Watermark

25 Things

I've been tagged for this meme, by someone I really like, so am compelled to respond. Perhaps a good thing: The Random Beauty of "25 Random Things".

1. If I don't record my dreams, I don't write. I know this is a very strong correlation, though I don't completely understand it. Some images and inspiration come from my dreams, but I think it's more about consciously keeping that door open, that threshold between my waking and dreaming self.
2. I am not recording my dreams.
3. I am not writing.
   
4. For much of my professional career, I worked with victims, families, and offenders of sexual and domestic assault. I still have no idea if this work was of any use.
   
5. I believe that happiness in life depends much on the ability to enjoy small things. Birds at the feeder, a kitten's explorations, a good cup of coffee.
6. I think we can.
7. I believe in ornament.
8. I made my house for myself, but believed it would be filled with other people. The goddess laughs.
9. I think that a few duties and obligations are essential to a full life, even if those duties and obligations are to critters who are not human.
   
10. We aren't there yet.
11. How is it possible to look out -- or into -- this universe, and think there must be something more?
12. But, still ...
13. I feel the need to be of use.
    
14. I wonder if this need is simply human nature? Is it -- is much -- simply the interaction of genetic directives?
15. I think about suffering. The suffering of dailiness, the suffering of tragedy. I think about the fires in Australia, the victims of fire and flood and genocide. I think about the suffering we inflict upon each other, and wonder why.
16. I am astounded that I can believe in certain things so strongly, yet behave contrary to those beliefs -- often without even realizing it.
17. How is it that we can be so unaware of our effect upon this world?
18. If I met myself, would I like me?
19. Why am I always second, or third, and never first?
20. How do I delude myself?
21. Even as a child, I was told that I ask too many questions.
22. The kitten who chose me is a retriever. Throwing her toy for her to bring back to me is one of my several delights.
23. Ah, I hold too close, too hard, too long.
    
24. No wonder there are countless books on letting go.
25. Now I am writing.
    

Blog Action Day: Why Must It Be Beautiful?

MP3 File

What is it for, all this
beauty? The curve
of the spiral

from the laddered
twist of DNA
to the vast wave

of galaxies; the green
luna moth, breath-
taking & ordinary. 

Does the prey see
beauty in its predator?
Do gazelles admire

the leopard? Does
the seal lift
its sleek head

to gaze in wonder
at the bumbling,
lethal polar bear?

Our science tells us 
how. Our science
gives us reason.

But why must it be
beautiful? The aero-
nautic miracle

of the bumble bee;
the passing brilliance
of the butterfly. Surely

predators would be
more deterred by
ugliness. The hideous

and the platypus
have their own glory.
Humans have our

own glory. Do other
creatures adore
the useless,

the only gorgeous,
the green wave
of Northern Lights

dimming the stars?
The indented shadow
of the heron's bath

in a snowdrift? Why
must it be beautiful?
When we pass, with

the bee, with
the butterfly,
with the polar bear,

the leopard,
the gazelle,
who will grieve

this deep and terrible
loss? Who will delight
in what comes next?

I wonder if a poem could be like a butterfly?

BloggersUnite | Poetry Thursday

Today is Blogging Against Abuse day, a Community Challenge from Blog Catalog. I have a poem that is appropriate for this challenge: The Therapist.

I am linking rather than posting for two reasons:

• This poem is written in long lines, and that format works much better at Oratory than it does here at Watermark.
• This poem deals graphically with the subject of sexual abuse/assault.  It is important that the reader be warned -- this can be a difficult and painful read for some folks.

This is also my Poetry Thursday post. Sadly, the topic for this week was Utopia, and my piece is anything but. Still, there it is.

From the Poetry Thursday site:

For the next few weeks, several Poetry Thursday participants will take turns hosting the Thursday post on their blogs. This week, please visit The Red Door Studio where you will be able to a) leave your comment linking to your Thursday post about poetry, b) find out next week’s prompt. Next Thursday's host will be Liz Elayne.

One Web Day | One Small World

Today is OneWebDay 

The Web is worth celebrating.

OneWebDay is one day a year when we all - everyone around the physical globe - can celebrate the Web and what it means to us as individuals, organizations, and communities.

There are days, in these difficult times, when I feel there is little hope for us, as a species on this world we sometimes seem bent on destroying. On those days, what hope I find is here, on the Web; in the connections we make as individuals, one to another.

The Web has a lot to offer that is informative, or beautiful, or trivial and disturbing. For me, the heart of the Web is the personal blogs, where we each offer something of ourselves to each other. Now, when war or disaster strikes in some other part of the world, I am likely to think -- to feel -- I know someone who lives there.

Because we do grow to know each other, in a new and uncertain sense.  This knowing is a reminder, an awareness, of how small our world is; how connected we really are. That the bell -- be it funeral bell, celebration bell, or alarm bell -- tolls for us all.

Ideas like this should be more often shared, especially nowadays when the world seems to be in need of dialogue and understanding among different cultures, in a way that it has never been before.

Click that Miniature Earth graphic to go see a short, powerful movie --  one of the jewels our Web has to offer. 

If our world still seems large to you, go look at The Size Of Our World.

We are so small, to hold so much.

International Rock-Flipping Day Update

Want to see what lives under rocks? Look here:

Flickr photo pool

Pbase gallery

Blogger-participants so far include: Windywillow (Ireland) Heraclitean Fire (London, England) Sheep Days (Illinois, USA) Earth, Wind & Water (somewhere in the Caribbean) Pocahontas County Fare (West Virginia, USA) chatoyance (Austin, Texas)

Fragments from Floyd (Virginia, USA) - GRAND PRIZE WINNER

Watermark (Montana, USA) pohanginapete (Aotearoa/New Zealand) Fate, Felicity, or Fluke (Oregon, USA) Thomasburg Walks (Ontario, Canada) Idle Thoughts of an Idle Woman (Queensland, Australia) The Transplantable Rose (Austin, Texas) Nature Woman (New York state, USA) Marja-Leena Rathje (British Columbia, Canada) A Blog Around the Clock (North Carolina, USA) Busy Dingbat's Sphere (West Virginia, USA) Hoarded Ordinaries (New Hampshire, USA) Congo Days (Kinshasa, Congo) this too (London, England) Roundrock Journal (Missouri, USA) Wanderin' Weeta (British Columbia, Canada) Blaugustine (London, England) A Honey of an Anklet (Virginia, USA) Looking Up (Ohio, USA) Ontario Wanderer (Ontario, Canada) Bug Safari (California, USA) Riverside Rambles (Missouri, USA) Pure Florida (Florida, USA) Burning Silo (Ontario, Canada) Musings from Myopia (Texas, USA) Cicero Sings (British Columbia, Canada)

Thanks to Dave for instigating this exploration, collecting the links, and sharing the code.

International Rock-Flipping Day

To learn more about International Rock Flipping Day, go to Via Negativa or the IRFD Flickr Group.

For years I sat with people as they
turned over boulders in their hearts.
Millipedes, centipedes, scorpions;
snakes and roots and cockroaches.

The occasional treasure: a gold
watch, a glass jewel, a glittery bit
of quartz. Clumps of earth, dry
and grey; or deep and dark

and fertile. Sometimes a stone
shattered, bringing blood
and relief. Sometimes a rock
would find its way up to the throat,

choking, smothering; once even
a killing wound. But often the weighted
souls left my room scattered with
discarded pebbles. They remembered

how heavily their pockets had bulged
with the old, the deliberately
or sadly forgotten. Now and then
some would upturn a stone and find

themselves. Sometimes a buried
root, feeling the air and the light,
might sprout into something new,
living and green. Sometimes

the person would quietly set
the stone back in its place,
leaving it to its own dark
and busy life.

This Year; Next Year

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!

5 Things You (Probably) Don't Know About Me

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 and (brace yourself) Rocky. My favorite books are Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass (my beautiful childhood set sadly lost in the flood) and Four Gated City, by Doris Lessing. My favorite music is Bach: The Goldberg Variations, but I'm also a fan of Jane Siberry, Kate Bush, Ani DiFranco, Philip Glass, Annie Lennox, Nina Simone ...

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.

 

Journals & Notebooks

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):

The Stick

I have been passed the stick -- twice! So here goes:

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

As I recall, folks in this story memorized books to save them (to save the books) from the fire; they became the book they memorized. My memorization skills were never strong, even before time began to erode them. So I would choose a book my body could remember -- poems, by Pattiann Rogers, maybe, or Maxine Kumin. Both of these writers make my body sing.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

I think I usually have a crush on whatever character I am reading about at the moment. I tend to sink pretty far into fiction.

The last book you bought is:

• Year of the Snake, Lee Ann Roripaugh                  
• The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger                

[same order]

The last book you read:

• The History of God, Karen Armstrong                
• Blue Dusk, Madeline DeFrees
• The Spiral Dance 20th Anniversary Edition, Starhawk [again]
• a book of poems by Philip Larkin, which I can't put my hand on at the moment, and I don't remember the title Breath, by Philip Levine
• Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality, Judith Plaskow

[simultaneous]

What are you currently reading?

• Blue Pastures, Mary Oliver [again]
• A Poet's Work, Sam Hamill
• Peace Is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hahn
• Open Season, C.J. Box

Also several poetry books; I am always reading poetry. And, of course, blogs.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

I choose these on the grounds that each should provide endless readings, with new revelations every time.

• The Complete Shakespeare
• The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
• Essential Haiku, Robert Hass
• The Four-Gated City, Doris Lessing

And, oh yeah:

• How to Survive on a Deserted Island in Comfort & Luxury With Minimal Effort (someone must have written this by now)

And since this is a fantasy, I'm taking music, too (I'll just happen to have with me one of those new- fangled music players, with a solar cell battery):

• The Goldberg Variations [probably the earlier recording by Glenn Gould]
  

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

• moos
• Daisy

Because they will provide interesting  answers, and because they said I could . . .

. . . and a third not yet chosen -- I have a request still out there, and if he says no, I'll open it up for volunteers.

Thanks, Patia and Pearl, for passing it to me.