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AROUND TOWN
December 28, 2007 San Miguel de Allende
Meetings & Lectures
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
At this week’s Unitarian Universalist Fellowship meeting on Sunday, December 30, Mark H. Lowe will discuss the Tao Te Ching, the seminal work of Lao-Tzu, which forms the core concepts of Taoism. Written in the sixth century BC, the book contains 81 verses, or short poems, which outline a way of life that embraces living harmoniously with nature, caring relations with others, seeking excellence for its own sake, eschewing recognition for meritorious acts, firmness without aggressiveness and the virtues of discipline. It has been said that the text, which consists of only 5,000 words, can be read in an hour and studied for a lifetime.
Lowe, who has lived full-time in San Miguel for two years, is a Vietnam veteran with a varied work life that includes a stint working on an oil-drilling rig in central Africa, and 18 years in the insurance industry.
The UU Fellowship meets every Sunday at 10:30am at La Posada de la Aldea, Ancha de San Antonio 15, and welcomes people of all ages, races, religions, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Visitors are invited to attend the service and then join the UUs in the hotel restaurant for brunch.
Midday Rotary Club
The San Miguel Midday Rotary Club invites you to join them for their weekly meeting on January 8 at their new location in the Hotel Real de Minas at the intersection of calle Ancha de San Antonio and calle Stirling Dickinson. There are no meetings on Tuesday, December 25 or Tuesday, January 1.
Check-in time is 12–12:25pm and the meeting starts promptly at 12:30pm. Visiting Rotarians and others interested in Rotary are invited to attend this meeting. Rotary is an organization of business and professional persons united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. For more information, please go to the website:
www.rotarysma.org.
Classes & Workshops
Restore and renew yoga session
Winter is a yin season—a time to conserve energy. Despite the busy event calendar of the holiday season, your body longs to align with nature. To stay balanced this month, make time for yourself by enjoying a restorative yoga session. Margaretta Sander, a certified Iyengar yoga teacher, invites people of all experience levels to a workshop on Saturday December 29, 11am–1pm, held at Yoga Nova, located in Casa Shambhala, Terraplen 34, between Jesús and Aldama. Classes cost 150 pesos plus a “food treat” donation for the kids in the orphanage on Sollano. For information and reservations call 120-0767 or reply by email to
msander@ca.inter.net. Private sessions are also available.
Center for Global Justice offers course on NAFTA
Fourteen years ago NAFTA was heralded as bringing Mexico into the First World. Today it is widely seen as having increased poverty, fueled massive migration, undermined community life and culture, failed to develop the nation’s industry and expand employment and compromised Mexico’s sovereignty. At the same time, NAFTA has given Mexico more billionaires per capita than any other country and an expanding middle class able to shop at Liverpool.
To deepen understanding of this fundamental transformation of Mexican society, the Center for Global Justice is offering a course, “Mexico Under NAFTA.” Taught by retired professor of social philosophy Cliff DuRand, a Research Associate at the Center, the course will examine the dimensions of Mexico’s globalization and its impact on the people. Readings and discussions will cover such topics as neo-liberal ideology, the political system, privatization, ejidos, migration, maquiladoras, development strategies, and more. There will also be films and a field trip to help illustrate the effects of NAFTA.
The course, “Mexico Under NAFTA,” will meet from 1pm–3pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, January 7–28. A course fee of 600 pesos will cover all materials except for the field trip. Register in advance by calling 150-0025 or email
cliff@globaljusticecenter.org.
Learn to walk with awareness
Why not start the New Year off right by learning to improve your balance and stability?
The cobblestones of San Miguel can be a challenge for a person of any age. After 50, the chances of falling become greater and the consequences may be more severe. Yet there is a great deal that you can do to avoid becoming one of the “fallen women, or men, of San Miguel.”
In the first week of January, Richard Adelman, who has 20 years of experience as a Feldenkrais Practitioner, will offer a talk, a workshop and private sessions, introducing a series of slow, gentle movements to help you stand more securely.
A central theme is increasing body awareness, flexibility, and coordination in order to improve gait for an aging body in a challenging environment. One patient, who had a history of frequent falls, recently reported that he is now “walking in awareness.”
The methodology is a unique integration of easy, gentle movements synthesized from the Feldenkrais and Pilates approaches. Working independently, the founders of both systems recognized the immense value of taking walking-related movements out of context in order to explore and refine them.
The talk, “Never Fall Again! Balance and Stability After 50,” takes place Friday, January 4, at 7pm and the cost is 50 pesos. The workshop takes place Saturday, January 5, 10am–5pm. The cost is 825 pesos (US$75) and reservations are required. In addition, private sessions will be available January 2-11. All events will take place at LifePath Retreats, located at Recreo 80. For further information or to register, please contact Richard at (044) 415 114-3069 or
richardadelman@gmail.com. Or contact LifePath at 154-8465 or
www.lifepathretreats.com.
Films & Videos
Center for Global Justice to screen Sicko
The Center for Global Justices kicks off its 2008 Snowbird Symposium Film Series on Thursday, January 3, with Sicko, Michael Moore’s irreverent look at the United States health-care industry.
In the world’s richest country, 45 million people have no health insurance, while HMOs grow in size and wealth. With his trademark humor and confrontational style, Moore asks the difficult questions to get to the truth behind today’s health care.
This documentary looks at health care in the United States as provided by profit-oriented health maintenance organizations (HMOs) compared to free, universal care in Canada, the U.K., and France. He talks to US expats in Paris about French services, and he takes three 9/11 clean-up volunteers, who developed respiratory problems, to Cuba for care. He asks of Americans, “Who are we?”
The film will be screened at 3pm in the Biblioteca’s Teatro Santa Ana. Admission is 50 pesos.
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