Two paintings by my sister, Barbra Bloy, are now showing in an online exhibition called “Mandalas: Maps of Consciousness Order” at the Caladan Gallery.
For those of you unfamiliar with mandalas (and since the librarian in me is compelled to look things up), the Columbia Encyclopedia offers the following definition:
My favorite part of my camping trip last week, was a visit to Effigy Mounds National Monument. Located across the Mississippi River (in Iowa) and about 15 miles north of Wyalusing, Effigy Mounds National Monument has over 195 mounds built by native peoples between 750 and 1,600 years ago. These earthen mounds probably had a strong religious significance for those who built them. Probably a means of connecting the people to the land, the spirit world, and their ancestors. In fact, some were used for burial purposes.
When we were in Washington D.C., my father and I stayed at the dorm of the College of Preachers next to the Washington National Cathedral. It was nice going back to a local, quiet neighborhood at the end of every day, away from the hustle and bustle of the mall.
While I was in Washington, I did not want to miss visiting the war memorials on the mall. Especially the new World War II Memorial (above) and the Vietnam Memorial (below), which I had never been to.
Looking back, the thing I enjoyed the most during my trip to Washington D.C. (other than hanging out with my father) was the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. And my being a librarian didn’t have anything to do with that. While we were waiting for the library to open, I was thinking we probably wouldn’t be there longer than an hour. We ended up staying for most of the morning and into the lunch hour!
Of the places I was planning to visit in Washington, the one I was most looking forward to was the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, which had its grand opening last month.
One more entry related to my camping trip. Learning about Native American culture has been a fascination of mine for quite some time. While I was in northern Wisconsin, I visited Waswagoning, a recreated Ojibwe Indian village. They’ve got things set up there as the Ojibwe lived before the Europeans came to this area. The tour guides (from the Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe tribe) do an excellent job of showing you how their people lived during that time. The folktales they told also made their culture come alive as the tour progressed. Definitely an excellent place to stop while you’re traveling through the north woods.
