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Batja Cates<\/strong><\/p>\n About ten years ago, I read about New Horizons, a band for seniors that welcomed every level of experience: no auditions required. \u00a0I thought I would play the drums with them but there were no conga parts. \u00a0After checking out a rehearsal and later Band Camp, which was in Healdsburg that year, I went to Stanroys.\u00a0 First, they gave me a trombone: not for me. Then they gave me a saxophone and I blew it and it actually sounded like a saxophone! \u00a0What a thrill! \u00a0That was it.\u00a0 That was my instrument.<\/p>\n I had never played a woodwind before. I had been married to a flutist and could never get a sound out of the flute. \u00a0And I barely managed to squeeze sounds out of a trumpet.<\/p>\n I read somewhere that anything you start, you\u2019d be good at in ten years. \u00a0So I taught myself how to play after buying a friend\u2019s old sax for $75. \u00a0I don\u2019t recall how I heard of Gary Johnson, but I was lucky to get him as a teacher as he came to my house after teaching local students. \u00a0He taught me much more than I could have learned on my own.<\/p>\n At a performance of the Kut-Ups in Rohnert Park, I was sitting in the front row, and saw Kaylee, a New Horizons sax player, and Lynn Barthel, clarinet, in the orchestra. \u00a0They invited me to join a new beginners group that met before the main New Horizons band.<\/p>\n I went to that for a while until I got up the courage to go to a main band rehearsal.\u00a0 It was a disaster! \u00a0But I picked up the music and tried to practice it.\u00a0 To my chagrin, the second alto part made no sense. \u00a0I credit Gary for helping me master the band music.\u00a0 He was able to make sense of it for me and encouraged me to hang in there. \u00a0Eventually I discovered the joy of making music with the Band.\u00a0 I love that and the collegiality of our band members.\u00a0 It is still a thrill to play with everyone and something I never dreamed of doing in my entire life! \u00a0I also rehearse with the Swing Band and Ray Walker\u2019s Stompers, a Dixieland improvisation group.\u00a0 Some of us jam at the monthly Trad Jass event at The Moose Lodge.<\/p>\n I grew up with classical music.\u00a0 My father loved Bach.\u00a0 One of my current delights is playing Bach\u2019s Brandenburg concertos on sax. \u00a0At City College of New York (CCNY) I was briefly a music major, even though I didn\u2019t play an instrument.\u00a0 I wanted to compose. \u00a0While I was there, the department switched to teaching counterpoint before harmony, and I was writing Gregorian Chant, which was easy due to its strict rules.<\/p>\n Later I took up Conga drumming and played Afro Cuban, Haitian, and African rhythms. \u00a0I had the privilege of playing Voodoo ceremonies with my Haitian teacher, and also played for African dance classes.<\/p>\n I performed in an Off Broadway production of Black Medea in which the only music was drums and bells. \u00a0The musical director was a Voodoo Priestess. \u00a0A ritual was performed on stage using voodoo rhythms to invoke the spell Medea put on a snake bracelet in order to poison her rival. \u00a0The show was based on the Medea myth.\u00a0 All the actors were Black except for the White prince who betrays Medea to marry in his own class, which leads to Medea\u2019s vengeance.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve taken some drum set lessons and loved it, but realistically at this stage of my life I\u2019m not lugging a kit around\u2026..<\/p>\n I\u2019m originally from Brooklyn, Brighton Beach, and then Flatbush. \u00a0As an adult I lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and then the Upper West Side.<\/p>\n In New York, I was in private practice as a massage therapist, reflexologist, imaginal guide, and medical consultant.<\/p>\n Anthropologist Jean Houston shares her human potential research through activities in her Mystery School. \u00a0I went to Mystery school in 1985 because a Shaman friend of mine said I should get to know her. \u00a0I was working with catastrophic illness and collected tapes of people who\u00a0 beat cancer. \u00a0I shared them at Mystery School and a woman came to listen who had lost her partner to cancer.\u00a0 We became good friends.\u00a0 She invited me to join a\u00a0 group of her California friends who wanted to start a holistic hospital. \u00a0We looked at properties and they worked on me to move out to California. \u00a0The hospital didn\u2019t pan out but I was persuaded to move to California.\u00a0 I moved here in 1989.<\/p>\n Mystery School changed my life. \u00a0I was doing body work in New York at the time and Jean described experiences where her body spoke to her through imagery.\u00a0 I was fascinated and spoke to a doctor colleague about it.\u00a0 He sent me a client who walked into my office and said her doctor told her that I did imagery work. I had never done it. \u00a0She was very angry.\u00a0 She had a lump in her breast after having it removed years ago and doing everything right. \u00a0She was outraged it had come back. \u00a0And I said, \u201cIet\u2019s go in there and have a look.\u201d<\/p>\n She went into her breast and the first thing she said was that her father has shown up with a rusty old breast sword.\u00a0 I knew she was on to something if she\u2019s talking about a breast sword. \u00a0She said he wants to pierce the lump, but she\u2019s afraid that the cancer will leak out and spread throughout her body.\u00a0 I think to myself, \u201cNow what,\u201d and then I said the only thing I could <\/em>say:\u00a0 \u201cDo you trust your father? \u201d And she said yes, so she let him pierce the lump. \u00a0Then she described green liquid pouring out and going through her body into a riparian environment of plants, bushes trees, a stream, and\u2026\u2026 mushrooms! \u00a0\u201cUh oh!\u201d I thought and I said, carefully, \u201cWhat kind of mushrooms?\u201d and at that moment she said, \u201cOh, they\u2019re benign.\u201d<\/p>\n As it turned out, she self diagnosed: her lump was benign.<\/p>\n I discovered that I have an intuitive gift for this work, which I call imaginal guidance. \u00a0I have worked mostly with surgery and illness, but occasionally on other challenges.<\/p>\n I returned to college in the 90\u2019s and got a B.A. in Psychology, majoring in Expressive Arts Therapy.\u00a0 At the time, there was a merging of economics and psychology in the Psych. Department.\u00a0 As I was often asked for investment advice by women wanting to invest for retirement, I was inspired to merge finance with ritual and the arts. \u00a0I had taught myself how to invest following the sale of my New York apartment.<\/p>\n I created an investment education seminar:\u00a0 The Joy Of Money(sm) <\/strong>for the financially faint of heart.<\/em> \u00a0Its tagline was Where Wall St. Meets Sesame St.<\/em> \u00a0Each class centered around an altar based on a different Archetype such as The Child, The Warrior, The Magician and The Ruler. \u00a0As my students were finance phobic, the lessons were uniquely designed to reach them.\u00a0 Although they were educated intelligent career women, they felt disenfranchised by the language of Wall St.\u00a0 They were terrified of facing retirement without adequate savings.<\/p>\n At the end of the six month seminar plus an additional two week Prospectus class, I had a female stockbroker come and talk to them. \u00a0By then, they were no longer intimidated by the basic terms and concepts they needed to know.<\/p>\n Before I came to Band, I was very involved in the Healdsburg Literary Guild. \u00a0I attended its seminal meeting on a dark and stormy night (no kidding!) at the Healdsburg Library, and became one of its founding members.<\/p>\n I went because I had difficulty walking due to pain in my hip and I thought writing was something I could do from a wheelchair, if it came to that. \u00a0I started The Center Literary Cafe, which was attended by writers from all over the county and beyond.<\/p>\n I became a \u201cstand-up poet\u201d when poets at the Cafe wouldn\u2019t get up to read.\u00a0 I\u2019d ask for a few words and make up a poem on the spot, and that broke the ice. \u00a0Some of us started a poetry improvisation group called Road Writers and we had gigs around the county, including Healdsburg City Hall,\u00a0 Friends House, Noto Cafe in Windsor, Aqus Cafe in Petaluma, Cloverdale Center for the Arts, art galleries and private homes.<\/p>\n I wrote a lot during the ten years of my involvement, which led to my writing a book of BizTales(sm)<\/strong>, fictional stories about real businesses, hoping to engage them with the literary community. \u00a0It was illustrated by local artists and is still in the Healdsburg Library on its \u201clocal produce\u201d shelf, so named because we had a booth at the Farmers Market called that – with our books on display.<\/p>\n On seeking artists and writers for the book from the local schools, I was asked for permission to use the name BizTales at Healdsburg JHS for a book project by the students of an English teacher named Donna Thomas.\u00a0 The kids wrote fifty -two fictional stories about local businesses, some illustrated. I got them reading gigs at art galleries and the library. They sold out two printings of the books, including at the Healdsburg Chili Cook Off in the Plaza. \u00a0They donated the proceeds to the local animal shelter, illustrated on the book\u2019s cover.<\/p>\n The Press Democrat did a two page spread with a photo of the student writers in the Business section.\u00a0 It was very gratifying to see a teacher acclaimed that way!\u00a0 She spent a year on that project getting the kids to write and put the book together.<\/p>\n My final year in the literary community, as president of the Healdsburg Arts Council, I put on a county wide Literary Performing Arts Festival called Sonoma Word(sm). <\/strong>It was in reaction to the Sonoma County Community Foundation sponsoring a Performing Arts Festival that excluded the literary arts.<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0It took place in eleven cities and the theme was Crossing Borders, the same as the Foundation\u2019s sister event. Some of the events crossed cultural borders, others incorporated many different art forms.\u00a0 It was a year\u2019s effort and very successful.<\/p>\n It could have become an annual event had any of the poets wanted to take it on, or even supported me in continuing it. \u00a0However, I found out at the end of the year that I needed a hip replacement. \u00a0Once I could walk, I walked away from the literary community. \u00a0It had more than served its purpose. \u00a0I always say that everything I did in the ten years I was disabled was because of what I couldn\u2019t<\/em> do.<\/p>\n Currently, I am part of a women\u2019s art co-op gallery\/studio called “art Flare”. We have a studio at The Barracks which is a long-standing art colony on the old airfield at Finley St. off Wright Rd. \u00a0I do mostly collage and pastels.\u00a0 We have a few shows a year, including gifts for the holidays. \u00a0I\u2019m also writing a book of short stories and attend a women\u2019s drum circle, which culminates in my making up a poem with donated words.<\/p>\n