Agape Center, a Sanctuary for Life-Minded Creatives

For serenity and creativity, for organic fresh and garden teas and salads, for quiet and simple designer decor, for beauty and arts galore, visit Agape Sanctuary for gluten free, ecological food and surroundings. Pictured are the living room/yoga room, the upstairs bedroom, the slate porch and the house located in uptown Kingston, NY. Location is minutes from the bus to NYC and the Thruway #19 exit. The music is sweet, the gardens are friendly and birdsongs are a symphony of joy. In all seasons, Agape Sanctuary is filled with spiritual light, divine love and healing thoughts. Email Bardet at egoddesses@aol.com for more info.

Visit Agape Center Overnight in the Hudson Valley

Birds are singing, weather is divine. Agape Center is a spiritual refuge in the uptown part of Kingston, NY. It is accessible to everyplace in the Hudson Valley, 20 minutes from Woodstock, 10 from Rosendale, 25 from Rhinebeck and Saugerties. This is one guest room which shares a bath. House is gluten free and all foods are organic and fresh tea is served from the garden. More pictures coming as soon as I can get this program to work.

New York Chocolat Other Sweets

I made her do it. It was all melted in my back pack and I did not care if I got it all over me and I convinced Sandy she did not care either. So we licked it and got chocolat all over. It was fun to be little girls again on a walk in the sun in the early spring.
The next photos are portraits of my new sweet friends, the 350 sprouting seedlings I have in my greenhouse. We are talking heirloom purple tomatoes, arugula, morning glories, mesclun, califlowers, brocs and manymore. They are quite a crew. Outgrowing their cradles and demanding bigger peat pots. They teach me so much about being an individual. Some sprout up overnight. Some take days and days and days. Some like it cool and some love it hot. Maybe they are just reflecting my many moods.... And the laughing daffodils. With shining faces, looking at the garden and I swear they sing. They have asked if I can get them into the Agape International Choir. Since I want to do that too, maybe we will all ship ourselves out to Culver City (city of Los Angeles).
Last night I thought about what I would pray for if I decided to pray. I answered myself "I would pray to hear the voice of God in my head like I used to. To have a closer relationship with God within". Deciding not to venture out to dance, I laid on the couch with the summer type breezes caressing me and I heard, "I AM HERE". I AM HERE. And it was here and is here and everywhere all at once, loving me and loving each one of us. To feel this is a gift of a prayer - a sweet sincere prayer on a sweet saturday night. May everyone who reads this be open to this sweetness; chocolat, singing plants, friends walking and the peace of feeling God's presence.

Clothes Line Heaven

After 7 years, time to replace the clothes line! That means getting the cotton line with the nylon cord at the center from Herzogs. First measure how long your line wants to be. Then double it cause you want it to glide along on those cool wheels attached to each end. Then you need the line tightener, this cool metal thing that you send the end of the cotton line through after you tied the other end to the ring. It just pulls the line tight. You are simply making a huge long loop. Be sure you get the funny looking wooden things that make sure that the line does not sloop too low when you hang stuff on the bottom of the line. And WOODEN clothes pins in a basket or cotton hanger.
Why go to all this trouble???????????????????? As the British magazine, Selvedge says, if we all hung our clothes on the line, do you realize HOW MUCH ELECTRIC WE WOULD SAVE? ENORMOUS AMOUNTS!! DRYERS TAKE UP HUGE AMOUNTS OF ENERGY. THINK ABOUT IT. HEAT AND SWIRLING TUMBLER.
But the BEST part about the clothes line is that you first of all get to be outside in the air while accomplishing something. Secondly, you are creating art. Fabric in the Wind can be so beeeutiful and you can watch your clothing and linens float themselves dry. (they like it so much more than a dark hot dryer). Third is when you get them inside and sleep with them, you can not believe where that delicious scent came from. I still can not, after a lifetime of hanging out the laundry, figure how they pick up that amazing fresh scent. Unlike that horrible stuff that they put in all those detergents now that assure that everyone knows you haven't a clue about environmentalism if you smell like them. Anyway. try a clothes line. I am on a campaign. If you need help, let me know. I will help you solve problems. I have always had a clothesline, Colorado, Poughkeepsie, Sausalito, Williams Lake.... Celebrate Spring with a new clothes line.
This photo is Aquaria in one of my gardens from the past. Carol took the photo.

Utopian weekend, Flurry of dancing, singing, & music

These are pictures from the Flurry in Saratoga Springs, NY which happens every President's Day weekend. You would love it if you like smiling, dancing, music, happy people, all ages, spinning around and getting high, no drugs, no alcohol, no ego!!!! Not one person spent a lot of money on an outfit to wear to this thing!

4000 plus people gather for something like 800 different events of all the above including the HUGE contra dance you see in the photo. Imagine. Dancers from 2 to at least 80's if not older. So many young (teens, 20's, etc) and young feeling people are here that you feel you have gone to heaven because everyone is happy. My fave was a French Circle Dancing from the 16th century which had us jumping up on a beat. It was called something like popping peas. Quite esoteric.

The other pics are about the teens, the children, the English Country dance and one of Bill Vanaver sitting around practicing with friend.

Think about joining next year. Oh yes, the pic of me is my new crazy collar knitting pattern. It uses all your leftover yarn.

June in Sausalito

If the North American continent was a scale and New York and California were the pans hanging off the arms of the scale, then in the past 5 years, my scale would have tipped toward the left coast and then the right coast. Back and forth across the country I have flown, photographing the Philly shipyards, the top of the Rocky Mountains, Lake Tahoe, the grassy Green Valley, the far off Pikes Peak, Canyonlands in Utah, ski slopes, colorful salt flats, rivers, countless fields and farms, hills and valleys and the blinking twinkling lights of cities and towns, curved streets, amazing tall buildings and then there is Atlanta with its all-white houses.

All these I see from the window seat that helps me devour like a hungry fish, the scenery of the United States from the air.

Here are some pics from anywhere 1000 to 37,000 feet above the ground......

north of SF Bay, Salt Flats So of SF, Golden GAte Bridge, Canyonlands, Utah, somewhere in the midwest..... more later!

Careducation

CAREducation is what I call what I do here with the wonderful little people of Marin. I love to be with them and we always spend mucho time laughing, eating, playing, doing art, singing, dancing and watching for all the beautiful animals, flowers, trees and people who live nearby. As a grandmother it is easy to enjoy being with these enlightened beings and guiding their footsteps into the light of conscious living. I am working on a small book describing CAREducation principles. Stay tuned!

California Life and Art

This is a blog about the art and design that I have done here in California.

One is a hat design for Be Sweet made with Bambino yarn. Doing a workshop Feb 22 at Bluebird Yarn in Sausalito around making the hat. Like my cute model?

Two is the design I did for TNNA (the National Needle Arts Association) trade show for the Be Sweet booth to show off the San Francisco coat pattern I designed last year. How do you like the gold skirt?

Three is a wall quilt that I did as a commission for a wonderful family in Mill Valley. It is done with silks and satins with ink jet print photos of Mt Tamalpais, the goddess mountain protecting Marin County from the riotess Pacific Ocean. Better photos will be posted in a month.

Four is a photo from the Chinese New Year Parade that we attended last weekend. Of course this is the famous and exciting dragon. Imagine cacaphonous fireworks, thousands of happy onlookers all over the streets of downtown SF and candy candy candy for all. It was so fun.

Five is just one of the many photos of the cherished children I know here, my wonderful friends who love me and trust me to take care of them, laugh with them, feed them and get to know them as the amazing people who they are.

Solstice in Sausalito

Pictures of the home in which I am living in Sausalito. It is interesting to listen to WKZE from Red Hook, NY where there is diverse music, cold and snow and be here in a beautiful home overlooking San Francisco Bay. It is in the high 40's/50's here, quiet and serene as the long night and long shadows remind us that darkness is rather comforting. Our friend the Dark Madonna holds the energy of rebirth, nurturing, comfort in the nights and all is well. I am changing my engagement with the word peace to the concept of wellbeing no matter what is happening on the physical level. Are we sure we are not bored and looking for meaningful activity instead of just busyness? More writing from me is forthcoming.

Intend Simplify Balance

Keep up the good work I say and let yourself Intend what you want. Believe that what you want is happening. If your vision includes your town, your country, the earth, the universe, go ahead. It is the most important work/play you can do.

Second to that is simplification. I am reading the Laws of Simplification, Design, Technology, Business, Life, by John Maeda, the new president of my alma mater, Rhode Island School of Design. He is an artist, designer and was head of the MIT Media Lab. He speaks to the issues facing us as a country and as a planet...... reduce, organize, time, learn, differences, context, emotion, trust, failure, the One, (subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful).

I particularly like the wave illustration on page 46. He notes that complexity and simplicity are rhythmic, balanced, not steadily gaining or loosing.

The wave demonstrates that as we simplify our lives, our rampant consumerism can become controlled. We can balance our lives so that we honor that which is important to life.... air, water, earth, health, children, beauty, honor, integrity, authenticity, connection, love, serenity, friendship, and we will not miss the stuff that we let slip away..... Start with, "I intend to.....love myself more." good place to start... Bardet

For Elliot

Some people are just in your mind.

Accepting Love

Here I am now, living in Kingston, New York. Just a few miles away the Catskill mountains lounge serenely waiting for snow to nuzzle them. And in another direction, the Shawangunk mountains are, in their purity, holding the energy of the original lay of the land when natives were here. I have fully given over to making and creating and quiet contemplation. In the past few weeks I put away many pears from my tree, some in jars for jam, gorgeous red peppers, and have mucho chicken stock frozen, waiting for cold winter evenings to warm up the insides.

All in all the fall has been a beauty so far and more to come. The dancing here is outrageously good with local venues attracting a night crowd of experienced dancers who are dedicated to twirling and stepping to the rhythms of zydeco, my favorite, waltz, contra, salsa, west and east coast swing, country and western, English country, squares and of course I am still doing African here with Pam and Mimo and several drummers.

And what's all this about accepting love? It came to me today that so many of us are surrounded by it and don't even know it and don't let it in even when it comes and hits us upside the head. Well, not literally, but the feeling of love is always in the air and I just think that if one is interested it is good to start by opening up and feeling it inside and all around and hold onto that feeling and it will permeate and become value added -- a treasure that we have been wanting for a long time. A longing that consumerism has not been able to satisfy. So I for one am going to open up and accept that feeling of love and see what happens, become permeable. It might be the only true antidote for fear. It's gonna be good.

These photos are from this summer at the Ashokan Reservoir which is surrounded by the Catskills and of Doug and his beautiful sculptural property in Vermont with dear Pixley.