RAVEN TALES chronicles the wild and wacky adventures of RAVEN, the most powerful and trickiest trouble-maker of First Nation's folklore. I first saw the Raven Tales on the National Geographic channel. I have not been able to find them since. So for Christmas I said to myself, what would I really like?? Hum- a Scottish 1890 sewing kit? No- got that last year. Hum- Raven Tales. This is how I could share my love of ravens with my new grand daughter Malia. The tales are in a cartoon form but tell funny, magical and heart felt stories a child could understand. So I joined Raven, Eagle and Frog and their friends, the First People in the land before time and bought the whole set of DVDs and I couldn't be happier. If you ever get a chance to see these, do it and you will be carried away to another time.
Well Sunday's football game was equivocal for me. I live in 49er land BUT who could not root for a team with the name of RAVENS? So I had to skulk around the chips, dips and pizza and say a little- YEAH- for the Ravens. Very softly you understand for fear of retribution from the red and gold folks. So glad that football is over!!
I found the most marvelous book in a used bookstore down in San Louis Obispo. We were visiting our favorite place, Shell Beach which is next to Pismo Beach. It is "The Art of Emily Carr". It was discarded out of the Westridge School Library in Pasadena. Lucky for me!! It is the art of Emily Carr who was born in Victoria on Vancover Island. She painted the most characteristic features of that region- a unique and vanishing Indian culture and a powerful coastal nature. She painted many of the totem poles that were falling into disrepair as the Indians had moved away. There are two raven paintings that most affected me, Cumshewa and Big Raven. Of Cumshewa, a great wooden raven mounted on a rather low pole, his wings flattened to his side, a few feet from him stuck up an empty pole. His mate had sat there but she had rotted away long ago, leaving him moss-grown, diplapidated and alone to watch the dead Indian bones. Young trees had grown up around the old raven, sheltering him from the tearing winds now that he was old and rotting. The memory of Cumshewa is of a great lonesomeness smothered in a blur of rain. The paintings evoke many feelings and emotions. I recommend this book highly.
Well Sunday's football game was equivocal for me. I live in 49er land BUT who could not root for a team with the name of RAVENS? So I had to skulk around the chips, dips and pizza and say a little- YEAH- for the Ravens. Very softly you understand for fear of retribution from the red and gold folks. So glad that football is over!!
I found the most marvelous book in a used bookstore down in San Louis Obispo. We were visiting our favorite place, Shell Beach which is next to Pismo Beach. It is "The Art of Emily Carr". It was discarded out of the Westridge School Library in Pasadena. Lucky for me!! It is the art of Emily Carr who was born in Victoria on Vancover Island. She painted the most characteristic features of that region- a unique and vanishing Indian culture and a powerful coastal nature. She painted many of the totem poles that were falling into disrepair as the Indians had moved away. There are two raven paintings that most affected me, Cumshewa and Big Raven. Of Cumshewa, a great wooden raven mounted on a rather low pole, his wings flattened to his side, a few feet from him stuck up an empty pole. His mate had sat there but she had rotted away long ago, leaving him moss-grown, diplapidated and alone to watch the dead Indian bones. Young trees had grown up around the old raven, sheltering him from the tearing winds now that he was old and rotting. The memory of Cumshewa is of a great lonesomeness smothered in a blur of rain. The paintings evoke many feelings and emotions. I recommend this book highly.
