" ...Remember the people have always struggled to live in harmony in peace ..." / Young and old working together

I was listening to the voices of life

Chanting in unison

Carry on the struggle

The generations surge together

In resistance

To meet the reality of power

Mother earth embraces her children

In natural beauty to last beyond

Oppressors brutality

As the butterfly floats into life

We are the spirit of natural life

Which is forever

The power of understanding

Real connection to spirit

Is meaning our resistance our struggle

Is not sacrifice lost

Is natural energy properly used

One time

I was visiting with my relatives

The clouds the mountains the sky

The trees

My relatives touched my spirit

Nudged it lovingly

Listen to us impatient one

We are forever

You must remember the gentleness of time

You are struggling to be who you are

You say you want to learn the old ways

Struggling to learn

When all you must do is remember

Remember the people

Remember sky and earth

Remember the people

Have always struggled to live

In harmony in peace

Struggle against selfishness and

Weakness so the people may live

As nations

The old ways are hard

The people have always had

To work together

Remember impatient one

Remember and live

Do not be afraid of truth

Respect discipline

Share your life so the people may live

Honor sky and earth

Honor yourself

Honor your relations

Remember impatient one

The gentleness of time

Grandmother moon

You are more than light in the night

You are more than the moon

You are spirit connection

Your energy is our life

You are memories to generations past

You are the creator of sensations

That will always last

You are the knowledge the teacher

The influence to keep the people sane

You are a healer for spirit pain

Grandmother moon

We love you and we are angry

At the invaders who trash you

And violate our universe with

Their mechanical uncleanliness

We pray for you for us and for the

Invader who just can't comprehend

Respect love or the balance of life

We do not join the invading madness

From the way they act

It speaks of spirit sadness

Machine money progess is the

Cause of our common abuse

We see you grandmother

We feel you

We love you

We know through your reality

We will endure

We are one

We pray for you

We pray to you

Grandfathers whispering in the wind

Rejoice at the life you are a part of

Natural energy bound to natural laws

You will survive this

Temporary madness imposed upon you

Natural life is longer

Than opperssor's

Illusionary insanity

Spirits experience human deeds

But need not end

This is just one place of changes

Spirit life is forever if you want it

The universe is your home

You can survive here

Do not let them kill you

Keep your spirit strong

For distant stars and distant drums

Are the memories of spirit infancy

Children of earth let the spirit live

So you can grow in you place

In the universe

*

*

*

*

Sunrise doesn't last all morning

A cloudburst doesn't last all day

Seems my love is up and has left you with no warning

It's not always gonna be this grey

All things must pass

All things must pass away

Sunset doesn't last all evening

A mind can blow those clouds away

After all this, my love is up and must be leaving

It's not always gonna be this grey

All things must pass

All things must pass away

All things must pass

None of life's strings can last

So I must be on my way

And face another day

Now the darkness only stays the night-time

In the morning it will fade away

Daylight is good at arriving at the right time

It's not always gonna be this grey

All things must pass

All things must pass away

All things must pass

None of life's strings can last

So I must be on my way

Face another day

Now the darkness only stays the night-time

In the morning it will fade away

Daylight is good at arriving at the right time

It's not always gonna be this gray

All things must pass

All things must pass away

All things must pass

All things must pass away

"... it turned into sort of a cosmic song rather than an irritated song ..."

 

John Lennon:

“I was lying next to my first wife in bed, you know, and I was irritated. She must have been going on and on about something and she’d gone to sleep and I’d kept hearing these words over and over, flowing like an endless stream. I went downstairs and it turned into sort of a cosmic song rather than an irritated song; rather than a ‘Why are you always mouthing off at me?’ or whatever, right? …
But the words stand, luckily, by themselves. They were purely inspirational and were given to me as boom! I don’t own it, you know; it came through like that. I don’t know where it came from, what meter it’s in, and I’ve sat down and looked at it and said, 'Can I write another one with this meter?’ It’s so interesting.

'Words are flying [sic] out like [sings] endless rain into a paper cup, they slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe.’ Such an extraordinary meter and I can never repeat it! It’s not a matter of craftsmanship; it wrote itself. It drove me out of bed. I didn’t want to write it, I was just slightly irritable and I went downstairs and I couldn’t get to sleep until I put it on paper, and then I went to sleep.

It’s like being possessed; like a psychic or a medium. The thing has to go down. It won’t let you sleep, so you have to get up, make it into something, and then you’re allowed to sleep. That’s always in the middle of the bloody night, when you’re half awake or tired and your critical facilities are switched off.”

“Words are flowing out
Like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
Are drifting through my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me

Jai Guru Deva, Om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world

Images of broken light
Which dance before me like a million eyes
They call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a
Restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe

Jai Guru Deva, Om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world

Sounds of laughter, shades of life
Are ringing through my opened ears
Inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love
Which shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe

Jai Guru Deva, Om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world

Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva”

[Thanks Ian Sanders]

Thank you to dreaminginthedeepsouth

"Una de las canciones mas sinceras y tristes que escribió John Lennon"

"Una de las canciones mas sinceras y tristes que escribió John Lennon."

From the YouTube channel of Gibran Leal.

Inspired by Joared's post today.

*

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: 

An eventful day.

Language of the heart that I need to hear today

 

The following is from the YouTube channel where I found the above video:

Written by John as an expression of his love for Yoko Ono, the song is heartfelt and passionate. As John told Rolling Stone magazine in 1970, “When it gets down to it, when you’re drowning, you don’t say, ‘I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,’ you just scream.”

*

Yesterday while driving up the steep hill that leads to my home, I saw a dead deer lying on the sidewalk and found myself screaming in anger and grief through my KN95 mask.  When I got home a few minutes later, I called 911 who then contacted those who could remove the deer's body from the side of the road.  I am fortunate to have the help I need today and always.  The Beatles are part of that.

*

Some other gifts

*

*

"It Is Your Duty To Love" (Chris La Tray's blog)

*

Joni Mitchell

Recommending Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter's Story, by Mazie K. Hirono in collaboration with Rosemarie Robotham / "... you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one .." / Northern Flicker

"... I have often wondered how it was that a quiet, watchful Asian-American immigrant girl who had grown up desperately poor could one day aspire to become the chief executive of her state.  The closest I've come to an explanation is this:  My mother had lived as if nothing was truly impossible, and her determination -- the heart of fire she carried within her, despite her calm demeanor -- had set a powerful example for us.  She had worked tirelessly to make it possible for me to become a woman with outsize dreams ..."

*

"... you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one ..."

Brian Zhang:

*

Clouds: Like waves, a manifestation of water

 

*

Unborn and indestructible,

beyond time and space--

both transmission and inheritance

lie in the wonderful nature of the Dharmadhatu

*

"... The Dharmadhatu is all that is manifested from the Dharmakaya, having Dharmakaya as its essence, just as all waves are manifestations of water.  The Dharmadhatu is neither born nor destroyed.  It has no previous existence.  Its existence is beyond time and space.  When we understand this truth of existence with our whole being, we will begin to transcend the fear of death, and we will not be disturbed by unnecessary discrimination.

(from Present Moment, Wonderful Moment:  Mindfulness Verses for Daily Living, by Thich Nhat Hanh, 1990)

*

*

"... Everything is in the language that we use ..." / Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota)

"... "Real" poems do not "really" require words ..." (Layli Long Soldier)



There is so much to learn about the Oglala Lakota.  I am learning.  Learning takes time.  Although I am relatively poor in terms of money, I am rich in time.

I hope you have time to listen.

As soon as you're born they make you feel small 
By giving you no time instead of it all 
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
(John Lennon, lyrics from "Working Class Hero)

"... this life is a sacred opportunity ..."

I experienced some synchronicity in connection with Sabine's recent post when I read these words from Sogyal Rinpoche's book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying:

"Saints and mystics throughout history have adorned their realizations with different names and given them different faces and interpretations, but what they are all fundamentally experiencing is the essential nature of the mind.  Christians and Jews call it "God"; Hindus call it "the Self," "Shiva," "Essence," "Brahman," and "Vishnu"; Sufi mystics name it "the Hidden Essence"; and Buddhists call it "buddha nature."  At the heart of all religions is the certainly that there is a fundamental truth, and that this life is a sacred opportunity to evolve and realize it."  (am's italics)

I'd like to add that an Oglala Lakota activist, Russell Means, spoke of his culture's experience of "The Great Mystery."

"To each his ("their" would be my translation) own, it's all unknown."

The quote is from Bob Dylan in "If Dogs Run Free."



"Imagine":



"Somebody Was Watching":



This post is dedicated to my father.  As we all do, he had realizations about life and death; however, his path led him to look to God as he understood God for concrete answers.  He died alone on St. Patrick's Day in 2003 of congestive heart failure.  We had a difficult relationship. When I mentioned those difficulties yesterday to a small group of friends, one friend who had a difficult relationship with her father who died recently laughed gently and said to me, "In a future life, you might end up being your father's father."  In the years before he died, my father believed that he was the first person that God had spoken to since Jesus.  He kept a handwritten record of the questions he asked God and how God answered.  These were questions that had haunted him all of his life.  While my father was playing his regular games of Solitaire, God as he understood God would answer my father's questions in one of three ways:

"Yes."

"No."

"No comment."

He asked his God several times if Jesus was his son.  His God's final answer was, "No."

My father and I shared a love of plants and gardening.  I am grateful for that experience.  Yesterday I went out to the nearby botanical garden where I found a home for the Coast Redwood Seedling that I nurtured this past year in honor of my father.  Due to unexpected circumstances involving a steep hill that the friend who came with me could not walk down, I will have to return on another day to visit the Coast Redwood seedling.

My experience after death of both of my parents was that was all that was left of them after they died was the love they couldn't express while alive.  I have had a hard time accepting that love.  Writing this down is part of my acceptance of that love that I experienced only after they died.

Mandala #25: Evolution of Forgiveness Revisited

Finished this early this morning.  Started it a few months ago. December, I think.  There was nothing except the black center until sometime in the last few weeks.

Listen to Sean Lennon talk about "The Conscious Universe":



This series of interviews took place in 2010 when Sean Lennon was 35, the year John Lennon would have turned 70.

Good Friday Meditation

Good Friday

For earthworms, spring and robins bring death.
For cautious robins, death does not exist.
For young human children, death is astonishing news.

Years later, spring and robins arrive.
We are not surprised when the earthworms die,
not surprised when the robins run from us.

But death, now, is the absence of news,
abrupt and extraordinary in its silence.

In 1980, in a beginning painting class at the Fairhaven College of Western Washington University, I painted "Recurring Dream" in watercolor.  It was the first painting that I sold.  A neighbor close to me in age and born in Scotland, bought it, had it framed, and put it in a place of honor in his home. The poem was written in 2006 when I was 56 years old.

After coming across this article in the past few weeks, I've given much thought to the statistical breakdown of the Syrian refugees who have entered the United States as of November 2015:

Muslims -- 2098
Christians -- 53

and the remaining 33:

Yazidis -- 1
Jehovah's Witnesses -- 8
Baha'i -- 2
Zoroastrians -- 6
Other religions -- 6
No religion -- 7
Atheists -- 3

I wonder if Buddhism is considered an "other religion" or "no religion." I wonder if any of the refugees are Buddhist.  

Understanding that part of the process for Syrians being admitted to the United States is to identify themselves with a category that defines their belief system led me to wonder if, in order to leave everything behind and accept an uncertain future with a very real risk of death, a person would need to believe in something, and that it wouldn't necessarily fall into a category on the State Department Refugee Processing list.  Belief in a principle perhaps.  For example, "I never know what good will come from my focused efforts, but I do know what will come from not trying."

If I were a Syrian refugee, I would have to check "No religion." I would do that only because there would be no other option for me.  Still, it wouldn't sit well with me because it seems to imply no beliefs at all, not even the sustaining beliefs of an atheist.  How could I leave Syria without having some sort of belief system to sustain me?

At the Catholic hospital where I used to work, the patient intake forms had a category of "Undecided" under the heading of religion.  I like that someone suggested that as an option, but I couldn't check that one either.  I have decided not to affiliate myself with any religion or spiritual tradition, but to be open and willing to listen to the profound insights of those who do affiliate themselves, including atheists and agnostics.

A dear friend of mine who died peacefully as an atheist in early 80s said that there was "something" that she couldn't define that she had experienced and come to believe in.  She had lived in anguish for years after the death of her oldest son in a climbing accident in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State.  Her son had been climbing with his younger brother and had slipped and fallen to his death.  His body was never found.  Sometime around 1997, my friend had an experience that she didn't define as religious but which she came to believe was real and true.  She knew that she was not alone and was able to find the peace that had eluded her for so long.  She was sustained by what she called "something."

I had an experience like that, too, in 1987.  I believe in "something."  It is not an "other religion."  It is not "no religion."

What is it?  Good question.  I don't know for sure.

That "something" might be the principle of the power of love and forgiveness or the principle expressed in what Anne Frank wrote:

"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again."

On the Good Friday in 2006, when I wrote my poem, I was struck for the first time by the conviction that Jesus had really lived and really died.  That he was dead.  Using a meditation technique I had learned, where one explores an idea visually and allows it to unfold, I pictured myself sitting in meditation in Jesus' tomb, contemplating his lifeless body, waiting to see if there was the resurrection that is promised by Christianity.  It seems to me that this technique is Jungian in nature, involving allowing a thought to lead one to unexpected places in the unconscious.  In the meditation, I sat there until Easter morning and witnessed the fact that Jesus did not rise from the dead.  There was a peaceful silence in which I was allowed to grieve, not as a Christian, but as a human being facing the death of someone who believed in the power of love and forgiveness and taught those principles during his short life.  He didn't have to rise from the dead to make a lasting impression on me.  In the meditation, the finality of his death gave me permission to enter a grief journey which eventually confirmed my belief in "something." 

Is that a religion? Or something else?  

So many of the words that are attributed to Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, sound to me like Zen koans.  One of Jesus' koans is:  

"Who do you think I am?"

To my ears, Jesus is saying, "It's up to you to decide." 

John Lennon decided this:

"Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary.  It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

John Lennon also said:

"I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-religion."

On that Good Friday in 2006, because of an heartfelt experience in meditation -- not a theory, not a borrowed belief -- I decided that, for me, Jesus was someone who lived and taught about the power of love and forgiveness and then died an agonizing death in the company of two other equally suffering men.  As is the case with so many human beings throughout history, Jesus did not die without suffering.  I knew then that if my death involved suffering, I would not be suffering alone. I decided that Jesus, as I understood him through experience, left me with a peaceful silence in which I could grieve and know that I was not alone in my grief and also know that my grief would eventually heal me.  

In 2000, I wrote this poem which seems now to be a harbinger of the poem I wrote on Good Friday in 2006:

Evolution of Forgiveness

In this silence

I am looking for relief,

trusting grief,

loving the child never conceived,

loving all the shattered children

who dared not trust, love or grieve,

loving the silent holy night,

the wild blue sky of day,

the courage of redwood trees,

the beloved ocean, 

still mirroring our wild hearts,

calling to us:

Trust your grief.

Bob the Baptiste and the Rose and the Sacred Ordinary

Tickets go on sale tomorrow for Bob Dylan and His Band in Seattle in October.  I am asking myself if I want to buy a ticket for the Sunday evening concert at the Paramount Theater, which is where I thought I had seen Bob Dylan in concert in 1981, among other years. When I go to the Bob Dylan website to look to find that concert in 1981, I am puzzled to see that according to the website, there were no concerts in Seattle in 1981, and that the two concerts in 1980 at the Paramount Theater were on November 29 and November 30.

Hmmm.  This is very odd.  My memory of that concert is that it happened not long after John Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980.  I was 31 years old that year.  The concert was part of the "Gospel Tour." I wasn't about to become a Christian, but I was curious about Bob's newfound passion for Jesus.  I recall that I wanted to see Bob Dylan from as close a spot as possible and that I left my seat and made my way down to the steps to the left of the stage and sat on a step about 20 feet away from Bob Dylan.  As I sat there I had the thought that no matter how close I got to Bob Dylan, it wouldn't be close enough.  He was a huge part of the myth of my life, but I was not part of his life and never would be, and suddenly that was fine with me.  I didn't need to get any closer.  All I needed to do was listen at a respectful distance.

As I watched Bob Dylan sing, someone threw a red rose up on the stage, and it landed right in front of Bob.  I will never forget the startled look on his face, the way he winced, and how his entire body appeared to react in apprehension.  He moved backward as if his life were in danger.  He not only moved backward but soon paused in his singing and let his band play for awhile before stepping forward and resuming singing. Immediately I thought of John Lennon's murder and how vulnerable Bob Dylan was to the same kind of death.  His body language made me think that he was consciously (or unconsciously) aware of the real possibility of a fan killing him, too.  When I went back to my seat, I was sustained by the knowledge that I truly didn't need to get any closer to Bob Dylan, and with tremendous respect for his courage each time he walked out on stage.

How could I have that memory if the concert took place before John Lennon's death? Perhaps John Lennon's death was still quite fresh in my mind in 1992, the next time Bob Dylan played at the Paramount Theater.  Now that I think of it, it must have been 1992.  Yes.  In my mind I can only see Bob Dylan and his band on the small stage, and I don't see his back-up gospel singers anywhere.

At another concert in Vancouver, B.C., which must have been in 1993 (according the set list on the Bob Dylan website), I again left my seat.  I wanted to get closer to the stage as he sang "Girl From The North Country" as an encore.  This time the concert was not in a small theater setting.  There were no steps to sit on.  There was only a concrete platform on the left, quite some distance from the stage, where I was not alone in wanting to see Bob from as close as possible.  From that distance,  I was again struck by his vulnerability. He looked fragile.  For the rest of the concert, the sound had been so loud that it was close to being unbearable.  It had taken all my efforts to figure out what he was singing because the song arrangements were unfamiliar and jarring. For that final song, though, the sound was turned down to an intimate level, and he sang in a different voice, in what seemed to me to be a generous and humble voice. That was the last Bob Dylan concert I attended.

Now I really am bewildered.  I don't recall going to a Bob Dylan concert two years in a row, but according to Bob Dylan's website, that is what I did.  I would have thought that the last time I saw Bob Dylan in concert was in Vancouver in a later year, more like 1999.  My memory doesn't appear to serving me well.  So be it.

In the image above, Bob Dylan reminds me of an old Baptiste.  Baptiste is a character from the film, "Les Enfants du Paradis," a French film from 1945 that made a lasting impression on Bob Dylan.  Baptiste works as a mime, but in this clip with a Beatles song superimposed we see him both with his mime makeup, holding a rose, and without his mime makeup:

While looking for more images of Baptiste, I found this image,














which reminded me of the scene in "Masked and Anonymous" when a little girl sings "Blowing in the Wind."

If I know nothing else, I know that at least one thing is true -- that the sacred is in the ordinary.
(quote from the film "Masked and Anonymous")

Now and then when I get an idea for a picture, I think, how ordinary. Why paint that old rock? Why not go for a walk instead.  But then I realize that to someone else it might not seem so ordinary.
(Georgia O'Keeffe)

Coincidence?

Here's Georgia looking through a cheese hole, and reminding me of Bob Dylan:

There is no end to the richness of the associations I have with the work of Bob Dylan.  That's just the way it is.

Easter weekend meditation / Something of a Zen koan / Long before the sky would open

... And Jesus was a sailor

When he walked upon the water

And he spent a long time watching

From his lonely wooden tower

And when he knew for certain

Only drowning men could see him

He said, "All men will be sailors then

Until the sea shall free them"

But he himself was broken

Long before the sky would open

Forsaken, almost human

He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone

And you want to travel with him

And you want to travel blind

And you think maybe you'll trust him

For he's touched your perfect body with his mind ...

(Leonard Cohen, lyrics from "Suzanne")  

Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary.  It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.

(John Lennon)

... You don't need no passport

You don't need no visa

And you don't need to designate or emigrate

Before you can see Jesus ...

... You don't need no church house

And you don't need no temple

You don't need no rosary beads or them books to read

To see that you have fallen

If you open up your heart

You'll see he's right there

Always was and will be

He'll relieve you of your cares ...

(George Harrison, lyrics from "Awaiting On You All"-- 1970)

We don't ask for more cathedrals.  We don't ask for bigger churches or fine gifts.  ... We ask the Church to sacrifice with the people for social change, for justice, and for love of brother.  We don't ask for words. We ask for deeds.  We don't ask for paternalism. We ask for servanthood.

(Cesar Chavez -- Christian, farm worker, labor leader and civil rights activist -- speaking in 1968)

If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth.  If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning.  And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

(Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking in 1955)

Sweet silver angels over the sea

Please come down flying low for me

One time I trusted a stranger

'Cause I heard His sweet song

It was gently enticing me, there was something wrong

When I turned, He was gone

Blinding me, His song remains reminding me

He's a bandit and a heart breaker

My Jesus was a cross maker.

Sweet silver angels over the sea

Please come down flying low for me

He wages war with the devil with a pistol by His side

He's always chasing him out of windows

And He won't give him a place to hide

But he keeps His door open wide

Fighting him, He lights a lamp inviting him

He's a bandit and a heart breaker

My Jesus was a cross maker.

Yeah, Jesus was a cross maker.

(Warren Zevon sang "Jesus Was A Cross Maker," written by Judee Sill)

Martin Scorsese's Jesus in "The Last Temptation of Christ" was a cross maker:

Judas:  If you were me, could you betray your master?

Jesus:  No.  That's why God gave me the easier job -- to be crucified.

Vietnamese Zen Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a book called Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers.  

Although I was raised as a Christian (first in the Lutheran Church and then in the Episcopal Church), I stopped going to church when I was 18 years old.  From that time on, I have explored many religions and spiritual traditions and am grateful for their teachings, but I have not chosen to affiliate myself with any of them.  

I do find the story of Jesus to be a mysterious and compelling one -- something of a Zen koan -- and I continue to listen with all my heart when certain people talk about their understanding of and trust in Jesus.

Talking Karmic Debt Blues / Like The Moon And The Stars And The Sun

Listen.

This morning I was listening to Jakob Dylan's CD "Seeing Things" in my car just before 9 a.m. He was singing "Everybody Pays As They Go":

Look up and see the men returning
In their winter coats
Some of them in one piece
Some of them got rolled
Some less than others
Some right through the nose
But everybody pays as they go
Young old rich and poor
Your mother she too owes
Cuz everybody pays as they go.

I thought of John Lennon's song "Instant Karma":

Instant Karma's gonna get you,
Gonna look you right in the face,
Better get yourself together darlin',
Join the human race,
How in the world you gonna see,
Laughin' at fools like me,
Who on earth d'you think you are,
A super star,
Well, right you are.

When I woke up this morning and turned the calender next to my bed to August 1, I found a wonderful woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Above is a detail from "The Hanging-Cloud Bridge at Mount Gyodo, near Ashikaga," which can be seen at Museo Chiossone in Genoa, Italy.

Well we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun.
Well we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun.
Well we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun.
Yeah we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun.

(Recorded by John Lennon on 27 January 1970 and released on 6 February 1970, it ranks as one of the fastest-released songs in pop music history, recorded (at London's Abbey Road Studios) the same day it was written, and coming out only ten days later. Lennon remarked to the press, he "wrote it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch, and we're putting it out for dinner.")
















Thanks to the Turtleback Dome webcam for the sunlight of the spirit image from Yosemite Valley.

John and Yoko and Lao Tzu

Looking for something else, I found this.

WAKING UP ON AN EASTERN WASHINGTON AFTERNOON IN FALL OF 2007 / LIKE A ROLLING KOAN REVISITED

Talkin' World War III Blues

Some time ago a crazy dream came to me,
I dreamt I was walkin' in World War III,
I went to the doctor the very next day
To see what kinda words he could say.
He said it was a bad dream.
I wouldn't worry 'bout it none, though,
Them ol' dreams are only in your head . . .

. . . Well, I seen me a Cadillac window uptown
And there was nobody aroun',
I got into the driver's seat
And I drove down 42nd Street
In my Cadillac.
Good car to drive after a war . . .
(Bob Dylan, 1963)

Cadillac Escalade
(Bob Dylan, 2007)

Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama
(John Lennon, 1980)

Gallows humor

Bob talking about Cadillacs in James Dean’s voice -- Theme Time Radio -- Cadillac Episode

Like a rolling koan revisited.

Black and White Series: Moonlight on the Water (2005)

Cleanup Time

Season of Glass (1983)

Yoko Ono released an album titled "Season of Glass" in 1981, a year after the murder of John Lennon. After John Lennon's death, I had a dream that John Lennon and Yoko Ono visited my home and stayed overnight. In the morning, they announced that they were going to hitchhike to Seattle. Concerned, I tried to dissuade them, but they were determined to hitchhike. After they left, I felt intense fear for their lives. Then I remembered that John had already died. He couldn't die again. With this thought, I knew we had nothing to fear. In the context of the dream, Yoko was safe, too. 

 When I look at this image today, I see a young woman and a young man at the beginning of their journey together. The man who bought this painting from me remarked that it reminded him of Diego Rivera's painting from 1925 called "Flower Day." I had not seen Rivera's painting before doing my drawing but went to the library to search for a reproduction of "Flower Day" and saw why he made that connection. I love Diego Rivera's painting.

From "Season of Glass": 

Goodbye Sadness by Yoko Ono 

Goodbye sadness 

Goodbye goodbye 

I don't need you anymore 

I wet my pillow every night 

But now I saw the light 

Goodbye goodbye sadness 

I don't need you anymore 

Goodbye goodbye sadness 

I can't take it anymore 

Goodbye sadness 

Goodbye goodbye 

I don't need you anymore 

I lived in fear every day

But now I'm going my way

Goodbye goodbye sadness 

I don't need you anymore

Goodbye goodbye sadness

I can't take it anymore 

Hello happiness

Wherever you are

I hope you hear my song

I never want to cry again

Or hold my breath in fear again

Goodbye goodbye sadness

I don't need you anymore

Goodbye goodbye sadness 

I can't take it anymore 

COMPOSED IN 1980 RECORDED IN 1981 © 1981 ONO MUSIC