New Morning by the Cosmic Sea

"New Morning" was released a few months before R returned from Vietnam in early December 1970.  As with all Bob Dylan albums, I listened to it again and again.  In those days, I was listening to albums on my turntable and could put albums on continuous repeat for hours on end.  After R died in 2008, something astonishing happened.  I wrote about it on my blog a month and a day after R died:

Last week, I finally was able to go to the photo lab in downtown Bellingham so I could order some prints of my old friend and his art work to send to his sister. As I was standing at the counter trying to explain my project, I heard Bob Dylan singing. I stopped talking to listen to him sing. When I tried to talk again, I couldn't because I started crying. The young woman clerk was playing Bob Dylan's album, "New Morning," which is what I listened while my old friend was in Vietnam and what we listened to during the short time we lived together in 1971. The clerk was playing the ALBUM (!) on a turntable and handed the album cover to me. More than a coincidence. How else could that happen? "New Morning" is a great album. Ends with a beautiful song to God called "Father of Night." The song that made me start to cry is "If Not For You."

Now it's "New Morning In The North Country."

The first time I heard the words "cosmic sea" was in the song "If Dogs Run Free" on that album.  This early morning, the words "cosmic sea" came to me again,  and then I remembered the poem Patti Smith wrote in response to "If Dogs Run Free" and was overjoyed to find this:

have you seen

dylan's dog

it got wings

it can fly

when it lands like a clown

he's the only 

thing allowed

to look dylan in the eye

(from Patti Smith's poem)

"Down the street the dogs are barking and the day is a-getting dark ..."

(lyrics from Bob Dylan's "One Too Many Mornings")

*

It's 3 a.m. here.  After 6 hours of sleep, I woke up just before midnight and have been awake since then.  It's been a fruitful time.  The first day of the Year of the Dragon.  My mother was born in 1916, a Year of the Dragon.  She made a large stained-glass window of a dragon that looked very much like the dragon on the Google doodle for today.  After my mother died, her stained-glass dragon was given to a Chinese woman friend of hers. 

What We Are Made Of / To Each One's Own, It's All Unknown / Dead To The World (Alive Alive-O)

News from our neighborhood:

Orca mother carrying her calf who died

Thich Nhat Hanh

When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made of entirely non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. When we see the nature of inter-being, barriers between ourselves and others are dissolved, and peace, love, and understanding are possible. Whenever there is understanding, compassion is born.

Source: Living Buddha, Living Christ

(quote from Daily Dig, August 2, 2018)

Sulubika - Flute Ernie Provencher - Bass Noel Okimoto - Drums

If dogs run free, then why not we
Across the swooping plain?
My ears hear a symphony
Of two mules, trains and rain
The best is always yet to come
That's what they explain to me
Just do your thing, you'll be king
If dogs run free

If dogs run free, why not me
Across the swamp of time?
My mind weaves a symphony
And tapestry of rhyme
Oh, winds which rush my tale to thee
So it may flow and be
To each his own, it's all unknown
If dogs run free

If dogs run free, then what must be
Must be, and that is all
True love can make a blade of grass
Stand up straight and tall
In harmony with the cosmic sea
True love needs no company
It can cure the soul, it can make it whole
If dogs run free

(Bob Dylan, 1970)

... dead to the world alive I awoke alive I awoke alive alive I awoke alive I awoke alive I awoke alive I awoke I awoke alive I awoke alive alive-o alive alive-o

I'm still thinking about what robin andrea, wrote about her first eight years of life:

Another memory that I can never forget is the time a neighbor who lived in the apartment building above that candy store drew some crosses on the sidewalk. Being Jewish, I hadn't ever really seen or noticed such a thing before. I asked her what it was. She told me the story as best a seven-year old could tell a five-year old what a cross was and who Jesus was. I was devastated. I had to go home and lay down in bed. I had never heard such a thing in my life, someone nailed to a cross. It was then I realized that humans could be more horrible to each other than I had ever imagined. I never forgot.

And I remembered the worlds of an elderly Jewish woman friend of mine who remarked that, given some of the experiences during her lifetime, she didn't have to be a Christian to be moved by the story of the life and death of Jesus.

IF DOGS RUN FREE

If dogs run free, then why not we
Across the swooping plain?
My ears hear a symphony
Of two mules, trains and rain.
The best is always yet to come,
That's what they explain to me.
Just do your thing, you'll be king,
If dogs run free.

If dogs run free, why not me
Across the swamp of time?
My mind weaves a symphony
And tapestry of rhyme.
Oh, winds which rush my tale to thee
So it may flow and be,
To each his own, it's all unknown,
If dogs run free.

If dogs run free, then what must be,
Must be, and that is all.
True love can make a blade of grass
Stand up straight and tall.
In harmony with the cosmic sea,
True love needs no company,
It can cure the soul, it can make it whole,
If dogs run free.

Copyright © 1970 Big Sky Music

My sister emailed me some photos of Koko, her female Catahoula Hound / Black Lab. Yesterday I tried drawing Koko using the Appleworks "Painting" program. Today I drew on paper with a 6B pencil. Koko has beautiful and complex black, white and grey markings. She is more kind than my drawings are able to show. I don't remember what I listened to while drawing yesterday, but today I listened to a 20-minute CD of contemplative music, loaned to me yesterday, which I played twice while drawing. As I listened and drew, my mind became more quiet than usual.