heated campaign going on,  we weren’t sure folks could read this in the tongue-in-cheek manner in which we wrote it.  So if there is any flack coming from this incredible piece of writing, we will let the editors of the blog take it while we duct under the cover of anonymity.
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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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Bread Pudding in honor of Pauli Murray*

December 28th, 2007
copyright 9/19/1999 by Marceline Donaldson

3 eggs

1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar (or to taste)
1 can crushed pinneapple
1 cup heavy cream
2 cups shredded coconut (or to taste)
1/2 stick butter (or 4 ounces)
assorted stale breads – rolls, brioche, french, etc.
All ingredients should be organic, especially the eggs and cream.
Cut or tear the bread into squares – all kind of bread, as long as it is made of organic ingredients.  Cut enough bread to fill the GLASS dish in which you will bake and serve this dish.  If you have an oven-proof glass dish which fits into a silver holder, that is a very attractive way to bring this dish to the table.
Add baking power and salt to the bread and mix thoroughly.
Beat the eggs in a heavy mixer like a Kitchen Aid until they are light and fluffy.  This will take about 7-8 minutes.
Add the sugar and continue to beat until the sugar is incorporated into the eggs and the entire mixture becomes even lighter and fluffier.
Add the crushed pineapple and juice to the egg mixture along with the coconut.  Stir until all ingredients are mixed together and pour over the bread.  Mix bread and milk mixture until you like the way the dish looks.  Slice the stick of butter and push the slices into the dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes.
You have to think when using our recipes.  They assume a human is preparing them not an automated computer.  Any of the ingredients can be increased or decreased according to your taste.  The length of time you bake depends on how you like the final dish – dry, still a little custardy or inbetween!  The amount of sugar depends on your sweet tooth or lack thereof!  The amount of butter depends on whether you are from the north or south.  I personally would use at least a stick of butter – organic so it would be minus growth hormones and other bad things and I could enjoy the dish without worrying about all of the medical horror stories.
                             __________________________________________
*This dish was created in 1982 when Pauli Murray came to our home on the seminary campus for lunch.  She was at Episcopal Divinity School to meet and talk with students.  My husband and I had several people to lunch to have some private time with Pauli.  The star attraction at the luncheon turned out to be this bread pudding.  This was the first recipe she’d had created in her honor and she said it was very special.
I met Pauli Murray – Attorney, Law Professor at Brandeis University, Episcopal Priest – for the first time, of which I am conscious, at a weekend conference for 100 Black Women Leaders in December, 1971 in Chicago, Ill.  It was an amazing time – good learning, stressful, nurturing and meeting people I had read about or whose works I had read.  On the plane home, I read Pauli’s book on her family history and couldn’t put it down until I finished, so having her to lunch on our second meeting was special.
I was astounded by how she looked!  When I saw her in Chicago she looked very grandmotherly – not fat, but not thin either.  She was dressed in a suit (with skirt), comfortable pumps, looking the way I was accustomed to seeing professional Black Women look.  Her hair was grey and black and curly – almost, but not quite shoulder length.
When she came to Cambridge she had on a pant suit which was larger than she was and which fit her rather poorly as she had lost lots of weight.  She had on flat shoes and very short, closely cropped hair.  I thought it was her lifestyle change which caused her new look.  During those intervening years she had gone from Attorney to Episcopal Priest and had publicly talked about her sexual orientation.
I didn’t realize until several years later that her new look was due to cancer.  I remarked about how she had changed since I last saw her, – but she said nothing as to why she had adopted this new look or that she didn’t have a choice in this new look.
Before she came to EDS and joined us for lunch, I learned that my grandfather’s Church tried to hire The Rev. Pauli Murray as their new priest and that she wanted the job.  It would have been a great fit, but the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese – which included St. Luke’s – was adamant that he would not allow a woman priest in his Diocese.
In spite of the Congregations’ wishes, Pauli was not called to be the priest at St. Luke’s in New Orleans, LA.  It was sad, because St. Luke’s was the loser.
What did the Bishop gain by taking such a position against The Rev. Pauli Murray?  Did his ministry increase or diminish with this decision?  And what were his hidden sins that he was so threatened by such a woman?  Was this stance taken out of the Bishop’s professed Christianity or out of his need to feel superior to Women?  Was the Bishop violating his office by committing such a sin?  Did this need to maintain his and his groups’ superiority cost him eternity?
This was the same Bishop who tried to keep the two million dollars my grandfather worked hard to get to endow St. Luke’s, an African-American Church.  My grandfather wanted to know that St. Luke’s was endowed before he died.  This was the Church his father built under very stressful conditions.  His father was an Episcopal priest, who received his Doctorate in 1906 and was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in 1911.  The money was sent to the Diocese for St. Luke’s.  The Bishop tried to keep it for other uses – none for the African-American community, but finally had to release the money to St. Luke’s after my grandfather and some of St. Luke’s parisioners worked hard to force that to happen.  With it the congregation was able to move to a new location and engage a social worker to work with the young people of the Church, among other things.
All of the above is contained in this recipe for “Bread Pudding In Honor of Pauli Murray.”
The luncheon brought up all of that old history.  Food is so much a part of who we are and recipe’s contain many of our memories, our culture and our history.
Everytime I make this pudding, I think of this history and usually also share the history with whoever is eating the pudding!  Some people are grateful for hearing this history and enjoy the pudding, some people enjoy the pudding and are quiet, some people are just quiet.
I also always pray for The Rev. Pauli Murray as I cut up the bread and mix the ingredients.  Her life took her on so many journeys.   As I put those Prayers into this bread pudding what happens to them?  Are they spread around the world and multiply and affect our lives?  Do they affect the lives of those who eat the pudding?  Or is it just bread pudding, whose origin will be lost when I die?
This recipe is the one most often requested by bed and breakfast guests.
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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

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Almond and Cancer

December 22nd, 2007

We’ve always heard the little ditty “six almonds a day keeps cancer away.” Today it would have to be “six raw, organic almonds a day keeps cancer away.”

Only at the breakfast table we heard about the movement afoot to pasteurize all almonds and allow pasteurized almonds to be called raw. It is apparently going so far as to insist that all almonds be pasteurized and raw ones not allowed to be sold.
Don’t know how much truth there is to that, but if it is true that is HORRID.
One of the most often held conversations around the bed and breakfast table is about the connections between food, health and disease. Alternative ways of staying healthy and curing oneself are upper-most in a whole lot of folks minds these days and they are sharing!
TO RESPOND to this blog, e-mail follow up comments to- info@bettina-network.com
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1/23/2008 a note via email in response:
 
What you heard around your breakfast table is true. On September 9, 2007 the USDA approved a new regulation to put an end to distribution of raw almonds. They must now be pasteurized – including organic almonds. The rub is that one way almonds are being pasteurized is with propylene oxide, which is classified as a human carcinogen and is banned in Canada, Mexico and the European nations. Ask your readers to write to the USDA to reverse this rule. Almond has been a political hot football for years because of its ability to cure cancer. People have been put out of business and worse because of advocating for almonds – especially bitter almonds. You don’t mention which kind in your writing!
 
Thanks for mentioning this it is important to all of our healths.”
 
2/29/2008 – a note via email in response:
 
I have discovered that almonds are a very powerful aphrodisiac. It could probably push viagra out of the market. Don’t know why, I just know they are great! Yes, Bettina folks, they should be raw and organic.
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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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