When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
(Jimi Hendrix 1942-1970)
R had been drafted and was in Newport News, Virginia, training to be an Army helicopter mechanic in August 1969. We were 19 years old. He and a few of his army buddies considered going to Woodstock for the weekend.
*
*
On Saturday of this Memorial Day weekend, I was talking with a friend on my cell phone while looking out my windows toward Scudder Pond. I noticed a small flock of birds in one of the rapidly increasing number of alder saplings that are growing up amidst the cattails in Scudder Pond. I'm glad the flock lingered for a while because gradually I realized that they weren't the usual birds I see from my window. While listening to my friend, I found my binoculars and was rewarded with an intimate view of Cedar waxwings. Soon after that, they all flew away. I haven't seen them since. I know that R would have loved seeing them. So many times in the years before and after he died, I have seen something that I know he would love to see. It's been years since I've seen a Cedar waxwing from my porch, much less a flock.
Is it a coincidence that the flock appeared on the first day of Memorial Day weekend? I don't think so.
*
Sending love to Everyone today. Fragment of a letter from R while he was in Vietnam in 1970:
“A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel, weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were no more.”
a condition of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble.
"he was forced to take refuge in the French embassy"
something providing shelter.
plural noun: refuges
"the family came to be seen as a refuge from a harsh world"
Similar:
shelter
protection
safety
security
asylum
sanctuary
preservation
safe keeping
place of shelter
place of safety
haven
safe haven
sanctum
safe house
harbor
port in a storm
ark
retreat
bolthole
foxhole
hiding place
hideaway
hideout
fastness
querencia
an institution providing safe accommodations for women who have suffered violence from a spouse or partner.
* Music, poetry, art, books, the natural world, community.
*
I remember being a child and weeping with other children when we learned by way of a classroom loudspeaker that President Kennedy had been shot and killed in Texas.
*
*
We're not alone. Never will be.
It's been two years since George Floyd was murdered. Just realized that.
Yesterday I stopped by the public library to pick up the audio book for Last Chance Texaco, read by the author, Rickie Lee Jones. I read the book last week and wanted to hear it in Rickie Lee Jones' voice. I put the CD in my car player before I drove away from the library. When I was almost home, I decided to keep driving for at least the duration of the first of the thirteen CDs. I drove east along the south shore of Lake Whatcom and 35 minutes later stopped at Twin Sisters Viewpoint on Highway 9 where I took these photos:
Thirty minutes later I was in the town of Nooksack, as far north as I would go that day, just a few miles from the U.S / British Columbia border. Twenty-five minutes later I was home, having listened to all of the first CD and then listening to the first part of the book a second time. This is a view from the parking lot of my condominium, looking into the sky to the north, when I arrived home.
If you look closely at the middle of this photo from my porch you can see the tip of one of the Twin Sisters peeking over the hills to the east:
It was an emotional journey through the past and the present, listening to the stories from the life of Rickie Lee Jones along some of her songs, on an extraordinarily beautiful May afternoon in a spring that has been frequently cold and overcast but not often raining,
Polly and I went to the circus
Polly got hit with a rolling pin We got even with the circus We bought tickets but we didn't go in...
*
On my way home, I stopped at Big Rock Garden for an hour walk. I walked through the garden and then up to the top of the hill where there is a bench and a view of the snow-covered Canadian Cascades:
Look for the snowy peaks in the distance, near the middle of the photo:
Sometimes the mountain is hidden from me in veils of cloud, sometimes I am hidden from the mountain in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue, when I forget or refuse to go down to the shore or a few yards up the road, on a clear day, to reconfirm that witnessing presence.
How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be? -- Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
Welcome to "37TH DREAM (RUMORS OF PEACE)".
The photograph currently at the top of my blog was taken from my porch before sunrise on October 29, 2023.
"OLD GIRL OF THE NORTH COUNTRY" (the earliest name for my blog -- http://oldgirlfromthenorthcountry.blogspot.com
) came to life in early December of 2006 so that I could post a 42-year retrospective of my paintings and drawings and through that action, create a new relationship with the day the man I loved returned from Vietnam in December 1970. For a while (sometime after spring of 2008, which is when he died) my blog was "TALKING 37TH DREAM WITH RAINBOW (RUMORS OF PEACE)". For a number of years, it's been "TALKING 37TH DREAM (RUMORS OF PEACE)." As of April 12, 2017 my blog was titled "37TH DREAM / TALKING 37TH DREAM (RUMORS OF PEACE/LOOKING UP)". Somewhere along the way it became 37TH DREAM (RUMORS OF PEACE).
To begin viewing the retrospective with narrative, scroll down to December 8, 2006, on this page:
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. -- Martin Buber (1878-1965)
It is only a little planet, but how beautiful it is.
-- Robinson Jeffers
The true end of a war is the rebirth of life; the right to die peacefully in your own bed. The true end of war is the end of fear; the true end of war is the return of laughter.
-- Alfred Molano
Enjoy every sandwich -- Warren Zevon (1947-2003)
Not in God's wilds will you ever hear the sad moan, "All is vanity." No, we are paid a thousand times for all our toil, and after a single day spent outdoors in their atmosphere of strength and beauty, one could still say, should death come — even without any hope of another life — "Thank you for this most glorious gift!" and pass on.
-- John Muir (1838-1914)
Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do? Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well. Hugh Fennyman: How? Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.