Annas Bio

 Hello.  My name is Anna. I was born on December 2, 1981 in Brattleboro Vermont.  I spent my earliest years there, where I enjoyed wandering the woods making friends with deer, turkey and cow neighbors, being with my family and doing things kids do.  When I was 12 I moved to Phoenix, Arizona and a lot of things changed.  I eventually came to love the desert, as different as it was from my first home.  I loved the blue blue sky, the sun, the red rocks, hummingbirds, citrus trees, the incredible lightning storms,  and the blessing of a monsoon rain. I lived there with my Mom, who has been a very stabilizing and spiritualizing force in my life.  My Dad, who has been my great co-adventurer, stayed in New England and I visited him whenever I could. I began my career in the health food world in Phoenix at age 16.  That job really opened my awareness about food, issues with synthetics in our food supply, beauty and cleaning  products, as well as how we treat animals.  Since that time I have lived in Tucson, AZ, Boulder, CO, and Olympia, WA, al;most always working at Health Foods Stores and Coops. In spring of 2005 I earned a degree in Nutritional Counselling and in the fall of that year I began my studies at Evergreen.  My first program was "So, You Want to Be a Teacher?" which I enjoyed greatly. In the spring of 2006 I took the momentum of  my interest in the current issues of education fed by that course in the direction of alternative education, which is a true calling of the heart for me.  I created a contract entitled "Movements in Alternative Education" and found much joy in communing with the educational philosophies of the great thinkers/writer of the Free School and Home School Movments; such as John Holt, Chris Mercogliano and A.S. Neill. (You can see all of my reseach and writing from last year on my website, as well as get links to great educational resources and books... http://academic.evergreen.edu/t/thiann02).  I hope to continue my education at Evergreen in the next 2 years by exploring sustainable agriculture and permaculture, and wilderness first aid.  Aside from my recent formal academic studies I have come to learn and love many things, people and places.  Here is a small list of those things:  Preparing food with much love and joy, making and drinking tea,  breathing with awareness and gratitude, tending to my home environment, hanging laundry on the line on a sunny day, watching the deer in my yard, kayaking, reading and snuggling up on my sofa in the sun, seeking rare treasures at thrift stores, being with children and the simplicity and joy I feel with them, hugging my loved ones, watching films, and being at peace wherever I am, whatever I'm doing.

Thanks for reading this. 
Love, Anna
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Anna Thirkield
An Exploration of Creation Stories
Healing Gardens
Winter 2007                 
The most immediate and overwhelming aspect of my personal response to this assignment is that I am not prepared to write, nor do I desire to write my own idea of a creation story.  There was a time once in my life, where I felt able, willing and could effortlessly let loose a personal version of a creation myth.  At this point in my life, I feel a deep and serious respect for the true and mysterious story of creation, almost so much, that to poke at it or even begin to say that I have formed my own idea of it would be disrespectful.  I don't mean to take this assignment so seriously that I miss the whole point, but I felt it authentic to share this response as a preface to anything I might choose to write below.  In an effort to uncover what I may be able to share of my idea of creation, I have re-read several stories of Hopi and Navajo origin, as well as the writings of Zecharia Sitchin ( a master of translating the most ancient of texts);  from which I have only caught a glimpse of what may be the encompassing picture of creation in my mind and heart.  Ultimately, when I reflect upon my own version, I feel a wave of vibration, emotion and wordlessness, as if the picture is so grand that the modern English language and the meager mental functions I use to translate existence into words is nearly useless.  In the presence of such a powerful force, I can only exist, and not yet explain.                What I am willing and comfortable doing is to reveal a very synchronistic reappearance of a creation story that I wrote in 7th grade, which very recently resurfaced after many years. Ironically, when my Mother gave this story back to me, I placed it in the notebook that I use for this class, unaware at that time that it would weave its way into my work n Healing Gardens.   It feels very right for this story to have a place now.  I am happy to dissect the values it illustrates, which may illuminate some of the beliefs or influences in my life at that time.  
 A Creation Story
By, Anna Thirkield
(Written circa 1994)                
 In the warm misty nothing above humanity, the creator spoke to his helpers. "They are destroying the Earth below us, the Earth they are a part of, therefore, they are destroying themselves, feeling they're advancing, all the while, slinking back through time, soon to be apes aimlessly wandering the Earth.  I am not sure how I can teach them, I've tried so many times."  At that moment, the Creator noticed that a group of workers had just begun to burn yet another section of rain forest, and with that, the Creator quickly created a powerful Earthquake in Eastern China.  It destroyed thousands of miles of city.  So every time the human race destroyed a part of nature, the Creator would destroy a part of their "civilization".  Eventually, it came out just about equal.  There were no more busy. moving cities, no more forest, waterfalls or deserts, the entire face of the Earth was total devastation.  Nothing was left.  No peaceful animals roamed the earth, no automobiles slowly ate away at the environment, no streams ran calmly through the thick woods, no chainsaws cut those woods down, no birds chirped happily their optimistic songs, and no factories pumped out poison upon the earth.  The humans killed the Earth while the Earth killed the humans.   The Creator then decided that he would give humanity another try but would have to give them strong guidance this time.  So, with two strong, firm yet gentle and caring, motherly and fatherly hands, the Creator embraced the earth and instilled the powerful energy and warmth that it began with.  And from the pureness of the energy, water flowed from its cracks, giving the moisture the Earth began with back to it.  And from the solidity of the creators energy, huge land masses formed.  Mountains, deserts, praries, tundras, icelands and swamps covered the waterless edges of the globe.  This gave the earth its natural stability.  And from this pure stability rose the great trees and grass and flowers and ferns and moss that softened the earth and thrived and gave birth to new plants.  And from the wildness of the thriving plants, the animals and fish were created.  They roamed the Earth in harmony and balance.  The Creator looked upon this great balance and structure with such passionate love, that from this love that shone out of the creator's eyes, a man and a woman were born.                A
Discussion
Many values and seeds of belief systems appear in this writing:
-I find it interesting that I chose to begin the story of creation from the current time of environmental destruction through to total destruction and back into creation.  This shows a number of interesting ideas.  One is that I was obviously deeply affected by the current state of the earth, and was concerned that we may not survive as we are now consuming and destroying.
 -Another is that the "creator" may be looking "down" on us with judgement and frustration.  This shows an idea that God may be separate from were we are here, or that God has a will that is separate from ours and an ability to judge.  Similarly, it is mentioned that with the second chance at life given to the humans, the creator will need to give them "strong guidance".  this is evidence of the idea that we are guided by God, or that it is s purpose of the Creator to lead us to do what is right, and protect us from doing what is wrong.  I don't agree with this anymore, and I wonder if I was aware of this idea at the time, or if it was a  subconscious perspective of god handed down to me in my upbringing and exposure to religion and culture.
-This section also shows the idea that humanity may not be progressing forward, but instead becoming less and less evolved, almost moving backwards away from harmony and into disharmony and destruction instead of union.  While I do still feel this is true in a way, I also see that there is no way to ever be out of harmony, dissonance is still harmony somehow, and we are always in wholeness in a way.  -Another interesting segment is when the Creator begins to destroy cities as a payment for humans destroying nature.   I see this now as a kind of "eye for an eye" form of justice.  Im not sure that’s how the universe works.  I was raised with the phrase "what goes around comes around" and this may be a version of that philosophy.  The sentence "the humans killed the earth, while the earth killed the humans" is particularly chilling for me to read.
-While I was hoping that I might have retained the genderlessness of the Creator throughout the whole piece I noticed that I did still use the term "he" twice, though I did give  the creator both "motherly" and "fatherly" characteristics in the end. 
- in my story, the earth is made "in the image of the Creator", as is a common phrase from a well know creation story, though I had a different version of it.  The stability of the creator crates the land masses, the pureness of the flowing energy made the water, and the love made the man and woman.  The animals are made more directly from the earth energy than the people, who are made more from the creators direct energy of love.                    

Anna Thirkield
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