September 18th Meeting

Excuse the delay in posting this information but late is better than never.

We met on September 18th and had a great time. Below are some of our experiences.

Sound - Laurent Garnier, The Cloud Making Machine.

Taste - Hummus and Corn Chips

Touch/Sight - Caddis Fly Cases (see pix below)

Scent - An eclectic aromatherapy oil with quite a variety of scents in combination to, hopefully produce a calming effect.

Spirit - A discussion about what if feels like when life doesn't follow your plans.

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Danielle was kind enough to treat us to many of our first views of caddis fly cases. From what I learned from Danielle (correct me if I get it wrong!) these flies live a portion of their lives under water. During that time, for protection's sake, they construct little cases much like little suits of armor, to keep them safe. When they morph into flies they leave behind these little shells for us to find.

Notice a few things. Once of the cases has a pumpkin seed stuck right to the back of it....this one was probably trying to save time. One is made almost entirely out of very small stones except for one (relatively speaking a boulder) which is incredibly large. One is made almost entirely out of small sticks running parallel to the case itself.

What an incredible world it is that God has created! It is amazing the things we see when we look.

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For our spirit experience we discussed what our response is when our life doesn't go our way. Sometimes we simply can't plan in such a way that ensures success by our own definition. Sometimes we simply aren't in control. Sometimes life just happens to us regardless of how we've planned.

This results many times in confusion, pain, and reluctance to push forward. Truly, it is times like this when we feel like children and feel very alone.

Feel free to comment!

Last week's info (October 1st meeting) coming soon.

Dale

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More Terror

This tragedy just happened. Thinking back to the night at Prodigy when we discussed this I thought this would hold some interest to us.

Ask yourself, what circumstances of life may exist that make this a good option?

Dale

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Prodigy Continues

Prodigy has met two times since the last posting. Both of them have been a bit different. Due to a scheduling snafu we met at Brewed Awakenings on Route 1 in Wakefield.

Much of our time we spent processing some of our thoughts about the tragedy in the South. Dealing with emotions that we felt upon news of it. We tried our best to put ourselves in the shoes of those who have suffered to try and see the physical, emotional, and spiritual impact it is having on their lives.

Please keep that situation in mind and in prayer. There is much devastation and many opportunities to help.

See you on September 18th at Kingston Free Library.

Dale

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New Dates - Sept thru Oct

Just scheduled!!



We now have dates scheduled thru November of 2005. Click on the link to the right or at the end of this post below to put them on your calendar.
--- Please note: Beginning on Sept 4th the meeting times will be 6:3opm - 8:30pm. ---

Dale

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Special Goodbyes

Last Sunday night was not all fun. After the night was over we had to say "goodbye" to two people who have meant a lot to us.

Dennae Rogers headed back to Arizona to complete one more semester of schooling.
Brooke Bovard moved back to Missouri to be with her family once again.

You will both be sorely missed but you will change the world wherever you go!



Please stay in touch!

Dale

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August 7th Meeting

What a great night we had tonight! Our plate was certainly full!

The night began by viewing a video hosted by Morgan Spurlock (of "Super-Size Me" fame). In the video he addressed the problem of minimum wage. While we weren't seeking out political information we did learn plenty about how sometimes very hard working people simply don't generate enough resources to provide for their needs. It became easier to see how a downward spiral could begin and drag people to a place where even the most basic provisions become impossible to secure. Many of us were definitely challenged to see those around us, in our towns and cities, in a different and more sympathetic life. Like Morgan said "Now that I have placed myself in someone else's life I have changed." I think many of us felt that change as well.

I'd like to thank Brent Fooks for providing our taste experience for the night. He brought with him some Jamaican Ginger Beer. It was a very strong taste that left quite a burning sensation in the back of your throat. While many of us experienced it and chalked it up to just that, an experience, others (Linette :) ) enjoyed it and finished the rest of the bottle. Hope your throat is fine!

We then move to our sound, touch, and scent experience of the night. Many thanks to James Hauptman and Danielle Aube for providing the drums and expertise needed to pull off our drum circle.



At first my thought was that mayhem would ensue but surprisingly it sounded pretty good. James made the point that drumming is important to a vast number of cultures throughout the world and history. Sunday night we were a small part of that.

Here is a video of the attempt to gather eager drummers into a cohesive unit. You can hear me asking James if he was going to attempt to grab everyone's attention 8) In the end he was successful...Good job James! Drumming Video

Watch for new dates coming soon!!!

Dale

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Origami

At Prodigy this past week we explored the art of Origami. An art form that nobody in attendance was proficient at to say the least. But, in the spirit of Prodigy and exploration, we attempted it anyway with varying results.



Here are a few resources we took advantage of to start down our learning path.

Origami.com A great resource page. Click on the diagrams link to get some instructions for origami with varying degrees of difficulty.
Paperfolding.com A great site that lays out some basic tutorials to get you started.
Joseph Wu's Origami Check out the gallery here to see some amazing things that people can do with folded paper.

Have fun! I know I've been practicing.

Dale

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July 24th Meeting

Last night at Prodigy we were graced with the visit of a special guest, Gabrielle Giliotti. Gabrielle (or GiGi) is a global messenger for the Special Olympics. She has competed herself in the Special Olympics for over 24 years and her training is ongoing.


Currently she is competing and training in the swimming competitions. In this summer's state games she won a 4th place ribbon, a 3rd place medal, and a 2nd place medal.

Our other experiences of the night were as follows-

• Scent - Flowers, Day Lillies and Heliotrope
• Sight - Soufiane Touzani, a soccer freestyler from the Netherlands.
• Sound - Anonymous 4, an English chant and polyphony acapella group
• Taste - Flowers, nasturtiums, bachelor's buttons, and several other edible flowers
• Touch - Origami. We tried at least!

For sight we watched a video of a soccer freestylist named Soufiane Touzani....amazing skills!


For taste we braved the world of edible flowers. Yes, there is such a thing. The tastes ranged from mild to spicy (in the radishy sense).



For touch we attempted Origami with mixed results. From birds that only flapped one wing to faceless bats. It is definitely an art form that we attempted with no experienced coaches present. Thankfully we didn't have any serious paper cuts!

More on origami in a following post and how you can get started.

Dale

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Reality Shifting

Last Sunday night, the 10th of July, our sight and spirit experience was wrapped up in the form of a video featuring David Blaine.

You may have heard of him. He is a very accomplished magician/illusionist. He specializes in "street magic". Up close and personal with illusions so convincing that it produces results like this.



Immediately prior to this reaction by this man David Blaine had performed a very convincing illusion. It was convincing enough that this man took it seriously. Seriously enough to take a moment to try to re-order his understandings of reality.

You see, David Blaine had just introduced an X-factor into this man's understanding of what was true and what wasn't. Now, based on that new evidence, he felt forced to try to re-evaluate all that he previously had held true or false.

But that is just parlor tricks. Very convincing and accomplished tricks but tricks just the same. We weren't interested in the tricks so much at Prodigy (though we were entertained).

We were interested in reality shifts. I believe we have a much greater power than simply illusion working for us. We have been promised the very power of God at our disposal as we do our best to follow him.

So here's the question we were faced with. Does our life impact others in the way David Blaine's magic does? If they are looking for reality shifts, different ways to understand the world they live in and even reality as a whole would they be more successful spending time with David Blaine or with us?

Our potential to produce the reaction pictured above is massive. Whether or not we take advantage of those opportunities is another question. But let's answer it with a "Yes!".

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Multi-Cultural Events

At the last Prodigy get-together we talked for a little bit about multi-cultural events. One that I mentioned was taking place on the URI campus beginning this weekend July 17th. However, in researching this I found that the registration has passed so we will not be able to take advantage of this event.

Here is a link to the event if you are interested in learning more about it. It seems that it is more of a week long seminar/class type of an event rather than a collection of cultural experiences like we were thinking.

However, please keep your eyes open for other cultural events in our area.

The Newport Black Ships Festival was mentioned the other night. That is ongoing and ends on Sunday the 17th of July. So there is still time to attend that if you have the time.

If you happen to know the dates of the Portuguese festival in September (Labor Day weekend I believe)share with us!

We would love to know of any other events that are upcoming so we can further expand our horizons!

Dale

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