driving into a purple sky
a red house
a yellow housecould i paint this?
children running
on a green fieldthen, the town square
a domed building
a military statuewho made these rules?
flags and banners
boulevard trees
bend in the windthe aspen, singing
could i paint this?
all the blue light
Even in dreams I am
insubstantial. Flimsy. Ghostingthrough a history of rooms.
Tulips droop in glass pitchers.Cats slip past the plastered walls.
Even in dreams my hips complain.Stiff. Sullen. Uncooperative. Petals
fall onto hardwood floors. Linoleumpeels, curling up at the base
of the sink. An earthquake shakesplates from the cupboard. Floating,
I drift to the basement. It's cool here,tiled, mirrored. Echoing silence.
Every few years I reach an awkward milestone -- an age I think of as my mother's. I reached another of those yesterday, on Mothers' Day.
Fifty-nine. Isn't that my mother's age? My grandmother's?
How did this happen?
How did I get here?
Well. I seem to be taking an unanticipated blogging break.
Cathy thinks I've been abducted by aliens.
Mary tells me she's been contacted by several folks who wonder where I am.
I'm here; I'm just not here. Various things converged to take me away from the Web. Personal and financial crises (all better now -- don't send money); a drawing class that seems to have quite successfully moved me into nonverbal mode; and a return to the interrupted project of organizing my house for life as it is now, instead of how it was.
Also, there is something I need to write about (privately) but I don't want to. And I've learned that, if I won't write what's pressing, I can't write anything. Sooner or later, I'll give in.
I thought I might have a snapshot poem today, but -- not yet.
May it be prosperous, bountiful, and generous.
Want to earn some more good-human points, before it's too late? You could go feed some squirrels . . . OR . . . you could go cast your votes for the 2006 Montana Weblog Awards.
... all votes must be registered as comments to [A Chicken Is Not Pillage] website, or to the email address wulfgar.pillages@gmail.com ... The voting will remain open until Wednesday, December 27th. The results will be announced before the new year. You do not need to be a blogger to vote. You do not need to be a Montanan to vote. So, just vote.
Watermark is nominated in the Culture categories of Most Creative and Best Written. I think I might have a shot at Most Creative, but I do believe there are better written Montana blogs out there, and there are lots of categories to vote in.
So, if you think Watermark qualifies, and you feel like giving me a little holiday lift -- go vote for Watermark. If you would like to see just how good Montana Bloggers are, go check out the nominations and pick your winners. The competition is tough, fun, and enlightening.
You can't lose.
Unless, of course, you annoy Squirrel Santa Claws.
ProBlogger is doing another group writing project -- this one includes prizes (one in particular) that would solve the cash-free holiday dilemma. So, I'm writing for luck.
The assignment is to write a post that looks back or looks forward -- a turn of the season post. Bloggers (and diarists) have a definite advantage: we have something to look back at. What I see, when I look back, is that 2006 has been a project year for me.
In January I participated in the Brainstorms Daypix project, and began The Artist's Way. In March, I did the 30-Day-Photo Challenge, and in April, NaPoWriMo (National Poem Writing Month.) In May, Poetry Thursday started, and I began to (sporadically) participate in UTATA's Thursday Walk. In July, and into August, I took a blogging vacation, posting less frequently, and using old posts instead of writing new ones.
In September, Brainstorms did another Daypix project. In November, I went completely overboard, doing both NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post-a-Day Month) and now I'm doing the post-a-day project Holidailies.
Throughout the year, I continued with weekly Friday Cat Blogging and Wednesday Snapshot Poems, and this is not my first contribution to a ProBlogger Group Writing Project.
Why do I do this?
Well, I don't have a day-job, so I have the time, and appreciate the structure and community that these projects provide. As a non-pro blogger, without a specific niche, these group projects bring more eyes to my site -- and once in a rare while, a pair of eyes likes what it sees, and keeps coming back. Of course, this is mutual; I often add to my Bloglines as a result of these activities. Also, I'm approaching three years blogging, and fresh inspiration is useful.
And why do I not do the dozens of other blog memes and projects in which one can participate?
Sometimes because I already feel overextended, but often because they call for talents or skills with which I am not generously supplied. Some are designed specifically for amateurs, and I welcome those. Others demand some level of experience to do them even half-way well, and I tend to sidestep those, or offer something only rarely, when I feel particularly inspired.
Let me be clear, and in being so, offer you some advice: I do not do these to increase my hit count. I know, now, that sometimes that is a natural consequence of involvement in these memes, but that is not why I do them, and it is not how I choose which ones to do. I do those that set off some little spark inside me (even if the spark is just Wow, I'd really like to be able to give Davi an iPod for Solstice.)
I actually like cats, and other critters, too. I read and write poems, even when not encouraged to do so. I like taking snapshots. I like to write. I like to read what others write, when they care and do it well. I like to look at images, especially images made by people I know. I'm interested in a lot of things, and so I read and write about a lot of things.
What do you like?
Blog about it.
I will, in year 02007.
Oh, almost forgot -- come meet Watermark's readers and Introduce Yourself!
Ryan tagged me with this Internet meme. It's hard to think there might be much that readers of my blogs, or my About page, don't already know about me, but let's see what I can come up with:
1. My favorite movies are The Wizard of Oz
2. Among my many (sophisticated) collections -- art, artifacts, baskets, crystal candle-holders, books and music, dishes and chandeliers -- is a small collection of large teddy bears. I did, however, have to gather them from several obscure and forgotten places for this portrait:
Yes. I'm 58 years old, and I still have teddy bears. Wanna make somethin' of it?
3. I'm fond of cats.
Oh, you knew that already? OK then.
3. I'm quite good at the verticals: though I lost some IQ points with the onset of this illness, I can still reach pretty high, and can sometimes drop deeper down than others do -- or than most would even want to -- but I'm not so good at the horizontals: human relationships, the good and necessary skills of small talk and social niceties. I used to be better at this, when I had energy to mobilize to that end. Now I'm nearly hopeless.
Thinking, reading, writing: Pass.
Relating: Incomplete at best.
4. Speaking of grades -- for much of my life, I suffered severe writer's block. When I finally got to The Evergreen State College, I arrived with a GPA of something like 3.5 -- with three or four F's on it. The F's were incompletes from instructors who trusted that I would, eventually, get around to writing that paper, which I never did, and the I's morphed, over time, into F's. An Evergreen prof suggested a contract that allowed me to complete all assignments verbally, since I would not write -- and so I graduated.
I think that, for me, to write is to tell the truth; and there were truths I was reluctant to face. Once faced, the writing gates opened.
5. Umm... Oh, I don't like nuts in things. I like nuts -- cashews and peanuts, anyway -- I just don't like them in things. No nuts in my cookies, or brownies, or ice cream. Nuts in Thai food -- that's OK. Maybe it's just nuts in sweets?
Maybe it's just weird.
Now it's your turn. I get to tag five more bloggers, and they each tag five, and so on -- until we get where we may already be, and almost everyone has done it.
I tag Prairie Mary, The Quiet One, Ample Sanity, Chasing Daisy (if you're up for it, if it's distracting -- otherwise, just ignore this), and Wulfgar! If any of you have already done this, well -- hey, I'm busted.
Happy Tuesday.
Created with fd's Flickr Toys
I meet this winter without celebration,
as the man who was dying, but now lives,
greets the ants that pass through his kitchen
in narrow, undisturbed rows.When the child with her crown of candles
comes to my door in her white dress, singing,
I watch the delicate notes disperse in pale
cold light, like snow.
St. Lucia Day @ Wikipedia
"Santa Lucia" in Sweden @ Holidays & Festivals Around the World
Illness is a kind of winter. It strips the green, leaving only the
bare, peeling branches of your life; but it opens the sky. The view
widens. It is a new season, only that. You know it will get colder. You
know ice is coming. You retreat indoors; inside.
Reading MFK Fisher, I see that I know nothing, really, of pain; and less of those who live with -- who love -- the person in pain.
I am in a between
place. I feel change coming -- which, I suppose, is appropriate to the
season. I sit on the deck, alone, late in the night, smoking in the
snow.
I shall accept T.'s offer of a tree, cut from his
property in advance of the power company saws. We will put it on the
deck, and decorate it with icicle lights and the Buddhist prayer flags
K. gave me for my birthday. I will welcome this solstice and whatever
darkness and light it brings.
I don't know who I am. I am no-one. I am a dark vessel, waiting.
"I think that many people want to write, but of them few have the will to. I write more than half the things I do or say or think. I can see the words on the sheet of paper and see the pen writing them. And in my head a voice, a kind of silent reading voice, reads them not from but to the paper. Often what is read is good. There is a quick sureness about some phrases. At times they come too patly, with a smart-aleck tone. But I don't write. I write a few letters, which grow less interesting as I age. But that is all. It is because I am lazy, and that is true of most of the people who think in prose. Laziness and a vague fear."
MFK Fisher Stay Me, Oh Comfort Me: journals and stories 1933-1941
I can't believe I signed up for yet another one-post-a-day-for-a-month project. But since I did, here's a squirrel for you:
This week's prompt was If these walls could talk:
This house speaks.
Floorboards groan,
walls crack like
lightening bolts.Windows insist
Wash me! Snow-
melt drips, drips,
from the eves.Paintings proclaim
blue, green, gold;
they announce
Alaska, New Mexico,Pennsylvania. Listen,
you can hear wings:
parakeets, iron angels,
carved wood goddessesfrom Thailand and Bali.
Icarus. New Guineau.
This glass whispers
Czechoslovakia.A flowered bowl blooms
China. Beads cry Africa!
That sheepskin says: home,
here, mountain, Montana.
. . . but here's a squirrel for you:
This morning, two eagles were playing in the winds above the river. No photos; I couldn't bring myself to stop watching long enough to bring up the camera.
So you get Crow, instead.
This particular crow posed and chatted with me for quite awhile. Then I said thank you, and it nodded, and we went our separate ways.
That blue & white bowl is for -- get this -- organic lollipops. Yep, I actually bought such a thing, on my pre-Halloween Good Food Store NaNoWriMo preparation shopping trip. I kept reading about all the food one consumes during this marathon, what makes the best snacks, on and on -- so, among several other things, I got these.
As it turns out, I don't actually eat while I write. How does one do that, anyway? Both hands are busy on the keyboard. But lollipops -- those work. One or two fruity lollipops per day.
If I'd thought about it, I would have realized that I never have eaten while I write -- even when writing by hand. Though occasionally I write while I eat. A different thing entirely.
Niki asked in a comment: Will we see results of your writing here at the end of the month?
And the answer is . . .
Um, no.
Because. Because I am writing without expectation. Because it is an exercise. Because I've no idea if there will be anything worth sharing -- and if there is, it will take several months, at a guess, to get it into shape.
Just now I am confronting the necessity to kill off a character I love. The necessity is as organic as those lollipops, and as unintended. I didn't resist the lollipops, but I am resisting this ... murder.
Story writing is so different from poem writing. More different than I had anticipated. One difference, for me, is that I'm avoiding reading fiction. In fact, I'm hardly reading anything. When I am writing poems, I am reading poems, with no fear that some other voice will intrude on my own; quite the contrary, nothing inspires a poem for me like reading other people's work. But now I am cautious, wary.
It will be interesting to see how -- if -- this experience changes the way I read novels, once I do so again. I've never read with a critic's eye; I tend to fall into a book, and then fall out of it at the end. It has to be pretty bad for me to watch it while I read it. But I suspect I am going to be more attentive to things like structure and plot and character development from now on.
Just don't take the magic away...
So here I am, glued -- at the same time -- to cable news and the internet. Thinking.
So this will be a thinking post, possibly updated as the evening progresses. You know this isn't a news site -- go elsewhere to keep up.
The pundits are all listing the following four issues: Iraq. Terrorism. The Economy. Corruption.
There seems to be some surprise that corruption is such an issue for voters; everyone (those who are supposed to know) expected it to be Iraq Iraq Iraq . . .
But why are these seen as separate issues? Doesn't corruption run through all the others?
Surely voters have noticed that the administration has been dishonest (corrupt) about the war; that huge military contracts have been granted with questionable (corrupt) oversight; that the poor -- who are getting poorer -- were left on rooftops at least partly due to nepotism (corruption) and incompetence; and that a number of very public people have turned out to not embody the values they espouse. That they are, in other words, corrupt:
1. guilty of dishonest practices, as bribery; lacking integrity; crooked...
2. debased in character; depraved; perverted; wicked; evil...
Are you surprised?
Oh, yes -- then there's torture -- speaking of corrupt. Do Americans really feel comfortable about endorsing torture? Do Americans really believe that their president ought to be able to 'interpret' the Geneva Convention? Is our loyalty to party and president, or to country and consitution?
I guess we'll find out.
From The Huffington Post:
One-third -- that's 33% -- of the evangelical vote is said to have gone Democratic. If this is true, it really is a sea change. Perhaps it indicates hope for a return to values we really do share: fairness, equality, justice, democracy -- our Constitution; our Bill of Rights. Our shared freedom of religion.
Thoughtfulness.
As I go, exhausted, to my bed, it seems we are about to have the first woman Speaker in history. How could I not be pleased with that? And it seems Tester will take the race here in Montana, though that has not been called.
I go to bed hoping that our new Congress, whatever its makeup, will realize that this wave was not pro-Democrat; nor, do I think, it was anti-war -- Lieberman, after all, survived handily.
I think it was pro-governing. I think we want those who represent us to actually govern: competently, ethically, thoughtfully. Cooperatively.
To govern in this, real, world -- not in some idealogical, science-denying, made-up reality. Not for self-interest, but in service.
Good night. And may the next few years be better.
I snapped this photo on the river path, the day after Halloween. I intended to upload and post it then, but I've been a bit distracted . . .
That's Nellie. & that's where I'll be, all month.
You can look forward to lots of short posts.
Like this one.
Today I went to the local NaNoWriMo write-in, and took photos. Now I am very, very tired.
This week's prompt was: Share a favorite line of poetry.
There is far too much to choose from for this assignment -- so I'm going to cheat, just a bit, and send you elsewhere -- by linking these lines from Joyce Kilmer's famous poem:
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree . . .
Cat on my shoulder,
dog at my knee, I live
amidst amulets, icons,paintings by unknown
artists, carvings by
Indonesian strangers,figures that invoke
religions that are not
mine; spirit that is.Leaves come down
in a clatter of color.
The windchimes ring.
Ah, I'm just not feeling very poetic today...
The other night I caught a bit of Larry King Live, with Donald Trump and Robert T. Kiyosaki, pitching their book Why We Want You to be Rich.
King asked for the definition of rich in this country. Curious?
If you make one million dollars a year, without working -- you can consider yourself rich. Any less? No cigar. Make that much, but have to work for it? You don't qualify.
So my feeling that I'm rich is just that: a feeling. I am apparently trying to create my own reality, out of almost nothing. At least by these standards.
Many people in my situation, suddenly and completely unable to work, would be homeless, and hungry. But I own my house -- at least so far, though it's been a close thing more than once. Some people would call this an apartment, but I own it -- so it's a house. My house.
It's a house full of beautiful stuff. Well, OK, full of stuff that I think is beautiful, or useful, or amusing.
I have the collector gene. Even as a child, I collected things. When I had a job that involved a lot of travel, within a day or two the hotel bureau would have an accumulation of local objects: a shell, a feather, a stone; perhaps a piece of jewelry or other small artifact. A lifetime of collections came together in this house when I moved here thirteen years ago.
So I live here in this wonderful place, remodeled to suit me. Each day I am surrounded by things that I like -- some of them made by people I love. I share my house with dogs, and cats, and parakeets, and even, now and then, with friends. I am not hungry. I have this sweet little laptop (thanks to you.) I have been woven into the World Wide Web. I have a tiny, but beautiful, garden oasis.
Today, this country's population officially reached 300 million.
From Wikipedia:
The official poverty rate in the U.S. has increased for four consecutive years, from a 26-year low of 11.3% in 2000 to 12.7% in 2004. This means that 37.0 million people were below the official poverty thresholds in 2004. This is 5.4 million more than in 2000. The poverty rate for children under 18 years old increased from 16.2% to 17.8% over that period.
I live above these numbers. Only slightly, but above.
Am I not rich?
From Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
rich
1 : having abundant possessions and especially material wealth
2 a : having high value or quality b : well supplied or endowed <a city rich in traditions>
3 : magnificently impressive : SUMPTUOUS
4 a : vivid and deep in color <a rich red> b : full and mellow in tone and quality <a rich voice> c : having a strong fragrance <rich perfumes>
5 : highly productive or remunerative <a rich mine>
6 a : having abundant plant nutrients <rich soil> b : highly seasoned, fatty, oily, or sweet <rich foods> c : high in the combustible component <a rich fuel mixture> d : high in some component <cholesterol-rich foods>
7 a : ENTERTAINING; also : LAUGHABLE b : MEANINGFUL, SIGNIFICANT <rich allusions> c : LUSH <rich meadows>
8 : pure or nearly pure <rich lime>
I would say that, by many of these definitions, I am rich, indeed.
You?
Did you know that leaves
don't fall, but are pushed
by their trees? The first
grosbeak came today.
I saw a tattered warbler
dead on the trail. Do youthink that absence casts
a shadow? How tired I am,
of getting up, of sitting
down, of moving slowly
through dense and un-
forgiving days. Dreamsfollow me with their
yellow eyes, day after
day, only slightly familiar
and bringing no comfort.
I turned on the heat, though
maples are burning with color.
Summer and autumn are arguing with each other; autumn is winning.
There is a new public service ad on television -- a cowboy rides into view, then swings off his horse and lights a cigarette. Whomp! the horse falls dead. A message rolls across the screen, something like second hand smoke is deadly.
I think of this as my neighbor and I sit on the deck, in the rain, putting poison into our bodies.
I wonder how tough it was to train that horse to fall down?
Avoiding the news, distracting myself from my tiredness, I've been watching Home & Garden Television. Why do people want their bedrooms to look like hotel rooms? Designed and impersonal? I don't get it. Even if you get all shy and conservative in the rest of your house, isn't this the one room that ought to most reflect your uniqueness, as a person, as a couple?
Today, in the States, we acknowledge Columbus Day -- that most ambiguous of holidays. Some celebrate; some protest; some mourn. Another reminder of the natural diversity of this nation.
I've been thinking lately about intelligence -- what kind, how much, does it matter?
My dogs desperately need haircuts; the kitchen cupboards are bare; books and magazines and midstream projects are scattered on the livingroom floor. But I sit, and watch television, and think.
That's all.
Saturday morning, tired but inspired from Friday's adventures, I headed out to our newly renovated Missoula Art Museum for Montana Poetry: A Conversation, with Sandra Alcosser, Tami Haaland, Kim Anderson, Rick Newby, Beth Ferris, Arlynn Fishbaugh, Lowell Jaeger, Megan McNamer, Mandy Smoker, and Corby Skinner.
I was especially looking forward to seeing Beth, a poet and person I greatly admire. A bonus was a conversation with B.J. Buckley, another poet I've crossed paths with over the years, and whose work I like.
What a great setting this was -- a line of poets sitting at a long table in front of several works by Rudy Autio -- facing a room full of poets. Introvert though I am, I felt at home.
I did take some notes, and will offer a list of websites to visit at the end of this post, but NewWest offers audio of this conversation -- you can go listen to it yourself. There are so many projects and books in process; now including a Missoula poetry critique group, the organization of which has been delegated to me. Those who signed up at the conference will hear from me in the next few days; if any of you are interested, email me.
Some links from the poetry panel, and a brief wander amidst the tables:
I was surprised at the late entry onto the web of many of these organizations -- and that there weren't more offerings at the conference for web-based writers. Perhaps because it's the Montana Festival of the Book. Still, lots of us are online, and I expect that future conferences will offer more on web-based writing and publishing.
Next time, let's arrange a bloggers' lunch. Yes?
My encounter with Camille, the Clark City Press baby, was unquestionably the most delightful of this particular conference . . .
. . . but she did have competition.
Well, not precisely. Other encounters were pleasant, thought-provoking, informative, and fun -- but Camille would be pretty much unmatched in the delight category.
On Friday morning I attended the panel titled: Who Tells the Tale? Cultural Issues in Writing about Native Americans, with Dorothy Patent, Curly Bear Wagner, and our own Montana blogger, Mary Scriver. The panel was moderated by poet Vic Charlo. I took notes (as I did at the other two events I attended) but I keep putting off this post in order to include them -- and decided I need to just post.
Briefly, this panel had a lot to offer, but little on the subject I was anticipating -- who owns what stories; who can tell or write these stories; what are the implications of white writers telling stories from cultures not their own? Are the implications any different than they are for any writer tackling stories/ subjects/ cultures/ characters that are not their own?
This was a polite group, with some history among them, I believe -- and Mary was the one most willing to tackle the politically loaded issues. No surprise to those of us who read her blog.
Then she and I went to lunch, to get acquainted -- two cranky past the midlife divide white women, are we. She gave me a copy of her book, Twelve Blackfeet Stories, which I am embarrassed to say I have not yet even opened.
But I will.
Later that day I went to Kiss Tomorrow Hello: Women Writing from the Other Side of the Midlife Divide, with Claire Davis, Annick Smith, and Mary Clearman Blew. I stayed for the reading, only, then staggered home to sleep. This would be a good book to own, by the way. Lovely, powerful writing.
Confession: For many years I have wanted to be Annick Smith when I grow up. A slight case of heroine worship.
I think I'll save the poetry panel for another post -- but let me bring this one back to the beginning. Click the image below to go to Clark City Press. A wonderful list. A skilled and prolific artist. My hometown. A beautiful child. How can you lose?
I almost forgot -- one more thing I wanted to share. As Mary and I were hugging goodbye, she noticed a woman trying to squeeze past us. Mary said "We must move or hug this woman" and we stepped apart to let her pass, which she did. Then she paused, turned, opened her arms and said "What a good idea!"
And so we three strangers blocked the passageway with our pleased Montana hug.
UPDATE: Mary responds, on her blog, to the question Who Tells the Tale?
This week's prompt is: The Body.
And, coincidentally, or not, today in the UK is:
Identity is a big issue for me, since illness peeled mine away over the past decade, and I've been forced to find, or build, another.
Is identity how others see us, or how we see ourselves? Is it neither? Both?
Frieda Hughes says:
So, I would be found in my poems, if this is so, and if they are real. As I hope they -- at least some -- are.
I did make an attempt to respond to this prompt, by gathering together the 'self-portrait' efforts I've made for various projects in the past few years:
You will notice that there is very little body there, and even face is somewhat camouflaged. I noticed.
I made another try, focused on the identity I've been developing since I began blogging in 2004:
Both of these are much more concerned with the head than the body; no surprise, I suppose, from someone whose body hurts most of the time. Nor from someone whose body has morphed from desirable to despicable, by cultural standards, several times in a yet unfinished lifetime.
I find that I don't have a body or identity poem in me today (perhaps later) but for poems by Poetry Society members on the theme of Identity, click here, and for poems by Poetry Thursday members on the theme of The Body, click here.
Even poetry insufficient? Then, in another fine British tradition, try TEA.
The pond is filling
with leaves, curled
and tattered and gold.Wind shakes the gilding
from birch trees; this
neighborhood whisperswith gossip of autumn.
The news tells me my
government lies. I mournmy lack of astonishment,
seek comfort in Mozart
and Bach. No consolationfor me in illusions of faith
and religion. These words
seem heavy as bricks,unmovable, unyielding.
Indigestible. They catch
in my throat. They stick.Twenty years since my
brother's death, and still
I notice this emptying day,ash trees unveiling their
skeletons, maples on fire.
This blue and vacant sky.
I've been out & about. Every day, for three days.
I'm exhausted. All you get is a photo.
this morning smells of cinnamon,
of nutmeg and nostalgia, the red
sting of striped wasps and afternoon
falling from the sky like maplelike oak, a yellow day, tasting
of lemons and the sharp songs
of sparrows, a round day, an oval
day, an egg day, the day takes shapearound me but i am an absence today
i am not here, i am not there, the day
passes brightly around this vacancy
an egg-shaped emptiness, yolklessheartless, a finality here where there
is nothing but dreams, floods, refugees
thousands of lost children, pets, these
two wasps mating on the fountainthinking not of drowning, no discussion
no political debate, no faceted visions
no fear of the future, only this essential
desperate and glorious gesture
I realize that Watermark has been a bit heavy on photography lately, and light on words -- and now there are even more pictures.
Brainstorms, an online community I visit now and then, does an occasional project called DayPix, in which interested snapshotters are invited to record three days photographically. I did this over the new year holiday (here is that photoset) and participated again this past weekend, autumn equinox.
Now, this is not a photography challenge; the idea is not to showcase your best pictures, but to simply record the ordinary activities of our lives over the specified three days. Self-portraiture is encouraged, which is what you see, above.
Since I've been playing with some photo tools, I took the opportunity to use some of them, too. It has become clear to me that I'm committed to flickr; if a service isn't integrated with flickr, I'm unlikely to use it -- no matter how cool. But if the service will simply pull my photos from my flickr account, without requiring separate uploads, I'm apt to at least try it out.
So -- keeping in mind the caveat that these are not particularly the best of my photos -- if you'd like to see them, you can see the flickr photoset here; or you can see it jazzed up with flash at photofront (this may take some time to load.)
Or you can see them made into somewhat busy posters at tabblo (click the thumbnails):
The self-portait was made with Photoshop Elements and fd's flickr toys.
I'm exhausted.
This week's theme is Girl, which gives me yet another opportunity to repost one of my favorites:
What I Don't Write About
My mother. This pain in my shoulder. This intertia
that pins me to my bed. The way light passesthrough water on birch leaves. The quick, spotted
cat watching the goldfish. I don't write about you.Life is no place to be smart, you tell me. Not only
do you hurt, but you can't stop thinking about it.Fear and lies leak from the radio, elusive but real
as mercury. Slippery. Rain is still falling into thisgarden. I dream of another universe, a different
garden, with more dimensions, more creatures,more poems. I can't stop thinking about it. What if ...
What if the bit of debris circling the space stationwere discovered to be an artifact, but not of earth
origin? Would there be a sudden silence across thisplanet, as we looked at each other? Would we suddenly
be merely human, just that -- one immense organism,one vast and sentient race? This body still hurts.
Clouds are moving heavily, eastward. Stay safe.
I've posted a new article at Abide: Illness Etiquette II: How to visit a sick friend. I promised this quite some time ago, and the current Probloggers How To group writing project gave me the push I needed to finish it.
But it wore me out -- so don't look for anything here until tomorrow.
I set up Catster accounts a few months ago for Spike and Boo, and finally got around to joining Dogster for Henry and Lucy last week.
Here is LUCY @ Dogster, and here is HENRY @ Dogster. And, of course, they each must have their own unofficial flickr badge, to present themselves to their new social network:
While playing around at flickr, I discovered tabblo, which is nicely integrated -- a few clicks, a little patience (at least if, like me, you have far too many photos) and all your flickr photos are at tabblo, where you can make posters:
They offer several different layouts, and prints. Not that I particularly want huge posters of my silly, social- networked dogs on my wall. Having them on my lap is sufficient.
Friend b. tells me: Life is no place to be smart. You not only hurt but you can't stop thinking about it.
This actually cheered me up.
A few weeks ago I got an email from the photo editor at NewWest, offering to purchase 'the use of' one of my photos.
This one:
Now, I know I'm just a snapshotter, and this really exciting experience brought home to me a lesson I've seen mentioned in several places -- that often a photo sells, not because it's a great photo, but because it fits a very specific need. In this case, something emblematic of our town, that could be altered to suit the new banner design for NewWest's Missoula page.
This one fit, and was in the right place -- the NewWest flickr group -- at the right time.
I'm not planning an attempt at a new career, but it was very fun to feel like a 'pro', even for a moment -- and, actually, for several moments to come.
Please do consider this a promotion for NewWest, a site I've mentioned several times before, and read every day. It offers news and intelligent commentary for residents of Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.
Oh, and it has a great banner!
I left my dreams behind
on the sweaty sheets.
Let them evaporate
in the smoky air. Fires
are closing in on us.
This air shuts me out.
Shallow, painful --
the breathing. Ashes
in my mouth. I sat
with my neighbor
on the deck, smoking
cigarettes. She grieves
her friend who died
suddenly, full of cancer
they thought they'd killed
with drugs and radiation.
Sudden, fierce, these
fires. They ignite from
nothing, a spark, a dry
storm. They say, stay
indoors. Don't breathe
deep. My heart has
hardened. A stone?
A walnut? Perhaps
a pinecone, prickly,
waiting. Is there any
seed left? The Buddha
says, open. Soften.
Breathe.
Was there ever a generation before this one -- my generation, the duck & cover generation -- that believed it might be the last?
Not the last of its village, or its nation, or its race -- but the last human generation.
We grew up with that idea. It faded, but how could it not have shaped us?
Then, at the beginning of our lives, we feared it would come, mushroom-shaped, in explosions and fire.
Now we seem to have come full circle, but with more options: intentional plagues, slow erosion, suffocation, flood. Fundamentalism.
But all "man" made.
I'm not thinking of believers in Armegeddon, nothing so common, so proclaimed -- but something deeper. Something we may not even know we feel.
Is this at the root of our famous narcissism: some embedded conviction that nothing really matters, anyway; there will be no one to inherit?
Of course, we are not the last generation -- but the last generation may have already been born. We hold them in our arms, and wonder. We hold them in our arms, and hope.
You can probably guess this week's prompt...
These things you loved, and left
me: turquoise set in silver buckles;
lapis in a gold band. Tattered jeans;
faded work shirts; one iris in a cobalt
vase. A painted iron bed, with flannel
sheets worn thin and pale. Billie
Holiday, Nina Simone. A delicate
Chinese teacup; a jeweled bird. Two
antique lacquered fountain pens; one
inkwell. Morning glories climbing
an adobe wall. This vast and empty
New Mexico sky.
I had a rule for this poem -- can you tell what it was? Did it work?
What I Would Tell You
I think of bison standing in snow
motionless as statues, sleeping.
Sand cranes in the wheat fields.
In Pakistan, men debate whether
a woman must have four witnesses
to claim rape. Whether, her case
unmade, she can be put to death
for adultery. Here in the States
we notice that women are
unnoticed. How I live at the edge
of grief; how it enfolds me like
a cloak, this smoky sky. I dream
of a hawk, its feet tied with grass;
how I try to unwrap it, to let it
fly. Where there was rain, floods.
Where there were storms, hurricanes.
Where there was forest, fire. How my
chest aches. How it hurts to breathe.
It's not yet September
but the morning light
pales winter-dim. Forests
burn; our air thickens
with ashes and smoke.I've pulled the rugs,
blankets, long-sleeved
shirts and heavy sheets
from the dark backs
of closets. There is nopoetry in me, only
lethargy and pain.
I resist, resist, this
cooling season. Vines
still bend with ripeningberries and yellow plum
tomatoes; honeysuckle
and roses bloom their final
flush. The parakeets sing
from their ornamental cage.
[I'm on vacation. This was originally posted Sunday, 02 May 2004]
Blue clematis bells; their white tongues.
Woke early, slept, woke, slept -- finally up at 11:00. The angelique tulips are open; lilacs are showing their color. Just now, at mid-day, there's a soft breeze in the garden. I am living in realms of sleep, half-conscious, beneath rustling leaves.
While sitting in the garden with K., a kestral flew in, landed in the dogwood, flew out. After recovering from her shock, K. said, "I suddenly felt like a rodent."
I cut my nails in the garden, L. having told me that ants have some use for the clippings, calcium, perhaps? I wait and I wait, but the ants don't come.
Alice Notley in The American Poetry Review, May/June 2004:
I think the poet becomes more and more of a shaman, getting older, in the sense that so much happens to one, and there's nothing left but the poetry function, which is a healing, ecstatic function, as much as it is anything else.
The LifeFlight helicopter flies over, very low, very fast; there is no time to waste.
This photo is from Sarpy Sam, who says:
When I put a submersible pump in a well I hang it on black plastic but a few metal pieces are always required. When I put the pump in the new well with the big tank the other day I noticed the place of origin of all the metal pieces and had to take a picture of it. Italy, Canada, Thailand and Taiwan. The hired man said it was an international well. I wondered about American manufacturing. Just found the whole thing interesting. Taken 6/14/2006.
I am feeling distinctly uncreative lately; or as friend Abigail says, intensely inactive. Luckily, others are out there making marvelous things to inspire the rest of us, and I intend (with their permission) to exploit those inspirations this week.
Above is Loren Webster's Nature Montage. He tells us in comments how he did it:
I did it in Photoshop by applying different layers, SB.
I began with shot of a lily, used posterize to emphasize the lines, did one layer of patterns with the belted kingfisher, another layer with an abstract pattern, set the mode to overlay and then played around with opacity until I got a blend that I liked.
I think I can do most of that in Photoshop Elements, and intend to try -- when I'm done being intensely inactive.
My GMail at my domain account has been down all day. I kinda feel like those daisies.
These may be rat-faced, sneaky, Machiavellian, greedy, manipulative, tricky little rodents, but they are actually innocent.
Glorious poppies, almost done:
A very old mountain ash tree:
And a younger, but aging, park bench:
Andrew, in reference to yesterday's snapshot poem, asks what is my process?
It varies some, but lately I begin to think about the snapshot poem on Tuesday, just paying attention and considering what I might write about. This week, I was blocked by my despair about politics, so had to write that out first; and of course I had the special occasion of Mariah's birthday. I wandered about for awhile, thinking about Mariah and taking note of what was in front of me, writing without thinking or editing.
It's rather like this, really -- I begin with lots of words and ideas, and then a rain comes and strips the stems down -- fewer leaves and flowers, more shape -- if I'm lucky. Sometimes I go back through my notebook for images or thoughts, dreams or fragments that feel like they might fit into what I'm doing.
For quite awhile it's mostly about feeling my way -- then I put it on the computer and begin to work it into shape -- shape being exactly what I mean, here. How does it look on the screen? Where are the rhythms, the natural line-breaks?
Rarely, I get something complete and dramatic. More often it's like what I intended to do today, to try the suggestion at Poetry Thursday to weave together a piece from fragments of overheard conversations. But then it was a day to stay home, where there were no conversations on which to eavesdrop.
So I offer this visual collage instead, and hope it will do -- especially for you, Cathy, instead of a poem.
[The Hockney'd honeysuckle was made with fd's Flickr Toys]
The world having survived
yesterday's coincidence
of numbers, I celebrate thisday after your twenty-eighth
birthday, watering the garden
you helped to make, feedingthe goldfish you worked
to house, inhaling the many
sweet scents of early summer,these exuberant blooms so
like you in full flower, multi-
petaled, colorful, brilliant,beautiful, mercurial, seductive,
almost frightening -- Goddess
Daughter who embodies all Sheis, fanciful, dangerous, generative,
destructive, witchy and bitchy, oh
what a crone you will one day be.
A few months ago, I received a request from a flickr photographer (and poet) to trade prints; he wanted a print of one of my bird photos, and in exchange he would send me one of his, of my choosing. A look at his photostream -- and his wonderful visual poems
-- left me feeling very flattered -- but as my printing capacity is
limited, I assured him he was free to download anything of mine he
liked, and that an exchange would be welcome but quite unneccessary.
One day last week -- a tired day, a slow day, an uninspired day -- an unexpected package came in the mail. A beautiful book of art photos, from Spain. Such a lovely mystery; an unfamiliar language. Then, a familiar name, a familiar style:
Here is the large size of The only ghost I ever saw, the piece pictured above. At the back of the book, in English:
ANTONI ALBALAT
Antoni Albalat Salanova is an Information and Linguistic Advisoer at the Language and Terminology Service of the Univrsitat Jaume I...
...Since 1989 when he published his first poetic prose book, Aviram espars, his litereary career has included over a dozen collections of poems and numerous collaborations in anthologies, on both discursive and visual poetry...
Here, a long list of prizes, publications (this one sounds really fun) and exhibitions -- including a note that ...his work can be found in several private collections in Missoula (Montana) and Chicago. Heh.
Some Googling, some reading, and I discover that this book is a catalog of an exhibit -- this exhibit.
Such a generous gift, Toni -- thank you!
Quick Muse, via dumbfoundry:
Two poets write a poem in 15 minutes. You can see the letters as they type them in, and if they decide to delete them or change something, you see that too. You can read the 'finished' poem or watch it appear over 15 minutes bit by bit.
This week's suggestion was to read poetry aloud -- which I often do, and here is a link to my audio posts, in case any of you would like to hear my poems.
So two diversions today.
Enjoy.
lazy lazy morning
sun pads into the bedroomlike a friendly yellow cat
another drifty hourin the blue sheets
later, the park churnswith colorful herds
of small childrengrownups shooing
at their heelstrying to organize
delight
I watched myself this morning.
It was raining, so I had this big bump on my chest -- where the camera hides under my jacket on wet days.
Stopped to chat with a crow that flew into a small tree and tipped its head at me.
In the park, when I bent down to pick up my dog's poop, I noticed raindrops on the bare dandelion, so stayed bent and took some pictures. Explained to the dogs that they would just have to be patient and wait for me.
Coming home, said good morning to the waiting squirrels. Visited with them a bit as I filled the feeders.
I could have told them that five thousand humans died yesterday in an earthquake, but I knew they would not understand; no more than I understand my own grief when I find one of their little bodies, stiff and ravaged in the grass.
Other than that, I'm perfectly normal.
Rachel has generously sent me a translation of the China Daily article that was linked to Watermark:
I'm only hemidemisemiliterate in Chinese, but this is what I think it says:
A Creative Landscape Indicates a Romantic Existence
Aren't we always looking to lend our lives something of a romantic sensibility? So--have you experienced the beauty of artistic representation? People often regret the lack of poetry in their lives. What would happen if you took every incident of your life and expressed it through a picture and a poem? Well, you'll have to savor the sensation yourself. Don't hesitate--throw off your trepidation--once you've tried it, you may just find the romance that's been missing from your life for so long.The word for "romance" or "romantic" in Chinese, pronounced langman, is a transliteration from English. The first definition given in the Dictionary of Modern Chinese, the dictionary in most common use (it seems to me) in the PRC, is "rich in poetic feeling; full of imagination." I don't think the word has acquired as strong associations with vapidity and silliness in Chinese as it has in English, but instead has sort of attached itself to a set of traditional attributes of the scholar-poet.
Ah, of course -- a scholar-poet. Just how I've always imagined myself.
I am no Pollyanna, and generally averse to the too-quick assurance that every cloud has a shiny lining -- but it's true that one consequence of illness is a widening, and sometimes a deepening, of time. Time to think, to read, to look.
Together with time, I have been blessed with the technology to share my observations -- a digital camera; a little laptop. Interesting, and sometimes beautiful, things to look at. This columbine comes back, year after year, and seeds itself in neighboring gardens.
This van, which sits in the parking lot, offending some neighbors and intriguing me, has aged -- perhaps not with grace, but with style.
Like me.
We each have our own way.
Today my way is somewhat incoherent -- too tired, but determined to post. Please bear with me.
[My Bread Van photoset on flickr.]
Abigail & Henry ~ click for larger image
Abigail, today the park lawn
is a meadow of dandelion seed
and English starlings. An African
in eye-whacking tennis whites
teaches a young American how
to swing her racket. His voice
sings in this hot day. A piercing
call and from my shadow an osprey
shadow glides -- two young ones,
learning, turning in the blue
air. The mallard couple, he
with his glossy green cap,
she rather matronly, stick
their heads in the water,
tails straight up. How not-
British it is here, without
you. A man paddles past
in a red kayak. Your sweet-
heart longs for you, the children
ask, my dog watches eagerly
then droops in disappointment
as a woman in a dazzling scarf
comes near enough to know
it is not you. Abigail, this beauty,
this heat, these creatures, this
Montana summer -- we send it
all to you on this, your English
birthday. Let it be today's
bright and cheering tunic.
For Abigail
Yet another conversation about Where Are All The Women Bloggers at Scobleizer. Lots of comments and, of course, dispute -- but so far, civilized.
Just a note, that I began reading this blog because Robert recently visited Montana, in sad circumstances. Both the real world and the virtual world are small. Click that photo up there and read the comments for another example of small worldness.
From the comments on the above post, I found two interesting sites:
The Remembering Site makes it easy for anyone, anywhere, to write and publish their life story and add to it as life unfolds. It says it is a non-profit initiative, but it does charge a fee ($25 USD) to register and get guidance in writing an autobiography. There is a Remembering Site Blog; the author says she started The Remembering Site because her father died too soon and she realized she didn't ask him all the questions about his life that she should have.
Then we have Tales from the Reading Room, which has lots of interesting stuff, including some intriguing posts on blogging: The Blog as Surrealist Legacy, for example.
Daily Linkport points to deep quote, which promises to create links to specific quotes on the Web -- links that will never expire. Now this sounds useful.
Linda Plaisted has a post at Utata on writing an artist's statement; it strikes me that this might be helpful in writing a blog/ website About Page as well -- having just struggled with this myself.
I'm feeling a bit tired, and uninspired. Also slightly worried that there has been minimal response to all the changes around here. Positive response, but minimal.
How do you motivate yourself to keep doing whatever it is you do?
Endment has expressed some gentle skepticism about whether these:
and these:
...are really the same creatures. What can I say? The clothes make the dog.
They were called adorable! by a stranger on the riverpath again this morning.
Then there's Spike, who has never been referred to as adorable:
Handsome, bullying, beautiful, aggressive, demanding, intrusive, and rude, yes; but never adorable.
Boo, on the other hand, has one major descriptive, and that is ...
... sweet.
For other critters of various appearance and temperament, visit:
Friday Ark
I and the Bird
Carnival of the Cats
Carnival of the Dogs
Circus of the Spineless
Weekend Cat Blogging
At our house, we are all retreating to the shade. You?
Why is the poet fearsome?
Because she speaks the tabooed word, she tells the hidden truth. She looks, she sees.
Because her sustenance comes from something that cannot be sold, or withheld, or rationed.
Because, sometimes, when she meets a fence, her muse demands that she climb it.
Sometimes dangerous poems are hidden in drawers, but still -- they have been written.
The internal life is less easily ruled, restricted, than the external life. it cannot be marketed, and there is no profit beyond the spirit.
If everyone wrote poems -- if everyone read poems -- what would happen then? If we all were just a bit more connected to our internal selves, our animal selves, our spirited selves, our sensual selves -- would the made world unravel? Who would we be then?
Suppose we all heard god speak in tulips, in pollen, in the hidden languages of the body?
If we could reach our hand into the river and lift out the sequined fish, what then?
[Thank you, Ivy, for the pointer to the FEAR THE POET T-shirt! My first -- let's hope my last -- impulsive internet purchase.]
REVISED Thursday 18 May:
In dreams I swim
through crowded pools.
I am infinitely malleableand invisible; transparent
as this light, falling
on the paving stones.A scarred and scrawny
squirrel scolds me
from the lilac tree. Why?What have I done, or left
undone, that has offended
you? The feeder is full, waterpours from the fountain.
Solomon's seal curves
gently in the shade.My life is an empty gourd.
What more must I do?
Original beneath the cut.
b. asks [in response to The Blue Bed]:
how do you keep this up? do you wear poet's glasses all the time, or simply put them on like mr peabody from bullwinkle when you want to do this thing you do?
Ah, yes -- those poet's glasses. So attractive.
Good question, though. What is this thing I do? I don't just sit down and write a poem; it requires an ongoing practice of attention; a willingness to be boring, to be trivial, to be mundane.
It's like prayer, or my understanding of prayer -- not a solicitation, but an acknowledgement of how it is: this hurts, this is beautiful, I am afraid.
And, um, I kinda messed this up -- I accidentally put yet another banner up, without realizing it was active -- so I don't know what banner people voted on.
Sorry.
Tomorrow I'll post all the options, and we'll start again.
Pitiful, isn't it? They are at the groomer right now; I'll post after photos later.
You may have noticed that Watermark has a new hairstyle, too. This may be a temporary condition -- I want your opinion -- and to get it, I have now tried three different blog poll sites. This one is the only one I can make work, and I'm not familiar with the site. So far, I've seen no pop-ups, but no guarantee:
It is probably not obvious, but I've spent the past week -- rather compulsively -- working on this blog, and the Links Blog. I can't swear to it, but I think that every link on this sidebar, and all my blogroll links, now work. I've cleared out dead links, and deleted inactive sites. It's like sweeping dead bugs from the basement, only more tedious.
Surprisingly, one of the oldest blogrolls was the most intact; people who blog about or for their cats seem to stick with it longer than other bloggers. I think I had to remove only two or three sites from that one. There's probably a PhD thesis in that somewhere.
There was an Aortal link on the sidebar, and one for an Insignificant Microbe: help it evolve, but when I went to update those I was reminded why I so rarely do so. At least one third of the Aortal links are dead, or should be; and most of the Insignificant Microbes are the same. I may just move up the evolutionary ladder, to Lowly Insects, perhaps, or Flippery Fish -- if a blog gets that far, at least it's likely to be somewhat active.
I don't know what to do about the Aortal problem. I know that maintaining that kind of directory is a lot of work. I wrote to them some time ago about this, but never heard back.
Speaking of problems, a reader has kindly let me know that Watermark is not showing updates on his Blogroll. I've suspected this was happening, just from noticing a few times when I was visiting other sites that my updates weren't registering. Anyone have an idea why this might be? I also see I've dropped from a Large Mammal to a Marauding Marsupial at TTLB, but I'm assuming this is a temporary glitch. I doubt that I've really dropped from nearly 500 to 70 links overnight.
Let's see, what else . . . Oh, yes. I've added a couple of new toys (found at scribblingwoman)-- a Page Rank Check from BlogFlux, and buttons that are supposed to show the current egopoint status of searches on my name and domain, but don't. They're off by about five thousand points.
If I didn't have a healthy ego, this might make me paranoid.
Speaking of which, please let me know if you see any problems. Really.
We've often been seeing this couple on the river path, taking their constitutional at the same time we do. They are unfased by the dogs, seeming to know that they are restrained. I think they may have begun a family, since this is the first I've seen them in several days, and there they are, safely down in the water.
I look forward to the ducklings.
Whimsy points us to a conversation at Book of Kells on writing, quantity & quality, and dogs. Kells tells a story about potters that suggests quantity leads to quality; Lyle tells a Zen story that suggests the opposite. It's a timely discussion, in this month of NaPoWriMo -- and always an issue for bloggers, who feel a constant pressure to produce . . . something.
Still in the midst of trying to produce a poem-a-day, it's too soon for me to assess the quantity/ quality issue in my own work, but it's certainly true that I've explored areas (sometimes in desperation) that I otherwise might not have ventured into. A bit closer to the edge, perhaps. Easing the expectation of (at least minimal) quality can be freeing, no question.
Whether one ought to inflict the results on others is another issue, also discussed in the comments to the above post.
And my dogs may not be beautiful, but they are, I am told by strangers in the park, adorable.
Easter Weekend
twelve purple tulips
yellow pollen
on the buddha
A friend told me, awhile back, that all these squirrel photos made me seem to be an evil genius; and I notice that I'm posting far fewer of them since -- even though I've no idea what he means.
Now, that's just silly. Isn't it?
That's it: My 30 Day Photo Challenge Flickr Set. Now I'm thinking of trying a poem a day for National Poetry Month in April. That would be more difficult to pull off, though. And less entertaining for you, I bet.
My 30 Day Photo Challenge Flickr Set This is the last day. Whew!
I believe this garden may have been designed by the person who helps me with mine: Lori Parr Campbell of Kinship Gardens, here in Missoula, Montana, USA.
Well. Hmmm. I've done almost none of the tasks (except, of course, the morning pages) but I did get myself some flowers, and I'm doing gentle yoga almost daily with my visiting friend, who happens to be a yoga instructor. And I've managed a photo every day for the 30DayPhoto Challenge.
OK, I confess -- I've barely thought about AW this week, even though I highlighted a lot when I read this chapter. For instance:
As an artist, I may need a different mix of stability and flow from other people.
And:
When we are not creating, artists are not always very normal or very nice -- to ourselves or to others.
Also:
To be an artist is to recognize the particular. To appreciate the peculiar.
It is this willingness to once more be a beginner that distinguishes a creative career.
. . . the Artist's Way is a spiral path.
Cameron talks about the Zen of sports, and quotes Eve Babitz:
"Swimming," she says, "is a wonderful sport for a writer." . . . That rhythmic, repetitive action transfers the locus of the brain's energies from the logic to the artist hemisphere. It is there that inspiration bubbles up untrammeled by the constraints of logic.
Swimming was my sport, before I got ill -- except for me is wasn't a sport. It was a moving meditation -- the breathing, the stretch. And this makes me grieve for it, and may push me back to the water, even if I can do only five laps at a time. One of my first attempts at a sonnet was about swimming:
Swimming Sonnet/
a nautical metrical exerciseThe pool is long and blue and cool. I dive
into the soothing depth, the wet. I cut
the water, arms a knife, a curving slice,
a turn, another lap, a breath, a pull
and earth below is not allowed to hold
my body down and I am flying free
of ground, my cells expand, my spirit grows
and melts into the chlorine blue, I feel
the stretch of spine and soul, I reach to touch
some goal, it’s just beyond my fingertips
at last, another lap, if I could just
not need to breathe...
now slow, I gasp and kick
against the heavy claim of land-locked life,
so hard, so harsh, so shallow, short, and dry.
Finally, this chapter encourages us to build an artist's altar, which I needn't do, as I have them everywhere:
She reminds us that:
. . . the artist child speaks the language of the soul: music, dance, scents, shells... Your artists altar . . . should be fun to look at, even silly.
I'd say I've managed that.
One more week.
No, I don't believe in magical crystals, but I do believe in mindfulness. These stones -- gifts to me years ago -- in my pocket remind me of what I strive for, with varied success: clarity (the clear crystal) and an open heart (the rose quartz.)
The green ring belonged to a friend's grandmother, and has become something of a trademark for me; the silver ring is, I believe, Tlingit -- Bear, with its tongue out, to either catch good spirits or frighten off bad ones, I forget which.
The silver bracelet was my friend Judd's.
My 30 Day Photo Challenge Flickr Set
I have company. I'm glad I have company. I'm having a great time.
I'm exhausted -- so posting may continue to be a bit sparse for awhile.
My 30 Day Photo Challenge Flickr Set
I'm planning to write a post about this -- later. But I wanted to post a photo of the day, and this is my favorite, so here it is, without its narrative.
The Blue Bed
I sleep on a high blue bed
between clouded mountains.
I am growing a new brain.
This one will be sparkly
and fine; it will float
in the fluid of compassion.I sleep flanked by two fine
dogs on a high blue bed
between brushed green
cotton and purple flannel.
I am growing a new heart.
I will beat to the rhythmof dreams. Who is it that
wakes in the mornings on
a high blue bed in this bowl
of thick cloud? Is the waker
fashioned from this real, or
this imagined, world?
I usually post my Snapshot Poem on Wednesday, which is the day the PoetryEtc list does this exercise. Below is from p
o e t r y e t c p r o j e c t s -- just one of the archive sites for these poems:
I see the spiral metaphor everywhere; the idea that we revisit the same issues again and again in our lives, but at different -- presumably deeper -- levels. A Flickr search found many spiral images -- this one at the left was my favorite -- I think because of that lovely blue marble, and the garden behind. And because the photographer allows use under a Creative Commons License.
Recently, on one of the Blogging the Artist's Way blogs (I'm sorry, but I can't remember who this was -- if you see this, let me know so I can link to you) the writer was discouraged to see, when she read a year-old journal, that she was dealing with exactly the same issues a year later.
I laughed, because I've had not only that experience, but the experience of having some wonderful, revelatory insight -- one of those Wow! moments -- only to find, soon after, the exact same insight written in a journal from years earlier. Written down with excitement, and apparently immediately forgotten.
My path is less a spiral than a tangle:
A very nice slinky gave its life for this lesson. Let us pause to mourn and honor said slinky. OK, that's enough.
On this path, there is no nice, smooth curving around and around, to the deeper, magic center. It's more like going in circles and retracing my own route; sometimes stepping directly from one level to another; sometimes stepping way back to a place I passed long ago. Sometimes it seems I step into another dimension altogether; a multi-dimensional tangle.
That's my life.
Yours?
Last week one of the suggested tasks was to:
Choose an artist totem. It might be a doll, a stuffed animal, a carved figurine, or a wind-up toy. The point is to choose something you immediately feel a protective fondness toward. Give your totem a place of honor and then honor it by not beating up on your artist child.
Let me get clinical here for a moment. I have long understood that
adults who were sexually abused as children feel an immense sense of
shame; are intolerant of vulnerability, which means just that:
vulnerable to abuse; and so have difficulty accepting the
child-in-themselves who was so abused. I know this. I've worked with
many clients on these issues, and worked on my own. But this
intertwining of creativity and childhood is a new tangle for me - or a
new level of tangle, which I plan to talk about in another post.
For the moment, let me just say that these issues interfere with my
enjoyment of some of these tasks. I chose, reasonably, the above doll
for my artist totem. This was made for me by a lost friend (where are
you, Tracey Perry?) as a representative of my child self. The doll has
been on a shelf for many years; I take her out for this, and put her on
the chair my mother gave me, with the sock monkey from my childhood. Or
one I bought to replace that one; I no longer remember which.
So now all I have to do is be kind. To myself.
Not a small order.
Continue reading "The Artist's Way ~ Week 9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion" »
My 30 Day Photo Challenge Flickr Set
I chose this photo for today, because I wanted to quote Posie Gets Cozy, and I thought she might like this little domestic image. I found this blog via David Kline, at The Well. This is just a brief exerpt from a long, amazing post:
. . . I don't remember many, many things about the hospital, but I remember that moment, when we laughed. I had a vision about the world when I was there. It came to me one night as if a little door opened and I looked through and eavesdropped on the truth. I saw that the world was constantly falling apart, it was always in a state of little things always falling apart, and then there were these brigades of individual human angels, with kind eyes, apples and stitches, repairing, fixing, mending, patting, bandaging the wounds of the world, and putting it back together, piece by tiny piece. I hadn't known that repair was done on a gestural level, a cellular one . . .
. . . I absolutely do not believe that everything happens for a reason; I never did, and I still don't. I believe that we fashion sense out of the things that happen, and create a kind of meaning in the result. And at the end of the day, you just gotta plow on through! There is no time to waste or worry . . .
Good writing, and a fun blog. And things to buy -- what else could one ask for?
Oh! And she used to live in Montana!
My 30 Day Photo Challenge Flickr Set. I had a hard time choosing today, which no doubt means I should have taken more photos, until I had one that was unquestionably good. But it's late; I'm tired; blue leaf will have to do. And it's only day eight!
Via Lifehacker, I've found a great new blog (as if I could keep up with those I've already found): Creating Passionate Users. It was a post there -- How to be an expert -- that gave me just that little push I needed to jump into the 30 Day Photo Challenge:
... the research says that if we were willing to put in more hours, and to use those hours to practice the things that aren't so fun, we could become good. Great. Potentially brilliant. We need, as Restak refers to it, "a rage to master." ...
... there is some thought that to be, literally, THE best in the world at chess, or the violin, or math, or programming, or golf, etc. you might indeed need that genetic special something. But... that's to be THE best. The research does suggest that whatever that special sauce is, it accounts for only that last little 1% that pushes someone into the world champion status. The rest of us--even without the special sauce--could still become world (or at least national) class experts, if we do the time, and do it the right way ...
Not, mind you, that I plan on becoming an expert, professional photographer; I don't. That kind of energy I save for poems. But I suspect that working creatively in one medium enhances work in another, and I would be pleased to see both my photographs and my poems improve.
From SyncSpeed, via Performancing.com:
Everyone wants to join the 30 Days of Photos Challenge. You can too. The purpose of this challenge is to just get out there shooting. So many of us just plain don’t take the time to take photos. What better way to jump-start our hobby than trying to one-up our fellow photographers by posting a photo every day. Now, the hard part isn’t taking a photo each day. It’s trying to get a photo worth showing every day. I, for one, am interested in how long each person can keep up with worthy photos. This exercise is really going to stretch our imaginations and creative ability . . .
Hmm. As if I'm not already stretching my energy further than it wants to go. But -- I like this challenge. It's one I'm willing to accept at my own skill level, which is clearly far below the other participants. I'm going to tell you in another post why I think that's OK.
A slight fudge -- pretending this photo was taken on the first of March instead of February 28th -- and I can begin with photos already taken:
Pencil shavings
March 2:
Toothpick holder
March 3: The interesting squirrel
March 4:
Park bench
March 5:
Leftovers ~ found in the squirrel feeder
Now I shall have to pay even more attention to what I see. A good practice at all times.
Click the photos to go to larger ones at Flickr. There is also a Flickr group for this challenge. Here is my 30 Day Photo Challenge Flickr Set.
This one made Flickr's interestingness.
I suspected as much when it began to get an unusual number of comments. I don't think it even ranks with the best of my squirrel photos, but perhaps competition was slow that day.
Whew! First, from 3 Quarks, there was this, and then this, and then I asked (only half-joking) if they were joking, and Abbas Raza promised a plain-language explanation -- and kept his promise. So now there is this, from Cosmic Variance. I have read it, and the comment thread, and my head is full (I feel all this pressing against the inside of my skull) but I think I -- maybe -- almost -- understand.
I used to imagine a course I would love to take: Physics for Poets. I don't mean, exactly, a dumbed-down physics -- though I realize this would be somewhat unavoidable -- but physics explained in comprehensible language. I think Sean Carrol could teach that course. So could Erin.
There's an idea -- in your spare time, you two could get together and teach the rest of us physics! A pleasant online diversion. I suppose we should have a philosopher in there, too. Any volunteers?
I have tried over and over to read Stephen Hawking's first book, A Brief History of Time, pencils and highlighters to hand, but I've never made much progress; and each time I try, I have to begin again at the beginning. Everything I learned from previous readings seems to fall out of my brain.
And you can see why this is so difficult for me. I passed, but I shouldn't have. Seven out of ten? Certainly not an A+.
| You Passed 8th Grade Math |
 |
This humiliating experience via Burningbird. So much for joining Mensa.
Now I feel compelled to disclose that I did quite well on my GRE's. OK, not so well on the math part, but very well on the verbal. And the year I took it they were trying out a logic section (did they keep that, I wonder?) and I aced that. I not only aced it, I loved it.
So I really should be able to get this. No?
Blue Dog asks: What do you write in? And many, many reply, with photos and thoughts on journaling and writing that are worth sharing outside the Blogging the Artist's Way list, I think. So I have many links below the cut, and will add more as I find them. This gives me an excuse for another cute dog photo, the doglets tempting me from my writing in the morning:
Here is this poet's notebook, from a post last year on just that: Poets' Notebooks. Sitting on the cover is the stick I was trying to draw:
You can see the poem that came out of these jottings here. My notebooks are Circa notebooks, from Levenger. I love this system -- I have a punch so I can add computer-printed pages (or anything else) to the current notebook; and file folders specifically designed for Circa pages for all my old notebooks. Levenger's paper is great -- wonderful to the pen, and heavy enough that even wide fountain pens don't show through on the other side. It comes in graph and lined paper, as well as the plain you see here. When funds are tight, regular paper works just fine.
I prefer them because they fold completely open to provide their own hard backing, like a spiral notebook, but can look very spiffy and professional with the leather covers or folios (which are optional, and spendy.) The covers have pen loops and pockets. There are tons of accessories to tailor it to your needs and design preferences.
These notebooks come in different sizes; I have a smaller one I can carry with me when [if] I go out, and the pages can then be moved to the larger, main notebook. Pages go in and out of this system with ease. I do suspect these are better suited to writers than to artists.
Though the materials are nice, my notebooks are not 'beautiful' -- they are not artist's notebooks. They are 'compost' -- seeds and nurturance for future work. The handwriting is variable, from neat to illegible. Thoughts range, without clear boundaries, from dreams to description to fiction to long internal monologues that are some mixture of it all. The one consistent thing that I do is try to write my dreams in green ink, so that they are easily found.
The pen you see with the dogs is a Sensa fountain pen -- these are lovely for sore hands, especially the gel pens. Beautiful balance, not heavy -- they float across the page. Of course, I discovered all these treasures when I was working, and had an income -- but I'm well-supplied. Also, I do believe that the things one uses every day should bring pleasure. Abundance, remember?
I want to mention that one thing about doing the Artist's way for which I am grateful, is that it has brought me back to my notebook. Since I started blogging, two years ago, my time with paper and pen has diminished, and I am glad to have it back again. There is a kind of physicality that is very different with the pen than with the keyboard.
One more thing, before I move on to the words and photos of others. In case some of you are nearly house-bound, as I have been; or even just like to carry your writing and reading supplies from room to room -- this idea may be of use -- my basket:
Click the photos to go to Flickr and see larger ones. These photos have notes, too.
Now, on to links, links, links (and one more cute dog photo):
Click the images to see larger ones at Flickr.
One of the pleasures of my life is watching people's ordinary morning faces turn into grins as they see these funny little dogs approach them on the path.
SB - sometimes after reading one of your "snapshot" poems, I feel a sudden, inexplicable desire for a cigarette...
Hmm. Enough for one day?
Linda, as always, was great. She speaks from a deep place. The title of her talk was A Spiritual History of the Living World. I took almost no notes, but Niki did, and perhaps she will post from them at some point; if she does, I will link to it. Also, public access television recorded it, so I will post when it airs.
Linda spoke of language, and how it influences the way we see, and live in, the world. She reminds us that the whole land has stories, and they are not all told in English.
She read some poems, some I know, and some new ones -- a new book of poetry, and a new novel, will be out soon.
She said: We are all a part of this endlessly creative universe.
She spoke of spiritual ecology. She says that poetry is helping us get there -- to a new way of being in and with the world.
This reminded me that the work I do -- the work I try to do -- is important.
And yes, I have noticed the synchronicity with what we are doing in this Artist's Way group.
The questions after her hour plus presentation went on for another hour -- lots of earnest, mostly young people. Just an aside: many of those young people stepped right out of the late 60's/ early 70's -- witness the photo below. We saw tie-dye t-shirts and macrame necklaces. If not for the high-tech room and the plastic water bottles, we could have been back in our own college years.
Later, at dinner, as I tried to evade questions about what I do, Linda said: She's a poet. She's a really good poet.
Continue reading "The Artist's Way ~ Linda Hogan & Other Poets" »
last night's brilliant moon
today's bright skycrows in the white branches
of the cottonwoodeverywhere
winter
As a member of Brainstorms, I participated in this year's Daypix, an annual event in which interested photographers are asked to record their day photographically, starting early the day before New Year Day, and ending late the day after.
The idea is to share a capsule look at the photographer's life for these few days. It proved to be fun, inspiring, and a very nice way to get to know people one meets online. The response to my days was so good that I decided to post it on Flickr.
Actually, I didn't decide to post them to Flickr, I decided to post them to a TypePad photo album, under the mistaken impression that TypePad had figured out how to direct different photo albums to different weblogs. Which they have not, apparently, done.
So Flickr it is. If you click the map, it will take you to my set: Daypix 2006. If you click the map photo in that box you can navigate the set by clicking the next photo in the set, complete with titles. Or you can watch it as a slideshow, with no narrative/ titles.
The narrative/title problem is why I would have preferred a photo album this time.
Or, you can skip it; these are not my best photos, but they are a snapshot of three- days- in- the- life . . .
In Crossing to Avalon [the book I was reading when I discovered the Blogging the Artist's Way group] in the chapter called The Wasteland: Depression and Despair, Jean Shinoda Bolen tells the story of one of her patients:
His "nightmare" was actually a waking experience that probably lasted only a matter of seconds. It had occurred . . . at 2:00 P.M. on December 21. (Though he was unaware of it, December 21 is the winter solstice, the darkest time of the year; there could not have been a more symbolic date.) He was in a crosswalk near Union Square in San Francisco, in the midst of Christmas shoppers and holiday decorations, when suddenly he felt as if a motion picture had stopped and the scene had frozen. First motion and sound dropped away, and everyone and everything was suspended in a silent vacuum; then, as he watched in horror, all color drained out -- it was like "watching the world suddenly bleed to death" -- until everything was lifeless, immobile, and in shades of gray.
A moment later, everything was as it had been before . . .
He felt like he had gotten a glimpse of the ultimate reality, and it was empty, lifeless, meaningless. "This was what life really was like, what lay beyond the maya, or the illusion of life," he thought . . .
Most depressions that take such a toll in spirit last for many, many months, while his was over in a matter of seconds, minutes at the most. I told him that it was the mystical opposite of illumination. It was an experience of "endarkenment" as profound in its capacity to affect him as an experience of enlightenment and subsequent recollection might be.
I have had this experience. This exact experience.
Except it was the opposite.
It is nearly as vivid -- and indescribable -- to me today as it was when it occurred about thirty-five years ago. I was in my early twenties. It was summer -- we could even intuit that it was summer solstice.
I was walking, as I did daily, the two miles or so between work and home, in Billings, Montana. I don't recall paying any more attention than usual to the cement schoolyard on my left, or the paved street on my right, or the sidewalk under my feet -- but I noticed a weed pushing through the sidewalk crack, and then, suddenly, I was suspended in a silent vacuum, watching the green world explode around me.
Stems pushed up from the ground, cracking pavement, becoming vines and trees. It was as though I was in a timeless bubble, watching centuries unfold before me. Plants climbed buildings; structures cracked and eroded and shattered under the weight of vines, until any indication of human habitation was gone. It was all jungle, wild and green and very, very alive.
A moment later, everything was as it had been before . . .
I was standing on the sidewalk, on an ordinary street, on an ordinary day. But I knew that what had happened to me, what I had felt, was not ordinary, and I tried to hold it all the way home -- knowing that it would slip away, that feeling that has no language. And it did.
But the memory of it did not. The certainty of it -- that this was not crazy, this was not an hallucination -- this was something else, something real, even if outside of everyday experience -- that certainty stayed with me, too. Has stayed with me, all these silent years.
Bolen says:
His particular spiritual path was taking him through the desert or wasteland; he was on the via negativa, the path where soul encounters negation and pain . . . why some travel the via positiva while others must travel the via negativa is one of those unknowables.
I suspect that those who travel any spiritual path, travel both.
The Internet fosters social contact
A Pew report issued Wednesday, supports the idea the use of the Internet expands social contact:
The Pew Internet and American Life Project also finds that U.S. Internet users are more apt to get help on health care, financial and other decisions because they have a larger set of people to which to turn.
Further rebuking early studies suggesting that the Internet promotes isolation, Pew found that it “was actually helping people maintain their communities,” said Barry Wellman, a University of Toronto sociology professor and co-author of the Pew report.
The study found that e-mail is supplementing, not replacing, other means of contact. For example, people who e-mail most of their closest friends and relatives at least once a week are about 25 percent more likely to have weekly landline phone contact as well. The increase is even greater for cell phones.
“There’s a certain seamlessness of how people maintain their social networks,” said John Horrigan, Pew’s associate director. “They shift between face-to-face, phone and Internet quite easily.”
Meanwhile, Internet users tend to have a larger network of close and significant contacts — a median of 37 compared with 30 for nonusers — and they are more likely to receive help from someone within that social network.
It does worry me just a little that even the nonusers network of close and significant contacts is quite a bit larger than my own. Introversion has its downsides.
We don't have to remember everything
According to an Editor's Summary at Nature:
A study of brain activity in subjects performing a task in which they were asked to 'hold in mind' some of the objects and to ignore other objects has revealed significant variation between individuals in their ability to keep the irrelevant items out of awareness. This shows that our awareness is not determined only by what we can keep 'in mind' but also by how good we are at keeping irrelevant things 'out of mind'. This also implies that an individual's effective memory capacity may not simply reflect storage space, as it does with a hard disk. It may also reflect how efficiently irrelevant information is excluded from using up vital storage capacity.
Well, that explains it.
Via wake up!
And most importantly:
Poetry is good for your health
That, at least, is the premise of studies currently under way for the Arts Council and the Department of Health. One study, published a couple of years ago in the journal Psychological Reports, suggested that writing poetry boosted levels of secretory immunoglobin A. Another, undertaken by a consultant at Bristol Royal Infirmary, concluded that poetry enabled seven per cent of mental health patients to be weaned off their anti-depressants. Poetry, it seems, is not the new rock'n'roll, but the new Prozac. [...]
OK, so the rest of the article isn't quite so promising. Still, I'm practicing belief in the unlikely, remember?
Via Dumbfoundry
before you came back
i didn't miss you
UPDATE 24 January: We seem to have begun a new poem dance. I'm bringing up the ones in comments; if you'd like to contribute (please do!) just add yours in comments and I'll bring it up, too.
Until I saw and heard,
I didn't know I understood.Posted by: endment
You're gone again
and I'm unsure,waitingPosted by: Cathy
you're back
you're here
-are you?Posted by: patrick
how did I live
before you were born?Posted by: Erin
I'm always facing
the wrong way with you
Posted by: Karla
Photo by Alan Parker ~ click for larger image
| Main Entry: | lift |
| Part of Speech: | noun 2 |
| Definition: | help |
| Synonyms: | aid, assist, assistance, boost, comfort, encouragement, hand, leg, leg up, pick-me-up, reassurance, relief, secours, succor, support |
| Source: | Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.1.1) Copyright © 2006 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved. |
| Main Entry: | lift |
| Part of Speech: | verb 1 |
| Definition: | move up |
| Synonyms: | arise, ascend, aspire, bear aloft, boost, bring up, build up, buoy up, climb, come up, disappear, disperse, dissipate, draw up, elevate, erect, goose, heft, hike, hike up, hoist, jack up, jump up, mount, move up, pick up, put up, raise, raise high, rear, rise, soar, take up, up, upheave, uphold, uplift, upraise, uprear, vanish |
| Antonyms: | push down |
| Source: | Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.1.1) Copyright © 2006 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved. |
I've been thinking about this, having been visited lately by uplifting friends, and being more structured than usual in my introversion due to the Artist's Way exercises.
She lived a few short weeks
on this weedy river bank.
She lived her life in burrows,
in twisting grassy tunnels. Her
life was small and narrow,
edged with seeds and pebbles.Some claw, cat or hawk, pierced
her heart and dropped her here,
a tattered, broken bit of fur.
This tiny spot of red to mark
her brief and brilliant life beside
this silver winter river.
Shelley recently pointed to 3 Quarks Daily, which aims to:
. . . present interesting items from around the web on a daily basis, in the areas of science, design, literature, current affairs, art, and anything else we deem inherently fascinating. We want to provide you with a one-stop intellectual surfing experience by culling good stuff from all over and putting it in one place.
I've let my pens dry out again. It's been so long since I just wrote; oddly, the keyboard suits me better now. Another change.
Everywhere, people are making resolutions, and at How to Save the World, Dave is doing the imagination exercise. This exercise -- imagine yourself in the future, one year, or five years -- has been useful for me in the past; but now I resist. It's disappointment that I resist, I think -- even though I've not been disappointed when I've done this in years (many years) past.
Still, I managed a list that can be imagined without reference to fatigue, or illness -- which does not matter, really; which need not intrude on small pleasures. All that matters is that I value my own creativity enough -- for it to be -- enough.
I recently joined Brainstorms, an online community, which did a New Year exercise called Daypix, in which we recorded our days photographically from Saturday through Monday. People from all around the world participated; folks in Australia complaining of heat, and those in California dealing with floods.
It was good and timely exercise for me, as I've been lax with the camera lately. I enjoyed it very much. Several folks commented on how nice it is to get to know someone this way; I'm thinking of putting together an album from those days to post here.
And, speaking of resolutions, I realize that all of my sites need attention.
It's on my list.
May we all do well with our lists this year.
From all of us to all of you
The card, a gift to me from friends, says:
Given human beings' love of truth, justice, peace, and freedom, creating a better, more compassionate world is a genuine possibility.
His Holiness The XIV Dalai Lama
Shelley and qB have both posted Flickr's picks for their top photos, according to the mysterious interestingness formula. Here are mine:
Yes, I know I've posted this before; I'm posting it again because it's today's featured photo at New West Network! It's also one of my favorites.
Have some time on your hands? I recommend the Carnival of the Feminists V, at scribblingwoman ~ this should keep you well occupied for quite awhile.
Then, for an uplifting holiday story, go to Body and Soul. I had planned to post a note about donating today, but this is -- unsurprisingly -- no longer necessary. But you might want to contribute anyway, or donate for goodies, or just tell her that you value her work.
Finally, go visit Echidne. Just because a little balance is always good at this time of year.
Photo by Abigail Robinson ~ click for larger image
This is the view from Abigail's bedroom in England, complete with seagull family. I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately; illness makes one reevaluate, and appreciate, friendships in a new way. Some friendships that would stand strong against a terminal illness, don't survive the stresses of a chronic illness. A different kind of patience is required.
And for the person who is ill, friends are seen in a new light. When energy is severely limited, one cannot afford relationships that exhaust and do not renew -- even if these relationships were enjoyable when energy was cheap. One's own motives come to the fore, as well. To the extent that a friendship was based on my own need to be useful, helpful, important -- it was less likely to survive my fatigue, which cannot maintain such demands.
This friendship with Abigail feeds me, as do some others, literally and figuratively; emotionally and spiritually. I have learned to pay attention: do I feel better about myself when I spend time with this person? If I'm tired after a visit (which I often am) do I regret it, or look forward to the next one. When I think back on an interaction, do I laugh? Or do I startle awake from painful dreams? Can I freely say "I'm tired now; go home."?
When you are well, you can afford difficult friendships. When you are well, the challenges they pose may even be rewarding. Not that any friendship is without difficulty, but some are more consistently so. Today I am grateful for those who have stayed with me, or found me and loved me, even in illness: Abigail. Niki. Kris. Cindy.
And others. And those who read this blog, and comment even knowing that I may not be present enough to respond.
Thank you all, for these views from my bedroom window.
Photo by [cousin] Sue Pinkerton
My garden has been filled with drunken waxwings. After two window collisions (at slow speed) I pulled the lace curtains -- and then one banged right into the shingled wall. They are gorging on fermented berries from the mountain ash.
I'm gorging a bit myself, on the company of a long-absent friend, Abigail, who is here from England for just a few weeks. She has brought many amazing photos which I will be sharing with you soon. This is a friendship with several rare qualities. We can be apart for a long time, and pick up again instantly. And in her company I am smarter and funnier and altogether wiser than usual.
May we all be blessed a few of these friendships in our lives, as I have been.
I meet this winter without celebration,
as the man who was dying, but now lives,
greets the ants that pass through his kitchen
in narrow, undisturbed rows.When the child with her crown of candles
comes to my door in her white dress, singing,
I watch the delicate notes disperse in pale
cold light, like snow.
Against the disease of writing one must take special precautions, for it is a dangerous and a contagious disease. ~ Peter Abelard, in a letter to Heloise
Squirrels Have Complex Language
Squirrels can be very vocal animals, as backyard and park observers know, and now scientists have translated some of their squirrel-speak.
The findings, published recently in the journal Animal Behavior, present some of the most detailed information to date on squirrel vocalizations, which the researchers now believe constitute a complex language that is unique to the animals.
The team of zoologists focused their analysis on alarm calls of the Richardson's ground squirrel, Spermophilus richardsonii, which is the most common ground squirrel in Canada. . .
These ground squirrels look more like prairie dogs to me -- but I've no doubt these findings will be validated for my backyard friends as well.
the people are blank papyrus
upon which god writes her poems
the people are poems of grace
the poems are a blaze in the snowthe snow grows higher & higher
all the windows are covered
there are winding paths to the doors
but they are hidden under the snowthe people are walking poems
their limbs are covered in language
these bodies are eloquent prayers
burning paths through the snowthis woman, this man, they are poetry
this child is god's own song
these poems are grace made flesh
written in verse in the snow
From: |
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Subject: |
Feature Notification |
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Hi, |
No turkey, no horn of plenty -- all you get is this grateful little squirrel. It would be grateful, if squirrels were able to feel gratitude. I suspect it's something more like delight, or relief, or full-belly pleasure.
Here we are again, at this most American of holidays; a combination of optimism, gratitude, abundance, and hospitality. This harvest celebration, though, like most of our holidays, has changed over the years -- even in my lifetime. I remember the large extended family celebrations of my childhood, complete with the children's table. We all lived close together, and large family gatherings were not restricted to holidays -- though the good china was.
One year in college, my household had a gathering for those who weren't 'going home'. It was potluck, and it went all day. There was glorious food, great music, and a revolving crowd of good company. Dishes and flatware were washed in shifts. People laughed and danced and ate and indulged in the kind of intense, serious conversation college incites.
Another year, when I worked at a program for mentally ill adults, the staff decided to prepare and serve Thanksgiving dinner to our clients. This was entirely volunteer, and I think nearly all of us participated. It was great. A different kind of working together; a different way of being with our clients.
Both of those were closer to the original than the usual family Thanksgivings of today, with all the complex, comedic, and painful undercurrents of contemporary family life; or, for some, the power of the day to throw one's solitude into sharp relief.
The first Thanksgiving was not about family, it was about community -- and the larger community at that. Everyone would have contributed; everyone would have shared.
"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, Many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."
It seems to me also an American impulse to look away from want, and toward prosperity -- even if want is close, and prosperity far. Sadly, this evolves, in our time, into the shopping impulse, wherein we seem to be always in want, and always in pursuit of prosperity -- even if prosperity is close, and want, distant.
This year I am told that shopping has slipped into this day, itself; with some stores open all day, and many opening in the evening. I see on television people interviewed waiting in line at WalMart on Thanksgiving morning, seeking something to feel thankful for.
I know that I feel better, calmer, more serene, when I can maintain a state of gratitude; when I can welcome the kingfisher on the river in the morning with thanks for its beauty, its rippling voice. Knowing this is not always sufficient to take me there, however. Often, I need reminders.
At High Context Consulting, I am told that Citizen of the Month has suggested that bloggers celebrate Thanksgiving by thanking our first commenter. I was surprised to discover that my first commenter was onionboy, who told me:
A lovely layout.
I am busy getting some submissions off today but I have bookmarked your site and will be back to spend some time here as I think it will be worthwhile.
thrive!,
Op.s.
I should add that I rather like "sonnet in search of a title" as the title :)
This comment, from someone I did not know; from someone whose website pleased me very much when I went to visit -- it was such a gift for a new and shaky blogger. So, O, may you, too, thrive; and may your generosity be repaid many times. I thank you.
It's an odd and foggy day, both inside and out. I've been sleeping restlessly, so doubled my nighttime meds last night, and woke at 1:00 this afternoon. In retrospect, not a good idea. Sometimes my dogs are too patient.
We have been held in this grey fist for two days now. Local airports are closed, and our friendly newsfolk warn of dangerous roads. Fog is so . . . evocative. Mysterious.
Many years ago I worked nights, and walked across the bridge both late and early. This time of year was my favorite; on nights like this one, the bridge seemed to float in nothingness. At the center, it was like being alone in a thick but lovely universe. Sound and light would bend in unexpected ways. Sometimes the ducks seemed to be muttering right next to my ear; sometimes the river seemed to vanish entirely.
So it's an evening to curl up with a good website. Tonight I recommend Issue 3 of the Carnival of Feminists at Sour Duck.
Here are my dogs, with overdue haircuts. These dogs are my company, my grounding; fur and affection; sensuality and play. Every day, at least twice, they require me to leave my house and enter the living world. We walk together along the river, each noticing what is of interest to us -- smells, sounds, other living things. I watch the ducks on the water, while Henry explores the base of the cottonwood and Lucy follows the trail of something long past.
Especially at difficult times, times that I feel helpless against the violence and injustice and politics of the human world, these creatures remind me to live in the moment that is given, not the moment that is desired. It is a different kind of relationship -- a different kindness -- than human to human. A certain attention and presence that might be useful in all encounters -- if I could be as present to other people as my dogs are to me, how much better might I understand my closer cousins?
The full moon rolls in the southern sky;
it is time to practice your craft.You will wander through ruins, your hair
unkempt, your face a long sea voyage.Cut down to the ground the bleeding
heart; let roses go to hips.October will kindle the vines.
Colchicum will open its lavender mouth.
There she is, eating breakfast, minding her own business.
An interloper!
There is more to this story . . .
Today's featured image at New West
Go welcome Small Bow!
God Interview Number Fifteen - an inner world tour
Gleaning - one perfect moment
"Does the self really exist?" - Whiskey River explores this in a series of posts
Somehow, during my partial absence from the web, I missed the inauguration of the Carnival of Feminists. Here is Carnival One; here is Carnival Two. Here is the Call for Nominations for Carnival Three. Discovered via scribblingwoman, who will host on December 21st.
New Puritanism - umm, no.
A walk to the park - a really fabulous photograph
How to fix it when polls show that the people think you don't tell the truth? Why, duck and cover with a few more easily controverted, um, inoperative statements.
rock 'n' roller - another favorite photo
Anne's Holiday gift ideas -- it's never too early to start dreaming . . .
A snow-bright morning. Crows, ducks, kingfishers. Glowing spots on the mountains where the sun shines through brilliant clouds. All this on a day that our leaders discuss whether or not we, Americans, will give ourselves permission to torture. Whether we will step even further from the international community.
These ducks passed over the guns of hunters. Now they settle together on this river in the center of the city. They will be fed through the winter by the river and human children bringing bread and popcorn. The crows circle and argue for the leftovers. Bird feeders, put away from bears in the summer, reappear for all the backyard birds.
As our president flies back from a South American summit, his plane crosses the paths of migrating flocks going south. Our soldiers come home in pieces. They leave behind them enemies and friends; the guilty and the innocent dead.
Around the world, birds are slaughtered and tested for plague. Birds acknowledge no boundaries, not those of nations or geography. Plague ignores even the boundaries of species. All are at risk -- our wild birds, our domesticated pets, and our cruel and untamed selves.
Friday Cat Blogging will occur later today, or possibly it will be Saturday Cat Blogging; today you get cows. And on Sunday, here at Watermark, will be The Halloween Edition of The Carnival of the Cats! Send in your entry via the Carnival Submission Form (my preference) or email to submissions (at) carnivalofthecats.com.
Now from cousin Sue (PeeWee's person) we have cows, horses, and cousins (click images for larger view):
I love these photos; they say home.
For more critters to look at during news breaks this weekend, try:
Friday Ark
I and the Bird
Carnival of the Dogs
Carnival of the Cats
Hmm, do you think I'm feeding them enough?
This exotic creature was crossing the path the other day -- does anyone know what it is? Yes, I realize it's some kind of -- or something like -- a caterpillar. Maybe. This photograph does not do it justice; those little circles are lined with an almost neon blue.
I've also had a number of far less beautiful creepy-crawlies cross my path lately, and because of them find it necessary to implement comment and trackback moderation on all of my sites. This means that, when you leave a comment or trackback to one of my posts, it will not appear on the site until I have personally approved it.
This feature, and Authentication, have just been added to TypePad's spam fighting arsenal. I had hoped to not use them, but am finding other efforts increasingly useless, and deleting spam after spam is tedious.
So I hope that you, gentle readers, will not find this a discouragement. I love receiving real comments; it's an important reinforcement for me.
[& I see that TypePad's spellcheck is not working . . . ]
I was later than usual getting to the feeder today. This is what awaited me.
Not a particularly special photograph, you think? I wouldn't have thought so myself, until it became part of a Journey:
lilitu93
says:
Boing!
Journey: Birdie Bums
map
Click those arrows, and you will travel a breadcrumb trail of birdbum photos.
What? You have something better to do on a Thursday?
So here's the deal -- I really do have Blogger's Block. I've been tired for a long time. A really long time, almost a decade now. There are breaks, though; days, or weeks, when the fatigue recedes and I feel almost well. I haven't had one of those breaks -- not one lasting more than a day or so -- for over a year, and it's wearing me out. It's hard to feel creative, it's hard to feel optimistic.
Then I go through periods, as I have recently, of reading the news; watching the news; thinking and feeling about the news. I get heavier and heavier. My world gets darker -- even the dozens of baby sparrows in the garden do not lighten it. All those wings, and no lift.
So, I am grouchy and grumpy and edgy. I promised a friend to make an appointment to see my doctor, which I will do tomorrow. But that won't change the news, now, will it? I'm going to be like that squirrel for awhile -- my eyes are closed; I can't see you and you can't see me.
There are always moments when one feels empty and estranged. Such moments are most desirable, for it means the soul has cast its moorings and is sailing for distant places. This is detachment-- when the old is over and the new has not yet come. If you are afraid the state may be distressing, but there is really nothing to be afraid of. Remember the instruction: What ever you come across--go beyond.
Quote discovered, gratefully, at Strangechord.
I spent some of this pleasantly warm day taking pictures in the parking lot.
UPDATE:
Here is the Bread Van photoset; here is the Ford Pickup photoset.
It's been nearly a month now since my iBook arrived, and I finally begin to feel that it's comfortable. When my English friend Abigail first moved here, she complained that nothing worked quite right; even the light switches were "backwards." On the Mac, the close window button is at the upper left; on the PC, it's at the upper right. Now I understand what she meant.
I have a long list of things I keep intending to do, or talk about, or both. Things changed when I was mostly off-line. One of my favorite blogs, Affliction, was suddenly in a different language, even a different alphabet. Now it seems to have been hijacked by advertisers. Anne has suspended fishbucket and has started something new. Artichoke Heart is still absent and should probably be removed from my sidebar.
When my time online was restricted, I began to pay closer attention to what I actually wanted to read every day, and several of them are not on my sidebar. Soon I will be adding How To Save The World; Echidne of the Snakes; Body and Soul; NewWest; feministe; Burning Bird; In a Dark Time; neon epiphany; and Whimsy Speaks.
I also see that My Comments Elsewhere keeps slipping down the sidebar. I've no idea why that happens, but will put my mind to it -- soon. That is here mostly for me, anyway, to jog my uneven memory so that I go back to conversations I have joined. Of course, I have to remember to bookmark them to begin with, another unreliability. And an odd consequence of the recent TypePad changes seems to be that the shell on my title bar is suddenly sliced off.
There is a conversation happening about altars that I want to participate in. I am participating in a study on sacred moments that I want to talk about.
I think I am, slowly, getting my rhythm back. Thank you all for the welcome!
Oh, yes -- I took the above photograph this morning, under the Madison Street Bridge.
Always, there are losses. Three people in particular are on my mind today:
Joseph Serr
Jesse Lynn
Wendy Ewell
Many are grateful for the richness you brought into this world, and we thank you. That wealth survives you.
This world of dew
is only a world of dew
And yet...
--Issa
I woke this morning to a note from Erin, that her beloved sister Wendy died this weekend while vacationing in Mexico. Wendy was thirty years old.
Erin has written about this here.
Life is seeming particularly cruel these past weeks; my small garden is not large enough to contain it, and far too small to balance it.
Wow, if this standard were applied to therapists, we would all be out of work.
Horses were involved, no
question. And leopards,
yes. Foxgloves dropped
their blossoms and rosesopened their hearts in blue
air. Geysers pushed upfrom stone while Strawberry
Moon rounded, and blushed.How the dogs bayed! Each
lily curved its creamy petals.The forest sharpened its teeth
with fire. Oh, the hiss of serpents,the sad moan of the sea. She
bloomed from the seed ofthe planet, a slow and patient
tendril, sapling of her own desire.
Wikipedia: July 2005 London bombings
DoWire: London Responds
Flickr: London Bomb Blasts
Flickr: London Explosions
I went to a friend's house for dinner. She gave me some Martinelli's (sparkling apple juice) and we went out to look at the garden. I loved this rose, though she thought it was past its beauty; I asked for a bowl and put it on the table next to a pile of place mats.
Then I noticed the wonderful colors -- and luckily took more than one photo. The inclusion of the fruit was accidental -- and added so much to my planned composition.
Also, another message from TypePad:
MAINTENANCE UPDATE: TypePad is currently experiencing degraded application performance. We are aware of the issue and are working hard to resolve it.
Due to the new design enhancements introduced to TypePad, some published weblogs may currently be experiencing issues with layout and design.
I must ask for your patience. There has been a death in my family; not a surprising one, but I am surprised by my need to just sit with it for awhile.
There will be no Friday Cat Blogging tomorrow. Perhaps on Saturday.
The Carnival of the Cats will, however, be here on Sunday -- so send those entries in to submissions (at) carnivalofthecats.com or (my preference) use The Carnival Submission Form. This is the first I've hosted since April, so let's make it a good one.
It was a good mail day -- Flickr Schwag and poetry.
Rain. Rain on the park lawn. Rain on the bicycles lined up by the shed. Rain on the tennis court. Rain on the tennis players; rain on their black skin, on their white clothes, on the green ground. Rain on the mountains. Rain on the river. Rain on the voices of people sheltering on front porches.
Rain on the crows and on the happy waggy dogs. Rain on the noisy children splashing their short legs toward the bicycles by the shed. Rain on the black helicopter chopping through the mist. Rain on the Tom Selleck look-alike who eyes me suspiciously, as I photograph the black helicopter, in the rain.
An interesting weekend -- alternately exciting (Wow! Look at that!) and frustrating. Learning what can be done, and what can't. Yesterday I had problems getting the Flickr Uploader to work, but today it seems fine. I am loving loving loving being able to move my laptop easily between the living room and sun room. The battery life is amazing compared to the HP.
iPhoto, unlike Picasa (which is not available for the Mac) does not automatically add photos edited and saved with a new name in Photoshop Elements. This was annoying until I realized I probably don't need iPhoto at all -- Elements for the Mac seems to do everything I want.
Woke stiff-necked this morning, too much time looking at the screen. So I'm rationing myself today. It is so fun -- stimulating -- to be zipping around the Web again. Lots to read and think about. Also, I have a new poem, but I can't post it here yet; I entered it in a contest.
This tulip photo is one of my favorites from last month -- lots more to come.
Happy Monday!
[Did Pingomatic go down while I was away?]
Argh. Headache.
Step away from the iBook . . . !
But first, a few photos that have been languishing:
See you tomorrow!
Just a quick note, to whine and say -- my laptop is down. Might be the power cord, which the computer store I went to tells me will cost $130, and can't be returned even if it turns out not to be needed. If not the power cord, something worse. And more expensive.
My desktop works, but is much slower and significantly more tiring to use. Just getting this photo onto it, edited, and uploaded to Flickr took nearly an hour. And now to prepare the post.
So -- I may be scarce for awhile.
On Thursday, I uploaded the photo on the left to Flickr, and a commenter suggested that it would translate well to black and white:
I've never played with black & white, so it's a whole new exploration for me. I've started an experimental set, including B&W versions of yesterday's photos:
Not well. Back soon.
Clicking takes you to the Flickr photo page
I've been having fun with my camera lately, and getting more skilled with it, I think. Spring is a great time to be learning -- so much to look at!
Though I haven't been writing much, I have been thinking about Watermark, and about blogging -- partly due to the recent complaint about loading time, and partly in response to Chandrasutra's questions. This morning, I received an encouraging message:
Congratulations! Watermark has been nominated as a Blogs By Women Favorite Arts & Entertainment Blog!
Voting lasts for one week; you can vote for Watermark here -- or, of course, for one of the other nominees:
Sunday 24 April: I just noticed that folks have added notes to this photo -- click through to Flickr to see them.
Clicking takes you to the Flickr photo page
One of my moss photos got flickrzenned!
