Hello Neighbors - here is the latest update from March Wellness - we just received this email yesterday:

Dear March Wellness members,

We are writing to update you on the future of March Wellness. As you recall, the center was recently placed in jeopardy by a recent Oregon Supreme Court Ruling which created a large budget shortfall for OHSU. This shortfall resulted in our announcement early this year that March would likely be restructured or sold.

We are pleased to tell you that a decision has been reached about our future. March Wellness will remain open, but some of our space and functions will be consolidated. Here is a summary of the changes you will witness:

>The center will be consolidated and occupy the second floor of the Center for Health and Healing. In the future, March Wellness will occupy 32,000 square feet of space. Currently the center occupies 47,000 square feet of space.

> The gymnasium will be renovated and exercise equipment will now reside in this space. The gymnasium was previously under-utilized by members, which is the reason for this decision.
The first floor of March will be converted into clinical space.

> The next phase of the decision is to determine whether OHSU will remain the operator of March Wellness or whether an outside fitness operator will run the center. This decision will take greater analysis and will likely occur in a matter of months. We will of course inform you of this decision when it is made.

> As part of the consolidation, some of the spa services provided by March will likely be discontinued. However many of these decisions have yet to be made.

An extensive cost analysis study and input from several parties – including the public - informed the decision about March Wellness. The cost analysis reviewed several specific issues including monthly revenues, the square footage occupied by March Wellness and the costs associated with renting this space. Because March Wellness will remain open, we will continue promotions for the center aimed at obtaining new members and keeping old members.

We want to thank you for your patience during this difficult time and we hope that you are relieved and pleased with the decision that has been made. As always, if you have questions, we invite you to contact our Executive Director Amber Webster at websteam@ohsu.edu or 503 494-8198.

Thank You,

The March Wellness Management Team

Who’da thought? INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE   |  Motivated by a Tax, Irish Spurn Plastic Bags By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL The Irish have embraced the use of cloth bags to carry groceries, encouraged by a 33-cent tax on plastic ones. Maybe we need such a tax in Oregon. I was stunned by another story about the garbage dump in the Pacific that now reaches from Hawaii almost to Japan. It’s in an area that does not have much current so it just sits there, a big ugly in the ocean that consists largely of plastic in one form or another. Shopping at several grocery stores here, I have noticed that plastic is now banned in New Seasons (although there are still bags in produce) and Whole Foods, Fred Meyers is not far behind.  We got “points” with the checkout folks when we pulled out our cloth bags. And while we are at it, why do we have to have bottled water? That is another huge contribution to the Pacific dump. All that stuff we are throwing away has to go somewhere and plastic just moves to another part of the world.  Those bags can be recycled; collect them and take them to a recycle bin near you.

Save the date and support Neighborhood House by attending their annual fund raiser. This is the adopted charity for South Waterfront and so we invite you to be part of their excitement and use this opportunity to support their amazing programs.nh-animation-2008-save-the-date.pdf

“If one meditates on the Medicine Buddha, one will eventually attain enlightenment, but in the meantime one will experience an increase in healing powers both for oneself and others and a decrease in physical and mental illness and suffering.” —Lama Tashi Mamgyal

We were most fortunate this week to have Gaden Shartse monks from South India build a Medicine Buddha Sand Mandala in South Waterfront at the Artist in Residence Studio. It began fairly small, on Monday morning, as the monks took turns carefully releasing the sand into the mandala.

They worked with a vast array of sand in different colors, which was loaded into the cone shaped metal tools and slowly tapped into the emerging images

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The mandala grew as details

were painstakingly added.

This is how it looked on Tuesday afternoon, almost complete.

That evening it was complete and a Dismantling Ceremony took place where the symbolism of this intricate design of world peace was explained…

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and ritual formulas recited by the monks as they requested the deities to leave the mandala.

Different symbols made of sand represent the mandala’s deities. They were removed in a strict sequence. The sand was then swept into a pile to be distributed in small portions to those who attended the event.

The event was made possible in cooperation with the Wholistic Peace Institute and the sponsored by the Larson family. The monks are on a tour to raise funds for a hospital in India so medical care and medications can be dispensed free of charge to those in their community.

For more information on the Wholistic Peace Institute, call 503-266-8996

For more information on mandala construction and symbolic meaning, see

http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/online/mandala/

Support for Neighborhood House continues in the South Waterfront. Bee Cleaners recently delivered a large shipment of clean clothing that had been donated by SW residents or, inadvertently, by people who had not picked up their cleaning in over 6 months. Bee Cleaners must regularly dispose of unclaimed clothing and have adopted Neighborhood House as a recipient of this “gift,” as a result of the SWF 20/20 Health, Wellness and Social Spaces Committee work with this charity. The Community Relations program at the Discovery Center donated $300 and individuals from SWF have donated too, increasing our total contributions to $6569, Recently some folks who led the effort to support Neighborhood House and organize the House Tour in December met at Umpqua Bank to review these activities.

SOWA event organizers and supporters celebrate their success. From Left: Lew Pusch, volunteer; Lesley Poirier, SWF Community Relations; Peggy Pusch, event organizer; Brian Alfano, Umpqua Bank; David Gutzler, Neighborhood House Board Treasurer; Linda McCaw event organizer; Julie Countryman, Bella Espresso; and Greg Hardman, home tour host.

Once again, we are so appreciative of the generosity of our neighbors in the SWF. To learn more about Neighborhood House programs, please go to www.nhweb.org.

Several people have asked me to comment on our experiences in Hong Kong over the holidays. Here are some of our impressions. It is a great place to be at Christmas as the decorations are amazing and everything is lit up (well, that is true much of the time but even more at Christmas). So if you want to get into the spirit, Hong Kong is the place to be.

It is a very vertical environment so you have to like steps and climbing up hills. Needless to say, that contributes to its attractiveness.

The smog does not! The ferries in the harbour are wonderful. Great way to get between Kowloon and Hong Kong and all the other islands; also quite inexpensive. We found one that was free for seniors which became our personal favorite.

The people are welcoming and so ready to help you understand the place and the culture. We had some amazing conversations in places like the museum at an exhibit of portraits of people who live in low income housing. The portraits captured the character of the individual residents being photographed. As we looked at them, a local gentleman asked if we found this exhibit interesting. Thus began a long conversation about the meaning of some of the things we noticed (ex. piles of filled plastic bags surrounding an old woman were the “products” she attempted to sell on the street, not uncollected trash), how you live in a small room with a family using the community kitchen and bath/toilet facilities (our informant lived in one of these rooms for many years with 2 children and a wife), how happy people were to have these homes. It is hard to describe the joy and learning that took place in this conversation. Unfortunately, there was no catalog! The food, variety and quality, is excellent. We ate in several restaurants where only locals were eating and discovered some rather interesting dishes–some we tried and some we decided were for very discriminating tastes that we did not have.

The harbour is the busiest I have ever seen. We lived and I worked on a ship for one week; Lew ran back and forth to land on a tender. Getting on and off was a trick! I did it once! We felt as if we were part of a huge neighborhood on water although you did not interact with your neighbors. We also visited an area where fishing families live on their boats and a whole village of support services exists.

Temples were fascinating and we saw as many as possible. There are big coils of incense hanging and burning all around and you have to be open to having ash on your shoulders….and to being overwhelmed by sweet smoke. It became quickly apparent that I could not stay long and would leave with eyes streaming. The temple here is located in the New Territories where we also visited the walled cities.

That is a quick take on Hong Kong at Christmas and at the beginning of 2008…Chinese New Year (Feb. 7) will be much more exciting, I am told, but that is hard to imagine. Happy Year of the Rat.Peggy Pusch