The wonders of nature amaze me every day, and today a piece of natural news left me in awe. A paper was just published in the journal Nature about an orangutan who was observed self-medicating with remarkable effects that even trained medical doctors would have trouble reproducing.
In Sumatra, a 35-year-old orangutan known to researchers as Rakus had a large, deep, open wound on his face close to his eye. To look at it even made me wince, and I’m not at all squeamish about medical issues! With his teeth, he ground yellow root, an herb he rarely ate that has anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties. He then applied the yellow root paste to his facial wound. In several days, it scabbed over. A little over a month later, it was barely noticeable with no sign of infection. (The images of Rakus above are from the paper in Nature.)
How could Rakus possibly act as his own doctor and healer? Where did he learn this yellow root technique? Scientists don’t know yet. While other animals have been observed in the wild tending to their injuries and the injuries of others, some even administering self-care and preventative-care, this was the first time an animal was observed medicinally treating a wound and with remarkable success.
There is so much we don’t know nor understand about the natural world. This is one of the many reasons why conservation is so vital for the health of people and our planet. Nature-based solutions to what ails us are everywhere, and to allow us to learn from them we must conserve the ecosystems where they occur. Perhaps Rakus has shown us a new medication that we could use to treat human wounds. He and his species are sentient, thoughtful beings who hurt and heal just as we do, deserve respect and concern, and have a right to survive and thrive.
Emerson and I send you love. Photo by Christa Avampato
Hello all – I’m popping in here to say a big thank you. Last week 1,202 people downloaded and bought my first novel, Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters! World Book Night was the first special promotion I’ve ever done, and I had no expectation of how it would go. I’m so grateful to every one of you who downloaded and purchased the book.
It means so much to me, and I hope Emerson’s story brings you joy. If you feel inclined to write a review, you can do so here. Reviews help new readers discover the book.
Thank you again for all your wonderful support. I can’t wait to share the launch of my second book, Emerson Page and Where the Light Leads, in just two weeks on May 14th!
This is my first spring in my new neighborhood in Brooklyn and it’s loaded with flowering trees! I went out for a long walks over the last few days, taking in the warmth and light, the scent of flowers, and the explosion of colors. My dog, Phinny, would have loved these days. I loved them for both of us.
Cherry blossoms in historic Green-wood Cemetery, Brooklyn. Photo by Christa Avampato.
It’s hard to believe Phin passed away two months ago. I’ve been looking for a locket for a few months to carry him with me everywhere I go. On Monday, the day of the eclipse!, this one arrived. It has a blue forget-me-not flower pressed into the front. It now holds a lock of Phinny’s fur. All he ever wanted in life was to always be with me. I took him with me whenever I could (and then some!) Spiritually, he’s forever with me. Now, he’s physically with me always, too, and we’re traveling together. Our love story continues.
Me in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, wearing the locket honoring my dog, Phineas.
Today is also the anniversary of the founding of the ASPCA in New York City in 1866. Phinny prompted me to become a monthly donor almost 9 years ago for his birthday. I’m so grateful for their work and honored to support their lifesaving mission for all these years.
My soul dog, Phineas, on a healthy and happy day in Central Park, Manhattan. Photo by Christa Avampato.
It’s also national hug your dog day. I wish I could hug Phineas today, so please hug your dogs for me. They are never with us long enough no matter how long their lives are. Love every day you get with yours. Here are some blooms to brighten your Wednesday.
Cherry blossoms in Brooklyn. Photo by Christa Avampato.
The Swan Room at Nine Orchard. Photo by Nine Orchard.
One thing I love about New York are the incredible locations to gather that are hidden in plain sight. This week, I got to spend time in three of these incredible gems: the Swan Room and East Room at Nine Orchard and the retro interior public space at 60 Wall Street before its complete demolition.
Nine Orchard is now a hotel that was the Jarmulowsky Bank over 100 years ago. The Swan Room is their main bar downstairs. Pictures are not allowed once it’s operational because they don’t want their patrons photographed (it’s quite a scene with more than a few celebrities enjoying being like the rest of us regular New Yorkers.) The East Room is a private event space upstairs that used to be the office of Sender Jarmulowsky, the founder of the bank. It’s cozy, dark, and moody. It looks down over the Swan Room where Sender was rumored to have been able to keep an eye on his bank employees and customers. (I’m thinking about the East Room as a possible space for my book launch party!) There’s a roof deck as well which is undergoing some renovations before spring arrives and I can’t wait to check it out when the weather gets warm.
The East Room and exterior of Nine Orchard. Photos by Christa Avampato.
60 Wall Street’s interior is currently being demolished. Thanks to The Municipal Art Society of New York, I was able to be one of the last people to see this weird retro space before the demolition is complete. We bid a fond farewell to the ticky tacky decor before it’s likely to become very minimalist. This is a public space where Wall Streeters have enjoyed their brown bag lunches for decades, and I think it will return as such once the lobby renovation is complete.
The East Room and exterior of Nine Orchard. Photos by Christa Avampato.
New York’s architecture, like the city, is ever-changing. What stays the same are all the delightful surprises around every corner in this magical place I’m so lucky to call home. If you ever find yourself here and you’re up for some urban exploring, I’d love to take you around and put my official New York City tour guide license to good use!
Every Sunday on Instagram (@christarosenyc), I create a #Sundaybuffet post that highlights the top 10 things that inspired me, brought me joy and wonder, and made me laugh that week as part of my gratitude practice. I’d love to have you join me on Instagram and I’d love to know what inspires you. The images below are my #Sundaybuffet this week, along with a description, attribution, and the Instagram accounts for each one.
Here’s to being alive, healthy, and grateful in this beautiful world. I hope your Sunday is filled with love in all its wondrous forms.
@USinterior@hikester_ –January 5th was National Bird Day. This photo of a bald eagle in Idaho was taken by Derek Butler, an Irish photographer. There was a record number of bald eagles observed at Lake Coeur d’Alene in Idaho in December – 409
January 5th was also my awesome niece, @lorelei_waldrep_08 ’s, 16th birthday. I remember the exact moment I first met her as a baby, and she is one of the reasons I’m so passionate about protecting the health of the planet—so she has a future to look forward to.
@Blacksun_awaken –Helena Bonham Carter is a queen. I love her perspective on the art in everything
@amyselwynphotographer –Stunning image “the journey felt enormous” is a collaboration between her imagination and AI platform @mid.journey. I’m really interested in learning more about AI for visual climate storytelling, and Amy’s work is a beacon of how to do this well.
@Sweatpantsandcoffee –How I like to spend every Sunday morning if I’m honest – in sweatpants, coffee in hand, and reading inspiring words. This post by writer and artist Nanea Hoffman about how we are born of stars is the crux of my @iamEmersonPage novels.
@Secret.London@AshCrossan –Nothing better than a cozy pub on a blustery day. In the U.S., we don’t have the Sunday roast tradition but I’m going to start making Sunday roast in my Brooklyn apartment to make winter more joyful.
@tanner_smiths –shabby chic meets gangster-inspired décor at this speakeasy in midtown Manhattan. It looks unassuming from the outside and is a favorite spot of mine to meet up with friends. They’re all-in on the steampunk /1920s aesthetic I love. Their cocktail (and mocktail!) list as well as their food is top-notch. I was here this week for the launch of @fringepress, @bookpipeline’s latest project.
My front door for 2024. Photo by Christa Avampato.
I decorated my front door for the new year with my 2024 word for the year, a Rumi quote I want to carry with me every day, and a handmade house blessing for my new apartment from my dear friend, Kelly Greenaur.
My word for 2024 — vulnerability Instead of resolutions, I adopt a word for the year to guide my thoughts and actions, and I write out some of my wishes I hope the word helps me take. In 2023, my word was clarity and I did find more clarity in every area of my life. In 2024, my word is vulnerability. By embracing my own vulnerability and supporting others doing the same, I hope I can bridge the divides in our society, and between people and nature. By recognizing and naming my fears and concerns, I can alleviate them. I can only solve problems and challenges I’m willing to have. By recognizing and naming my hopes and dreams, I can realize them. I can only climb the mountains I’m willing to attempt.
My word for 2024. Photo by Christa Avampato.
Letting myself be vulnerable opens me up to experiences I need and want, and otherwise wouldn’t have. I don’t want to leave anything unsaid. I want to take more chances and risks, asking for what I want, explaining how I feel, and sharing what I believe. I’m excited to see who and what I’ll find on this adventure. I want to be open to the world, and whatever it has to show and teach me, even if that breaks me and cracks me open. With those cracks, more light will find its way in, as Rumi wrote and the late great Leonard Cohen sang.
Rumi The Rumi quote, “Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”, is one I want to use this year to help heal others and the world. We have so much capacity to help each other through this life, and I want to make sure I use mine to the fullest. I’m hopeful the light I find by being more vulnerable will be light I can share with others.
Rumi quote. Art and photo by Christa Avampato.
A handmade house blessing Kelly sent me this house blessing talisman for Christmas, along with a stitched bracelet and an ornament that says, “I wish you lived next door.” (Me, too, Kel!) They were made by two women — Dau Nan from Myanmar and Bina Biswa from Bhutan — who now live in Buffalo, New York and are part of Stitch Buffalo, a textile art center committed to empowering refugee and immigrant women through the sale of their handcrafted goods, inspiring creativity, inclusion, community education, and stewarding the environment through the re-use of textile supplies. These passions of helping people and the environment are ones Kelly and I share, and I’m so grateful for her friendship, love, and support.
Stitch Buffalo crafts. Photos by Christa Avampato.
I hope 2024 is everything you want and need it to be. This year will be turbulent, and holds opportunities for progress, joy, and love. Onward we go, together.
Too often our society is quick to label people, to put us in a box as creative or not creative, and that term is not always used as a compliment. Regardless of our profession or where we work, we are all creatives. Our imagination is the most powerful tool we have to build a brighter future.
UN Global Pulse, The United Nations Secretary-General’s Innovation Lab, just published “The Most Creative Look to the Future” that offers learnings and recommendations about how creative practices can help the UN embrace uncertainty and complexity through peace, unity, and collaboration. The creation of the UN itself was a bold creative act borne out of darkness and difficulty, and continues to be a work in progress in a complex and complicated world. This publication is valuable for organizations of any size and type. My favorite take-aways from it:
– Our imaginations give us a way to connect with one another, even those of us who have been previously disconnected.
– Creativity helps us to give voice to emotions and values, and offers us a new way to see others and to be seen by others.
– Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of technology, allowing us to describe and grapple with complex systems to model change and play out a wide variety of scenarios.
– A more peaceful, sustainable, healthier, and happier future begins in the imagination, and we can imagine ourselves and our world into a better state.
– Imagination is a team sport, and becomes richer and more meaningful when we collectively pool our creativity.
The publication concludes with further resources and frameworks that organizations can start using today to embed creative practices into their work and teams. In the new year, I’m excited to share these with my teams as we begin to shape our future work together.
On the terrace in front of the library, pictures of JAY-Z with people such as President Barack Obama and performing on stage rotate on over-sized screens. The front facade of the library is wrapped in lyrics from his music. It brought me so much joy to see so many people — every age, race, and creed — enjoying the library. This is exactly why JAY-Z and his Roc Nation team decided to stage his exhibit here: to have it be free and within walking distance to the Marcy Houses, the public housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn neighborhood where he grew up, so everyone could be part of it.
Inside, there are photos of JAY-Z, examples of the many products he’s created, collaborations he’s forged, and awards he’s won. Visitors can play his records on turntables, look at his original masters (which he now owns after making a deal with Def Jam — he agreed to be President of Def Jam for 3 years provided that his masters would then be returned to him), sit inside a re-creation of the main room of his Baseline Recording Studios, walk through an immersive experience celebrating his achievements, and marvel at the array of memorabilia that commemorate his many accomplishments.
As amazing as all of this is, what absolutely stunned me and what I can’t stop thinking about is how JAY-Z has used his fame and fortune more than any other artist to make the world a better place by standing up for those who could not stand up for themselves. He and his team at Roc Nation were unrelenting in their demands for justice for inmates at Parchman Farm, a maximum-security prison in the Mississippi Delta. They fight rampant racism that runs through businesses and organizations around the world. They hold a social justice summit in New York City. They make documentaries including Time: The Kalief Browder Story and Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story. They stand against hate crimes, gun violence, and police brutality, not only with their words but with funds to provide pro-bono legal support and with their time to walk with the people they’re helping on their journeys. They champion artists, athletes, and Black-owned businesses. The list goes on and on.
Sometimes celebrities sit back after they leave the stage. They enjoy their retirement, and I don’t begrudge them for that. We all have a right to decide how to live our lives and spend our time. What I find so impressive and admirable about JAY-Z is that he looked at his celebrity and fortune, and rather than take a well-deserved rest, he accelerated. He’s done even more off the stage than he did as a performer. And for someone as prolific and influential in entertainment, that is a feat maybe he didn’t even foresee.
I’m a fan of JAY-Z’s music, but to be honest, I’m even more of a fan of who he is as a human and what he’s done to further humanity as a whole. He’s still got a long runway ahead and I can’t wait to see what he does next.
Riccardo Muti with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on opening night 10/4/23. Photo by Christa Avampato.
Last night I went to Carnegie Hall’s opening night gala with one of my best friends and my many talented colleagues. It was thrilling to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the expert baton of Riccardo Muti with the incomparable violin soloist Leonidas Kavakos, and to experience this gorgeous music with a packed house of nearly 3,000 people in this historic venue. The program included Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 and Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition orchestrated by Ravel. As an encore, Muti chose the brief and beautiful aria Amor ti vieta (Love forbids you) that appears in Intermezzo from Fedora by Giordano and Colautti.
Happy to be at Carnegie Hall’s opening night. Photos by Christa Avampato.
A performance at Carnegie Hall is a must-do for New Yorkers and visitors. This year’s season features Yo-Yo Ma and John Williams, Mitsuko Uchida, The Vienna Philharmonic, Jason Moran, The Hot Sardines with Alan Cumming, Lea Michele, Sutton Foster, Kelli O’Hara, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Norm Lewis, Bryan Terrel Clark and Valisia LaKae with The New York Pops, Meow Meow, Patti Lupone, Emanuel Ax, Yuja Wang, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and The Met Orchestra, Tania León, and many, many more.
At 132 years old, Carnegie Hall is a stunning space in midtown Manhattan and the heart of its mission is to bring the transformative power of music to the widest possible audience. It’s a privilege to work with them and contribute to this organization’s legacy in my extraordinary city.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra warms up for opening night. Photo by Christa Avampato.
One of my main projects at Carnegie is the subscription streaming channel Carnegie Hall+. We curate concerts, music festivals, dance, opera, and music documentaries from around the globe and deliver them to music lovers in the U.S. and 20 other countries. We have a lot of exciting developments underway for the year ahead. If you’d like to learn more, I’m always happy to chat about it. You can also find more details here: https://www.carnegiehallplus.com/
Happy opening, Carnegie Hall. I look forward to making more music available to more people in more places this season.
When I took my book writing research trip to Ireland in 2018, I had two must-see places on my list: the Long Room at Trinity College Library and the Dark Hedges (which is the inspiration for the cover of my second Emerson Page novel). The photos below show me at both locations. They feature prominently in the book.
What I didn’t know before I arrived in Ireland is that so many other places would also find their way into the book. Everywhere I went, from the local pubs to the ancient sites to the natural settings, inspired my imagination and creativity, and filled me with wonder. So much of my trip was completely unplanned. I let the spirits and good people of Ireland direct me and guide me, and not once did I falter (which is a rarity for me, especially while traveling, because I often get myself into trouble that makes for interesting stories later on!) I carried a copy of Emerson’s first book with me everywhere and I often felt her nudge me in certain directions. I was never disappointed to follow her lead.
Other than New York, Ireland is the only place I’ve ever been that immediately felt like home, as if I’d been there before and was fated to be there at that very moment. Certainly a piece of my heart remains there now. For this reason, New York and Ireland are where Emerson spends all her time in this second book in the trilogy. Her New York and Ireland are filled with mythology, magic, and fantastical beings, experiences, and objects, and in the book I’ve done my best to transport readers into her world of adventure.
Some more fun facts about the Long Room and the Dark Hedges:
1.) The Long Room is 65 metres, nearly 300 years old, and filled with 200,000 of the library’s oldest books as well as gorgeous sculptures and an ancient harp that dates to the 15th century. The harp inspired the coat of arms of Ireland as well as the logo for Guinness beer. The scent in the Long Room is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before or since. Known as Biblichor, from the Greek words, Biblos (meaning book) and Ichor (meaning “fluid that flows in the veins of gods”), it is related to the word Petrichor, a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather. The Irish are serious about a number of things that are dear to me—stories and books, history, music, beer, and nature, not necessarily in that order. No wonder I feel so at home in this country!
It sits above a chamber that holds the Book of Kells, a 9th century handwritten illuminated manuscript of the four gospels of the New Testament, filled with ornate Latin text and intricate illustrations, many of them quite cheeky and containing secret messages that the Celtic monks who created it wrote to each other. I love the Irish for so many reasons, and their humor is among my favorite of their attributes.
2.) The Dark Hedges (in Irish:Na Fálta Dorcha) is an avenue of beech trees along Bregagh Road between Armoy and Stranocum in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The majority of them are 250 years old, and form a tunnel that from the start seems never-ending. The fields on either side are abandoned cemeteries, lending to the ghostly feeling I had as soon as I arrived. It’s as if the trees whisper to each other through the wind. The trees are rumored to be haunted by many mythological beings—namely the Grey Lady and the Mórrígan (Mór-Ríoghain in modern Irish) who is the fierce Celtic goddess of battle, destiny, fertility, and death (a heavy workload!) and often appear as or is be accompanied by a crow or wolf. They’re badass women who know what they want and don’t tolerate nonsense. Did I mention I felt very at-home here, too?! 😉
Beech trees are linked with time and knowledge, especially written wisdom as thin slices of beech were used to write the very first books. Whatever words were inscribed on beech took on the power and magic of the gods. This is why the beech tree was held in such awe in those early days of books, and still is today. Beech trees were called ‘Boc’ by the Anglo-Saxons, which later became the word ‘book’. I didn’t know any of this until I arrived at the Dark Hedges, and it felt serendipitous since Emerson’s entire journey in the trilogy revolves around finding the first book ever written.
As a writer, you think you’re leading the story but what I’ve often found is that the story is always leading me to a far better place than I could ever create on my own. The art of writing a novel is a long and winding road, the path meandering but always with purpose. If I just sit as a willing scribe, the story finds me. My job is just to get it down as honestly and vividly as possible. All it takes is time. It’s the great mystery of imagination—I don’t know where the story comes from but I’m honored that it found me and continues to guide me.
I’m excited to share more behind-the-scenes about the book in future posts leading up to its release in Spring 2024. I’m so excited to be back in Emerson’s world, and revisiting my fond memories of Ireland, a country I hope to return to very soon.
Christa Avampato 