By Mary Getlein

On September 11, Lisa Green hosted a “Healing From The Heart” gathering at The Talking Stick. It was a woman’s art show, music and poetry event as an alternative to the national grieving of the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. It was an effective way to deal with grief: music, art, poetry and the making of friends in the process.

The artists represented were: Diane Butler, Lynette Castle, Hillary Kaye, Lisa Green, Eva Babour, Desiri Hawkins, Rhiannon Maihi, Sarah and Mary Getlein. A pleasant surprise was that most of the artists could also sing, and proceeded to do so.

Lisa Green started out talking about all the roles of a woman: a witch, a healer, a temple prostitute, a mother, a daughter, a friend. How women need to get together and relate to each other and encourage and nourish each other. That grief is a mysterious process and we all deal with it in different ways.

Suzy Williams kicked it off with two blues songs and talked about her extraordinary life of being a woman. Mary Getlein followed with a reading of her poem from the Beachhead and a blues song, “It’s a Blessing” by Mississippi Fred McDowell. Hillary Kaye read poems from her book, “Hour Of The Moon”.

Lisa Green acted as M.C. and sang. Toya Song got up and belted out some blues songs. She is an amazing singer. Desiri had a collage up and introduced herself as a community activist. She blew us all away with singing “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane.

Eden had an oil painting and got up and started talking about the prison-industrial complex that exists today in the state of California. Then she did a spontaneous free-style poem about Venice, contrasting the Venice of the old with the Venice of today.

After the women were done singing, Wes, Joey, and Chris, musicians from the Venice Beach Orchestra, got up and played some jammin’ sets and everybody danced and had a good time.

The next band was the “house band” of the Talking Stick, which consisted of Nicki Black, Roger Houston cvbband Dan the Piano Player. Everyone danced and they asked if anyone wanted to sing with them. So we all got back on stage and jammed with the band. Hillary Kaye was invited up by Nicki Black, and she got  up and did “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone” and “Summertime” and really wailed.

Nicki kept the store open longer so we could stay and hang out and play music. Roger Houston performed his poems, which were amazing. David Bush read a letter by Juditte Erki about homelessness (from the Beachhead) to the crowd.

The night was declared a success by all involved. The Talking Stick is a great venue for having events. They have open mic on Wednesday nights which are always an eclectic mix of performers.