“A new study that finds testosterone declines in proportion to nurturing fatherhood is mind-blowing in many ways that are meaningful for family life and our understanding of fatherhood.

I was afraid that the findings would be used against nurturing men, taunting them with loss of virility and status along with “loss” of testosterone, so I hope you will all share this supportive analysis with all those women and men who are trying so hard to reinvent parenting on kinder, gentler terms.

David Greenbaum,
Potter & Co-Founder
The BlueStone Gallery

“I strive to create pieces of enduring beauty,” says the renowned potter, David Greenbaum. “Clay is a glorious, humbling, sensuous, messy and most marvelous medium of expression.”

I was so touched by the note and poem I received from my friend Sean Strub – a feminist in good standing as well as a major AIDS activist – that I want to share it. He found the poem when he was going through his mother’s papers after she died recently. The short story he mentions, The Yellow Wallpaper, is a feminist classic, written in 1892; about a woman who is kept housebound by her husband and slowly goes mad.

Sean’s mother’s aversion to the word “feminist” is an example of the familiar “I’m not a feminist, but……” syndrome – a woman who walks the walk but doesn’t feel comfortable with the talk. It is clear to me – and to her son – that Janey was a feminist in spirit, which is where it counts. — Suzanne Braun Levine

By Suzanne Braun Levine

Esther M. Broner, who died this month at 83, was a true woman of valor – generous to her friends, nurturing to her children, and devoted to the dignity of women. She wrote 11 books of fiction and non-fiction – all with a mystical subtext, was a philosopher, a witch (the good kind), and a believer in ritual.

By Suzanne Braun Levine

I have always thought of Mother’s Day as a celebration of my mother, the Main Mom in the family. I made plans designed to please her and honor her on her Day. Eight months ago she died, and so this year, for the first time, I am the last mom standing. It is a weird feeling to have the day to myself, especially when my inclination is to spend it missing her. Yet when I think of the two of us as mothers, I see the…

By Emilie Hardman, founder

The Conscious Kitchen

Here are four of my favorite new cookbooks for this holiday! These are pretty spectacular books and would be fantastic gifts! The descriptions are from a favorite place for book lovers – The New England Mobile Book Fair whose motto is “I only came for one book…”

OUR 2010 “CIRCLE OF TRUST HOLIDAY BOOK LIST”

Many of us are starting our Holiday Book-Gifting lists! I am making my own list and adding to it daily. And, I am checking in with my Circle of Trust.

What are you reading? What books do want to give? What books would like to receive this year?

We celebrated my husband Bob’s 70th birthday by easing him out of his comfort zone with a raft trip down the Delaware River. Joining us were our children Joshua and Joanna and Dave Greenbaum – a wonderful potter and Bob’s partner in the BlueStone Gallery

By Suzanne Braun Levine

When my mother died recently at 94, I felt sad at losing her, but also relieved after several years of slow decline during which I always felt I was one degree of deterioration behind in caring for her. And I felt grateful – grateful to her for the loving and gracious way she took her slow leave, and very grateful to the Hospice team that guided our last months together. Thanks to them, she died at home, smiling to the end.
I …

Tito (short for Gatito, little cat) is the newest addition to our household. My daughter found him in an alley in Buenos Aires, where she has been living for the past two years. He was a half-starved kitten, infested with fleas. She took him in, dealt with the fleas, and now he is a feisty – and very long – fellow.
When she moved back from Argentina last month, Tito came with her. He didn’t enjoy the 16-hour plane ride, but he took over our apartment as soon as he …