“I think Josie’s tear is because she misses Dawn.”
For a walk on the prairies, join Mom on the ranch. Mom wrote of the photo above, “I think Josie’s tear is because she misses Dawn.” I miss Josie and all she symbolizes.
In the midst of all of the demands and pressures of life, take a moment to walk the prairie with Mom and enjoy the beauty: http://www.joanwink.com/latest/a-morning-walk-on-the-prairies/
Enjoy and with love!
Dawn
LISTO Oaxaca Class of 2017, Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Mexico
Every once in a great while, forces come together to bring to life what lived first as a dream. Such is the LISTO (Language Institute for Sustainability & Transformative Education) Oaxaca program that just took place for the second year. Through the initial vision and extraordinary spirit of Cara Esquivel, a class of teachers, artists, and explorers of the world came together to live, study, and experience Oaxaca, México. LISTO Coordinator, Randy Grillo, made all possible.
LISTO Oaxaca Class 2017
Dancers on my way to my apartment. © Dawn Wink
Students enrolled in the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Endorsement program at Santa Fe Community College took Spanish and TESOL courses at the Ollin Tlahtaolli Centro de Lenguas y Culture Mexicana.
Students LISTO Oaxaca 2017
Centro Ollin Tlahtoalli with founder, Omar Nuñez
When students were not studying themselves, they worked with children at CANICA (Centro de Apoyo de Niños de la Calle de Oaxaca, Support Center for Street Children of Oaxaca).
Niña de CANICA @ Lia Rosen
CANICA kids © Diana Clauvan-Clements
Randy Grillo includes handprint on tree of hands of CANICA.
I include here photos of our time together. I am indebted to our students in the program and Randy for sharing the beauty of our experience. For full details of our time in Oaxaca and more photos: LISTO Oaxaca.
White dresses on blue wall © Dawn Wink
Culiapan—John Przyborowski
Frutas en el mercado ©Sylvia Chavez
Oaxaca landscape © Angelia Moore
Oaxaca beauty © John Przyborowski
Dresses of Oaxaca © Sylvia Chavez
Amazing how life life come together across time and borders. Berenice and I met in Costa Rica several years ago, came together again in Mexico for a class, and again for the past two years in Oaxaca. She and her mom, Juanita, embroidered this piece and gave to me. “Women of the market. I thought you’d like it since it’s all about the power of women, Dawn.” No words…
Berenice and Dawn
Dancers fro Zaachila © Randy Grillo
Meat corridor in market @ Jennifer Salinas
Monos de Calenda © Joelle Meniktos-Nolting
Maize and lime, how tortillas begin © John Przyborowski
Monte Albán, Jennifer Salinas
Papel Picado © John Przyborowski
Museo Textil © Alia Benammar
© Tekla Johnson
©Angelia Moore
© Barshia Cohee
© Angelia Moore
Macrina Mateo, Mujer del Barro Rojo (Woman of the Red Clay © Dawn Wink
Flowers in market © Dawn Wink
For more thoughts, experiences, and photos of our time in Oaxaca, please treat yourself a feast for the senses: LISTO Oaxaca.
Thank you, Jennifer Salinas, for this photo.
Frida Kahlo’s studio, paints, wheelchair.
Frida Kahlo
“Pies, ¿pa’ que los necesito, si tengo alas para volar?” ~Frida Kahlo
“Why do I need feet, when I have wings to fly.“
If I were to talk about my first time to visit Frida Kahlo’s house, la Casa Azul (The Blue House), in Coyoacán, Mexico, I would start with the first time I heard of the Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo (1907- 54) nearly 30 years ago and how the more I learned of her life, art, and spirit the more I fell in love.
I’d speak of her incredible life, filled with pain, passion, heartbreak, art, and joy. I’d talk of how she contracted polio as a child that left her bedridden for one year, one leg shriveled and shorter than the other, and permanently infected her spinal column. I’d speak of the trolley car accident when she was 18 that shattered her pelvis, fractured her spine, ribs, collarbone, right leg, and shoulder that caused her to live the rest of her life in braces, traction, and intense pain.
Frida had more than thirty operations and spent most of her life in pain and flat on her back. I’d speak of the self-revelatory art the years trapped in bed birthed, and how she created a life of passion, politics, travel, art, and love.
Yet, people who knew her remember for her alegria, happiness. Her biographers describe her:
Frida had huge lust for life. She had a seductive effect on many people and charmed everyone. People loved her beauty, personality, and talent. She was also known for her dark sense of humour and sharp wit. Frida loved dancing, drinking and parties. She took great pride in keeping a home for Diego and loved looking after him. She lavished attention on her pets – mischievous spider monkeys, dogs, cats and birds and adored children. She loved nonsense, gossip and dirty jokes and abhorred pretension. She treated servants like family and students like esteemed colleagues.
If I were to talk about my first time to visit her house, I might talk about how I bought the tickets first and arranged our plane tickets to Oaxaca, México around these tickets and arranged to stay in Mexico City just to see her home.
I might then talk about how after waiting in line, we discovered the tickets were not valid, since they hadn’t been bought directly from the museum. I might then talk about the lines of people wrapped around the block. I’d mention how we weren’t to be allowed in, how the people working there were quite sorry, but it was simply not possible. I’d then talk of the many conversations, my pleas (that I was wrapped in a vice-like grip around around both of their legs, begging for entrance, eyeing the security gatnd plotting the speed and height necessary for me to jump it), and the eventual gentleness of the eyes of two young people who said if we bought new tickets, we could enter.
I’d then talk of how as we moved through Frida’s home, I kept spontaneously bursting into tears with emotion.
Better not to talk and, instead, let Frida’s home, art, words, and life speak for themselves.
“Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light.”
Frida and Diego lived in this house 1929-1954
Frida married artist Diego Rivera, a wedding her mother described as, “an elephant marrying a dove.” Frida herself said later, “There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.”
Diego described her work: “I recommend her to you, not as a husband but as an enthusiastic admirer of her work, acid and tender, hard as steel and delicate and fine as a butterfly’s wing, lovable as a beautiful smile, and as profound and cruel as the bitterness of life.”
“I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”
Self portrait with necklace of thorns.
Frida’s kitchen:
“Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and moves away.”
Dining room:
Frida’s studio, paints, and brushes:
“Painting completed my life.”
“They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my reality.”
“I am not sick. I am broken. I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.”
Frida’s bedrooms:
Day bedroom, with mirror above for painting.
“I think that little by little I’ll be able to solve my problems and survive.”
The Two Fridas
Night bedroom, with butterflies above.
Frida’s dresses and braces:
“Enagua: a long skirt with a waistband that has a ruffle sewn to it.
The adornment of the Tehuana dress is centered around the upper part of the body. Chain stitch blouses, flowers, highly decorated jewelry, earrings, necklaces and rings will always be concentrated from the torso up, obliging the viewer to focus on Frida’s upper body and providing her with the opportunity to edit and fragment herself, distracting the viewer from her legs and lower part of her body.”
Frida’s courtyard and gardens:
La Casa Azul courtyard.
Noé in the courtyard.
“I wish I could do whatever I liked behind the curtain of ‘madness’. Then: I’d arrange flowers, all day long, I’d paint; pain, love and tenderness, I would laugh as much as I feel like at the stupidity of others, and they would all say: Poor thing, she’s crazy! (Above all I would laugh at my own stupidity.) I would build my world which while I lived, would be in agreement with all the worlds. The day, or the hour, or the minute that I lived would be mine and everyone else’s – my madness would not be an escape from ‘reality’.”
Frida’s gardens.
Wynn, Dawn, Joan, 2001
It is fitting that May brought both Mother’s Day and Wynn’s high school graduation. It is fitting to celebrate both of these women in the same month—both of these women are my heroines. A heroine, as defined by Dictionary.com:
“I never knew how much my heart could hold until someone called me Grammie.” ~Joan Wink
Mom and me, 2017
Mom and Wynn share granite strength under their generous spirits, smiles, laughter, and kindness. Both of these women have chosen to shape their lives not defined by the challenges that life held, but instead by what they want to share with the world—generosity of spirit, kindness, and love. On the days when I feel weak under the pressures of life, I don’t look far for inspiration. On those days (weeks, months, years…) when the weight of life feels too much, I look to the experiences of Mom and Wynn and how they handle them. Whatever I may be experiencing soon pales in comparison.
Wynn composes the art of her life through each individual act. She chooses each word and thought expressed with deep intention. Again, again, and again, I have witnessed her choose kindness and love in all situations, including situations that tend not to inspire responses of kindness and love. Wynn lifts herself beyond the situation and into the greater context. Her generosity of spirit and graceful way of living humble and inspire me.
Mother’s Day 2017, Wynn, me, Luke
Prickly pear lemonade for kids and margaritas for adults.
Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi
Our graduate!
Grammie and Bop Bop love Wynn.
Wynn and Noé
After graduation festivities. Luke, me, Noé, Wyatt
May was a big month for my heroines, Wynn and Mom. Both begin a new chapter of life. Wynn with high school graduation and Mom with her appointment to the South Dakota Board of Regents. It is a blessing to be the generation between two women who never cease to amaze, inspire, and strengthen me. Congratulations and love from the bottom of my heart to you both.
In celebration of the magnificence and wonder of heroines.
Wynn and Grammie, 2017
Wynn and Grammie, 2001
The Smallest Voice Counts ©Wynn Wink-Moran
A few months have come and gone since the Women’s March in Washington, DC. While the divide yet runs deep, conversations that span the spectrum of beliefs within my own circle of women friends give me great hope that there is so much more that unites, rather than divides us.
If I could tease out a single thread of what unites us, it is found in our humanity, our common experiences as women. Experiences women have shared throughout history that even the most divisive political rhetoric cannot splinter. The political has become the personal. Many of these conversations take place in hushed voices, an intimacy of experiences and trust in the other. We sink into shared history and present. What kind of a world do we want for our daughters? For our sons? For ourselves? For the gorgeous, varied humanity with whom we share the planet? We want the best for our world, our children, our families, for the children and families of others. I trust in our shared experiences throughout history to bring us together.
Wynn Wink-Moran
Three generations of Wink Women flew to DC and boarded a bus to march. I lift up the spirit of the march here through the photos of my daughter, Wynn, and powerful words Why I Marched by forever friend, Dawn Dobras, who when asked why she marched wrote sheer power and beauty.
Wynn experienced the march through the lens of the camera. I did not know what she saw or captured until we had returned home.
©Wynn Wink-Moran
Dawn Dobras
I was asked this weekend, why I marched in DC and am sharing this my response below:
I marched this weekend in DC in the women’s march– which easily could have been called the Humanity March.
I marched for the women’s right to choose. Regardless of how you feel about terminating a pregnancy, I marched to protect a mother’s right to choose that outcome.
I marched for every mother, woman and man that is an immigrant. I’m a proud descendant of immigrants and believe our country is stronger for them.
I marched for religious freedom. As a wife and mother with Jewish kids but being Christian– I don’t want to see any individual need to register because of their religion and can’t support a Muslim registry. It wasn’t good for Jews in Germany, Japanese in WW2 in the US and it’s not ok now. At all.
I marched for racial equality, because I believe that it’s not the color of the skin that determines your contribution to our country or your rights as a citizen.
I marched for the LGBT community because I believe your sexual orientation does not change your place in our community or your rights.
I marched for every disabled friend and parent of disabled children. Their presence in my life enriches me greatly and does not deserve mocking.
I marched for providing health care for mothers and children– who by the numbers, are most likely to be impacted by lack of access to health care.
And I marched for Mother Earth! Climate change is real and every day that we fail to recognize this we are failing our children and grandchildren.
Mom and daughters march together: Dawn, Mary Ann, Amy Dobras
Finally, I did march to preserve women’s rights. I am the deep beneficiary of the women who marched before us. You have a law degree, I have an MBA. But that wasn’t always the case for our mothers or grandmothers. And I can’t support a president that believes a women’s physical appearance and being a “10” is more important than my brain power and my ability to achieve.
I have a very high bar for a leader of 200 million people and I was marching to remind him that there are consequences for disregarding basic human decency.
All that, and I feel so honored to be a part of this weekends march. I have never felt more American, and more connected to my fellow citizens than being a part of a swell of people– all ages, races, sexual orientation, nationalities– asking for basic rights to be respected by our leader. It was a life experience that I will always remember and look forward to the next one.
With love,
Dawn Dobras
I discovered interspersed with photos that Wynn took of the march were photos of stark beauty.
We re-discovered family. Roots, roots, roots, and a whole new family constellation of stars formed in the sky.
Cuzzin Martha, Mom, Leslee, Frank, Mel, Wynn
As my cousin, Mel, said, “When you meet family that you never knew you had and aren’t even technically related to—but they end up being super cool.” #ByMarriageTwiceRemoved #StillCounts
Mom gave me these socks. True.
This stained glass felt made for the moment, “The healing of the world is in its nameless saints. Each separate star seems nothing, but a myriad of scattered stars break up the night and make it beautiful.”
Even the smallest voice counts.
Once upon a time in Costa Rica, a group of teachers came together in a magical place called Escuela Espiral Maná. Here in the midst of all, we wrestled with angels about how to create educational leadership through blogs.
Founder and educator extraordinaire, Mary Scholl created this school and this course through sheer heart and expertise. I was fortunate to be invited.
Together, we wrote, read, created, laughed, wrote, struggled, and wrote and learned some more.
We explored leadership, education, writing, and compassionate communication under the eaves of plants and tin metal roofs.
The teachers gathered together supported one another in our journeys.
The angels of the kitchen, los angeles de la cocina, sustained our bodies and spirits, as we learned.
We collaborated, learned, talked, learned some more, and created.
Our week-long journey had each of us thinking about our professional and personal journeys of contribution.
Noé with a gorgeous cup of coffee on our final day.
Our journeys continue. We each strive and stumble our way through the dance of life, teaching, and writing.
Thankfully, we are together in our journey.
