CURRENT MISSION

To bring son John out to Augustana College in Rock Island Il. To survive the empty nest.

ABOUT ME

I'm upbeat and I LOVE PEOPLE; I feel like every kid's my own and ever person is a family member. I have a wide open spirituality that means the world to me and although it's Christian based, the wide-open part makes me a bit of a vagabond. I love yoga and will be doing the teacher training in October. I'm married to Pastor Michael, a theologian from Germany who recently gained US citizenship and I LOVE animals. I'm pretty nervous about the empty nest coming up in August, 2013 when youngest child John leaves for college. David, 26 studies law in Boston, Katrina, 22 studies dance and literature at Reed College in Portland, Or. and will be in Paris and Jerusalem this coming year. Our dog Callie is in Service dog training and is an ANGEL.
I trained as an opera singer but I train singers in all genres and would be willing to thank a host with a singing lesson or two.

PHILOSOPHY

The more we can imagine and perceive infinite GOOD, LOVE, the more power we will be flooded with. Human will isn't the answer. Inspiration is. It's all about LOVE.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I want to host and travel to other hosts. I'd like to find groups that do interesting and helpful things for this world. Is that what this section is for?

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

WONDERFUL experience in Cleveland at my first surf! SUCH a fabulous opportunity to make the world a smaller and kinder place!
Fabulous experience in the second place. WHAT A WONDERFULLY uncomplicated time!

Interests

MUSIC (singing, piano, guitar, composing, directing) SPIRITUALITY, Travel, kids, ANIMALS, hot yoga, cooking, gardening, PEOPLE, Nature, languages (German, French and anything else) READING. Drinking tea with friends, running, praise music, gospel...

• animals
• dogs
• literature
• singing
• dancing
• cooking
• yoga
• running
• meditation
• drinking
• gardening
• reading
• tv
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• piano
• opera
• hiking
• teaching
• languages
• law

Music, Movies, and Books

The Lark Ascending. Barber- Adagio for Strings. Spem in Allium. Almost anything from the Renaissance. James Taylor. especially It's enough to be on your Way... Aaron Howe's music-> (from Community of Joy; Rio Rancho) Hitch. 101 Dalmatians. Shreck. Amelie. Wir koennen auch anders. Das Leben der Andren. Red. That Red Sox movie I can't remember the title of... Sarah's Key. Angels in the Outfield. Kinder des Olymp... Romeo and Juliet (Zeffirelli). Lorenzo's Oil. Shadow of the Wind. The Help. The Hiding Place. The Power of One. The Chosen. Our Man in Havana, The Clown. The Tin Drum. Anything by Rilke. WH Auden poetry. Robert Frost. DEBUSSY, Ravel, Durufle's Requiem. Les Chansons de Bilitis. OH MY> I'd better stop...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Kneeling in the still empty sanctuary at Taize in France just quiet and meditation- eyes closed. After a while the room seems to be filling...quietly... Then the music begins and 3 thousand voices are raised at once IN such strength and HARMONY and in 20 languages. Eternity enters the moment, fixes the gaze toward the infinite. Nothing is the same as I peek out into the candle lit space. THRONGS of people, in exultation and adoration. The boundaries are broken and all is healed.

We are watching the little TV in our apartment in Tuebingen, Germany. It's November 9th, 1989 and the cameras are watching baffled politicians as they decide that they have no idea what to do about the fate of Europe and the world- so we go to bed. As a last curiosity before falling asleep, we turn on the radio to hear that the WALL HAS FALLEN! We run in to the TV and turn it on and IT'S TRUE! THE STREETS ARE FILLING- the people are RUNNING, CRYING, SCREAMING for joy! WE Are speechless but we scream with joy- we CRY like animals, we dance in silly jubilation FOR WEEKS. I cry with the memory of it.

The man at the cafe tells me that he had always hated his father growing up. When his parents finally throw him out of the house at 18 for being incorrigible, the father admits that he was not his son anyway- that he'd rescued him from death at Auschwitz when working there... and he should be grateful "verdammt noch mal!" The boy leaves home with the shirt on his back and hitch-hikes to Amsterdam and searches for a Synagogue. An old man speaks to him: Do you need a place to stay? Yes, the man tells him. (telling the story, the man looks up at me and his eyes twinkle.) The man lost his wife, son, and all his relatives at Auschwitz. The boy adopts the man, the man adopts the boy. When they decide to finalize this adoption legally, DNA tests reveal: THE BOY is the MAN'S SON. I stare at him in disbelief. He chuckles. "Yeah, God does that kind of stuff."

Teach, Learn, Share

The bottom of your lungs have the most effective oxygen receptors. A nice classical singer's breath in can relieve tension and produces a sense of authority toward the breather and from that breather to others.

Healing comes from KNOWING MORE ABOUT LOVE and the INFINITE so that all shadows of fear and human will can disappear behind the giddy sense of LOVE.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Cooking tips, STORIES, music. I can teach some singing, yoga, share some music in general.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Austria, Germany, Switzerland, United States