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wMelissa's AP stories |
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Here are my stories whose links are no longer available. Only the ones with bylines are included here, for the non-bylined ones that I found more interesting, go to melswar.blogspot.com. Thanks! Let me know what you think!
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wFriday, May 30, 2003 |
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June 2, 2003
Women use energy healing on horses
By MELISSA MANSFIELD
Associated Press Writer
MECHANICVILLE, N.Y. (AP) _ After being spooked by a bee that got too close, Buddy the horse was visibly irritable and jumpy.
Dawn Taylor put one hand under the base of his chocolate-brown neck, the other at the withers, just below the end of his mane. After a few moments, Buddy's breathing calmed and his eyes closed slightly.
Taylor, a 29-year-old hairdresser who uses the ancient practice of reiki on horses, later joked that when Buddy sees her coming, he thinks: "I'm going to get mellowed out."
Reiki is a centuries-old practice of guiding "life force energy," called Ki, from a practitioner to the recipient, usually both of whom are human. The practitioner focuses on seven chakras, or power centers that reflect the recipient's psychological, emotional and spiritual well-being.
In October, Taylor introduced Melissa Ward to reiki, and Ward suggested they use it with animals. Now, they perform it on horses and hope to teach other riders how to treat their own animals.
"When I became attuned to reiki, I worked on people close to me," Ward, 37, said. When she didn't feel comfortable working on humans, she started experimenting on Buddy, her 12-year-old horse.
"Through the use of the reiki, behavioral issues I've had in the past with Buddy are no longer a problem," the Ballston Spa resident said.
Ward has focused on his sacral chakra, which has to do with sociability and interaction with others.
"My working with him in clearing that chakra has subsided some of that behavior, and made his interactions with other horses more positive and less aggressive," she said.
Another male horse, Shorty, entered the same sand-filled arena without restraints. Buddy stood still and just watched as Shorty rolled in the dirt and left the pen. Ward said Buddy and Shorty have "argued on more than one occasion." She believes the reiki has helped ease his aggression.
The pair also worked on 26-year-old Oliver, who had been kicking stall walls at his new barn and seemed unhappy. The women worked on his physical wounds from other horses, and on his heart and sacral chakras, to balance out his behavior. The Morgan gelding has since stopped kicking stalls, according to his owner Karen Schwalm.
"For me, the best thing is there is no placebo effect with animals. It works or it doesn't," she said.
Ward, who works at a web design company, and Taylor want to teach horse owners how to use reiki on their own horses.
"My goal would be to get people to interact with their horses more," Ward said. "People underestimate the social needs of animals. Horses are very social."
Jan Barley, who teaches horse reiki in England, also stresses the need for owners to "begin to communicate with their horses on a deeper and more profound level."
"This is what the horses want from us, and many of my students have transformed their relationships with their horses, and indeed with all horses," the writer said.
Taylor and Ward insist these sessions are not substitutes for veterinary care but believe reiki also helps healing.
"I'm not going to say we can cure anyone, but we're trying to alleviate discomfort," Ward said. "In my opinion, it helps speed recovery."
Jan Kendall, a supervisor at the International Center for Reiki Training, said animals require less energy since they are not domestic and because practitioners don't have to break through the ego and preconceptions, as with humans.
"If a person isn't willing to open up, the benefits of reiki aren't as effective," said Ward.
^___=
On the Web:
www.saratogareiki.com
posted by
Melissa at 8:28 AM
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wWednesday, May 28, 2003 |
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This story went out last Monday, for use any time:
May 18, 2003
Made with care: Group donates items to those in need<
By MELISSA MANSFIELD
Associated Press Writer
SIDNEY, N.Y. (AP) _ Andrea Whiteside held up a clear garbage bag full of yarn, smiled, and added it to boxes and bags before her.
"Just look at these piles and piles of yarn," she said with a twinkle in her eye.
When Whiteside placed an ad in the local paper inviting anyone interested in knitting to meet at the library, she had no idea that Happy Helping Hands would churn out 865 crafts in its first year. Through the first four months of this year, the group has already donated more than 450 to hospitals, shelters and organizations in need.
Betty Ford, an 83-year-old resident of Unadilla who knit three sets of baby clothes in April, joked, "It's better than housework." The pastel colored hats, sweaters and booties were donated to a local hospital's maternity ward, for babies to wear home.
"I can't begin to tell you how many compliments and appreciative words we have received," said Julie Clark, director of volunteer services at Chenango Memorial Hospital. "We've had a lot of the mothers comment on how wonderful it is."
Clark said the hospital often receives donations, but added, "We have never had this large of a group contribute so many items at once."
"Everyone has their little specialty," said Whiteside, 60.
Diane Hendee creates blankets from leftover yarn. Rosemarie Bloxsom crochets afghans. Ford knits layette sets and Whiteside, a cancer survivor, makes special "comfort hats" for chemotherapy patients losing hair.
At the April meeting, Bloxsom, 55, displayed rows of blankets, varying in colors and designs, at the Sidney Memorial Library, 65 miles southeast of Syracuse. The sofa throws take her three days to finish _ the baby blankets need only one. Whiteside held a blanket up and asked the group, "Where should this go?"
The women decided the multicolored piece should go to the battered-women's shelter, then found a volunteer to get it there.
Ethlyn Overton, a retired kindergarten teacher and mother of five, made lap quilts. The 73-year-old said they don't take long to make and said with a laugh: "Time is wastin' _ might as well get them done fast."
The women vary from novices who first knitted when they joined the group, to those who use their talents as a career. Professional quilt-maker Harriette Slawson, 83, boasted that she has made at least 3,000 quilts in her lifetime.
Joan Barber, 66, said, "When the war started I started making hats. I had to do something." Hearing of cold nights in the Kuwaiti desert, the group sent handmade wool hats and socks to the troops.
Since the women do not take monetary donations, postage was paid by the fireman's auxiliary and a local women's group. Community organizations and residents have also contributed yarn, wool and needles.
A few of the women went to a detention center for young men, and taught the "cadets" how to crochet hats. "To see these kids put their male pride aside and make something ..." Whiteside said, with awe.
Hendee, 55, told how the "tough guy" of the group put on his finished hat, proud of himself.
A local field hockey team with little funding requested mittens. One woman made enough of them _ in school colors purple and gold _ for the entire varsity and junior varsity teams. A pregnancy support group asked the group for small baby-booties, and Helen Crandall, 74, made some with peach yarn.
Crandall, who also makes crafts using diamonds she mines in Herkimer, attended the first meeting of the Happy Helping Hands knitting club after seeing an ad, and has tried many different projects.
"When you see what other people are doing, you just want to try it," she said.
The group received a letter from a patient at Chenango Memorial Hospital in Norwich, thanking them for a quilted robe. "It made my hospital stay more pleasant and cheered me up just thinking that someone cared," it read.
"Once you see a little bit of joy on someone's face, it's really very addicting. We get so much more back than we give," Hendee said.
posted by
Melissa at 8:15 AM
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wWednesday, May 07, 2003 |
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May 6,2003
Bard student receives grant to study beekeeping
By MELISSA MANSFIELD
Associated Press Writer
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. (AP) _ When Emily McNair tried to start a beekeeping collective on her college campus, the student body wasn't very receptive.
"It's kind of hard to get people to hang around bees," the 22-year old Bard College student reasoned. Instead she will use a grant to travel around the world to study different bee collectives, with the hope of using her knowledge to start her own.
As a recipient of a $22,000 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, McNair will join 60 other graduating seniors in leaving the United States for their studies. The award stipulates they can't return to the U.S. for 365 days.
"It's going to force me out of my comfort zone," she admitted, though McNair is no homebody _ she has already lived and studied in Nepal and South Africa.
Her project, "Exploring the Lands of Honey: Beekeeping Around the World," will focus on ecological, historical, economic and social components of beekeeping. The itinerary will take her across the world to five very different areas: Slovakia, Tunisia, Patagonia of Argentina, New Zealand and Vietnam.
Though McNair went to nature camp and worked on a berry farm when she was younger, living in Watertown, Conn., bees are a newer interest. While studying in Nepal, during college, a friend invited her to an apiary. She found the sustainable agriculture appealing, and after returning to the U.S. looked into local honey sources.
When McNair heard of this "do-whatever-you-want grant," she applied, seeing it as a chance to explore her interest in beekeeping.
The fellowships this year will allow University of Puget Sound student Buck DeFore to further his research on "Living With the Legend of a Lake Monster." Rhodes College student David LaFevor will examine the culture of amateur boxing and Carleton College student Molly Bruder will study appliqu De in Chile, Vietnam, Panama and Zimbabwe.
"I really love to travel by myself," McNair said. "You have those lonely, homesick moments, but you won't remember those."
The young traveler, sporting a blue shirt with "Katmandu" in bright white letters, believes that finding the humor in everything is essential _ from earthquakes to food poisoning. "I anticipate many funny moments," she smiles.
Only speaking English and French may lead to some of those situations. "You'll be asking for somebody's cow when you want to know the time," she joked.
Her plans may be altered as the trip nears due to current global threats. Between terrorism and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, McNair already has had to think about Malta instead of Tunisia, and another tropical area in place of Vietnam. The Watson Fellowship does not allow students to go to places the State Department warns travelers to avoid.
Bard College, a private liberal arts college 115 miles north of New York city with 1,300 students, joined the Watson program last year and McNair is their third recipient.
posted by
Melissa at 10:55 AM
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