Healthy Options 7/5/23: The Health Benefits of the Alexander Technique

Host/Producer: Rhonda Feiman
Co-Producer: Petra Hall

Healthy Options: For Well-being & Being Well

This month:

What is the Alexander Technique?
How can our physical structure be affected by the way we breathe? What does stress have to do with it?!
What are a couple of simple examples we can try, to practice the Alexander Technique?
What is the difference felt in our body when we gently allow our lungs to inhale and exhale, versus straining to take a deep breath?
How do our physical and emotional habits inhibit or enhance our posture & poise, and the ways we move?
How can we become aware of our natural breathing so we can be more relaxed as we move through our day?
How might these techniques help us to be more confident and productive, in performing and/or other areas of our lives?

Guest/s:
Tracy Van Fleet is a Grammy Award winner, mezzo-soprano and voice teacher based in the Los Angeles area. As a soloist, she performs with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and has appeared with some of the most prestigious orchestras around the world. She is a Level 3 Total Vocal Freedom coach, and is in the process of qualifying for certification as an Alexander Technique Teacher.

Lisa Rogers Lee is a chamber singer, oratorio soloist, and voice teacher with a private studio called Voice for the Whole Singer. She has appeared with numerous opera companies throughout the United States, and is an educator and mentor of singers of all ages. She recently became a Level 2 Total Vocal Freedom coach, teaching Alexander Technique principles to singers.

Lisa Lee and Tracy Van Fleet are the founders of the Ageless Singer, a program designed to support and empower female singers over the age of 50.

More information on The Alexander Technique.

About the host:
Rhonda Feiman is a nationally-certified, licensed acupuncturist practicing in Belfast, Maine since 1993. She primarily practices Toyohari Japanese acupuncture, using gentle and powerful non-insertion needle techniques, and also utilizes Chinese acupuncture and herbology. In addition, Rhonda is a practitioner of Qi Gong and an instructor of Tai Chi Chuan in the Yang Family tradition.

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Maine Currents 7/4/23: Interview with Jim Campbell

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This month:
An interview with the late Jim Campbell, one of the station’s founders and long- time on-air presence, recorded days before his recent death.   Jim talks about the early days at the station, what went into producing Notes from the Electronic Cottage, and his recent series on AI.

FMI
Notes from the Electronic Cottage
Maine: The Way Life Could Be

About the host:

Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices and Maine Currents, she also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

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Around Town 7/4/23: Urban Garden Tours

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Organizer Larry Dansinger joins us to talk about Urban Garden Tours taking place in Bangor and Brewer on July 22nd.  FMI:  www.foodandmedicine.org.

About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

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Outside the Box 7/4/23: “Bootstraps”

Producer/Host: Larry Dansinger

About the host:
Larry Dansinger (no pronouns) of Bangor came to Maine in 1974 and has been here ever since. Some of Larry’s activities since then: Done community organizing on numerous issues through INVERT and then Resources for Organizing and Social Change (ROSC), committed civil disobedience several times, grown a garden yearly since 1977, joined various food cooperatives and two men’s groups, refused to pay federal income taxes for war, lived on a community land trust for 23 years, and met a wonderful partner whom Larry has loved for over 40 years. Larry has produced Outside the Box features on WERU since 2007 and continues to look for unique ways of seeing almost any problem or situation.

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A Word in Edgewise 7/3/23: Of Jim Campbell, a Full Buck Moon, & the Fourth . . .

Producer/Host: R.W. Estela

Hi, I’m RW Estela: Since 1991, I’ve been presenting A Word in Edgewise, WERU’s longest-running short feature, a veritable almanac of worldly and heavenly happenings, a confluence of 21st-century life in its myriad manifestations, international and domestic, cosmopolitan and rural, often revealing, as the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same — though not always! Sometimes in addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives, in this age of vagary and ambiguity, when chronological time is punctuated elliptically, things can quickly turn edgy and controversial, as we search for understanding amid our dialectic. Tune in Monday mornings at 7:30 a.m. for an exciting journey through space and time with a few notable birthdays thrown in for good measure during A Word in Edgewise . . .

About the host:
RW Estela was raised as a first-generation American in Colorado by a German mother and a Corsican-Basque father who would become a three-war veteran for the US Army, so RW was naturally a military brat and later engaged in various Vietnam-era civil-service adventures before paying his way through college by skiing for the University of Colorado, playing Boulder coffeehouses, and teaching. He has climbed all of Colorado’s Fourteeners; found work as an FAA-certificated commercial pilot, a California-licensed building contractor, a publishing editor, a practitioner of Aikido, and a college professor of English; among his many interdisciplinary pursuits are the design and building of Terrell Residence Library (recently renamed the Terrell House Permaculture Living & Learning Center at the University of Maine), writing Building It In Two Languages (a bilingual dictionary of construction terminology), aerial photo documentation of two dam removals (Great Works and Veazie) on the Penobscot River, and once a week since 1991 drafting an installment of A Word In Edgewise, his essay series addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives — and WERU’s oldest continuous short feature. When pandemics do not interfere, he does the Triple Crown of Maine open-water ocean swims (Peaks to Portland, Islesboro Crossing, and Nubble Light Challenge) and the Whitewater Downriver Point Series of the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization. RW is the father of two and the grandfather of three and lives with his partner Kathleen of 37 years and their two Maine Coons in Orono.

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The Essential Rhythm 7/2/23: The Crab that Feeds Everyone

Producer/Host: Sarah O’Malley

This episode describes the ecological of horseshoe crabs as species that transfer energy to many different threads in the food web, including migratory shore birds and fish.

About the host:
Sarah O’Malley is an ecologist, naturalist and science communicator passionate about deepening her listeners’ experiences with the natural world. She teaches biology and sustainability at Maine Maritime Academy and is currently collaborating on a guide book to the intertidal zone in the Gulf of Maine.

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The Nature of Phenology 7/1/23: Fishing spiders

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark

Fishing spiders are very large, with their bodies measuring upwards of an inch long and their leg-span being as large as five inches. And yes, they hunt and eat fish.

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com.

About the host/writers:
Joe Horn lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder of Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide and Carpenter. He is passionate about fishing, cooking, and making things with his hands. He has both an MBA in Sustainability and an MS focused in Environmental Education. Joe can be reached by emailing [email protected]

Hazel Stark lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder and Naturalist Educator at Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide. She loves taking a closer look at nature through the lens of her camera, napping in beds of moss, and taking hikes to high points to see what being tall is all about. She has an MS in Resource Management and Conservation and is a lifelong Maine outdoorswoman. Hazel can be reached by emailing [email protected]

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