March 27 – May 1 
Instructor: Mikell Worley
6 weeks
Colors are associated with gender, life - passage ceremonies, seasons, holidays, moods, diseases and health. Colors can increase, or reduce your energy level, blood pressure and appetite. They can inspire passion and loyalty. Ask any sports fan! Each multi-media lecture will feature a rainbow color, its characteristics, and impact on history, culture, fashion, art, music, literature, folklore and more.
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Mikell Worley has explored the impact of color as an artist, through work with adjudicated youth, women in prison, and training sessions for schools, health care providers and state agencies as Director of PA Department of Health State Health Improvement Plan. 

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After years of working with Healthy Communities, SHIP (State Health Improvement Plan through the PA Dept. of Health, and the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), my first thought with addressing the concerns in our area was to see what is already in place and not reinvent the wheel. I wondered if there was a local Healthy Community group and a SHIP locally.  

Healthy Community embraces the broad based concept of health, In addition to access to health care and our traditional perceptions, it includes safe streets, clean air and water, education, skill building to ensure marketable skills, youth mentors, volunteering, transportation. Dr. Peter Benson's 40 Assets for Youth and Colin Powell's America's Promise exemplify these concepts. 

All are asset based. Instead of focusing on the results we don't want which is so typical and defeatist (crime, drug use, disease), these visionaries determined asset based results and moved in a positive direction with remarkable outcomes. 

Fortunately, there is a SHIP in Maryland, called the State Health Improvement Process. The Maryland SHIP has a wealth of information including statistics, newsletters, events and webinars. There are promising and model practices from Healthy Community sites all over the country such as Establishing a More Livable Community through Community Collaboration. 

Sadly, there have been some changes since I was director of local SHIP. Words that enhanced and drove our work, "science based" and "evidence based",  have now been banned by the current administration.

Words have been banned. Let that sink in.

Our local United Way was superlative, and the hub of resources and funding locally. I chaired the youth component. We organized and delivered training throughout the community including youth groups, church groups and school programs using the 40 Assets for Youth. If youth organizations couldn't demonstrate results through evidence, they weren't funded. I wonder how the CDC and SHIPS are monitoring results with these bizarre restrictions. 

It's been years since I was involved. My job as director, in addition to being president of our local America's Promise, and co-chair of the Gandhi-King Peace Coalition  were all consuming. When I  came to Maryland,  my daughter got me this business card holder. 

There have been frustrations with living in my community recently. I won't get into specifics but they are serious, significant and disturbing.. 

When I get stressed and frustrated, I need to return to gratitude. I truly believe we get what we focus on. Lately my thought have been on things I certainly don't want to increase in my life. 

There are a lot of reasons to love my home and community. I have wonderful neighbors who are peace loving with kind hearts. That makes the recent incidents all the more disturbing. The 'magic alley' is only a few steps away. It takes me less than 5 minutes to drive to the Renaissance Institute at Notre Dame University of Maryland for chorus and classes. My back yard is overflowing with rosemary, lavender, thyme, other herbs and vegetables and flowers in the summer months.I am less than 15 minutes away from superlative museums, restaurants, gardens and Camden Yards. Live music is abundant through out the area  seven days a week.

I've been told violence is increasing in communities all across the country. I'm still familiar with places that are safe so I'm not buying into that gloom. I didn't lock my door for over a decade at the cabin and my neighbors from that area still don't. If my house hadn't been flooded, I'd still be there, but I was divinely guided to move heer and for now< i'll make the best of it and focus on all of the blessings. 

. . . off to paint more flowers!

Honey lemon tea can be used alone or with black tea or any combination of herbal teas.

Sterilize wide mouth canning jar or glass container. 

Ingredients

• 1 pound lemons, thoroughly wash, thinly sliced with seeds remove
• 1 pound honey, local is best. It will help with allergies.

Place lemons loosely in jar. Slowly pour in honey, using a knife to pull lemons away from the sides and allow honey to flow  cover entirely. 

Place jar in refrigerator and let marinate for seven days.

To serve, use 2 or 3 Tablespoons per cup or to taste, 

Roses are used in both of the projects below. Rose hips are scented with blue spruce oil in the first, and rose potpourri is used to make the lace rose sachets in the second. Both are wonderful remembrances of time spent in the garden in the summer, collecting rose buds (and rose hips) while ye may!

​Each rose sachet is made with 

• a nine inch circle of lace
• 3 Tablespoons rose potpourri
• 20 inch lengths of satin cord or satin ribbon

Place potpourri in the center of lace circle. Gather the top, keeping edges even. Tis with ribbon.

​The sachets make wonderful Valentine girts. 

Tassels add such richness.  Added to a chair, lamp or swag, they add a touch of elegance and warmth. to the cold winter months.

Winter's celebration and festivities all packed into December, the first month of the season, leave January and February feeling lonely and cold. Our Christmas tree has provided much needed light all season. She's made my morning journaling sessions so much more enjoyable and taking her down will be difficult. She has continued to drink 4 to 6 cups of water every day and has hardly dropped any needles at all, even though we've had her for almost a month. 

I love the festivals of light - almost every culture has one - but it seems some might be better celebrated after the new year when there are fewer holiday events. We've been experiencing well below normal temperatures and are bracing for "Bomb Cyclone" on the eastern coast. It is expected to escalate as it moves north and has already  done damage in Florida, Georgia, Virginia and the Carolinas. 

In an effort to warm up the winter months and soften the chilling winter storms, I'll be adding some posts in January and February with ideas for adding light and love.