This week on Inside Appalachia, we speak with the author of a new graphic novel about the West Virginia Mine Wars. Also, professional storyteller James Froemel invents quirky characters, like a sign maker who can't spell. And, one of the most common animals to get hit by cars are possums. But, there’s a kind of animal rescue called pouch picking. We talk with author Laura Jackson.
It is estimated that 40 million Americans now practice yoga. If that isn’t a cultural mind-shift, I don’t know what is.
Beginning with the counterculture of the ’60’s, slowly, ever so slowly, concepts like organic, vegetarianism, vegan, and meditation have taken hold in our commercial American culture. I have cynically said of my country that if Americans can’t place a dollar amount on something, we are mystified. And spiritualism, in any form outside of the go-to-church-on-Sunday variety, is often dismissed.
Yet, here we are, some five decades later, and these positive ideas are flourishing.
On meditation: "When you find the space between your thoughts, that little space, and if you can make that space bigger and bigger each time that you find that space, stay in that space as long as you can. Because that's where the real work's at and that's where the real benefit comes from.'
Fast forward to now and Melita Mollohan, based in Morgantown, has taken the best of these ideas and made it a lifestyle and a vocation. She treats patients with Bowen Therapy – a therapy that encourages the body’s own healing. Plus, she practices yoga, meditation and juicing. If that weren’t enough, she’s now in her second year of beekeeping!
A former accountant, she found something lacking in that line of work: happiness. Making a leap of faith, she followed her heart into her current work as healer and teacher.
Listen to part 1 of the interview: Babaji and Bowen Therapy.
Listen to part2 : Yoga, mind-body connection, meditation and juicing.
melita_molohan_part2.mp3
Part of the fun of following Melita on Face Book are her pictures of her greyhound, Babaji. Babaji’s sweet face is made even more adorable by the rather large proboscis, which I have dubbed The Beacon.
On this week's encore broadcast of Mountain Stage, you'll hear performances from Bettye LaVette, Kim Richey, Keller Williams, The Langan Band, and Megan Jean’s Secret Family. This episode was recorded live at the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium in Athens, Ohio with our friends at Ohio University and WOUB.
This week's encore broadcast of Mountain Stage was recorded on the campus of West Virginia University (WVU) at the Canady Creative Arts Center. On this episode, we hear live performances from Duke Robillard Band, Cedric Burnside, Sam Weber, Las Cafeteras, and The Black Feathers.
In this album, Soltis performs works all by American female composers, highlighting a group of underrepresented musicians in the Classical realm. Soltis says this album shows how “American women in classical music are not isolated novelties … but rather they represent an unbroken tradition of compositional excellence.” Some highlights from the album include Amy Beach’s “Berceuse” and Florence Price’s "Adoration."
This week on Inside Appalachia, crossing a river by ferry can be a special experience, and hard to come by. On the Ohio River, a retiring ferry captain passes the torch to his deck hand. And Hurricane Helene destroyed roads and knocked out power and cell service across western North Carolina. But there was still a way to keep people in touch.