GREAT NATURE / UPPER SKAGIT INDIAN TRIBE / SEMIAHMOO RESORT IN BLAINE, WASHINGTON / MIND OR HAND?

This is where I stayed on Thanksgiving night, a wonderful place owned by the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe. Although some of the rooms facing the water to the west are very expensive, I stayed in the least expensive room, a cozy and comfortable room on the fourth floor, looking east toward the mountains, the rising moon, and the sunrise.











































































































































































These days human beings have forgotten what religion is. They have forgotten a peculiar love which united their human nature to Great Nature. This love has nothing to do with human love. Standing in the midst of nature you feel this love of Great Nature . . . . Zen students must experience this peculiar love. This is religion.
(Sokei-An)
















The hand that guides the brush has already caught and executed what floated before the mind at the same moment the mind began to form it, and in the end the pupil no longer knows which of the two -- mind or hand -- was responsible for the work.
(Eugen Herrigel)

("Painting in America," by Old Girl Of The North Country, from the early 1980s)

One last thing.

VIEW FROM THE FAR NORTHWEST CORNER OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON ON THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING 2007

High Speed Rubiks Cube / Bob's Rolling Koans

Oh, where have you been, my brown-eyed nephew?

Oh, what did you see, my brown-eyed nephew?

And what did you hear, my brown-eyed nephew?

Oh, who did you meet, my brown-eyed nephew?

Oh, what'll you do now, my brown-eyed nephew?

The Band with the Staples Singers

Van Morrison and The Band

COMPUTER SLEEPING / OBOE LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW

It's quiet here today.

See Lori Witzel's post, including lines from "A Blessing," by James Wright. Take a look, too, at her New Book Of Hours blog.

THE WEIGHT / THE WAIT

I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead;

I just need some place where I can lay my head.

"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"

He just grinned and shook my hand, and "No!", was all he said.

(lyrics from "The Weight," by Robbie Robertson, aka J.R. Robertson, 1968)

(chalk pastel drawing from 1982, "Self-Portrait of an Old Friend as a Young Man," by Old Girl Of The North Country)

WAKING UP / THANKSGIVING DAY 1976

"When you awake you will remember ev'rything

you will be hangin' on a string from your...

When you believe, you will relieve the only soul

that you were born with to grow old and never know."

(lyrics from "When You Awake," by Richard Manuel and Robbie Robertson, 1969)

(I always heard the words as "you will BELIEVE WITH ALL YOUR SOUL that you were both with to grow old and never know)

Every so often I watch my VHS copy of Martin Scorsese's film, "The Last Waltz." I had forgotten that "The Last Waltz" was filmed on Thanksgiving Day in 1976. Now it seems highly appropriate that I chose to watch that exuberant concert film during this Thanksgiving weekend more than 30 years later.

The Band:
Rick Danko
Levon Helm
Garth Hudson
Richard Manuel
Robbie Robertson

Master of Ceremonies:
Bill Graham

Poets:
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Michael McClure

Musicians:
Paul Butterfield
Eric Clapton
Neil Diamond
Dr. John
Bob Dylan
Emmylou Harris
Ronnie Hawkins
Joni Mitchell
Van Morrison
The Staples Singers
Ringo Starr
Muddy Waters
Ron Wood
Neil Young

It just occurred to me that "The Last Waltz" took place just a year and a half after the end of the Vietnam War. I can remember, in a clear and visceral way, how profoundly relieved I was when the Vietnam War finally ended. Watching the film, I thought about that short period of time when the United States was not involved in a war.

I was reminded that before my boyfriend was drafted in March of 1969, when we were both 19 years old, he had bought tickets for us and we had driven to San Francisco to see The Band in their debut concert in San Francisco on February 28, 1969. That is one of my many joyful memories of the time we spent together before he was drafted into the Army.

Recent interview with Robbie Robertson

("Morning With Three Suns," gouache and watercolor painting from 1988 by Old Girl Of The North Country)

THANKSGIVING 2007

("Woman With Her Hands Full," drawn and painted by Old Girl Of The North Country in 1986)

DESIRE / GIFTS

Never relinquish the fiery sadness called desire
(Basho He's young and on fire Full of hope and desire In a world that's been raped, raped and defiled If I fall along the way And can't see another day Lord, protect my child (Bob Dylan, 1983, from "Lord Protect My Child"
See gifts (post from November 16).

(Gouache and watercolor on Arches watercolor paper, painted by Old Girl Of the North Country in 1999)

LOVING AND BEING LOVED BY A PLACE

My love it speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
It doesn't have to say it's faithful
Yet it's true like ice, like fire
(Bob Dylan's "Love Minus Zero / No Limit," with "it" substituted for "she")

It is a place. We loved and were loved by a place.

See "Standard Time, a poem by Velveteen Rabbi.

THE TRUTH OF THE WORK ITSELF

Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no worth at all, if not perhaps, results opposite of what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you will start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.
(Thomas Merton)

To action alone have you a right, and never at all to its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be your motive; Neither let there be in you any attachment to inaction.
(The Bhagavad Gita)

(pastel drawing from the early 1980s, by Old Girl Of The North Country)

STILL LIVING WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE

This morning I was listening to a talk about grief when I heard these words of Stephen Levine and thought of this painting I did in the mid-1980s:

We are learning to live with the consequences of love. So we must bear loss as deeply as we cared. Throughout spiritual literature we are told that attachment creates pain, and here we are, trying to learn how to love more fully in the shadow of that very painful truth! But the irony is that without some level of attachment, there could be no love. As the Dalai Lama has said, 'No attachment, no compassion."

It is the balancing act of a lifetime.

SELF-PORTRAIT WITH BROTHERS IN ARMS AND NIGHT FALLING FROM THE SKY (1990) / VETERANS DAY (2007)

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. (Thomas Merton)

IN THE PATH OF KATRINA / MISSISSIPPI COASTAL PATTERNS TWO YEARS LATER

ALLIGATOR SEEN FROM A SMALL BRIDGE AT GULF COAST NATIONAL SEASHORE IN OCEAN SPRINGS, MISSISSIPPI

When I was a child I was quite frightened by the crocodile that had swallowed a ticking clock and stalked Captain Hook in the Walt Disney version of PETER PAN. As a young woman, I saw drugged-appearing crocodiles who never seemed to move at all in their habitat in the Steinhart aquarium in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Along with seeing my first cardinal, I saw my first alligator last week. I remember my father, while visiting me when he was in his 70s, having his picture taken next to a buffalo. He said he had never seen a live buffalo before.

While preparing for my trip to visit my sister in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, I went to a bookstore to find a book to read during the long plane trip I would be taking. I almost bought a new copy of MOBY DICK, a book I read during the late 70s or early 80s and still consider one of my favorite books. Instead, I bought LESSONS IN BECOMING MYSELF, by Ellen Burstyn. I found out later that Ellen Burstyn tells a story in her book where she takes her son, at his request, on a sports fishing boat off the coast of California, a trip in which she brought along a copy of MOBY DICK. As she was reading, the fishing boat came close to a whale who then spouted. The spray of water landed on her and her book. She looked down at the wet page and read the following words, "Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? . . ."

I like her book. It was just the book I needed during my time on the airplane and in Mississippi. When I finish it, I'll go back to the bookstore and buy MOBY DICK.

Although I've never seen THE EXORCIST and have no plans to see it, I have seen and appreciated Ellen Burstyn in:

ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
RESURRECTION
WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM
DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD
THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN

Toni Morrison, author of BELOVED, wrote for the back cover of the book: "I deeply admire Ellen Burstyn's scrupulous honesty and the urgency with which she pursues enlightenment. An extremely moving story of a fully lived life."

What I have found particularly interesting is Ellen Burstyn's affinity with Sufis and Carl Jung. Here is an interview with her.

"To Become One With The Thing I See"

The Art Of Walter Inglis Anderson

A Painter’s Hurricanes

A Family Of Artists Picks Up the Pieces

"The heart is the thing that counts, the mingling of my heart with the heart of the wild bird; to become one with the thing I see." …
(quote from here.)

(photo taken in my sister's backyard in Ocean Springs, Mississippi)

Walter Anderson: Realizations of an Artist

(posted from Ocean Springs, Mississippi)