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Community Spirit

Grief and Gratitude and a Prospect Heights Cottage

May 21, 2020 By Jenny Douglas Filed Under: Community Spirit Tagged With: brooklyn cottage, grief and gratitude, jenny douglas

Art by Heather Heckel

A few months after my 15-year marriage ended back in 2008, I hired a clown and part-time muralist to paint a large white luster quote across the navy wall of my Prospect Heights dining room.

“Sell your cleverness,” it read, “and buy bewilderment.”

The quote was by Rumi, the 13th-century poet and mystic, and to my great surprise, it suited me. Finding myself without a fixed storyline as a 46 year old mother of two girls was hands-down terrifying. 

And at the same time the message bought me a kind of freedom. My bewilderment was the result of a deeply painful and unexpected letting go, to be sure — but also offered a vigorous shake-down of set assumptions and beliefs, and the opportunity to now say yes to ideas I might never before have seriously entertained.

Slowly, I began to enjoy sleeping diagonally across the bed and sitting in bars alone with a book and a cocktail.

When an old friend called from Chicago to ask if I’d be interested in flying to Melbourne, Australia for a few weeks to serve as the media liaison for the largest gathering of spiritual leaders in the world, I said yes. When, a few months after that, a journalism school classmate reached out from from Bangalore, India to suggest I spend a month volunteering at a remarkable boarding school near him called Shanti Bhavan, I wrote to the school and was on my way six weeks later.

When an acquaintance raved about her recent “divination” with a West African spiritual elder, I booked a session with him myself. A week later, Malidoma Some was seated across a table from me. “You must make yourself like a cottage,” he instructed. “You must create a new sense of home and power and belonging. And from there, you’ll be given the opportunity to contemplate how to help others view their circumstances not from a reckless, tragic perspective but from an initiatory one.”

That made a lot of sense. So (but of course!) I set about following Malidoma’s advice. On the nights that my two daughters were staying with their father a mile away from me in Park Slope, I turned my Sterling Place brownstone into a “Brooklyn cottage.” And for the next four years, my home served as a part-time lab and incubator for writing workshops and storytelling evenings and cooking classes and meditation sessions and pop-up art shows and any other intriguing notions that I or various members of my community were interested in exploring.

In the middle of all this, I realized I was still lonely post-divorce. I wanted to unearth a tribe of women who were walking a path similar to mine. How could I find them? In the context of what I’d created, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to sit down and craft a curriculum for the very thing I was missing. So even though I wasn’t a therapist and had never before been a workshop leader, I set about saying yes to that, too.

The Nigerian writer Chris Abani has described the South African philosophy of Ubuntu this way: “The only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me.”

So through writing experiments, sharing stories, poetry, riutals and bearing witness, it was my plan for these workshops to gently and courageously explore ideas of grief and ideas of gratitude.”

I wanted a workshop where we could be human together.

I’ve also come to strongly believe that our capacity to know unbridled joy is directly proportion to our willingness to grieve as necessary. So through writing experiments, sharing stories, poetry, riutals and bearing witness, it was my plan for these workshops to gently and courageously explore ideas of grief and ideas of gratitude.

After our introductions, I imagined us each taking pens to paper and writing for several minutes, beginning every sentence with the words “I mourn” or “I surrender.” (If nothing came up, we’d simply write those words as if they were a kind of incantation, until something did.)

I envisioned next sharing photos, and stories, of ourselves together with the person we were separating from — giving voice and name and texture, along with tears and laughter and grimacing as necessary, to what was.

And finally, I imagined a return to our notebooks to investigate what there was to be grateful for. Every sentence we’d write would begin with the words “thank you” (to the departing partner, to the universe, to oneself, to whatever or whomever seemed to suit us at the moment). And as before, we’d simply see what came up.

So I put my idea into play. And that was five years ago! I’ve been leading Grief and Gratitude workshops several times a year since, to a total of about 300 women to date. The workshops are still sometimes run out of my living room on Sterling Place, sometimes run in private living rooms around the city (and possibly soon upstate), and mostly run in the living room of the wonderful Elise Pettus at UnTied.net in Brooklyn Heights.

Even though I feel well-healed from my own marital split decade ago now, I find it a continuing privilege to meet with women at the poignant and painful and often strangely promising moment they find themselves in the middle of theirs. Why? Because I’ve come to believe that that the broken heart is the starting point for everything that matters. It’s what happens in the days, weeks and months after life brings us to our knees that remains deeply interesting me.

As I find myself writing at a recent Grief and Gratitude workshop: “The mourning permits the surrender, the surrender permits humility, the humility permits grace and the ability to be present for others and for myself. I accept mourning as part of what makes my life valuable and true. I mourn and I rejoice.”


Learn more about The Brooklyn Cottage HERE


Filed Under: Community Spirit Tagged With: brooklyn cottage, grief and gratitude, jenny douglas

The True Progressive

November 1, 2017 By Roberto Paul Filed Under: Community Spirit Tagged With: election, New York City, progressive, resistance

On September 12, New York City’s incumbent Mayor, Bill de Blasio, sailed through the mayoral primary with 74.6% of the vote. The next day, Park Slope resident Libby Edois-Alb, one of the mayor’s longtime advisers and friend of the family, announced she was running a write-in campaign against him as the “true” progressive candidate. I sat down with her ahead of the November 7 general election to discuss what made her decide to run, whether the decision has created a rift between her and the mayor, and what she means when she says “true” progressive.

 

Roberto Paul: So you recently announced that you’re running for mayor on a “true” progressive platform. Can you tell us more about what you mean by this distinction?

Libby Edois-Alb: Sure. So many times we see candidates campaigning as progressives and then once they are elected they abandon nearly everything progressive they promised. My good friend Mayor de Blasio is a prime example of this. He campaigned on police reform, affordable housing, green energy, etc., and then once elected he started taking millions of dollars from real estate, doubled down on Broken Windows arrests targeting the very people he promised to defend on the campaign trail, softened his stance on police, and refused to address the cloud of smog hanging over the New York City metro region every day.

And why do you think he did this?

Well, I think once candidates get elected they realize that if they want to get re-elected there are powerful lobbies and interest groups with the money and political influence they need to raise money. They end up selling out their values in order to build a war chest big enough to scare off any potential challengers in the current money-takes-all system.

Those are strong words, and I know the mayor is a longtime friend of yours. Do you worry that by speaking so candidly you might jeopardize your relationship with him?

Honestly it’s too late for all that. Leading up to the 2013 campaign he spent hours upon hours consulting me. Night and day he labored over each and every point of his platform. I spent years helping him hone a progressive message that was moral, just, incorruptible, one that erred on the side of defending society’s vulnerable. All the ideals he personified during his first campaign, the real talk with police, spending a night in public housing, the tale of two cities – all of that came directly from his consultations with me, while he lay awake at night, tossing and turning in his bed, and then to seem him win, move into Gracie Mansion, and so abruptly abandon everything we planned hurt me very deeply.

So you would say that you were his conscience, his voice of reason, if you will?

Yes, definitely, his progressive mother protector alter ego.

And so now that you are running against him how will your campaign be different?

It’s quite simple, really. I’m going to run on the progressive platform that we perfected together over the years, the one he abandoned. I’m going to commit to raising no money, ever. Not from individuals, not from corporations, not from anyone.

Well, I mean the obvious rebuttal to that is that you won’t be competitive. Without money you won’t get on the ballot, qualify for televised debates, receive matching public funds, the list goes on and on. How will you get your message out to voters?

I think that the majority of the public is as fed up with money in politics as I am, and they will hopefully understand and appreciate why a candidate would commit to such a drastic course of action. We’ve got to start relying on voters, particularly those who claim they are part of the “resistance,” to go the extra mile and help us get our message out without money. I’d also like to take this opportunity to publicly challenge Bill to do the same, to commit to raising and spending no money, ever, but sadly I know that he won’t do it.

And what is the message you hope that voters will get out there for you, since you won’t be able to pay for any advertising or campaign materials on your own?

Because I accept no money, I’ll be able to spend all of my time working on my five-point platform for all New Yorkers, rather than scurrying from fundraiser to fundraiser like my opponent. One: No money, ever. That one’s simple. Two: Make New York a real sanctuary city. Three: Police reform. Four: Affordable housing. Five: Make NYC green.

Do you care to elaborate on these further?

Yes, of course. Point One I explained. Point Two: I will make New York a real sanctuary city. Federal agents were recently caught lurking around a Brooklyn courthouse, arresting people with no prior criminal records. On day one I am going to issue a blanket trespass warning to all ICE agents on city property. If you don’t have a warrant signed by a judge in your possession, you are trespassing. And if you don’t stay away from the city’s courthouses, schools, MTA stations, etc., the NYPD is going to escort you off the premises and arrest you if you fail to comply.

That sounds like a provocative, but relatively easy legal measure to implement. Why do you think the mayor hasn’t done this yet?

As I said, I think it’s about being progressive in name only. Of resisting with words, and symbolic gestures, rather than implementing real policies with legally enforceable teeth.

Okay, and the rest of your platform?

When Bill ran he talked constantly about police reform. Then he got elected and realized how powerful and politically connected the police unions were and backed off. On my first day as mayor, I plan to end Broken Windows policing and other low-level arrest dragnets and devote all of the police resources this frees up to solving hate crimes and infiltrating and arresting members of known white supremacist terrorist hate groups.

I also plan to appoint an independent panel of officers who objected to the illegal conduct of their superior officers during Stop and Frisk, like Edwin Raymond, Adhyl Polanco, and others like them, and I’m going to task them with conducting an exhaustive internal review of all NYPD (and NYC Corrections) personnel files. Any cases where probable cause exists that a crime was committed by a city employee will result in the filing of the appropriate criminal charges forthwith. Further, officer(s) with three or more misconduct judgments will be deemed unfit for service and terminated without pay, pension, or benefits. From the moment I’m elected and as long as I’m mayor, the taxpayers of New York will pay one misconduct judgment per officer. Accidents happen. For any and all subsequent judgments officers will be held personally liable. We’ll see how long police and COs continue to rack up civil rights judgments while paying them out of pocket;

Don’t you think that this will cause the police and corrections lobbies to turn their backs on you, and refuse to work, like they did to Mayor de Blasio?

No doubt, and the union bosses will crimson and spittle and call me a bunch of names, too, but this was why I spent years with Bill trying to steel his moral resolve. It’s why we discussed how this is in reality a pro-police stance (because by committing misconduct and getting away with it, the police have eroded the public trust that undergirds a working criminal justice apparatus). By holding them accountable, I’m restoring faith in them and the important work that they do. The police take an oath to uphold and defend the law. I am simply asking them to keep their word, and, if they can’t, to find a new line of work.

What will you do with the money the city saves on misconduct, and on benefits and pensions for terminated officers, which in recent years has risen into the hundreds of millions, and even billions?

Yes, exactly. Experts in corrections and public safety have known for 30 or 40 years how to effectively prevent recidivism and reduce crime. Yet despite a host of proven programs and rock-solid data showing us how to keep New York City safe without aggressive and alienating law enforcement tactics, we keep adding more officers, more money, and more military-grade war gear to an already bloated $4.8 billion police budget, while spending a paltry fraction of that amount on programs that the data shows are far more effective.

There has been a lot of talk during the campaign about affordable housing. You said you plan to address this issue as part of your platform. How?

Yes, I do, I plan to address it specifically as it relates to displacement by gentrification. During the primary people kept highlighting how Bill froze rent increases and created more affordable housing than any mayor in city history. This was a great sound bite, but quite literally everyone I know in New York saw their rent increase during the last four years. Very few could’ve passed the intensive credit check and salary vetting to qualify for one of the supposedly “affordable” housing lottery units even if they’d beaten the one in a million odds of getting selected to apply for one (though nobody I know did, you?).

These are obviously cosmetic gestures and woefully insufficient to meet the amount of need for affordable housing that exists throughout the five boroughs. Starting on day one, I plan to turn all parcels of city-owned land over to community-run public land trusts that will determine how to best convert the properties into affordable housing.

Any real estate developer that wants a permit for a private project will need to commit to hiring 75% of workers from the area surrounding the site. They’ll be required to deed 10% of new units to recently displaced residents of the area, and devote an additional 40% of units to affordable rental housing as measured by an amount equal to or lesser than the lowest median income of the proposed site’s zip code for a period covering 20 prior years, with first rental lottery preference given to residents with longest residence.

I also plan to give tax breaks and multiple operating incentives to businesses that hire and train young people previously involved in the criminal justice system, and specifically those that live in neighborhoods directly in the crosshairs of blistering gentrification. Gentrification lives in this gap, where incoming businesses refrain from hiring long-time residents, and especially those who have previously been involved in the criminal justice system – or if they do hire them, it’s for menial labor that doesn’t pay a living wage – and I will implement a schedule of incentives and penalties designed to close this gap ASAP.

Are there any other issues you plan to address?

Another issue that needs to be urgently addressed is traffic congestion and pollution around the city. I was in Sunset Park the other morning and the massive cloud of smog leering at the city was horrific. How this has not been addressed in any meaningful way by a progressive mayor with four years under his belt is preposterous. Accordingly, I plan to phase fossil-fuel powered vehicles out of New York City by the end of my first term.

Year one, if you drive a fossil-fuel powered vehicle during rush hour you’ll pay $10 on your way in and $10 on your way out. If you use a commute-sharing app, which allows commuters from nearby areas to find one another and carpool, the toll will be $7.00 per trip with two people checked in, $3.00 with three, and $0 with four. Year two the top charge for solo drivers will increase from $10 to $20, year three from $20 to $40, and so on. The charge for a four-person check-in will increase from $0 to $2, $2 to $4, etc.

Electric and solar-powered vehicles will pay no toll, and the city will create tax and parking incentives that will promote the increased purchase and use of environmentally friendly vehicles. I plan to introduce similar penalties for buildings and businesses, with similarly generous incentives for those that choose to go green. The substantial revenue generated by the penalties for delaying or refusing to go green will go towards revamping and improving the city’s crumbling and embarrassing public transportation infrastructure, which the governor and state officials have proven they cannot be trusted to manage.

The bottom line is that so-called progressives can no longer allow a brown cloud of exhaust to hang over the city every morning during rush hour while just about every car sitting in traffic is occupied by a single person – I mean literally nothing could be stupider for a city surrounded by water on all sides than to continue allowing this.

So, let’s do a quick recap: No money in politics; taxpayers no longer pay for repeat official misconduct; create enough affordable housing to meet need; reduce pollution; improve public transit infrastructure.

Yes, that’s right.

You know, if you threw in universal health care and a freeze on military spending, you might have a platform that could be used as a litmus test for all progressive candidates.

Yeah, maybe, like an ALEC for progressives, or something.

How about PALEC?

Haha, I like that.

Which leads me to ask: if New York is widely regarded as one of the most progressive cities in America, how is it that you find yourself in this position?

Which position? Waging a longshot write-in campaign a month before Election Day?

Precisely. In this day and age of supposed “resistance,” the positions you have outlined, or some modified iteration of them, should be automatic it seems, part of every platform. How isn’t there a single candidate in the mayoral race that already supports them?

It’s a good question. These are all pretty basic reforms that would most likely have been implemented a long time ago if money and powerful interests hadn’t commandeered our local, state, and federal election processes. But commandeer them they have, and they show no signs of returning them to us voluntarily. Which means we’ll have to hope and pray that Bill comes to his senses in his second term, realizes that his mother protector, his progressive conscience – that is, me – is not a real person, and that I can’t run for political office. We’ll have to hope he remembers where he left me four years ago, in his attic on 11th Street when he moved into Gracie Mansion, and that one day he’ll find the time to stop in and visit me on his way home from his workout at the Park Slope.

 

 

Filed Under: Community Spirit Tagged With: election, New York City, progressive, resistance

Persisting in Park Slope: Getting Our Boycott On

May 3, 2017 By Roberto Paul Filed Under: Community Spirit

With news of record high temperatures holding over the Arctic, visa bans stranding travelers in mid-flight, Congress still toying with the idea of messing with millions of Americans’ health insurance, and myriad other crises of law and justice that seem to be bombarding us with surreal frequency lately, it has become clear that we as a citizenry are going to have to get more creative in how we unite and defend our environment and one another.

History shows that one of the surest ways to get bad actors to behave is money. Whether it is a private citizen, corporation, or government behaving badly, boycotts that threaten a significant loss of funds have witnessed centuries of success. In the 1760s, a tea boycott worked for the Daughters of Liberty, causing the British Crown to repeal the Stamp Act. In the 1950s, a bus boycott forced the city of Montgomery, AL to integrate its busses. In 2015, a Mizzou football team boycott caused the university president to resign, and justrecently the #deleteUber campaign brought the ride-sharing giant’s CEO to his knees.

So, which of the many injustices out there should concerned Park Slopers target with a boycott today?

 

 

One the most urgent crises facing all humanity, Park Slope and beyond, is the changing climate. Earth’s glaciers are melting, carbon gases are pouring into the atmosphere, and vulnerable species of plants and animals are disappearing faster than scientists can keep track. That’s not to say that visa bans, immigration raids, and lost health insurance are not urgent or important – they are. It’s just that if current warming trends continue, and our ecosystem hurtles toward collapse, those and pretty much all other issues are moot.

According to Defund DAPL (www.defunddapl.org), nearly every financial institution American consumers do daily banking business with is invested in one or more fossil fuel infrastructure projects that accelerate climate change and threaten drinking water. The Dakota Access Pipeline alone is funded by Citigroup, TD Securities, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi, Mizuho Bank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, HSBC, and just about every other large bank that comes to mind.

Multiple cities, including Seattle and Davis, CA, have led the way and divested more than $4 billion in public funds from these banks. Many private citizens have done the same, taking more than $74 million out of their savings and checking accounts and transferring it into credit unions and locally owned banks. While this is commendable, these sums are thus far merely drops in a bucket for banks with profits in the trillions.

 

According to the 2010 Census, the neighborhood of Park Slope has 65,000 residents, a number that grows to 105,000 when including Community District Six. Annual income mapping shows that residents of this neighborhood, were they to decide on a cause to unite around, could strategically deploy $6-10 billion in annual economic leverage — meaning a united Park Slope could by itself quadruple the size of Defund DAPL’s boycott right now.

Which leads to the main question(s) for those considering making the move to divest: What will it cost in terms of risk, lost time, and daily big banking convenience?

To find out I sought out Jules S., a teacher in Park Slope who recently made the switch from JP Morgan Chase to Amalgamated Bank:

“I’ve been meaning to do this for a while,” he told me over the phone when I spoke to him last week.

“How long did the switch take?”

“About a month in all, including direct deposit. I set up the new account, made a list of my deposit and bill pay accounts, and then switched them over one at a time.”

“And were there any services that you lost?”

“So far it’s been the same. Direct deposit, online bill pay, photo check cashing—it’s all there, none of it has changed.”

“What about ATM locations, though?” I interrupted, referencing what I expected to be the biggest issue in terms of convenience.

“Amalgamated uses Allpoint ATMs. They’re in 7-11, CVS, Walgreens, and a lot of bodegas and shops. I’ve honestly never had a problem finding one.”

The only other point of concern I could find was deposit insurance coverage from the FDIC, but it turns out most credit unions are insured by NCUSIF, roughly equivalent to the FDIC, and most small banks retain the same FDIC deposit protections as large ones.

As long you do your homework first and find the right credit union (which you can do at culookup.com/), or bank—Amalgamated Aspiration, Carver, and Spring are four good local options—you can find virtually all of the same services, access to ATMs, deposit insurance, and other conveniences as before, which means that for those Brooklyn residents who do most of their banking in and around New York City, there’s no good reason not to switch.

So, Park Slopers, District Sixers, and the rest of our Brooklyn family with accounts at banks that fund environmentally destructive infrastructure projects such as DAPL, I’d say it’s about high time we got our divestment boycott on, wouldn’t you?

Filed Under: Community Spirit

Personal is Political is Personal

July 5, 2016 By Anni Irish Filed Under: Community Spirit Tagged With: Art, artists, collage, emerging artists, exhibition, group show, mixed media piece, political, terrorism

Gallery 440 Debuts Group Show

 

 

gallery440
In the weeks following the mass shooting in Orlando, there have been countless displays of anger, disbelieve and defiance which have come in the form of protests and art. While this is the latest tragedy to effect the nation, it is one in a long list of political struggles that has come to light in 2016. With these larger issues in mind, the artist-run space Gallery 440, will debut their latest group exhibition, Personal is Political is Personal.

Gallery 440 is located in the heart of Park Slope and offers an eclectic mix of local and international artists. It is an artist-run space and has an ever-changing roster of exhibitions. The gallery also aims to feature mid-career to emerging artists. The upcoming show will run from July 7 to August 6, 2016 and is curated by animal-rights activist and artist Sue Coe.

Personal is Political is Personal aims to explore this particularly trying social state by considering the way politics informs personal agendas. The show explores the way everyday occurrences can become political. This includes everything from “routine traffic stops that turn deadly” or a “family house is destroyed at high tide.” The exhibition features the work of twenty three artists including: Max Alper, Hannah Barnhardt, Lynn Benson, Eva M. Capobianco, Gordon Carlisle, Patricia Denys, and Elise Dodeles. Personal is Political is Personal showcases a variety of work ranging from photography, painting, video and more. Artist Eva M. Capobianco’s mixed media piece, Self Portrait Circa 1958, consists of a hand embroidered square with a fabric frame, with the words “When I was about four years old, I got a cowgirl outfit for Christmas. The skirt got lost immediately; but the gun, holster and that red hat I wanted to wear everywhere”. The red stitching of the letters are off-set by a small embroidered cowboy hat in the top left of the boarder and a gun in a holster on the bottom right. Capobianco’s piece touches on issues of gender, gun control and to some extent violence which she brilliantly captures in the traditional feminine handy craft of embroidery.

 

capobianco_eva_6

 

 

This is in stark contrast to artist Igor Gnedo’s work, CollageNikoff, which are a series of collage images from various magazines. The images range from a photo of a single hand to the word’s life at one end and terror at the other; all arranged into the shape of a gun. Gnedo’s piece seems to be a larger comment on both gun issues and terrorism.

It is the range of artists’ work and their interpenetration of “political is personal” that will make for an exciting exhibit. The gallery will host an opening reception from 6–9pm on Thursday July 7, 2016.

Filed Under: Community Spirit Tagged With: Art, artists, collage, emerging artists, exhibition, group show, mixed media piece, political, terrorism

Part of the Solution: Spoke the Hub

October 14, 2012 By Nancy Lippincott Filed Under: Community Spirit Tagged With: back problems, chair yoga, fitness, movement, Park Slope, Spoke the Hub, yoga

It’s Friday morning yoga, and my fellow classmates and I are congregating in the waiting room at Spoke the Hub.  The toddler dance class before us lets out, and for a few chaotic moments, we are overtaken by a swarm of excited 3-year-olds that seem to swim through us in the mosaic-tiled fishbowl.

Dolores, our instructor, motions us into the multi-purpose studio space.  The setting isn’t quite what you would expect from your typical yoga class — there are no mats, my classmates are mostly over 40, and we are all seated on folding chairs.  We’re all here to participate in the gentle, restorative practice of Chair Yoga.  It’s just one of the classes in Spoke the Hub’s “Move for Life” program, an initiative designed to get everyone, regardless of age or fitness level, acquainted with an active lifestyle.

There are currently over 20 yoga studios in Park Slope alone, but decades before downward dog and ashtanga became part of the American vernacular, Elise Long was here, a pioneer exploring a frontier devoid of gyrotonics and morning vinyassa. Despite the constant stream of new fitness trends and health fads, Long’s message has been simple and consistent throughout — move your body.

Long first came to New York in the 1970s after college and began her professional career under the guidance of the renowned Irmgard Bartenief.  She started off in the no man’s land between Avenue A and B on the Lower East Side until she was invited to visit Park Slope by some friends who would soon become her business partners. “I said okay, let’s do the calculation here.  I’m paying for this shithole, and I’m scared, and no one will come visit me.  Or I could pay 50 cents to take a subway ride and live in a mansion by a park.  Okay, I’m gone!”

From there, a movement for movement was born.  Long and her partners set up shop in a loft space in the former Polish Social Club building.  By 1985, they found their permanent home in the Gowanus Arts Building, a 15,000-square-foot “artist’s habitat” on Douglass Street, and in 1995, they expanded to a second location on Union Street.

In the Park Slope of 1979, there was only one other studio offering the traditional spread of dance lessons.  Long’s new collective in Gowanus would teach more than just tap dancing.  It would serve as a conduit of creative energy to the local community, and in fact, that is where the name Spoke the Hub originated. “This is your hub.” She points to her core then stretches out her arms. “These are the spokes, and it’s about exchange from the inner to the outer.”

When Long interacts with her students, she’s teaching lessons that go beyond choreography.  The same enthusiasm and seemingly infinite reserve of energy displayed by Long is reflected in the expressiveness of her young protégées.  “I feel like the people who move regularly, they find joy in movement.  They don’t do it just because they want to be thin.  They do it because it brings them joy, and they keep it up because it’s an important part of their lives. They are the most vibrant people around at any age.”

Here in stroller central, there is an obvious market for children’s classes, but Long suspects the people in most need of her resources are the adults.  “Who doesn’t have back problems these days?  Everyone has back problems now, and it’s because of this —” She points to the giant iMac on her desk and knowingly glares over at me with raised eyebrows and a toothy smile.

I become aware of my slumped posture.  She’s right.  How many hours have we all spent literally hunched over our laptops?  According to a 2011 study, 80 percent of us are desk-bound throughout the day.  “At a certain point, my Type-A, big-brained, white-collar men need to move!  It’s not just for gym rats, it’s the white-collar, academic businessmen with high-stress jobs.  This population needs fitness help, but often they are embarrassed.  You should see them come in [she mimics someone with arms crossed and shoulders up to their ears].  Eventually we have them dancing.”

This morning’s chair yoga class was (thankfully) far from a Wall Street hoedown, but the message was the same.  Even if we are stuck at our desks for the majority of the day, there are still ways to engage our bodies that don’t involve complicated poses or reaching our target heart rates.

Perhaps this is the greatest strength of Long and her talented team — bringing movement to the lives of the habitually sedentary in a trusting, nonjudgmental environment … maybe with some good-intentioned teasing.  Long has recognized the need for movement in everyone’s life, no matter their age, weight, or gender.  She adamantly believes the benefits of an active life extend beyond the physical. “I think when you are more active, you get more fearless, you have more courage to try things.”

Starting this fall, Spoke the Hub will be offering classes tailored specifically to the needs of all of us sequestered to our seated lives in front of the computer. The program will include something for everyone, be it prenatal yoga to low-intensity dance classes for seniors, as Elise quips, “As long as you’re not on a gurney we can get you moving.”

Spoke the Hub’s Fall Session runs from September 10 until February 3.  For details on class schedules and locations, visit www.spokethehub.org

Filed Under: Community Spirit Tagged With: back problems, chair yoga, fitness, movement, Park Slope, Spoke the Hub, yoga

Part of the Solution: The Park Slope Civic Council

June 27, 2012 By admin Filed Under: Community Spirit

I have always been what some people may call a “do-gooder,” a joiner, an organizer and a chronic volunteer. In fact, before opening Lion in the Sun 10 years ago, I worked in the non-profit world as a fundraiser/volunteer/organizer. I had already, at that point, lived in Park Slope for many years, and loved the historic and “connected” community nature of the neighborhood.  It is why I chose to move here and why I decided to open my business here.

Once firmly rooted in my new position as a capitalist, I was looking for the right place to contribute to my community. Now connected as both a resident and business owner to the neighborhood I loved, the future of the community became more important than ever.

I came to the Park Slope Civic Council through my involvement with a small group of shop owners struggling to keep the Park Slope Chamber of Commerce alive.  Ken Freeman, the President of the Civic Council at the time, out of concern for store closings in the neighborhood approached us to help develop a shop local campaign (some of you may remember the famous “yellow umbrellas campaign”) selflessly funded and supported by Civic Council to support local businesses.

I started attending meetings as a liaison from the “business community” because I felt we might be able to partner more of the business interests with events like the Halloween Parade and the House Tour.  But I began to realize just how deep the roots of this organization really went.  Perhaps more importantly, I quickly learned that their slogan, “Force of good in your neighborhood,” is really true. The Civic Council is an amazing group of people from diverse backgrounds and interests who, while they may not always agree, all share the same passion for this unique neighborhood we call home.

It seems everyone has heard of the Park Slope Civic Council, but I’m not sure a lot of people know what they really do? Most Slopers know about the neighborhood’s famous Halloween Parade, signature “No Flyer” signs, and the annual Park Slope House Tour, but I was astounded to learn of the many other facets of this vibrant organization. It reaches to levels of the community well beyond the bike lanes and the civic sweep clean up days. For instance, did you know that the Civic Council awards three scholarships to a college bound senior from each of the three secondary schools in the John Jay High School building to help buy books for their freshman year or that there is a committee that provides small grants each year to various community projects in need of funding?  What I find most inspiring is that the Civic Council is an organization an individual can actually come to with a mission. For example, a few years back a few brave souls stood up to the changing development on Fourth Avenue, fearing its effects on the vibrant community that has lived in the area for generations, and with the Civic Council’s support and some planning, a new Civic Council Committee, Forth on Fourth Avenue, was born earlier this year after the highly successful 2010 public forum focusing on Fourth Avenue.

Recently, a fellow Trustee of mine, David Alquist, eloquently outlined some Civic Council highlights from over the last decade or so in a letter to prospective members, some of which follow:

  • Park Slope Armory: the Civic Council was engaged with the Armory redevelopment from the beginning and helped guide it to a successful outcome for the community.
  • Grand Army Plaza Coalition: we worked closely with GAPco to improve the pedestrian experience at Grand Army Plaza.  GAPco grew out of a Civic Council public forum on traffic and transportation issues.
  • Historic District Extensions: the Civic Council leads the ongoing efforts to expand the Park Slope Historic District.  The first extension in nearly 40 years has just been designated with more on the way.
  •  The 9th Street Subway entrance on the east side of 4th Avenue reopened in 2012, after being closed for 40 years, due to Civic Council efforts, thus saving Park Slopers from having to cross busy 4th Avenue in order to access the subway.
  • The 3rd Street park entrance was permanently pedestrianized due to Civic Council efforts.
  • One-Way, No Way: the Civic Council successfully thwarted a misguided DOT effort to convert 7th & 6th Avenues to one-way traffic.
  • The Civic Council engages with the Brooklyn Speaks coalition of neighborhood groups to monitor the Atlantic Yards development.
  • The Civic Council will engage with the DOT to help locate new bike-share stations throughout the neighborhood for the upcoming bike-share launch this summer.

In addition to special initiatives like those outlined above, the Civic Council’s ongoing activities include:

Running the annual Halloween Parade, House Tour, bi-annual Clean Sweep events, holiday Toys for Tots toy drive, co-sponsoring the Mulchfest and electronic waste recycling events, administering a Neighborhood Grants program that returns the House Tour receipts back into the community, and the scholarship awards mentioned above.  They also keep an ongoing engagement with Community Board 6, elected officials, merchant groups, and other neighborhood groups and maintain representatives on the Community Committees of the 78th Police Precinct and the Prospect Park Alliance.

What’s in it for me?  As a resident and a business owner, I am already deeply invested in the Park Slope community and truly proud of what I think of as an island amongst the sometimes faceless New York City existence. I love the sense of support, stewardship, and growth that the Civic Council willingly offers as part of its mission.  And on a practical level, what is good for the neighborhood is good for my business, my employees, and my clients.  If we support our local businesses and they thrive, my business thrives too. If we preserve the historic nature of the neighborhood, which makes it a beautiful place and brings new residents and visitors, my business benefits.  If the streets are a little cleaner and the traffic is a little safer for pedestrians, all the businesses and residents benefit.  More importantly, I think we all benefit from being part of the solution.  But beyond all of that, I found a deeper, more meaningful connection to my home and to my neighbors and my community through the Park Slope Civic Council.

I have always believed in the importance of being involved and being part of the change you want to see. The Civic Council is a thoughtful and effective force for making that change and for preserving and, perhaps more importantly, improving the community we all love so much.  As David also points out in his letter, and I would like to as well, “these types of changes did not occur by themselves.  They occurred because of the efforts of the Park Slope Civic Council and its dynamic and engaged membership.”

Filed Under: Community Spirit

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