Hauntings #7

Patricia Reis:

You can reweave the whole in history by doing that making that repair that lightens the journey for the next generation as part of evolution. It's how we evolve.

Rebecca McNulty:

We're all desperately trying to sow the field year after year after year, and so we're exhausting ourselves. Why am I so tired? Why I'm not able to replenish? It means that there are times when you must do the descent into the underground, where you must go to the place between the known and the unknown in your life and you must sift and gather.

Marcia Carr:

I think they've proven that having pets, whether a cat or dog or whatever, helps lower your blood pressure. They definitely relieve stress. I know if I go home after a long day and I have my cats there, it's hard to stay very stressed. They're just very relaxing and give you comfort.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hello, this is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Welcome to today's Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, co hosted by Genevieve Morgan. Today's show, which is airing on October 30, 2011, has the theme of ghosts and hauntings, which is of course very appropriate given the upcoming holidays. We're looking to explore these themes with a very interesting group of women today. Our first guest is Dr. Michelle Shems, orthodontist out of Falmouth, Maine. Our next guest is Patricia Rice, psychotherapist and authority. We then have Rebecca McNulty, visual artist and puppeteer, and Marcia Carr of Heart, a no kill cat shelter in Cumberland. In my experience as a physician, hauntings have a significant place in people's health and well being. When people come into my practice, there are things that have been haunting them emotionally and spiritually for years which manifest physically. I've noticed that people end up with heart problems when they've experienced broken hearts. I noticed that people have back problems when they're suffering from the pain of trying to hold up the world. It's important to explore what haunts us. And in today's show, we're going to do just that. Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast, we have a segment we call Food and Sustenance, which is co hosted by Genevieve Morgan. Hello, Genevieve.

Genevieve Morgan:

Hi, Lisa. Hello, everyone.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And we also this week have a very special guest. Usually it's just Genevieve and I talking about our children and the food that we get at Whole Food Foods and, you know, things that are nutritious. But this week we have Dr. Michelle Shems, who is a board certified orthodontist who has a practice in Falmouth, three children. Michelle's joining us because not only is she interested in orthodontia and teeth, but she has three children. She has something very special she's going to be doing over Halloween to benefit the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Portland organization. I'm going to let you talk to her. I'm going to. Well, actually, I'm not going to let you talk to her. I'm going to talk to her about this. But first we're going to talk a little bit about some of the treats that I found at Whole Foods this week as I was looking for healthy Halloween treats. Dr. Shems, you have three children. The youngest is five. The oldest is 12. Do you find it a challenge to keep them away from sweetened foods, candies? I know with my children it's gotten harder as they've gotten older. What do you think?

Dr. Michelle Shems:

I completely agree. I think the best thing that we've done is just not really have any candy in our home and not make it as available.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, the theme for today's show is hauntings and we're specifically talking about Halloween. And as we were talking about before we went on air, Dr. Shemms and Genevieve and I, the idea is that if you can keep your children's teeth relatively free from lots of sugar and give them lots of good, healthy calcium containing foods, then that won't haunt them later in life. So there's a long term haunting. Would you.

Dr. Michelle Shems:

Yes, I completely agree with that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And then there's also short term. And this is just, I don't know that you necessarily see this in your practice, but even though the studies aren't conclusive that children eating a lot of sugar right around Halloween drives them completely insane, I noticed this in my family. Have you noticed this in yours?

Dr. Michelle Shems:

Yes, yes, absolutely. And so one thing you can think of, if they are going to have candy the days following Halloween and you are going to let Them keep some. You could follow it with something karyostatic, which means it kind of has a negative effect on sugar and cavities, such as a piece of cheese, and it'll cancel out the effects of candy or just limit what they can eat.

Genevieve Morgan:

Can you just explain a little bit about what happens when you eat sugar or sugary snacks? What happens with your teeth? I don't really understand. I know what happens when it gets in your gut, but what happens in

Dr. Michelle Shems:

your mouth, in the oral cavity, when something, a carbohydrate or sugar is introduced? The bacteria, which is the normal flora in the oral cavity, will produce an acid, and that acid is what will cause decay. And so something karyostatic, like I mentioned a chunk of cheese will negate those effects.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what is the karyostatic effect? What's chemically, how does that work?

Dr. Michelle Shems:

I believe it just somehow it inhibits the, the acid production from the bacteria.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Okay, well, that's useful. So if we can maybe limit the amount of sugar that we're feeding our children. But if we're going to give them sugar, then don't have it be the last thing in their mouth, especially before they go to bed, especially if they don't brush their teeth. Maybe give them that piece of cheese to balance it all out. Okay, well, Genevieve, I'm looking over here at the foods that we got from the Whole Foods Market this week, and I've actually had my 10 and my 15 year old daughters trying them out so that I could actually say whether they were good or not.

Genevieve Morgan:

I know it looks like you've done some early trick or treating.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, actually Abby had her friends over this weekend and they were all just, they were trialing them for me because I don't happen to eat a lot of sweets in my own life. So I don't know that I'd really glean the benefit of a Yummy Earth Organic Lollipop, which Sophie loves. So at Whole Foods, we have the Yummy Earth Organic Lollipops. We have the endangered species chocolates. Speaking of chocolate, we also have some organic fruit strips, which I know even small children like to eat. We have these Cliff Z bars, some Annie's Organic Orchard Grapefruit Bites. Not grapefruit, but grapefruit. I don't know how many small children like grapefruit. So we have to be a little choosy about flavors for children. And some Barbara's Fruit and Yogurt bars. So if you'd like to go over to Whole Foods and do some trick or treating, Then they have some treats available to you. Another thing I would recommend is, and I'm sure that Jen and Michelle, you would agree on this, make sure that your children have something healthy before you go out trick or treating so that they're not walking around the neighborhood mowing down the candy as they're getting it. I think if you can fill their bellies appropriately then they're going to be a lot less likely to just start, I don't know, throwing the Skittles back.

Dr. Michelle Shems:

That's a wonderful suggestion.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, now I think we might fill their bellies with something like cheese pizza.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Speaking of cheese pizza. Yeah, we actually. This is the funny thing about you have to do a little marketing when you're a parent. I have found you can't be trying to feed on Halloween night. You can't be trying to feed your children excessively healthy foods. So don't be trying to give them eggplant parmesan. Unless you're not the night for kale. No, it's definitely not the night for kale. But a couple of things that I found when I was walking around Whole Foods with Barbara Golino this week, Flatbread Pizza, which is a local restaurant, they have these great already made pizzas. You can just throw them in frozen. It's very easy. 15 year old at our house, she does this. And also Rosario's makes pizza dough, whole grain and homemad sauce. And it's frozen and you can thaw it out, throw on some spinach and vegetables, some mushrooms. And kids really love to make their own pizzas. So it's a, it's not a bad alternative if you're going to fill their bellies. So I think that this is the, this is the very interesting thing is that you just have to be balanced. And the other interesting thing for me is what you are doing in your office, Michelle. Dr. Shems, you've been doing this, I guess the fort 10.

Dr. Michelle Shems:

This is gonna be our ninth year.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Your ninth year. You've been in practice for 10 years though. So you started this just very soon after you went into practice. And you have this very interesting program that I think parents might want to learn about.

Dr. Michelle Shems:

Well, we call it a Halloween buyback. And it's a way that it's a win win situation. We buy back candy and for every pound of candy that the children want to actually sell, they can bring it to our office and it's open to the public. You don't have to be a patient. And in the prior years we actually held an event and now we're trying to make it an even bigger success. So we're now holding the event Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, all day after the day after Halloween. And if they want, they can bring their candy, weigh it in. It's actually very fun. And for every pound, we'll give the child a dollar up to five pounds. And then this year we're going to match each dollar to the Big Brother Big Sisters of Southern Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you're doing good all around. You're saving their teeth, you're giving them a little treat and you're treating the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization. Has this been successful in years past?

Dr. Michelle Shems:

It's been great. It's been a lot of fun. Every child that comes in has a different slant on how they are going to react. For example, we have some, you can just see the pain in their faces when they're giving up their candy and how difficult it is. And it's making the parent happy. Sometimes the kids just are so happy to get cash in their hands. Others then will in turn give their dollars to the same charity. So then they've done two good deeds. They've sold their candy as well as they've given their hard earned cash to the cause of the year.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you get raisins? Do you buy magazines or pencils?

Dr. Michelle Shems:

It's so funny that you're bringing up raisins because I think I have to demystify the whole raisin and I learned this when I was in dental school. Raisins are actually very unhealthy for your teeth because of the sugar content and because of the stickiness. So it actually, instead of just having a sweet, the raisins will actually stay in the oral cavity longer and have a longer acid effect. So all those parents way back when that handed out sun made raisins weren't really doing the kids necessarily a favor.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've been very fascinated by, I didn't know about raisins. I had forgotten about the cheese thing. So I've learned a lot. And we're going to send people over to Whole Foods to buy some healthy Halloween treats and maybe some pizza. And I know there are going to be people who are going to want to come to your practice and have the candy bot back. So how do they get in touch with you to find out more?

Dr. Michelle Shems:

Well, it's open to the public. Our address is 202 U.S. route 1 in Falmouth. You could call for specifics or directions. Our website is currently under construction, so that's not a good resource at this time. And we'll welcome anyone that wants to come and sell their candy. We want to make this a great success for big brothers, big sisters this year.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you so much for doing this fundraiser and the buyback. And Genevieve has learned a lot, too.

Genevieve Morgan:

I think I have. And I'm going to see you on Tuesday morning with my bag full of jelly beans and lapitas.

Dr. Michelle Shems:

I look forward to it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, thanks so much for coming in and we hope you. Thank you for having us again.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast, co hosted by Genevieve Morgan, we have a featured guest who comes in and talks about our main theme. And this week's theme, which Genevieve and I love initially was going to be just hauntings, but we decided to or I decided to. Sorry about that, Jen. Ghosts and hauntings. So it's perfect because we have with us today Patricia Rice. Welcome, Patricia.

Patricia Reis:

Thank you very much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm going to read a little bit about you here. You are the author of the Dreaming Daughters of Saturn and through the Goddess and creator producer of Arctic Refuge Sutra. You have degrees from the University of Wisconsin in English literature, an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in sculpture. You have a psychotherapy practice and you're currently engaged in writing fiction. What a widely varied and wonderful route you've taken to get to where you are today.

Patricia Reis:

There's a lot of threads. It's a very windy path. Has been a windy path.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. And one of my favorite quotes from Tolkien is all who wander are not lost.

Patricia Reis:

This is true.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you are sitting amongst a group of writers, Genevieve and I, and John does some writing. And you are a writer. So it's lovely to have you in our midst.

Patricia Reis:

Well, thank you very much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now, today's haunting, Today's theme, hauntings. I have been reading Daughters of Saturn. It's so interesting. One of the things that caught me right off, and I know this is going to lead into something we're not going to talk about later on, is the story that you tell about a woman in your family. Something really fairly horrible happened to her.

Patricia Reis:

That's right. That's right. And it's really what provoked me to write fiction to begin with because as you said, I've written nonfiction. I've written many articles nonfiction. And one afternoon in my practice I had a two hour cancellation and this was probably about in 2002 I think. And I just then wondered, okay, what am I going to do with this time? So I sat in my chair, and all of a sudden I heard this voice. And it said, it wasn't that I wanted to die, it was just that I was so damn mad and it was the only thing I could think to do and the only means at hand. And I went, oh, my God. That is the voice of the woman who was thought to be my great grandmother. That's her. That's her voice. So I sat down with a yellow pad of paper and I started writing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did you find out about her?

Patricia Reis:

You know, all family histories are, you know, are riddled with mysteries. You know, there was a family story about this woman who had. My father said it was. It's down my father line that said, okay, this woman, Letty, she stood too near the wood stove. Her night he caught on fire and she burned to death, which is gruesome, horrible. So that was the story I grew up with. However, the family genealogist at one point showed up maybe, I don't know, 20 years ago and said, well, here's her obituary. And her obituary said, Mrs. Rice cooked herself. I mean, the language, you know, for these newspapers, obituaries, were very lurid. Why would someone be that desperate? Why would. You know. So when her voice came, that started this whole work. And then. So I resonated very much with Margaret Atwood's book called Negotiating with the Dead, because I felt like in some ways this writing was doing that. And so her quote says, she says, all writing is motivated deep down by a fear of and a fascination with mortality, by a desire to make the risky trip to the underworld and to bring something back or someone back from the dead. So.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yikes.

Marcia Carr:

Yeah, that's a little scary.

Patricia Reis:

Well, it can be.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, but I. What I think is interesting about your story is that you were haunted, but you were haunted, and it actually triggered a creative impulse.

Patricia Reis:

That's exactly right. Yes. Yes. It wasn't like I was. I was fascinated by the gaps in the story. And I think, you know, there are these silences that happen, and usually they're, you know, transgenerational. So I call it transgenerational haunting. That's what this is. And, you know, they're really about stories that need to be told because the things were unspeakable in a way. So, I mean, this story got lost just in one generation. My father didn't know it.

Genevieve Morgan:

So when you. With all the research that you did, did it help with the sense of haunting I'm just interested if all of us are haunted in some way by our family legacies or our stories and the intergenerational haunting, just bringing it up into the light, writing, talking.

Patricia Reis:

It's an exorcism. It's a form of exorcism. And, you know, what I really feel is that these stories need to be told. They're usually cloaked and shrouded in shame and guilt and all sorts of horrible things. They're unspeakable, so to speak. The unspeakable lightens everything, which goes along

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

with actually our theme last week, which was light. So one of the things to get more light is to bring things to light, to actually put things out there. And then you will become less haunted. You will have your ghosts, people to, I don't know, be hurt.

Patricia Reis:

Yes, the restless dead. You know, the restless dead, the ones who, you know, either are unfulfilled in some way or have endured something horrible or, you know, that just gets passed down. I had the feeling when I was doing that writing that was swimming down the DNA, you know, just real in my imagination. Because that's what it takes. It takes imagination, and it takes heart. Heart, meaning, courage to swim down the DNA, to see what these restless dead have to say to us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do the restless dead of your patients speak to you through your patients?

Patricia Reis:

Yes, I listened for that. And I listened for it not only in the negative sense, because also I think what's transmitted is not just the haunting in a. In a. I mean, it's not negative, but in a traumatic sense, but also there are powers that are transmitted.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What are some of these powers that you're talking about?

Patricia Reis:

So I'm thinking about, okay, maybe somebody has, in their couple generations back, a woman who was a suffragette, very powerful on the line. Suffragette, big voice, okay.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Trying to get women the right to vote.

Patricia Reis:

Right to vote. Next generation. Shame about that woman. Shame about that mother. Silence, Silence. Okay, coming up into contemporary time, a woman who feels a drive to be out there, to give voice to this. Who's way behind that? Somebody's way behind that. Urging, pushing, you know, some memory, some something.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So something was shaping the generations that were moving beyond that place.

Patricia Reis:

Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What? How do you get your patients or clients who come in who have something haunting them?

Genevieve Morgan:

I keep thinking of, is it Jacob Marley in the Christmas Carol? The banker with the chains, dragging his chains.

Patricia Reis:

Well, oftentimes it can come through sort of all these sort of unaccounted for feelings or emotions, or it can come through dreams. Dreams tell me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Give me an example of something like that.

Patricia Reis:

Well, dream characters, people can appear. And you think usually these kinds of things have to do with when a person cannot connect with anything with their personal experience. I have no personal experience of this. So, you know, I was born when the World War II started. And I know that a lot of people who were born during that time have Holocaust images in their dreams. So, you know, I feel like sometimes, you know, there's a collective haunting that comes through in that way. Or I know that if I meet with a woman who has a severe eating disorder, sometimes if you track it back, okay, maybe her generations back came from Ireland during the great famine.

Genevieve Morgan:

Lisa's pointing to herself.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, this is my. We have this in our family. We do have this whole famine.

Patricia Reis:

So there's a hunger.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes.

Patricia Reis:

That runs through.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And then of course, if you came over as part of the famine, then you're going to be in the United States during very turbulent times, the Depression and World War I and World War II. And so there's going to be an ongoing hunger that never gets resolved.

Patricia Reis:

Right. And then there's a book called the Law of Dreams. Did you read this by Peter Behrens?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Not yet.

Patricia Reis:

It's all about that.

Genevieve Morgan:

I want to just get back for a moment to this idea, though, because I think that when we're looking at what's ha. If we have the courage to look at what's haunting us, what you're saying is really powerful, that the same things that might be impeding you in your life and moving forward can actually, with airing and talking can actually be a source of great power and inspiration.

Patricia Reis:

This is true.

Genevieve Morgan:

And that that's really what we're talking about in the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is how do you come to terms with these things that are keeping you back, those chains clanking behind you so that you can fully move that a big piece of what you do is about helping people do that creatively.

Patricia Reis:

Right. I think everybody has the capacity for being creative in some kind of way. So it's not just limited, say, to art making or writing. There are all different kinds of ways to be creative. But I think also there is the aspect of consciousness and to be conscious of some of the things that drive and motivate us. And the way into that, of course, for me, is, as Freud called it, the Royal Road, our dreams.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you use your own dreams in your artwork and the work that you've done in film and the writing that you do?

Patricia Reis:

I use the dreams. Dreams aren't meant to be used, is what I really think. They're not meant to be used. They're meant to reveal. And they're always. The psyche has a great, great capacity for healing, for bringing to light whatever hidden parts that are difficult, powerful. I mean, sometimes the dreams come as very powerful affirmations. It's like, I think when I was writing one time, I had this dream of these hands weaving, these golden threads, this cloth. And this was during a time when I was really struggling with the writing. And I said, okay, it's all happening somewhere. It's all happening. It's all being worked out. And so I find that very inspiring. So then I don't get too stumbly around my own.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You know, you just keep letting it happen.

Patricia Reis:

Yes. And that's already happening, right? Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What do you have for suggestions for people who are working through some hauntings in their lives, Whether they realize it or they don't realize it,

Patricia Reis:

of course, one is to pay attention to your dreams, to know that there are all sorts of ways of understanding, and they're all sorts of ways of paths of knowledge, and that you can expand your sense of your own vastness.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And we're all sitting here silent, feeling so vast as you just said this. So it's a kind of a humbling thought, isn't it?

Patricia Reis:

Yeah, it's humbling for the ego.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes.

Patricia Reis:

Yeah. Because we like to think that we're in charge and we know everything and we don't. In control. And really, somewhere in the background are those hands weaving something bigger than that. I'm not the puppet master.

Genevieve Morgan:

The other thing that I am thinking about as I'm listening to you, Patricia, is we also, if we have children or the next generation, we can start thinking about stopping the haunting from moving forward into the next generation.

Patricia Reis:

Right. There's a beautiful Hebrew word called tikkun. T I k k u n tikkun. And it means repair. And I think part of the work of dealing with these past generation Transgenerational hauntings has to do with the idea of repair. That those holes, gaps, those traumas, those horrible things, the work of repair, you know, to go back to the weaving idea that you can reweave the holes in history and by doing that, making that repair, that lightens the journey for the next generation as part of evolution. It's how we evolve.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When I was reading the Daughters of Saturn, you talked about these moments of awakening, these awakening events. And actually I was at an event put on by the telling room. Genevieve is part of the telling room. They had people come in and they talked about their light bulb moments, and there were various things in their lives that they described. Yours, I believe, was divorce. You said it was a relatively commonplace sort of bourgeois, but. But it is traumatic. There are so many people who go

Patricia Reis:

through this little house that I built, this little structure that all looks so good. It just came tumbling down completely. It's like huff and puff and blow your house down. It was all in pieces.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And this is very common. You were 37. I think it's very common for women somewhere between 35 and 40, and men slightly older. Is my observation in my practice to have things kind of come to the surface at that place Right. In that part of life.

Patricia Reis:

The common word for it is midlife crisis.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Right. Well, I'm hoping that 35 is not your midlife. It could be. Sure.

Patricia Reis:

Well, the unfolding of that took a number of years. It took a number of years to. I call it sort of a whole big destructuring restructuring. So all of who I am now sitting in front of you now came from that restructuring. Not that what happened before was wrong or bad. It just was a faulty construction. Didn't hold up.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Right. And this is the interesting thing, and I think it's. James Hollis is an author that writes about this. That the midlife passage. Yes.

Marcia Carr:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That the first half of your life is in. You are doing things for everybody around you, the society, the culture, your family. And then you get to a place where you've sort of met all the goals, you've reached, where you're going to reach, and you wake up and you go, wait a minute, where am I? And who am I? And what does this look like? And am I with the right person? And divorce, I think, is fairly huge. It's one of these sort of unspoken. It's completely traumatic, and yet we don't really talk about it in our culture that much. And it can haunt us, the fact that we aren't able to actually discuss this.

Patricia Reis:

Yes. I think anything we can't discuss haunts because if it's sealed in silence, it has that haunting capacity.

Genevieve Morgan:

Lisa, you've been enjoying reading Daughters of Saturn, but you have several books out. Patricia, how, if we want to read more about you or read your books, how do we access them?

Patricia Reis:

Well, you can go to my website or you can just put my name in Patricia Rice, R E I S.

Genevieve Morgan:

What's the address of your website?

Patricia Reis:

It's www.patriciarise.net.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

thank you also for coming in and talking to us this morning.

Patricia Reis:

Well, thank you for giving me the opportunity. I really, really enjoyed it very much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

John and I would just keep talking all morning long.

Genevieve Morgan:

It's true. Well, it's very easy to do with you, Patricia. You have so many insightful things to say. Thank you so much.

Patricia Reis:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast, we have our Maine Magazine minute segment hosted by Genevieve Morgan from Maine Magazine. This week is especially interesting because we have a link we didn't even realize between Maine Magazine and the guests that we have coming on now and the woman who's coming on now. We actually didn't realize this link either. But in the last segment, we spoke about author James Hollis and the woman that Genevieve will introduce brought James Hollis to Maine. I think maybe more than once, but I'll let Genevieve talk about these things. I'm fascinated when we find these connections.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, that's the wonderful thing about living in our state is that we have all of these interesting people secreted away in harbors and mountain ranges in our state. And then we have a radio show and we find out that they're all connected. Peter Barron, who Patricia mentioned, is a fabulous writer living in Blue Hill, and he actually writes for the magazine and wrote a great article on sailing. And he's married to a woman named Basha Burwell, who is a stylist for Maine Magazine. So it is all connected. You keep telling me this, Lisa, and I'm finally, finally, really beginning to understand it's all connected. Today in our studio, we have visual artist, puppeteer, storyteller Rebecca McNulty. I'm so happy to have you here, Rebecca, because you're just exactly the kind of person that Maine Magazine likes to turn the lens on. You're doing such fascinating work.

Rebecca McNulty:

Thank you. I'm very happy to be here.

Genevieve Morgan:

I want to read a little bit about what you do so that people can find you. Your art has a curious way of twining itself into intricate stories, drawing on myths, legends and curious bits of history. You've found the places of intersection between the old and the new, which is very appropriate for today's theme, which is hauntings. The works come alive in different ways. Ravenscry Venture Company offers live role playing programs for young people that combine storytelling, sneaking games, ciphers, puzzles and art into an experience of magic, mystery and mayhem. Ah, perfect for Halloween. You have a program for adults called Ravenscroll Studio Productions that is an intimate chamber theater that works for adults that explores themes of chaos and order, light and darkness.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Wow.

Genevieve Morgan:

I don't even know where to begin. But I also know that you are a self described world builder. And all around our studio, Lisa has just been taking great pictures. Are examples of your artwork, which indeed are drawings. You actually have brought in a puppet here that you have brought your art to life. Tons and tons of images. I want to know how you got started with all of this.

Rebecca McNulty:

Mostly I got started. My parents were both storytellers and they were constantly making things, constantly telling stories, music, all kinds of things in the family. And so I kind of grew up with this storytelling. When I hit school, I started writing books as soon as I could. Little tiny things. And I wanted to bring them alive in different ways. And so I actually had books that had little puppets that moved through the pages and little slits and things and went right into constantly making things as a child. And my first puppet was actually a red crow. It was a sock puppet that my mother taught a learning center at church how to make these little puppets. And this red crow, I actually had to defend its identity as a child. I was in third grade at the time, so about nine, eight or nine. And I remember saying, no, no, no. It really is a red crow. And my families are birders. So they're like now, Rebecca, you do know that there are no red crows? Well, 25 years later, when I'm researching the mythologies and and things from my thesis production, in getting my MFA in puppetry, I discovered that there are actually red crows in the mythology of ancient China and Japan and throughout Asia. And not only are there red crows, but there are actual relations of the crow that are red in South Korea and places like that. So it stuck with me.

Genevieve Morgan:

You found something in that interview. We were speaking with Patricia Rice and about the intergenerational haunting. Something came up in you that you didn't know what it was and became clear 25 years later.

Rebecca McNulty:

I believe absolutely in that. I have felt connections that I can't explain. And at this stage I'm kind of feeling as though that kind of entwined within our strands of DNA are these latent bits of memory and things of the dreaming of the ancestors. And that part of our job is to bring those things forward into the world in some small way. And that's how I view kind of what I do. So when you guys called about this haunting theme, I'm like, yeah, it's interesting

Genevieve Morgan:

that you've chosen puppets, because many people in our culture think of puppets in a different way than they do in Europe or in Asia.

Rebecca McNulty:

Yes, it's actually very hard. And I'm not alone in this. The other puppeteers at UConn, we often struggle with the question of what do we call ourselves in order to convey to people the art of what we really do? And unfortunately, there are very few words for it. And puppets pretty much it in English. Whereas if you look at other cultures, they're making puppets all the time, and they don't relegate them to the realm of childhood. They actually recognize that these things are living and dancing in us all of our lives. And for me, puppets have a way of getting at the internal things that have no expression of their way. They need to be expressed visually, and they need to be expressed through form, color, texture, all kinds of things that a puppet can do. And the beauty of a puppet is that I can change the scale the way you would in a movie. So I can make a puppet that is, you know, 20ft tall, or I can shrink it down in the next second down to something that's, you know, three inches. And you draw people in so that my puppets are sculpted in wood and they are built together out of the found objects of the puppets lives. And by using those found objects, I can show you not only who this character is on the outside, but I can show you who they are and what's broken and what needs fixing on the inside.

Genevieve Morgan:

You have two venture companies. One is Ravenscry, which is for children, and one is Raven's scroll, which is for adults.

Rebecca McNulty:

Yeah, it's actually Raven Scrawl.

Genevieve Morgan:

Raven's Scrawl. Okay. Thank you.

Rebecca McNulty:

For me, and I like the scroll. Once it's done, it becomes Scroll.

Genevieve Morgan:

So you also instruct kids and adults on how to access through creativity and movement some of these things you're talking about. Is there a difference that you see between your work with kids and your work with adults?

Rebecca McNulty:

No, not really. Not really. It's just a matter of they're at a different point in their journey. And so, you know, I as an artist need to be aware of that. They're at a place where they're at a beginning place. And so the stories that they have that we tap into, you know, it's a shorter origin map when they make origin maps, for instance, you know, whereas if I have an adult, they may be making, you know, I would have to make seven origin maps in order to create my seven state experiences and things. So it's a matter of depth and degree and where they are in the. In the journey.

Genevieve Morgan:

And how do you, how do you become. How do you get involved in one of these ventures with you? Because it sounds so interesting. Is it time consuming? What do people need to know or do?

Rebecca McNulty:

Well, I'm just in the process of getting this off the ground. I'm actually in the process of getting a blog going and getting the summer program for children is my first venture because it's the thing that I have done the most in the past.

Genevieve Morgan:

And where is that going to take place?

Rebecca McNulty:

That's going to take place at Bowdoin next summer, from July through August. It's about six weeks in the summer. And so people can link to me through the Facebook at this moment. And then at Facebook I will start putting up very soon the blogs and the website that'll give more information for that.

Genevieve Morgan:

And as adults, what would we do as adults?

Rebecca McNulty:

You can connect with me with Facebook and I'll be starting workshops and things like that kind of as I go along. I'm in the process of working things out with rental locations through Bowdoin. It's taken me literally seven years. Talk about that. Seven again. It's quite a number for me.

Genevieve Morgan:

We're having a little magical time here today. I don't know.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Most times are magical times. Here at the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour, whether we realize it or not, everything happens for a reason.

Rebecca McNulty:

It does, it does. I was trying to. Strong believer in that.

Genevieve Morgan:

And so if people are going on Facebook, they just look up your name.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Rebecca McNulty.

Rebecca McNulty:

Yes. Just look up your name.

Genevieve Morgan:

And we can link them through.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, they can go also to the Dr. Lisa website. So that's the dashtorlisa.org website. And we'll make sure that your magic can be transmitted or transferred or somehow.

Dr. Michelle Shems:

Thank you.

Rebecca McNulty:

Thank you.

Genevieve Morgan:

And are you in the process of planning any performances with your puppets, or is there any way to come see

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

some of your work at this stage?

Rebecca McNulty:

Not yet. I'm about a year away from performance work. I think, again, they take a while because I'm crafting out of kind of, in a sense, the who I am as an artist and who I'm becoming. It takes me a while to kind of get them together.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So they might not ever be finished then unless you're finished, there is that danger. So you might be just saying iteration of yourself at some point.

Rebecca McNulty:

Well, that's where I'm hoping to get a studio going so that people can kind of walk in. You know, I'm in the transition. I just left the job at the Jung center where I was coordinator for about six and a half years. And I'm trying kind of to figure out who I am as an artist and get kind of a home. So my studio, Ravenscrawl Studio, is out of my home at the moment, but I'm hoping to get it located right in Brunswick where there's a wonderful, vibrant community with a lot of wonderful artists, a lot of jewels of Maine or hidden there.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, Rebecca, thank you so much for letting us into your world. It's such an interesting place to be. And I highly encourage all of you out there to look up Rebecca's work because it's truly applicable to all of the things we've been talking today. And as I can tell from what you've been saying, you're a work in progress. We're all work in progress, but you've found this unique way to express it. So thank you so much for coming.

Rebecca McNulty:

Oh, thank you. It's been a pleasure to learn more

Genevieve Morgan:

and be introduced to fascinating people doing interesting things in Maine, like Rebecca McNulty. Read our November December issue of the Maine Magazine, available at your local newsstand now, or visit us online@themainmag.com.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, where you read a quote from the book Our Daily Tread. Our Daily Tread was created in 2008 in honor of my late college classmate Hanley Denning. It raises money for her organization Safe Passage, which educates the children whose families earn a living by scavenging through the Guatemala City dump. As I've mentioned before, my son Campbell is spending the year in safe passage volunteering, and during the week of Thanksgiving, I'll be joining him we at the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast are happy to be supporting the organization's Safe Passage. We're told by Safe Passage that there's going to be a holiday promotion of the book Our Daily Tread, which features inspirational quotes, essays, photography and artwork of Safe Passage students. Between now and January 2nd, the regular price of $24.95 will be lowered to $18.99 to share these motivating stories of how children can leave the Guatemala City garbage dump to achieve education. To enjoy this special promotion and support Safe Passage, please purchase the book online at www.islandportpress.com. this week's quote from Our Daily Tread comes from Robert MacGyver and is very appropriate for our Hauntings theme the healthy being craves an occasional wildness, a jolt from normality, a sharpening of the edge of appetite, his own little festival of the Saturnalia, a brief excursion from his way of life. We hope you take advantage of this promotion and buy a book@islandportpress.com

Dr. Michelle Shems:

each week on

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we feature a segment we call Give Back in recognition of the notion that health is more than just about the individual or the family, it's also about the community and the world at large. In order to promote this wellness, we invite different guests every week to come in and talk to us about their organizations and if they're having an upcoming event. Specifically, we like to have them on. We're thrilled this week to have Marcia Marcia Carr from Hart in Cumberland. Marcia has volunteered at Hart for over five years. Hart is a no kill all lawn care, cat shelter and adoption center located in Cumberland. They've taken in more than 1500 cats and kittens in just the last two years and helped more than 1,400 find new homes in that period. Marcia stepped down as Hart President and member of the Board of Directors in January, and her current responsibilities include this upcoming Litter box auction, which fascinates me. It used to be called the Litter Box Ball, I believe that's correct. Yeah, so. And Genevieve Morgan, I know, is fascinated. She's Sitting next to me also.

Genevieve Morgan:

Yes. I never heard Litterbox and Ball or Litter Box and Auction put together.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Same words, right?

Marcia Carr:

Well, we changed the name from the Litter Box Ball to the Litter Box Auction because many people thought being ball, that it would be very fancy. And a lot of people today really prefer to go casual to events. So we realized we needed to change the name from Ball. So it's simply a silent auction. That's what the event is.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You'd think that maybe with the name Litter Box they wouldn't expect so fancy, I don't know.

Patricia Reis:

But they did.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Okay, so. But you had to make that change. So what's interesting to me that you get between 400, 300 and 400 items of all different types. And last year you made 27, which apparently gets you through the winter and pays vet bills. And because you usually have about 125 cats at the shelter and up to 100 kittens in your foster homes, that money must be fairly important to you.

Marcia Carr:

It's very important, especially for our veterinarian costs because we're a no kill shelter and we will keep our cats forever if they don't get adopted, if they don't find homes, medical expenses can be a little bit higher for us. And you know, just the cost of running a shelter, providing food, litter, the upkeep of the building, all of that can be quite expensive. So raising this money each fall really helps us get through the winter. And we are an all volunteer shelter, so it's not like any of the money is going to people. It all goes to take care of the cats and the kittens.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have a microphone. My friend and my colleague Jane, she had worked volunteered at HART for a number of years and she told me that some of the cats that came through were quite damaged. I find this hard. And we've talked about hauntings throughout this show and how people are haunted by things that have happened. Animals, it seems, can be haunted by things that have happened in their background as well.

Marcia Carr:

Certainly. And many times, as you mentioned earlier, we don't know their history, so we don't know what they've been through. But. But many times we do when a cat is surrendered. Lots of times we know why the cat was surrendered and perhaps what kind of home it came from. And also you can tell by the cat's behavior many times and also their well being and their health. If they come in and their coat looks very dry or patchy, if they're very thin or even obese for that matter, you can tell a lot about their care, by their bodies and by their personalities and how they react to you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When you've had an animal in the shelter for long enough, does it start to, I don't know, release its ghost to become more easily adoptable, or do they fall into patterns that they maintain for a long time?

Marcia Carr:

I think cats are so very different. Some cats come in and immediately are friendly and outgoing, and they are very comfortable in the shelter environment. They tend to get adopted very quickly. The ones that are a little more shy or withdrawn, usually it takes them a little while to become more comfortable. HART is also unique in the fact that we don't keep our cats in cages. They are free to run around in the various rooms we have. We have six, I believe, six rooms. And they can run around in the room that they're assigned to play jump bond with the other cats and also with the volunteers and also with people that come in to adopt them, because you can just sit on the floor in a chair and see who comes to you. Many times they adopt you. It's not you adopt them.

Genevieve Morgan:

Marcia, do you help people? Do you matchmake with future adopters and cats? I mean, if I'm a elderly person and I want a certain temperament, can I ask you for that? Or if I'm a mom with young kids, so do you help finesse them?

Marcia Carr:

Definitely. We usually have a pretty good idea what cat would be good with young children and what cat really should be with perhaps an older person or in a quieter home. So we're always very careful about that. We don't want the cat to be returned. We want it to go to its permanent home where it will be loved and have it be the right match the first time. You know, occasionally you mismatch, but we try to be very careful, and we encourage people to come in several times and kind of get to know the cat that they're thinking about adopting. And look at all the cats. Don't come in and prejudge which type you want or what color you want. Go by the personality and who comes to you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've spoken about adoption, so that's one way that people can help your shelter. In the beginning, we talked about this litter box auction that's going on. When is that taking place? How do people get information on this? And is there anything that you need besides buying tickets?

Marcia Carr:

The event is Saturday, November 12, and it's at the Italian Heritage center here in Portland. It begins at 7pm Tickets are available either through the HART website, which is heartofme.com so H A R T O f or they can even call the shelter and we can connect them. Tickets are available at the door, but they're 25 in advance and 35 at the door. So it's definitely a good idea to buy them ahead of time.

Genevieve Morgan:

Are there any particularly great items that you want to share with us?

Marcia Carr:

Oh, we have townhouse out on Great Diamond Island. A week vacation.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Is it haunted?

Genevieve Morgan:

We only want haunted houses today.

Marcia Carr:

It's at the old site of what is the Fort McKinley Diamond Island.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm going to show it to that one.

Marcia Carr:

We have a cottage on Sebicko Lake. We have an attorney who's donated a will package. We have jewelry, all kinds of jewelry. We have restaurant gift certificates, pet supplies gift certificates for various businesses. Really a little of everything. Home and garden items, lots of restaurant gift certificates which people love.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So there's a potpourri and people can not only go there and bid on these items, but they can hang out with like minded people who are interested in helping the kiddies of the world and exactly get a little bit of pack animal love, as Genevieve was pointing out.

Genevieve Morgan:

Uh huh. Well.

Marcia Carr:

And also, I hate to say it, but the holidays are coming up fairly soon and this is a good way to kind of get a jump on your holiday shopping. Get some really good deals on some wonderful items and all at the same time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, no, that is a really good point. You shouldn't hate to say that. You just reminded me that I actually have to be thinking about this moving forward. Absolutely. Okay. Well Marcia, we've really enjoyed having you come in here and talk to us about heart and about the non adoption of black cats and how to take care of our cats and how we can help the ones that you guys are working with. So we appreciate it. Thank you.

Marcia Carr:

Thanks for having us in.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast, we read a blog post from the Bountiful blog. I began this blog in 2008 when I was seeking a means of feeding myself physically. It's evolved over time. I've used it more to sort of feed myself emotionally and spiritually. And I must say, I write from the ridiculous to the sublime. My blog post from this last week was actually about something fairly ridiculous. This blog post is entitled Dignity. Nope. Pee in the woods by the side of the road. I'm not above it. Should the situation dictate. Yesterday, in fact, I did it twice. The first time while waiting for AAA to find me. The second while the tire on my car was being changed. Suffice it to say My morning did not go as planned. I was feeling pretty proud of my big girl self. Driving south on an unnamed stretch of pavement between here and there on my way to visit with my friend Kayla and get a long awaited haircut. I had cobbled together my work, home kid life handily and was actually on time for my appointment. Then I heard a very loud noise. This marked the end of my big girl self. It also marked the end, temporarily of my dignity. I can laugh about it now. I wasn't yesterday. In fact, I was pretty much a blubbering mess waiting on that unnamed stretch of road. It seemed such a metaphor for my life. I had AAA on the phone describing where I was, landmarks easily visible ahead, but unable to pinpoint an actual location for them. I was caught between here and there. Stuck with a full bladder, I limped my car up the road to a stand of trees and hopped across the cattail ditch towards what I thought might be a private spot, only to find that this spot was just beyond my reach, kept from me by a rusty barbed wire fence. So I did what I had to do, using a couple of young pine trunks as a partial screen, wearing my bright white jacket, cars streaming past, breeze tickling my bottom, and I thought about my life again. The ridiculousness of it all. I must admit I saw the humor even then, less so when I had to buy four new tires for my high maintenance 2002 Subaru. But again later, when recounting the scenario for my friend, Sometimes tires blow. Sometimes we get stuck. Sometimes we don't get to go where we want to go when we want to go there. Sometimes we have to pee in the woods by the side of the road. Read more Bountiful blog posts@bountifulpath.com today on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, co hosted by Genevieve Morgan, we address the theme of ghosts and hauntings. Ghosts and hauntings are a very interesting theme and they have much to do with being between here and there. As described in my blog post. They have more to do with being between here and there, emotionally and spiritually. But certainly there's a physical aspect. As discussed with Dr. Michelle Shims, there is the hauntings that occur when we give our children too much candy and it impacts their teeth for future years. As discussed with Patricia Rice, the psychotherapist and author, hauntings can cause our lives to be sometimes turned upside down. Our conversation with Rebecca McNulty touched upon the importance of the fallow ground and sifting through the things, the found objects that can heal us. And we ended with a conversation with Marcia Carr from Heart because, as we all know, hauntings equally impact people as they do animals. Or maybe just to poke around and see what we have to offer you. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Thank you for being a part of our world. May you have a bountiful life.