Wednesday, April 30, 2008

LOOKING TOWARD SUNRISE













Deep peace of the shining star to you,
Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep joy of the leaping fire to you.

- Irish Prayer

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

NORTHWEST MORNING SKY






















In a recent dream, the message from my old friend was "Send Love."

Monday, April 28, 2008

OUTSIDE A CLOUD WITH WOOD DUCKS



















View of San Francisco obscured by fog (see webcam)

Viewed from a different angle (see webcam)

When I looked out at Scudder Pond this morning, I saw my first mother wood duck with ducklings for this spring. The cherry tree across the pond is blooming in the early morning rain.

Scroll down here to hear clips from "Celebrations For A Grey Day."

Friday, April 25, 2008

HANDS FULL OF GRATITUDE





















Just want to thank all for thoughtful and much-appreciated blog comments since my old friend died on April 20. Still feeling disoriented but not alone. His sister and brother-in-law mailed the portable wooden easel he used for painting while he was at the VA hospital and two paintings he did after his stroke, one titled "The Forest Floor" and the other "Plant My Heart." It's too early to share these here.

42 years is a long time to have loved someone. Feeling gratitude for the love that continues after death.

("Woman With Her Hands Full" -- gouache, watercolor and pastel, from the early 1980s, by Old Girl Of The North Country)

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Monday, April 21, 2008

1949-2008

















My old friend died peacefully yesterday at 1:15 p.m. Many thanks to all for your kind thoughts and prayers during this time. The images and words come from a letter he wrote to me while he was in Vietnam in 1970.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

NOT OUT OF SORROW, BUT IN WONDER






















Encounter

As I continue to prepare to travel to California for a visit with an old friend in a VA hospital, I am feeling more sorrow than wonder. Czeslaw Milosz' poem "Encounter" offers me a shift in consciousness to that of wonder and even gratitude.

(photo taken in Half Moon Bay, California, in 1970, by the 20-year-old woman who was to become Old Girl Of The North Country in December of 2006)

Friday, April 4, 2008

GREAT HAPPINESS






















Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding -- Yehuda Amichai

(photo taken at Half Moon Bay, California, in 1970)

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

HERE COMES THE SUN






















". . . they are leaning out for love and they will lean that way forever . . . " (Leonard Cohen)