Getting unstuck

Witnessing this video and seeing the possibility of gradual freedom from emotional baggage was healing for me and brought these three old songs to mind:

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Before and after dawn ( possibly only of interest to those who take an interest in Bob Dylan) / A song from the distant past comes to mind / Where am I now?

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The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure To live it you had to explode And at the last hour of need, we entirely agreed Sacrifice was the code of the road

(Bob Dylan -- 1978) 

A Tuesday Afternoon In the Summer of 1968 Revisited

What love has given to us, no one can take away.

(paraphrased lyrics from Bob Dylan)

"Our Time on Earth"

"Our Time on Earth"

(Many thanks to my friend Sue for the link)

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"... And I don't want a never-ending life
I just want to be alive
While I'm here ..."

(Lyrics from "Spirits," by the Strumbellas)

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From Beth's Tumblr page:

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Sending love always

January 24, 2023: 25 miles north of here is Canada / Reruns: January 20, 21, 22, 23, 24: Working with Intuition and Three Angels (1984/1992), Middle of the Journey (1984), Person with Helpers (1982-1984), People Listening (1984), and Homage to Edvard Munch (1984)

 Cross That Line

“Paul Robeson stood
on the northern border
of the USA
and sang into Canada
where a vast audience
sat on folding chairs
waiting to hear him.
He sang into Canada.
His voice left the USA
when his body was
not allowed to cross that line.
Remind us again,
brave friend.
What countries may we
sing into?
What lines should we all
be crossing?
What songs travel toward us
from far away
to deepen our days?”

Naomi Shihab Nye

It’s pretty intriguing to follow poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s idea that most of us actually “think in poems” whether we know it or not. Rarely, as she points out, do you hear anyone say they feel worse after writing things down. That, she says, can be a tool to survive in hard times like these, to anchor our days and to get into a conversation and community with all of the selves that live on in each of us at any given moment — “your child self, your older self, your confused self, your self-that-makes-a-lot-of-mistakes.” We also hear her read her beloved poem “Kindness” and tell us the story behind it.

(from introduction to interview with Naomi Shihab Nye)

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And now for the re-runs:

January 20, 2007

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January 21, 2007

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January 22, 2007

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January 23, 2007

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January 24, 2007

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"... We always did feel same, we just saw it from a different point of view ..."

(Bob Dylan lyrics from "Tangled Up in Blue')

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"... My dreams are beyond control ..."

(Bob Dylan lyrics from "Dear Landlord")

January 5, 2023: Running to catch up, making glorious new mistakes along the way / Reruns from January 2, 3, 4, 5, 2007: Witness with Courage and Witness with Blue Hair and Woman Looking Up, followed by Yom and Karuna

Thanks to dreaminginthedeepsouth, a longtime blog friend from Alive On All Channels

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The "ghost" Amaryllis trio greening up and growing rapidly under a light bulb that I keep on 24 hours a day because I don't turn on the heat here unless the inside temperature drops to 55 degrees.  The Amaryllis trio needs warmth.  

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Syed says:

“... Man, as I was saying before, maybe Dylan is not for everyone.  He has a super-unique style in the sense that it’s so Dylanesque, you know.  It’s not meant to be anything else, but I love it and I think it’s because I’ve come from hip hop ...

Possibly only of interest to those to take an interest in Bob Dylan:

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January 2, 2007

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January 3, 2007

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January 4, 2007

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January 5, 2007

Going silent for a little while / 16 years ago and 52 years ago on December 8

Changing of the Guards

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Sixteen years

Sixteen banners united over the field

Where the good shepherd grieves

Desperate men, desperate women divided

Spreading their wings ’neath the falling leaves

Fortune calls

I stepped forth from the shadows, to the marketplace

Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down

She’s smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born

On midsummer’s eve, near the tower

The cold-blooded moon

The captain waits above the celebration

Sending his thoughts to a beloved maid

Whose ebony face is beyond communication

The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid

They shaved her head

She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo

A messenger arrived with a black nightingale

I seen her on the stairs and I couldn’t help but follow

Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil

I stumbled to my feet

I rode past destruction in the ditches

With the stitches still mending ’neath a heart-shaped tattoo

Renegade priests and treacherous young witches

Were handing out the flowers that I’d given to you

The palace of mirrors

Where dog soldiers are reflected

The endless road and the wailing of chimes

The empty rooms where her memory is protected

Where the angels’ voices whisper to the souls of previous times

She wakes him up

Forty-eight hours later, the sun is breaking

Near broken chains, mountain laurel and rolling rocks

She’s begging to know what measures he now will be taking

He’s pulling her down and she’s clutching on to his long golden locks

Gentlemen, he said

I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes

I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards

But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination

Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards

Peace will come

With tranquillity and splendor on the wheels of fire

But will offer no reward when her false idols fall

And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating

Between the King and the Queen of Swords

Copyright © 1978 by Special Rider Music

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The sky is exquisitely clear of today after intermittent smoke since the beginning of September.  This morning I took a two-hour walk through the woods, through the beautiful city cemetery, back through the woods, returning refreshed and renewed.

December 8 will be my 16th blog birthday.  I'll be going silent until then, reading your blogs but not commenting and not posting anything here.

Here is my first blog post, written on the 36th anniversary of the day R returned from Vietnam.  A wise and thoughtful person had suggested that I do something different on December 8 in 2006, that I bring something new to a day that had caused me such pain for so many years.  So much has healed since I began blogging.

The last time I took a blog break was in 2011.  Looking at the video I took then, it is shocking to see how green everything was.  We haven't had any substantial rain since last spring.  Many of our trees, deciduous and evergreen, are stressed and some appear to be dying.  We did have a rainy spring.  I hope that we have our usual month of steady clouds and rain in November.

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Sometimes these Bob Dylan lyrics come to me:

Peace will come

With tranquillity and splendor on the wheels of fire

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Sending love always to blog friends near and far.    

September 11, 2001, revisited (along with 1996)

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("Witness with Courage," pastel image, 1984, drawn by am)

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On the afternoon of  September 11, 2001, I heard this song for the first time on "Love and Theft" ** which was released on that same day, after being left out of "Time Out Of Mind" in 1996.

Every step of the way we walk the line

 

Your days are numbered, so are mine
Time is pilin’ up, we struggle and we scrape
We’re all boxed in, nowhere to escape
City’s just a jungle, more games to play
Trapped in the heart of it, trying to get away
I was raised in the country, I been workin’ in the town
I been in trouble ever since I set my suitcase down
Got nothing for you, I had nothing before
Don’t even have anything for myself anymore
Sky full of fire, pain pourin’ down
Nothing you can sell me, I’ll see you around
All my powers of expression and thoughts so sublime
Could never do you justice in reason or rhyme
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Well, the devil’s in the alley, mule’s in the stall
Say anything you wanna, I have heard it all
I was thinkin’ about the things that Rosie said
I was dreaming I was sleeping in Rosie’s bed
Walking through the leaves, falling from the trees
Feeling like a stranger nobody sees
So many things that we never will undo
I know you’re sorry, I’m sorry too
Some people will offer you their hand and some won’t
Last night I knew you, tonight I don’t
I need somethin’ strong to distract my mind
I’m gonna look at you ‘til my eyes go blind
Well I got here following the southern star
I crossed that river just to be where you are
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long
Well my ship’s been split to splinters and it’s sinking fast
I’m drownin’ in the poison, got no future, got no past
But my heart is not weary, it’s light and it’s free
I’ve got nothin’ but affection for all those who’ve sailed with me
Everybody movin’ if they ain’t already there
Everybody got to move somewhere
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow
Things should start to get interesting right about now
My clothes are wet, tight on my skin
Not as tight as the corner that I painted myself in
I know that fortune is waitin’ to be kind
So give me your hand and say you’ll be mine
Well, the emptiness is endless, cold as the clay
You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Copyright © 1996 by Special Rider Music

** The song's opening line, "Every step of the way, we walk the line" is an allusion to Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line", a song Dylan cited as being "one of the most mysterious and revolutionary of all time" in his memoir Chronicles: Volume One.^[29]

The song's refrain, "Only one thing I did wrong / Stayed in Mississippi a day too long", is taken from a verse in the traditional folk song "Rosie".^[30] Dylan makes this connection explicit by name-checking "Rosie" elsewhere in the lyrics ("I was thinkin’ about the things that Rosie said / I was dreaming I was sleeping in Rosie’s bed").^[31]

The line "So give me your hand and say you’ll be mine" is a near-verbatim quote from Act 5, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure ("If he be like your brother, for his sake / Is he pardon’d; and, for your lovely sake, Give me your hand and say you will be mine").^[32]

(from Wikipedia)

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Today and for the last few days here in Coastal Northwest Washington State, the sky is filled with thick wildfire smoke that causes pain to all sentient beings who must breathe it.  

Let me not forget what I need to remember.

Just because

"... what is real but compassion as we move from birth to death ..."

(Greg Brown, lyrics from "Rexroth's Daughter")

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"... So many things that we never will undo
I know you're sorry, I'm sorry too ...

... But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free
I've got nothin' but affection for all those who've sailed with me ..."

(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Mississippi")

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"... Alive I awoke ..."

(Patti Smith, lyrics from "Dead to the World")

"I got saved by the beauty of the world" (Mary Oliver) with Update (-:

The Tower of Blue Horses, by Franz Marc

From Franz Marc's Blue Horses, by Mary Oliver

I step into the painting of the four blue horses. 

I am not even surprised that I can do this.

This is what I listened to today.

This is what I hear at night with my windows open:

Just for fun.  Bob Dylan singing "Froggie Went a Courtin":

At Scudder Pond, the frogs wake up first and then the birds.  Listen for the ducks.

A timeless tree with deep roots / "Home"

A Bob Dylan song with deep roots, interpreted by a young woman in 2021 with some lyric changes that speak to her experience.  

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Taylor Spring bringing it all back 

"Home":

"... I got lost on the river, but I got found."

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Last night I dreamed that at the end of a long journey, I found myself looking into a vast aquarium at a large blue fish who looked out at me with a steady gaze.  I began to cry.  I woke up weeping.

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Yesterday YouTube churned up a short video devoted to helping students understand what calculus is.  The goal was not to teach calculus but to explain why one would want to learn calculus.  For some reason, I decided to watch it, and was delighted to understand what calculus is.

I remember going back to college when I was in my late 20s and vowing to attempt to learn math from the point at which I had not been able to understand it.  I was good at math until 7th grade when New Math was introduced.  My father who was good at math did not understand New Math and was unable to help me understand it.  I remember my 7th grade teacher taking me aside and saying that she was puzzled by my poor math grades because I was clearly intelligent, having scored in the 99th percentile on the verbal portion of my aptitude tests that she had looked at.  From then on,  I continued to do well in English classes and struggle in math classes, despite the fact that New Math didn't last long in my school district.

In my return to the study of math, rather than learning math in a traditional classroom, I chose to learn in what was called a math lab where I could work independently, at my own pace, and ask for help when needed.  Much to my surprise, math was easy and fun, and I quickly finished the courses up to the point of calculus and was considering taking calculus.  Baffling to me to this day, my former husband who had scored 800 on the math portion of the SAT test, scoffed at my enthusiasm saying, "Why would you want to do that?"  Even more baffling is that I lost my excitement and momentum when I heard those words. 

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When I saw the blue fish in my dream, I remembered the YouTube video and instinctively used a calculus formula which proved, without a doubt, that the blue fish and I had exactly the same volume despite our different physical appearance.

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Last night I was playing around with my autoharp, specifically A minor and D minor.  Suddenly I was playing the first few chords of something that I couldn't identify, having no idea what the lyrics were.  A few minutes ago, I went over to my autoharp and played  A minor and D minor again and again until I was able to identify that it was reminding me of Bob Dylan's song "Lost on the River." 

The song goes with the dream.

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Take what you have gathered from coincidence.  Thanks so much, Bob, wherever you are.