Long days
Short nights
Green surrounds us
Let this bittersweet summer of love
Begin

I have been thinking recently about a colleague’s claim that one of the key roles of occupational therapists is promoting health literacy. While I ‘m not convinced that this isn’t /shouldn’t be a key role for every healthcare provider, it does seem likely that OT’s will be key players in helping clients organize the information they are getting from various HCP so it is easy to access and use to inform their daily routines. It is easy for people to get over- whelmed with the reams of paper that accompany each prescription, every new diagnosis and each treatment program. Add to that all the paperwork for lab requisitions, and in countries/situations where one is dealing with insurance companies and/or the legal system, the paperwork produced by those systems, and things spiral into chaos quickly, stressing even the most organized person.
What’s out there to help a person get a sense of control back?

I will be looking at paper and digital systems and report back.

I’ve talked about iDance before in this blog – here’s another integrated dance company in Alberta – Momo.

Courtesy of Jane Packota , I found this site that describes the GlassBook Project. What a powerful way to tell stories! I think I will explore this further as a way of working on understanding mental illness in my introductory mental health class. I’ve been thinking that the way we’ve presented client stories has gotten a bit stale – mostly narrated movies or PowerPoint/Keynote slides. These glassbooks are such amazing works of art and require both creators and viewers to dig deeper. And, of course, as both someone who creates with glass and someone personally interested in narrative and in stigma-busting, these really speak to me. Wow!  Thanks Jane.

Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage.

Anger that things are the way they are;

Courage to make them the way they ought to be.

~St. Augustine~

Watching this: Flash Mob – Bedre Bustur http://youtu.be/xgOyTNtsWyY: several times and wondering if we, as occupational therapists, need to consider how to better enable social participation and promote the joy of being with others, creating and collaborating. The look in this bus driver’s face was so priceless, but so was the look on the faces of everyone who participated in this flash mob.

And then there’s the issue of joy. My studio web-site byline is “Pursuits of Joy”. I need to pay more attention to that for myself, and with those I care about. The more of Hocking’s dissertation I read, the more I realize just how much Romanticism, although not before articulated by me as such, informs my practice.

Seawall Two: One Heron

High tide

Climbing up from the waves

Onto the rocks

Long thin legs

White thatch of hair

Another early bird rises

Seawall One: Two Herons

Ancient stilt-walkers

Slow-motion wading

Horizontal stroke

Stretching from sea to sky

“When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”