HELLO, and thanks for clicking in
Send me good information/links you come across that would enhance the offerings here. I will include articles/works that have heart, art, social, ecological and education benefit, along with historic stories and information having to do with our lives and history, particularly the lives and history of women and those under seige. If you’re uncertain, send the question/link along anyway, for me to see. Thank you!
MY SHORT STORY
I was born in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, not far from Lake Michigan. We lived in a two-story brownstone on Francisco Avenue, in an area primarily of German, Irish and Russian Jewish descent. From our second story back porch, I could wave to my friends on either side. My special friend Lottie, practiced ballet on her deck, and I loved to be her audience.
My professional career was spent in Detroit, Michigan; Tampa, Florida; Cumming, Georgia; Gainesville, Georgia, and finally at Mountain Area Health Education Center Ob/Gyn Residency Program in Asheville, North Carolina, helping to develop, manage and provide clinical inpatient and outpatient community mental health services.
I was a member of the Adrian Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Michigan near Detroit, for 17 years, and the community chorus, Womansong of Asheville, since 1995. Va Boyle and I have been together since 1981, married in 2016, and at the helm of SheVille.org, a Western North Carolina regional magazine, since we purchased the name, and “rebirthed” the magazine, 2005 through 2020. SheVille is currently on it’s third life, as of November 2020, and in good hands, remaining focused on gender and racial equity and environmental justice. For more information about this, contact “hello@sheville.org”.
I’ve been a singer, a writer and a poet for a long time now, with my first published book of poetry, the community effort entitled, Toward the Clearing through Main Street Rag, 2014. Contact me here: jeancass@gmail.com
Now, Toward the Clearing, my personal BLOG is such a terrific way to gather information that is helpful, inspiring, important and essential, in order to spread it around as encouragement to all of us. It also gives me a place to have my say in poetic and essay form, and to have you send in art, ideas or info you think is important too.
Thanks for the company,
Jean