Around Town, Sept 29, 2006

Meetings & Lectures

Energize your Qi

Lydia Wong discusses Qi (also spelled Ch’i), a fundamental concept of traditional Chinese culture meaning “life energy,” at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on Sunday, October 1. She will demonstrate ways to tap into that energy to maximize your sensitivity to Qi, resolve pain, rejuvenate your body and promote inner peace.

Wong is a life-long student of the Asian movement arts and teaches internationally on the healing benefits of Qigong, Tai Chi, Yoga and Feng Shui. She is the founder of Qi-netics and has been featured in magazines and television in the United Kingdom and the United States, including Elle, Health & Fitness, Yoga Journal, and the London Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph.

The UU Fellowship meets every Sunday at 10:30am at La Posada de la Aldea, Ancha de San Antonio 15. Visitors are invited to attend the service and then join the UUs in the hotel restaurant for brunch. For more information, visit portalsanmiguel.com/lifestyle/unitarians/unitarians.html.



Midday Rotary Club 

On October 3, Michele Connor and Fabiola Zarate Ortega are the guest speakers at the Rotary Club of San Miguel de Allende-Midday. They will talk about CASA’s innovative social programs and groundbreaking midwifery school that has served the local community for 27 years.

Begun in 1981, CASA (Centro de Adolescentes de San Miguel de Allende) now serves 60,000 people per year. It offers free family planning, sex education, adolescent pregnancy prevention programs, free HIV testing, medical care, a weekly radio talk show, education and programs for youth, early childhood development and antiviolence programs. It began Mexico’s first government-accredited midwifery school, a sorely needed service to attend to the thousands of rural women who do not have access to quality, life-saving care. CASA owns a hospital and the CASA social services facility, and its school is the only midwifery program fully accredited by the Mexican Federal Health and Education Ministry. 

The effectiveness of CASA’s model is now becoming a world-recognized phenomenon.

In April of this year, CASA was awarded the prestigious Leadership Award from the nonprofit Population Connection, the largest grassroots program in the US dedicated to educating and mobilizing people to meet the sustainable global population growth challenge. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in New York is collaborating with CASA to scale-up midwifery globally. 

Twenty-six-year-old Fabiola Zarate, born in San Miguel de Allende, is a professional midwife who graduated from the second generation of midwives of the CASA School of Professional Midwives. Fabiola was born into a family of midwives in which everyone was home-birthed and the family’s health problems were all attended to by her paternal grandmother and great aunt. She attributes these experiences to sparking her interest in midwifery and responding to a radio announcement she heard for CASA’s midwifery school. At the time, she was struggling: working in a pharmacy in order to support her family. Not only could she not afford the schooling, the family could not afford to spare her earning potential. “I was so curious and wanted to study midwifery and be with women in their time of need, as my grandmother had. But I had to work to support my family. Fortunately CASA gave me a full scholarship that covered everything—tuition and books.” But she still worked, babysitting nights and weekends and vacations to supp
ort her family. After finishing three years of study she complied with the government-mandated year of social service in San Luis Potosí in a small village.

“I had the incredible experience of training the local traditional midwives. In addition to midwifery services, I gave classes to pregnant women and introduced reproductive cancer screening and family planning throughout the community.”

After finishing her social service, she began working at the CASA school as a teacher and today is Clinical Director of the Midwifery School, while she continues to work as a midwife at the CASA Hospital. 

Michele Connor was brought up in Japan, attended the University of Southern California, and worked in film production for 15 years before she moved to San Miguel in 1989. Soon after her arrival in San Miguel, she started to volunteer for CASA as a driver. 

“I wanted to help prevent problems in the most remote villages, and that is a lot of what CASA does. Women are given the chance to decide if they want children, to develop their self-esteem and realize they have options, that violence is not acceptable. I have always found CASA’s peer counselors excellent, and now I am in love with their internationally recognized midwifery model.” Michele was the second director of San Miguel Walk (www.sanmiguelwalk.com), the domestic violence fundraiser for CASA, and is still involved in this yearly event at CASA and helping survivors of violence. In addition to CASA, Michele, who is a painter, finds time to volunteer for various other organizations such as Centro de Crecimiento and opens her home to social programs. 

She is currently vice president of the CASA board. “I started raising money for domestic violence, not realizing at the time what a huge problem it was here in Mexico. People started calling me to report cases, and I would forward the calls to DIF or the Ministerio Publico for them to handle. I found it impossible not to get involved in some cases, as the legal system in Mexico is still in its infancy with regard to laws to protect the victims. We hope to proactively change that. A great beginning is CASA’s recently published training manual Your Right to Life Without Violence, the only manual of its kind available in Mexico. 

The Rotary Club of San Miguel de Allende-Midday meets every Tuesday at 12:30pm at the Villa Jacaranda Hotel. Visiting Rotarians and others interested in Rotary are invited to attend this meeting. Lunch follows at 1:30pm in the hotel dining room. For more information, check out the website: www.rotarysma.org 

Classes & Workshops



Enneagram workshop at St. Paul’s

The Rev. Robert Shank of Tucson, Arizona, is welcomed back to San Miguel and will lead a basic workshop on the enneagram from 9:30am to 4:30pm on October 4 and 5 in St. Paul’s Parish Hall, Calzada del Cardo 6. Father Shank’s arrival has been much anticipated by devotees of his expertise and specialized point of view of the enneagram. 

Of the workshop, Bob says: “The first day will be devoted to presenting the enneagram basics from the perspective of seeing the enneagram as a sacred psychology and means of spiritual growth. For the beginner, this means learning the basics of enneagram theory and discovering your personality type according to the enneagram. This is essential for further study of the enneagram. For those who have experience either from me or someone else, this is an upgrade session. 

“The enneagram is living and growing, in perpetual motion if you will. I am presenting the material (some old material with new names and/or categories and some new material) in a new format. This is fundamental for the further study of the enneagram. Unless you have had a workshop in the last couple of years from Helen Palmer or David Daniels or someone certified by them, you would benefit from taking this workshop.

“The second day will be devoted to the subtypes, understanding the structure of the inner spiritual world and the practice of self-observation, self-awareness and meditation practices to dis-identify from type.”

The text for the workshop is David Daniels’ The Essential Enneagram (HarperSanFrancisco, 2000). It will be used both days and is available through Amazon.com or you favorite book dealer; St. Paul’s has a number of copies for sale.

Father Shank has been studying and working with the enneagram for many years and is well known for his expertise in leading seekers of self-knowledge and growth. 

The cost per person is US$35, or peso equivalent. Space is limited, so make reservations early by phoning the church office between 10am and 2pm, Monday through Friday (152-0387) or email Father Michael Long at rector@stpauls.org.mx. 



The Artist’s Way: creative recovery course for women 

A 12-week creative recovery course for women will be offered at Lifepath Retreat Center starting October 6, based on the highly successful book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. The bedrock of this guided course focuses on creating pathways into your consciousness where blocks (we all have them) are dissolved, allowing you to regain your creativity. The author states that “no matter your age or lifepath, creativity is your true nature. The objective is to align oneself with that true nature.”

Using a set of proven basic tools, principles, exercises, the guidance of an experienced facilitator and the synergy of like-minded participants, self-limiting beliefs, fears, sabotage, jealousy, blame, guilt and other inhibiting forces will be replaced with artistic confidence and productivity, allowing participants to be freer to create or live more creatively. 


Patricia Mahan will be the facilitator. She has been involved in the arts for over 25 years. Mahan has led Artist’s Way courses in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Portland, Oregon, and Sayulita, Nayarit, Mexico. She reinvented herself as a successful visual artist after taking the course herself in 1998.

The workshop is held Fridays from 1 to 2:30pm and is limited to eight participants. Cost is US$120. For more information email Patricia at dannpatm@yahoo.com or call 154-0462.



Tours & Excursions



Botanical Garden Tour

Every Tuesday morning discover the marvels of cacti and other Mexican plants as well as the history of El Charco with Mario Mendoza, vice-director. An additional privilege of this visit is the opportunity to see the plants in the nursery that is not ordinarily open to the public. Many rare species and plants threatened with extinction are protected and propagated at El Charco. 

Entrance fee is 30 pesos (waived for members) and the tour is 50 pesos. All proceeds benefit the garden. The tour is in English and starts at the main entrance at 9am and lasts about 2 hours. Bring a hat and water. Space is limited, so reserve by calling Mario at 044-415-101-0338 or email charco@unisono.net.mx 

Performances & Events



Aries full moon celebration

Aries, the first sign of the zodiac, is a force much like a ram that lowers its head and blindly charges with the forcefulness of self-expression.

Aries, which is ruled by Mars, can influence us to be highly enthusiastic to take initiative and seek independence. It can also influence us to be very stubborn and aggressive and to have a self-centered attitude.

The Sun is in Libra, the opposite of Aries, ruled by Venus. The goddess of love and beauty with her soothing softness fulfills the quest for balance of Mars, the god of war.

With this full moon we have a powerful opportunity. Mars rules Aries. Venus rules Libra. Both are exactly five degrees on either side of the sun. 

We can now choose to facilitate the beginning of the end for our ego-mind and respect alternate points of view.

We can now choose to honor and celebrate our differences, resulting in healing and reconciliation, collaboration and renovation of our creativity and passion for life.

The Aries full moon will be celebrated on Friday, October 6, at 8pm at the Plaza of the Four Winds at El Charco del Ingenio. A bonfire, incense, chanting and drumming are included. Bring flutes, cymbals, a drum or any other instrument if you want. A donation of 30 pesos is requested for the Charco del Ingenio fund for its upkeep. Call Alicia Mayo at 152-0376 with questions. Children welcomed.

Films & Videos



Sogyal Rinpoche: The Undistracted Mind

As part of its Nonduality film series, the Meditation Center presents Sogyal Rinpoche in The Undistracted Mind. The film will be shown at 5:30 on Thursday, October 5.

Sogyal Rinpoche was born in eastern Tibet and educated at Cambridge University. Although he received extensive training in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism, he is particularly well known for his ability to present the essence of these teachings in a way accessible to Westerners. His best-selling The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying has had a tremendous impact worldwide.

In Undistracted Mind, Sogyal Rinpoche takes the viewer through the process of deepening levels of mindfulness into the stillness of calm abiding. Eventually the sense of practicing dissolves in the experience of resting in nowness. The goal of meditation practice is moving from doing to being meditation. A Tibetan proverb says that water, if you do not stir it, becomes clear. Similarly, says Sogyal Rinpoche, the unstirred mind finds peace.

The Meditation Center is at Callejón Blanco 4, near Quebrada. A 20-peso donation is suggested to help cover film purchase costs. Please come early to ensure a seat, because the meditation hall is not large. 

Announcements



Michael Long, rector of St. Paul’s Church, and his wife, Cheri, are moving this month. Their new address is Amargura 2, Los Frailes, and their new phone number is 154-8871.



Volunteer Opportunities

“St. Paul’s Epistle” seeks an experienced volunteer editor to write and edit bimonthly articles on church worship services, events, programs, vestry meetings, activities and news. Call Father Long at 152-0387.

Crossword