Fostering a new renaissance through creativity, authenticity, spirituality, and art
Polly Castor 
School is off to a start, albeit a somewhat rocky one. With so many online classes, and with the power outages due to Hurricane Irene on critical days of the first week (not to mention traveling to Michigan) we were put behind from the offset and are scrambling to catch up. Anyway, that should iron … Read more
My Father-in-law and brother-in-law were and are active Rotarians. James’ dad gave me a poster of their “Four-way Test” that I love, and it has an honored spot up in my office. This is a wonderful test for the things we choose to think, and say and do: Is it Truth? Is it fair to … Read more
For those LEGO enthusiasts out there, I had to share this. We saw it in the Hartford airport: Mark Twain’s house in Lego. Mark Twain won and lost several fortunes in his lifetime; this house was clearly from a winning streak! Imagine building it out of Lego!
More of my family was in one place this weekend than is likely to happen again for some time to come. My sisters (above) were present as well as all six of my dad’s grandchildren. We saw cousins we haven’t seen for years. We all got along well and enjoyed each other’s company very much…
Today we held a lovely memorial service and celebration of my Dad’s life. It was well attended by family, friends and colleagues; it was great to see everyone! This was a respectful, upbeat occasion, honoring the remarkable man my Dad was, in eulogy and photographs, food and music. He led a deeply authentic life, steeped … Read more
It has been twenty-five years since I’ve wandered around my college haunts. It was fun giving my family the tour. Things have changed. You can no longer drive through the arch of my then modern, new high school; it is seedy now and there is a newer one now across town. My “West Engin” building, … Read more
I flew to Michigan today, and enjoyed chatting with my seat partner on our very small, boisterous jet; clearly everyone was in a pre-holiday mood. She was a very nice, young, vegan mom on her way to run in a half marathon in California… Anyway, here is the view looking down…
My daughter was practicing timed gesture drawings so I tried a couple in solidarity with her. You are allowed five minutes for every two items in your still life… here are mine.
Very timely for me, I read today the book of Ecclesiastes from the Message version of the Bible. Below I quote from the translator’s preface to the book and then a bit of the text. Interestingly, “Vanities” was repeatedly translated as “spitting in the wind.” I loved that. “Ecclesiastes is a famous witness to this … Read more
The hurricane gave me an opportunity to paint when I haven’t gotten to do in all too long. This was done by candlelight, without electricity.
I loved this book about a young Canadian woman unexpectedly finding God at Oxford. I could relate to this story as Engineering school at University of Michigan did it for me! It was wonderful to follow her trajectory, so like my own, from unbelieving, to skeptical, to questioning, and eventually to becoming a committed Christian. … Read more
Well, we were out of power four days. The first evening we all played Settler’s of Catan by candlelight and had a nice family time. The second evening I painted by candlelight. By the third evening it wasn’t fun anymore and I negotiated with a friend in order to put our stuff in her freezer … Read more
A month ago I posted on this blog samples of drawings done by previous AP Drawing students. I was dumbfounded at the amazing work they did, and felt like this class would stretch anyone past what they thought they could do. When there is sufficient enrollment in the class, they offer a scholarship competition assignment … Read more
My son is industriously indulging in leftover Chemistry experiments before Physics starts next week and I want him to carefully pack away all this gear for his sister’s future use. (And yes, that’s the back of my living room, in case you are curious…) The fumes are not particularly appetizing. I’m looking forward to his … Read more
My newspaper article about Christian Science and doctors was reprinted in the August 22, 2011 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel under “Items of Interest.” I was pleased to see this article have “legs,” but was not thrilled with the layout of it on the magazine page. Alas. If you missed it prior, you can … Read more
So nice to have the whole family together, even if just for a couple days… Here are my two girls… My oldest starts her junior year in college tomorrow…
