Transcription of Hauntings #7
Speaker 1: You’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine in Portland, Maine and broadcast on 1310 AM Portland streaming live each week at 11 am on WLOBradio.com and available via podcast on doctorlisa.org. Thank you for joining us. Here are some highlights from today’s show.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible by the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Tom Shepard of Herzy, Gardner, Shepard and Eaton, Mike Lapage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage, Robin Hodgskin at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Whole Foods Market, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Foulmouth Maine and Akari.
Lisa: Hello. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Welcome to today’s Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast courses-hosted by Genevieve Morgan. Today’s show which is airing on October 30th 2011 has the theme of ghosts and hauntings which is of course very appropriate given the upcoming holidays. We’re looking to explore these themes with a very interesting group of women today.
Our first guest is Dr. Michelle Shems, orthodontist out of Foulmouth, Maine. Our next guest is Patricia Reis, psychotherapist and author. We then have Rebecca McNulty, visual artist and puppeteer and Marcia Carr of HART, a no kill cat shelter in Cumberland.
In my experience as a physician, hauntings have a significant place in people’s health and well being. When people come into my practice, there are things that have been haunting them emotionally and spiritually for years which manifest physically. I’ve noticed that people end up with heart problems when they’ve experienced broken hearts. I noticed that people have back problems when they’re suffering from the pain of trying to hold up the world.
It’s important to explore what haunts us and on today’s show, we’re going to do just that. Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we have a segment we call Food and Sustenance which is courses-hosted by Genevieve Morgan. Hello Genevieve.
Genevieve: Hi, Lisa. Hello, everyone.
Lisa: We, also this week, have a very special guest. Usually it’s just Genevieve and I talking about our children and the food that we get at Whole Foods and things that are nutritious but this week, we have Dr. Michelle Shems who is a board certified orthodontist, as a practice in Foulmouth, 3 children. Michelle’s joining us because not only is she interested in orthodontia and teeth but she has 3 children. She has something very special she’s going to be doing over Halloween to benefit the big brothers big sisters of Portland organization.
I’m going to let you talk to her … I’m going to … Actually, I’m not going to let you talk to her. I’m going to talk to her about this but first, we’re going to talk a little bit about some of the treats that I found at Whole Foods this week as I was looking for healthy Halloween treats. Dr. Shems, you have 3 children. The youngest is 5. The oldest is 12. Do you find it a challenge to keep them away from sweetened foods, candies? I know with my children, it’s gotten harder as they’ve gotten older. What do you think?
Michelle: I completely agree. I think the best thing that we’ve done is just not really have any candy in our home and not make it as available.
Lisa: The theme for today’s show is hauntings and we’re specifically talking about Halloween and as we were talking about before, we went on air, Dr. Shems and Genevieve and I. The idea is that if you can keep your children’s teeth relatively free from lots of sugar and give them lots of good healthy calcium-containing foods then that won’t haunt them later in life. There’s a long-term haunting. Would you …
Michelle: Yes, I completely agree with that.
Lisa: Then there’s also short term and this is just … I don’t know that you necessarily see this in your practice. Even though the studies aren’t conclusive that children eating a lot of sugar right around Halloween drives them completely insane. I notice this in my family. Have you noticed this in yours?
Michelle: Yes.. Yes, absolutely. One thing you can think of it. They are going to have candy the days following Halloween and you are going to let them keep some. You could follow it with something cariostatic which means it kind of has a negative effect on sugar and cavities such as a piece of cheese and it will cancel out the effects of candy or just limit what they can eat.
Lisa: Can you just explain a little bit about what happens when you eat sugar or sugary snacks, what happens with your teeth? I don’t really understand. I know what happens when it gets in your gut but what happens in your mouth?
Michelle: In the oral cavity when something … a carbohydrate or a sugar is introduced, the bacteria which is the normal flora in the oral cavity will produce an acid and that acid is what will cause decay. So something cariostatic like I mentioned a chunk of cheese will negate those effects.
Lisa: What is the cariostatic effect? Chemically, how does that work?
Michelle: I believe it’s just …. Somehow, it inhibits the acid production from the bacteria.
Lisa: That’s useful. If we can maybe limit the amount of sugar that we’re feeding our children but if we’re going to give them sugar, then don’t it be the last thing in their mouth especially before they go to bed and especially if they don’t brush their teeth maybe give them that piece of cheese to balance it all out. Genevieve, I’m looking over here at the foods that we got from the Whole foods market this week and I’ve actually had my 10 and my 15-year-old daughters trying them out so that I could actually so whether they were good or not.
Michelle: I know. It looks like you’ve done some early trick or treating.
Lisa: Yes. Actually, Abby had her friends over this weekend and they were all trialing them for me. I don’t happen to eat a lot of sweets in my own life so I don’t know that I’d really glean the benefit of a yummy earth organic lollipop which Sophie loves.
At whole foods, we have the yummy earth organic lollipops. We have the endangered species chocolates, speaking of chocolate. We also have some organic fruit strips which I know even small children like to eat. We have these Clif Z bars, some Annie’s organic orchard grapefruit bites, not grapefruit but grape fruit. I don’t know how many small children like grapefruits. We have to be a little choosey about flavors for children and some Barbara’s fruit and yogurt bars.
If you’d like to go over the Whole Foods and do some trick or treating, then they have some treats available to you. Another thing I would recommend and im sure that Genevieve and Michelle you would agree on this, make sure your children have something healthy before you go out trick or treating so they’re not walking around the neighborhood mowing down the candy as they’re getting it. I think if you can fill their bellies appropriately then they’re going to be a lot less likely to just start throwing the Skittles back.
Michelle: That’s a wonderful suggestion.
Genevieve: Now, I think we might fill their bellies with something like cheese pizza or …
Lisa: Speaking of cheese pizza. This is the funny thing about … You have to do a little marketing when you’re a parent I have found. You can’t be trying to feed on Halloween night. You can’t be trying to feed your children excessively healthy foods. Don’t be trying to give them eggplant parmesan.
Genevieve: Not the night for kale.
Lisa: It’s definitely not the night for kale. A couple of things that I found when I was walking around Whole foods with Barbara Galeno this week, Flatbread Pizza which is a local restaurant, they have these great already made pizzas, you can just throw them in, frozen. It’s very easy. The 15-year-old at our house she does this and also Rosario’s makes pizza dough whole grain and homemade sauce and it’s frozen and you can thaw it out, throw on some spinach and vegetables, some mushrooms and kids really love to make their own pizzas. It’s not a bad alternative if you’re going to fill their bellies.
This is the very interesting thing is that you just have to be balanced. I think the other interesting thing for me is what you are doing in your office, Michelle, Dr. Shems. You’ve been doing this for 10 …
Michelle: This is going to be our 9th year.
Lisa: Your 9th year. You’ve been in practice for 10 years though so you started this just very soon after you went into practice and you have this very interesting program that I think parents might want to learn about.
Michelle: We call it a Halloween buy back and it’s a win-win situation. We buy back candy and for every pound of candy that the children want to actually sell, they can bring it to our office and it’s open to the public. You don’t have to be a patient. In the prior years, we actually held an event and now, we’re trying to make it even bigger success. We’re now holding the event Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday all day the day after Halloween. If they want, they can bring their candy weigh it in. It’s actually very fun. For every pound we’ll give the child a dollar up to 5 pounds. This year, we’re going to match each dollar to the Big Brother Big Sisters of Southern Maine.
Lisa: You’re doing good all around. You’re saving your teeth. You’re giving them a little treat and you’re treating the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization. Has this been successful in years past?
Michelle: It’s been great. It’s been a lot of fun. Every child that comes in has a different slant on how they’re going to react. For example, we have some … You can just see the pain in their faces when they’re giving up the candy and how difficult it is and it’s making the parent happy. Sometimes, the kids are so happy to get cash in their hands. Others then will in turn give their dollars to the same charity so then they’ve done 2 good deeds. They’ve sold their candy as well as they’ve given their hard earned cash to the cause of the year.
Genevieve: Do you get raisins? Do you buyback raisins? Or pencils?
Michelle: It’s so funny that you’re bringing up raisins because I think I have to demystify the whole raisin. I learned this when I was in dental school. Raisins are actually very unhealthy for your teeth because of the sugar content and because of the stickiness. It actually … Instead of just having a sweet, the raisin will actually stay in the oral cavity longer and have a longer acid effect. All those parents way back when that handed out SunMaid Raisins weren’t really doing the kids necessarily a favor.
Lisa: I’ve been very fascinated by it. I didn’t know about raisins. I had forgotten about the cheese thing so I’ve learned a lot. We’re going to send people over to Whole Foods to buy some healthy Halloween treats and maybe some pizza. I know there are going to be people who are going to want to come to your practice and have the candy bought back. How do they get in touch with you to find out more?
Michelle: It’s open to the public. Our address is 202 U.S Route 1 in Foulmouth. You can call for specifics or directions. Our website is currently under construction so that’s not a good resource at this time. We’ll welcome anyone that wants to come and sell their candy. We want to make this a great success for Big Brothers Big Sisters this year.
Lisa: Thank you so much for doing this fundraiser and the buyback. Genevieve has learned a lot too I think.
Genevieve: I have and I’m going to see you on Tuesday morning with my bag full of jellybeans and Laffy Taffy’s.
Michelle: I look forward to it.
Lisa: Thanks for coming in and we hope you’ll visit us again.
Michelle: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: This segment has been brought to you by Whole Foods market. For more information on our hosts, production team, Maine Magazine, or any of the guests featured here today, please visit us online at doctorlisa.org.
Lisa: Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast co-hosted by Genevieve Morgan, we have a featured guest who comes in and talks about our main theme. This week’s theme which Genevieve and I love was initially going to be just hauntings but I decided to ghosts and hauntings. It’s perfect because we have with us today Patricia Reis. Welcome Patricia.
Patricia: Thank you very much.
Lisa: I’m going to read a little bit about you here. You are the author of The Dreaming Way, Daughters of Saturn, and Through the Goddess, creative and producer of Artic Refuge Sutra. You have degrees from the University of Wisconsin in English Literature, an MFA from the University of California-Los Angeles in sculpture. You have a psychotherapy practice and you’re currently engaged in writing fiction. What a widely varied and wonderful route you’ve taken to get to where you are today.
Patricia: It’s a lot of threads. It’s a very windy path. It’s been a windy path.
Lisa: One of my favorite quotes from Tolkien is “All who wander are not lost.”
Patricia: This is true.
Lisa: You are sitting amongst a group of writers. Genevieve and I and John does some writing and you are a writer so it’s lovely to have you in our midst.
Patricia: Thank you very much.
Lisa: Now, today’s theme hauntings. I’ve been reading Daughters of Saturn. It’s so interesting. One of the things that caught me right off and I know this is going to lead into something we’re going to talk about later on is the story you tell about a woman in your family, something really fairly horrible happened to her.
Patricia: That’s right. That’s right. It’s really what provoked me to write fiction to begin with. As you said I’ve written non-fiction. I’ve written many articles non-fiction and one afternoon in my practice, I had a 2-hour cancellation. This is probably about in 2002, I think, and I just then wondered, “What am I going to do with this time?” I sat in my chair and all of a sudden I heard this voice and it said, “It wasn’t that I wanted to die. It was just that I was so damn mad and it was the only thing I could think to do and the only means at hand.” I went, “Oh, my God. That is the voice of the women who was thought to be my great-grandmother.” That’s her. That’s her voice. I sat down with a yellow pad of paper and I started writing.
Lisa: How did you find out about her?
Patricia: All family histories are riddled with mysteries. There was a family story about this woman who had … My father said it’s down my father’s line. That said this woman Leddy, she stood to near the woods overnight, it caught on fire and she burned to death which is gruesome, horrible. That was the story I grew up with. However, the family genealogist at 1 point showed up maybe, I don’t know, 20 years ago and said well here’s her obituary. Her obituary said Mrs. Reis cooked herself. The language for these newspaper’s obituaries were very lurid.
Why would someone be that desperate? When her voice came, that started this whole work. Then, I resonated very much with Margaret Atwood’s book called Negotiating with the Dead because I felt like in some ways this writing was doing that. Her quote says, she says “All writing is motivating deep down by fear or and a fascination with mortality by a desire to make a risky trip to the underworld and to bring something back or someone back from the dead.”
Lisa: Yikes. That’s a little scary.
Patricia: It can be.
Genevieve: What I think is interesting about your story is that you were haunted by you were haunted and it actually triggered a creative impulse for you.
Patricia: That’s exactly right. Yes. It wasn’t like I was … I was fascinated by the gaps in the story. I think there are these silences that happen and usually they’re trans-generational. I call it trans-generational haunting. That’s what this is. They’re really about stories that need to be told because the things were unspeakable in a way. This story got lost just in 1 generation. My father didn’t know it.
Lisa: With all the research that you did, did it help with the sense of haunting? I’m just interested if … All of us are haunted in some way by our family legacies and our stories and intergenerational haunting. Does it bringing it up into the light, writing, talking …
Patricia: It’s an exorcism. It’s a form of exorcism. What I really feel is that these stories need to be told. They’re usually cloaked and shrouded in shame and guilt and all sorts of horrible things. They’re unspeakable. To speak the unspeakable lightens everything.
Lisa: Which goes along with actually our theme from last week which was light. One of the things to get more light is to bring things to light, to actually put things out there then you will become less haunted. You will have your ghosts be able to be heard.
Patricia: It’s the restless dead. The restless dead, the ones who either are unfulfilled in some way or have endured something horrible that just gets passed down. I had the feeling when I was doing that writing that I was swimming down the DNA in my imagination because that’s what it takes. It takes imagination and it takes heart. Heart meaning courage to swim down the DNA, to see what these restless dead have to say to us.
Lisa: Do the restless dead of your patients speak to you through your patients?
Patricia: Yes. I listen for that. I listen for it not only in the negative sense because I think also what’s transmitted is not just the haunting in a … It’s not negative but in a traumatic sense but also there are powers that are transmitted.
Lisa: What are some of these powers that you’re talking about?
Patricia: I’m thinking about maybe somebody has in their couple generations back a woman who was a suffragette, very powerful, on the line suffragette. Big voice.
Lisa: Trying to get women the right to vote.
Patricia: Yes, right to vote. Next generation shame about the woman. Shame about that mother. Silence. Silence. Coming up in the contemporary time, a woman who feels a drive to be out there, to give voice to this. Who’s way behind that? Somebody’s way behind that urging pushing. Some memory. Some, something.
Lisa: Something was shaping the generations that were moving beyond that place.
Patricia: Yes.
Lisa: How do you get your patients or clients who come in who have something haunting them?
Genevieve: I keep thinking of Jacob Marley in the Christmas Carol the banker dragging his chains…
Patricia: Often times, it can come through all this sort of unaccounted for feelings or emotions or it can come through dreams.
Lisa: Give me an example of something like that.
Patricia: Dream characters people can appear and you think usually these kinds of things have to do with when a person cannot connect with anything with their personal experience. I have no personal experience of this. I was born when World War II started and I know that a lot of people who are born during that time have Holocaust images in their dreams. I feel like sometimes there’s a collective haunting that comes through in that way.
I know that if I meet with a woman who has a severe eating disorder, sometimes if you track it back, maybe her generations back came from Ireland during the Great Famine.
Genevieve: Lisa’s pointing to herself.
Lisa: Yes. We have this in our family. We do have this whole famine and then we have …
Patricia: There’s a hunger …
Lisa: Yes, right.
Patricia: … runs through.
Lisa: Then of course if you came over as part of the famine, then you’re going to be in the United States during very turbulent times, the Depression, World War I and World War II. There’s going to be an ongoing hunger that never gets resolved.
Patricia: Right. Then there’s a book called The Law of Dreams. Did you read this by Peter Barrens?
Lisa: Not yet.
Patricia: It’s all about that.
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Genevieve: I want to just get back for a moment to this idea though because I think that when we look at what’s haunting us if we have the courage to look at what’s haunting us, what you’re saying is really powerful. The same things that might be impeding you in your life and moving forward can actually with airing and talking can actually be a source of great power and inspiration.
Patricia: This is true. Very true.
Genevieve: That’s really what we’re talking about on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is how do you come to terms with these things that are keeping you back, these chains clanking behind you so that you can fully move forward? I know that a big piece of what you do is about helping people do that creatively.
Patricia: Right. I think everybody has the capacity for being creative in some kind of way. It’s not just limited, say, to art making or writing. There all different kinds of ways to be creative but I think also there is the aspect of consciousness, to be conscious of some of the things that drive and motivate us, the way into that of course for me is as Freud called it the Royal Road, our dreams.
Lisa: Do you use your own dreams in your artwork and the work that you’ve done in film and the writing that you do?
Patricia: I use the dreams … Dreams aren’t meant to be used is what I really think. They’re not meant to be used. They’re meant to reveal and they’re always … The psyche has a great, great capacity for healing, for bringing to light whatever hidden parts that are difficult or powerful. Sometimes, the dreams come as very powerful affirmations. I think when I was writing one time I had this dream of these hands weaving these golden threads, this cloth.
This was during a time when I was really struggling with the writing and I said, “Okay, it’s all happening. Somewhere it’s all happening. It’s all being worked out.” I find that very inspiring. Then I don’t get too stumbly around my own …
Lisa: You just keep letting it happen.
Patricia: Yes, and that’s already happening.
Lisa: What do you have for suggestions for people who are working through some hauntings in their life whether they realize it or they don’t realize it?
Patricia: Of course, one is to pay attention to your dreams. To know that there are all sorts of ways of understanding and there are all sorts of ways … paths of knowledge and that you can expand your sense of your own vastness.
Lisa: We’re all sitting here so silent feeling so vast as you just said this. It’s a humbling thought, isn’t it?
Patricia: Yes. It’s humbling for the ego because we like to think that we’re in charge and we know everything and in control. Really, somewhere in the background are those hands weaving.
Lisa: Right, something bigger than ourselves.
Patricia: I’m not the puppet master.
Lisa: The other thing that I am thinking about as I’m listening to you Patricia is we also … If we have children or the next generation, we can also start thinking about stopping the haunting from moving forward into the next generation.
Patricia: There’s a beautiful Hebrew word call tikkun. T-I-K-K-U-N, tikkun and it means repair. I think part of the work of dealing with these past trans-generational hauntings has to do with the idea of repair, that those holes, those gaps, those traumas, those horrible things … The work of repair to go back to the weaving idea that you can reweave the holes in history. By doing that, making that repair, that lightens the journey for the next generation. It’s part of evolution. It’s how we evolve.
Lisa: When I was reading The Daughters of Saturn, you talked about these moments of awakening, these awakening events and actually I was at an event put on by the Telling Room. Genevieve is part of the Telling Room. They had people come in and talk about their light bulb moments, various things in their lives that they described. Yours, I believe, was divorce. It was a relatively common place sort of bourgeois but it is traumatic. There are so many people who go through this.
Patricia: Oh my word, yes. All this little house that I built. This little structure, that all looked so good. It just came tumbling down completely. It’s like huff and puff and blow your house down. It was all in pieces.
Lisa: This is very common. You were 37. I think it’s very common for women, somewhere between 35 and 40 and men slightly older as my observation in my practice to have things kind of come to the surface at that place, right in that part of life.
Patricia: The common word for it is mid-life crisis.
Lisa: I’m hoping that 35 is not your mid-life but it could be. Sure.
Patricia: The unfolding of that took a number of years. It took a number of years to, I call it, a whole big de-structuring, restructuring. All of who I am now sitting in front of you now came from that restructuring. Not that what happened before was wrong or bad. It just was a faulty construction. It didn’t hold up.
Lisa: This is the interesting thing. I think it’s James Hollis is an author that writes about this that …
Patricia: The mid-life passage.
Lisa: Right. The first half of your life is you are doing things for everybody around you, the society, the culture, your family. Then you get to a point where you’ve met all the goals, you’ve reached where you’re going to reach and you wake up and you go wait a minute, where am I and who am I and what does this look like? Am I with the right person and divorce is fairly huge. It’s 1 of these unspoken, un … It’s completely traumatic and yet we don’t really talk about it in our culture that much. It can haunt us. The fact that we aren’t actually able to discuss this.
Patricia: Yes, I think anything we can’t discuss haunts because if it’s sealed in silence, it has that haunting capacity.
Genevieve: Lisa, you’ve been enjoying reading Daughters of Saturn but you have several books out, Patricia. If we want to read more about you or read your books, how do we access them?
Patricia: You can go to my website or you can just put my name in. Patricia Reis, R-E-I-S.
Genevieve: What’s the address of your website?
Lisa: Its wwww.patriciareis.net.
Lisa: Thank you also for coming in and talking to us.
Patricia: Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I really, really enjoyed it very much.
Lisa: Gen and I will just keep talking all morning long.
Genevieve: It’s true. It’s very easy to do with you, Patricia. You have so many insightful things to do. Thank you so much.
Patricia: Thank you.
Lisa: Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we have Maine Magazine minute segment hosted by Genevieve Morgan from Maine Magazine. This week is especially interesting because we have a link we didn’t even realize between Maine Magazine and the guests that we have coming on now. The woman who’s coming on now, we actually didn’t realize this link either but in the last segment, we spoke about author James Hollis and the woman that Genevieve will introduce brought James Hollis to Maine, I think, maybe more than once. I’ll let Genevieve talk about these things. I’m fascinated when we find these connections.
Genevieve: That’s the wonderful thing about living in our state is that we have all of these interesting people secreted away in harbors and mountain ranges in our state. We have a radio show and find out they’re all connected. Peter Barrens who Patricia mentioned is a fabulous writer living in Blue Hill and he actually writes for the magazine and wrote a great article on sailing. He’s married to a woman named Basha Burwell who is a stylist for Maine Magazine. It is all connected. You keep telling me this, Lisa, and I’m finally really beginning to understand. It’s all connected.
Today in our studio, we have visual artist, puppeteer, storyteller, Rebecca McNulty. I’m so happy to have you’re here, Rebecca, because you’re just the kind of person that Maine Magazine likes to turn the lens on. You’re doing such fascinating work.
Rebecca: Thank you. I’m very happy to be here.
Genevieve: I want to read a little bit about what you do so that people can find you. Your art has a curious way of twining itself into intricate stories, drawing on myths, legends, and curious bits of history. You’ve found the places of intersection between the old and the new which is very appropriate for today’s theme which is hauntings.
The works come alive in different ways. Raven Scry Venture Company offers live role-playing programs for young people that combine storytelling, sneaking, games, ciphers, puzzles and art into an experience of magic, mystery and mayhem. Perfect for Halloween.
You have a program for adults called Raven Scroll Studio Productions that is an intimate chamber theater that works for adults that explore themes of chaos and order, light and darkness. Wow. I don’t even know where to begin but I also know that you are a self-described world builder. All around our studio, Lisa has been taking great pictures, are examples of your artwork which indeed are drawings. You actually have brought in a puppet here that you have brought your art to life, tons and tons of images. I want to know how you got started with all this.
Rebecca: Mostly I got started … My parents were both storytellers and they were constantly making things, constantly telling stories, music, all kinds of things in the family. I grew up with this storytelling. When I hit school, I started writing books as soon as I could, little tiny things and I wanted to bring them alive in different ways.
I actually had books that had little puppets that moved through the pages and little slits and things and went right into constantly making things as a child. My first puppet was actually a red crow. It was a sock puppet that my mother taught a learning center at church how to make these little puppets. This red crow, I actually had to defend its identity as a child. I was in 3rd grade at the time so about 9, 8 or 9.
I remember saying, “No, no, no. It really is a red crow.” My families are birders so they were like, “Now, Rebecca, you do know that there are no red crows.” Twenty-five years later when I’m researching the mythologies and things for my thesis production and getting my MFA in puppetry, I discovered that there are actual red crows in the mythology of ancient China and Japan and throughout Asia. Not only are there red crows but there are actual relations of the crow that are red in South Korea and places like that. It stuck with them.
Female: You found something in that … We were speaking with Patricia Reis about the inter-generational haunting. Something came up with you that you didn’t know what it was and became clear 25 years later.
Rebecca: I believe absolutely in that. I have felt connections that I can’t explain. At this stage, I’m feeling that kind of entwined within our strands of DNA are these latent bits of memory and things of the dreaming of the ancestors. That part of our job is to bring those things forward into the world in some small way and that’s how I view what I do. When you guys called about this haunting theme, I’m like yeah.
Female: It’s interesting that you’ve chosen puppets because many people in our culture think of puppets in a different way than they do in Europe or in Asia.
Rebecca: It’s actually very hard. I’m not alone in this. Different puppeteers at Yukon, we often struggle with the question of what do we call ourselves in order to convey to people the art of what we really do. Unfortunately, there are very few words for it. Puppet is pretty much it in English whereas if you look at other cultures, they’re making puppets all the time and they don’t relegate them to the realm of childhood. They actually recognize that these things are living and dancing in us all of our lives.
For me, puppets have a way of getting at the internal things that have no expression other way. They need to be expressed visually and they need to be expressed through form, color, texture all kinds of things that a puppet can do. The beauty of a puppet is that I can change the scale the way you would in a movie. I can make a puppet that is 20 feet tall or I can shrink it down in the next second down to something that’s 3 inches and you draw people in.
My puppets are sculpted in wood. They are built together out of the found objects of the puppets’ lives. By using those found objects, I can show you not only who this character is on the outside but I can show you who they are and what’s broken and what needs fixing on the inside.
Speaker 1: We’ll return to the Maine Magazine minutes after acknowledging the following generous sponsor. Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Foulmouth, Maine., maker of Dr. John’s Brainola cereal. Find them on the web at orthopedicspecialistsme.com and for more information on our hosts, production team, Maine Magazine or any of the guests featured here today, please visit us online at doctorlisa.org.
Female: You have 2 venture companies. One is Raven Scry which is for children and 1 is Raven Scrawl which is for adults.
Rebecca: Yeah, it’s actually Raven’s Scrawl.
Female: Raven’s Scrawl.
Rebecca: The active form. I like the scroll, that’s once it’s done it becomes Raven scroll.
Female: You also instruct kids and adults on how to access through creativity and movement some of these things you’re talking about. Is there a difference that you see between your work with kids and your work with adults?
Rebecca: No, not really. It’s just a matter of they’re at a different point in their journey. I as an artist need to be aware of that. They’re at a place where they’re at a beginning place. The stories that they have that we tap into, it’s a shorter origin map when they make origin maps for instance whereas if I have an adult, they may be making … I would have to make 7 origin maps in order to create my 7 state experiences. It’s a matter of depth and degree and where they are in the journey.
Female: How do you get involved in 1 of these ventures with you because it sounds so interesting? Is it time consuming? What do people need to know or do?
Rebecca: I’m just in the process of getting this off the ground. I’m actually in the process of getting a blog going. The summer program for children is my first venture because it’s the thing that I have done the most in the past.
Female: Where is that going to take place?
Rebecca: That’s going to take place at Bowdoin next summer from July through August. It’s about 6 weeks in the summer. People can link to me through the Facebook at this moment. At Facebook, I will start putting up very soon the blogs and the website that will give more information for that.
Genevieve: As adults, what would we do?
Rebecca: As adults, you can connect with me with Facebook and I’ll be starting workshops and things like that as I go along. I’m in the process of working things out with rental locations through Bowdoin. It’s taken me literally 7 years, talk about that 7 again. It’s quite a number for me.
Genevieve: We’re having a little magical time here today.
Lisa: Most times are magical times here at the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. Whether we realize it or not, everything happens for a reason.
Rebecca: It does. It does. I’m a strong believer in that.
Genevieve: If people are going on Facebook, they just look up your name?
Rebecca: Yes.
Genevieve: Rebecca McNulty? We can link them to?
Rebecca: Yes. They can go also through the Dr. Lisa website. That’s the doctorlisa.org website and we’ll make sure that your magic can be transmitted or transferred or somehow linked.
Genevieve: Are you in the process of planning any performances with your puppets or is there any way to come see some of your work?
Rebecca: At this stage, not yet. I’m about a year away from performance work, I think. They take a while because I’m crafting out of who I am as an artist and who I’m becoming. It takes me a while to get them together.
Lisa: They might not ever be finished then unless you’re finished.
Rebecca: There is that danger.
Lisa: We might just be seeing an iteration of yourself at some point.
Rebecca: That’s why I’m hoping to get a studio going so that people can kind of walk in. I’m in the transition. I just left the job at the Yung Center where I was coordinator for about 6 and a half years. I’m trying to figure out who I am as an artist and get a home. My studio Raven Scrawl Studio is out of my home at the moment. I’m hoping to get it located right in Brunswick where, a wonderful vibrant community with a lot of wonderful artists, a lot of jewels of Maine are hidden there.
Genevieve: Rebecca, thank you so much for letting us into your world.
Rebecca: Thank you.
Genevieve: It’s such an interesting place to be. I highly encourage all of you out there to look up Rebecca’s work because it’s truly applicable to all of the things we’ve been talking today. As I can tell from what you’ve been saying, you’re a work in progress. We’re all work in progress but you’ve found this unique way to express it so thank you so much for coming by.
Rebecca: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
Genevieve: To learn more and be introduced to fascinating people doing interesting things in Maine like Rebecca McNulty, read our November/December issue of the Maine Magazine available at your local newsstand now. Visit us online at themainemag.com
Lisa: Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we read a quote from the book, Our Daily Tread. Our Daily Tread was created in 2008 in honor of my late college classmate, Hanley Denning. It raises money for her organization, Safe Passage, which educates the children whose families earn a living by scavenging through the Guatemalan City Dump. As I’ve mentioned before, my son, Campbell, is spending the year in Safe Passage volunteering and during the week of thanksgiving, I’ll be joining him.
We at the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast are happy to be supporting the organization, Safe Passage. We’re told by Safe Passage that there’s going to be a holiday promotion of the book Our Daily Tread which features inspirational quotes, essays, photography and artwork of Safe Passage students between now and January 2nd. The regular price of $24.95 will be lowered to $18.99. To share these motivating stories of how children can leave the Guatemala City garbage dump to achieve education. To enjoy this special promotion and support Safe Passage, please purchase the book online at www.islandportpress.com
This week’s quote from Our Daily Tread comes from Robert McIver and is very appropriate for our Hauntings theme: “the healthy being craves an occasional wildness, a jolt from normality, a sharpening of the edge of appetite, his own little festival of Saturnalia, a brief excursion from his way of life. We hope you take advantage of this promotion and buy a book at islandportpress.com.
Speaker 1: This segment of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcastis brought to by the following generous sponsors. Thomas Shepard of Herzy, Gardner, Shepard and Eaton, an Ameriprise platinum financial services practice in Yarmouth, Maine. Dreams can come true when you take the time to invest in yourself. Learn more at ameripriseadvisors.com and by Mike Lepage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage Yarmouth, Maine, honesty and integrity can take you home. With RE/MAX Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more at rheritage.com.
Lisa: Each week of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we feature a segment we called Give Back in recognition of the notion that health is more than just about the individual or the family. It’s also about the community and the world at large. In order to promote this wellness, we invite different guests every week to come in and talk to us about their organizations and if they’re having an upcoming event specifically, we like to have them on.
We’re thrilled this week to have Marcia Carr from HART in Cumberland. Marcia has volunteered at HART for over 5 years. HART is a no kill, all volunteer cat shelter and adoption center located in Cumberland. They’ve taken in more than 1500 cats and kittens in just the last 2 years and helped more than 1400 find new homes in that period. Marcia stepped down as HART president and member of the board of directors in January and her current responsibilities include this upcoming Litterbox Auction which it fascinates me. It used to be called the Litterbox Ball, I believe.
Marcia: That’s correct.
Lisa: Genevieve Morgan I know is fascinated. She’s sitting next to me also.
Genevieve: Yes. I’ve never heard Litterbox and Ball or Litterbox Auction put together.
Marcia: Right, well we changed the name from the Litterbox Ball to the Litterbox Auction because many people thought being ball that it would be very fancy and a lot of people today really prefer to go casual to events. We realized we needed to change the name from ball so it’s simply a silent auction. That’s what the event is.
Lisa: Do you think that maybe with the name Litterbox, they wouldn’t expect so fancy? I don’t know but …
Marcia: They did.
Lisa: You had to make that change. It’s interesting to me that you get between 300 and 400 items of all different types and last year, you made $27,000 which apparently gets you through the winter and pays vet bills and because usually you have about 125 cats of the shelter and up to 100 kittens in your foster homes. That money must be fairly important to you.
Marcia: It’s very important especially for our veterinarian cost because we’re no kill shelter and we will keep our cats forever if they don’t get adopted, if they don’t find homes. Medical expenses can be a little bit higher for us and just the cost of running the shelter, providing food, litter, the upkeep of the building, all of that can be quite expensive. Raising this money each fall really helps us get through the winter.
We are an all volunteer shelter so it’s not like any of the money is going to people. It all goes to take care of the cats and the kittens.
Lisa: My friend and colleague, Jean, she had worked volunteer at HART for a number of years and she told me that some of the cats that came through were quite damaged. I find this really hard and we’ve talked about hauntings throughout the show and how people are hunted by things that have happened. Animals, it seems, can be haunted by things that have happened in their background as well.
Marcia: Certainly and many times, as you mentioned earlier, we don’t know their history so we don’t know what they’ve been through but many times, we do. When the cat is surrendered, a lot of times, we know why the cat was surrendered and perhaps what kind of home it came from. Also you can tell by the cats’ behavior many times and also their well-being and their health. If they come in and their coat looks very dry or patchy, if they’re very thin or even obese for that matter, you can tell a lot of their care by their bodies and by their personalities and how they react to you.
Lisa: When you have an animal in the shelter for long enough, does it start to, I don’t know, release its ghost, become more easily adoptable? or do they fall into patterns that they maintain for a long time?
Marcia: I think cats are so very different. Some cats come in and immediately are friendly and outgoing and they are very comfortable in the shelter environment. They tend to get adopted very quickly. The ones that are a little more shy, more withdrawn, usually it takes them a little while to become more comfortable. HART is also unique in the fact we don’t keep our cats in cages. They are free to run around in the various rooms we have.
We have 6, I believe, 6 rooms and they can run around in the room that they’re assigned to play, jump, bond with the other cats and also with the volunteers and also with people that come in to adopt them because you can sit on the floor and a chair and see who comes to you. Many times, they adopt you. It’s not you adopt them.
Lisa: Marcia, do you help people … Do you match make with future adopters and cats? If I’m an elderly persona and I want a certain temperament, can I ask you for that or if I’m mom with young kids so do you help [crosstalk 00:51:18].
Marcia: Definitely. We usually have a pretty good idea of what cat would be good with young children and what cat really should be with perhaps an older person or in a quieter home. We’re always very careful about that. We don’t want the cat to be returned. We want it to go to its permanent home where it will be loved and have it be the right match the first time. Occasionally, you mismatch but we try to be very careful and we encourage people to come in several times and get to know the cat that they’re thinking about adopting and look at all the cats. Don’t come in and pre-judge which type you want or what color you want. Go by the personality and who comes to you.
Lisa: You’ve spoken about adoption so that’s 1 way that people can help your shelter. In the beginning, we talked about this Litterbox Auction that’s going on. When is that taking place? How do people get information on this and is there anything that you need besides buying tickets?
Marcia: The event is Saturday, November 12th and it’s at the Italian Heritage Center here in Portland. It begins at 7 pm. Tickets are available either through the HART website which hartofme.com or they can even the shelter and we can connect them. Tickets are available at the door but they’re 25 in advance and 35 at the door. It’s definitely a good idea to buy them ahead of time.
Genevieve: Were there any particularly great items that you want to share with us?
Marcia: We have townhouse out in Great Diamond Island, a week vacation.
Lisa: Is it haunted?
Genevieve: We only want haunted houses, at least today.
Marcia: Probably is. It’s at the old site of what is the Fort McKinley out on Diamond Island.
Lisa: I want to show it for that 1.
Marcia: We have a cottage on Long Lake. We have an attorney who’s donated a will package. We have jewelry, all kinds of jewelry. We have restaurant gift certificates, pet supplies, gift certificates for various businesses, really a little of everything. Home and garden items. Lots of restaurant gift certificates which people love.
Lisa: There’s a potpourri and people can not only go there and bid on these items but they can hang out with like-minded people who were interested in helping the kitties of the world.
Marcia: Exactly.
Lisa: Get a little bit of pack animal love as Genevieve was pointing out.
Marcia: Also, I hate to say it but the holidays are coming up fairly soon and this is a good way to get a jump on your holiday shopping, get some really good deals on some wonderful items to help the cats at the same time.
Lisa: Yeah. That is a really good point. You shouldn’t hate to say that. You just reminded me that I actually have to be thinking about this moving forward. Absolutely. Marcia, we’ve really enjoyed having you coming in here and talk to us about HART and about the non-adoption of black cats and how to take care of our cats and how we can help the ones that you guys are working with so we appreciate it. Thank you.
Marcia: Thanks for having us in.
Lisa: Each week of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we read a blog post from the Bountiful Blog. We began this blog in 2008 when I was seeking a means of feeding myself physically. It’s evolved over time. I’ve used it more to feed myself emotionally and spiritually and I must say I write from the ridiculous to the sublime, my blog post from this last week was actually about something fairly ridiculous.
This blog post is entitled Dignity, nope. Pee in the woods by the side of the road, I’m not above it, should the situation dictate. Yesterday, in fact, I did it twice. The first time while waiting for Triple A, the second while the tire of my car was being changed. Suffice it to say, my morning did not go as planned. I was feeling pretty proud of my big girl self driving south in an unnamed stretch of pavement between here and there on my way to visit with my friend, Kayla, and get a long awaited haircut. I had cobbled together my work home kid life handly and was actually on time for my appointment.
Then, I heard a very loud noise. This marked the end of my big girl self. It also marked the end temporarily of my dignity. I can laugh about it now. I wasn’t yesterday. In fact, I was pretty much a blubbering mess waiting on that unnamed stretched of road. It seems such a metaphor for my life. I triple A on the phone describing where I was. Landmarks easily visible ahead but unable to pinpoint an actual location for them. I was caught between here and there stuck with a full blotter.
I limped my car up the road to a stand of trees and hopped across the cat-tail bitch toward where I thought might be a private spot only to find that this spot was just beyond my reach kept for me by a rusty barbwire fence so I did what I had to do. Using a couple of young pine trunk as a partial screen wearing my bright white jackets, car streaming past, breeze tickling my bottom, and I thought about my life again, the ridiculousness of it all. I must admit I saw the humor even then less so when I had to buy 4 new tires for my high maintenance 2002 Subaru.
Again later when we’re counting the scenario from my friend, sometimes, tires blow. Sometimes, we get stuck. Sometimes, we don’t get to go where we want go when we want to go there. Sometimes, we have to pee in the woods by the side of the road. We have more bountiful blog posts at bountiful-blog.com.
Today on the Dr Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, co-hosted by Genevieve Morgan, we addressed the theme of ghost and hauntings. Ghosts and hauntings are very interesting theme and they have much to do with being between here and there as described in my blog post. They have more to do with being between here and there emotionally and spiritually but certainly, there’s a physical aspect. As discussed with Dr. Michelle Shem, there is the hauntings that occur when we give our children too much candy and it impacts their teeth for future years.
As discussed with Patricia Reis, the psychotherapist and author, hauntings can cause our lives to be sometimes turned upside down. Our conversation with Rebecca McNulty touched upon the importance of the fallow ground and sifting through the things, the found objects that can heal us and we ended with a conversation with Marcia Carr from HART because as we all now, hauntings equally impact people as they do animals.
We asked you to go to our website drlisa.org to read more about our fascinating guests and to find out how you might take part in the Halloween candy buyback, how you might read a book by Patricia Reis, how you might take a class by Rebecca McNulty or how you can be a part of the HART Litterbox Auction or maybe just to poke around and see what we have to offer you. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Thank you for being a part of our world. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible by the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Tom Shepard of Herzy, Gardner, Shepard and Eaton, Mike Lapage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage, Robin Hodgskin at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Whole Foods Market, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Foulmouth Maine and Akari.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is recorded in downtown Portland at the offices of Maine Magazine on 75 Market Street. It is produced by Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Editorial content produced by Chris Kast and Genevieve Morgan, audio production and original music by John McCain. For more information on our hosts, production team, Maine Magazine or any of the guests featured here today, please visit us online at drlisa.org and tune in every Sunday at 11 am for the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour on WLOB Portland Maine, 1310 AM or streaming WLOBradio.com. Podcasts are now available at doctorlisa.org.