From a quiet place, listening to a Buddhiscopalian (I've got nothing to say but it's okay)

Rosanne Cash interview

"... The sun is on the cemetery

Leaves are on the stones

There never was a place on earth

That felt so much like home ..."

Two versions of a song from 1949 that I need to listen to today / Another year of the Ox

Come walk with me / Walkin' down the line

After having no energy for walking for most of this social distancing time, the beautiful weather in the last few days encouraged me to begin my spring and early summer pattern of walking up to the top of the hill where I live and home again.  On the first day I went without face covering but realized that without face covering, I couldn't risk foot trails or the narrow under-the-road tunnel.  Bellingham is a walking and biking town with access to a network of trails in every neighborhood.  Throughout my walk I saw people of all ages, about half of them wearing face coverings, everyone maintaining social distance, many on bikes, many with dogs.  There was an abundance of smiling and waving and hellos.

Walking up the street through my neighborhood I saw this.

Here's a view of downtown Bellingham from part way up the hill.  What look like mountains to the west are islands in the Salish Sea.

At the highest point on the hill I can see the Canadian Cascades.

Walking out of Northridge Park into the hillside neighborhood for a block or so, there is an unobstructed view of the Canadian Cascades.

Walking back down the hill.

Crossing the street because I am not wearing face covering and the under-the-road tunnel is narrow.

The under-the-road tunnel.

Down the hill.

I stop, assuming that Big Rock Garden is closed, but it isn't.

The photo above shows a solitary redwood tree that is dear to me.

From this vantage point on our hill, we can see the next hill to the south which is where Western Washington University is located.  When I walked home down this street on Sunday, the air was so clear that the mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula could be seen in exquisite detail, but I didn't take my camera for that walk.

Almost home.

My door is to the left.

Later.  Oboe sleeping in the sunshine on my porch.

Mandala #47 finished.  

Ready to begin Mandala #48.

Today just before 6 p.m. in 2008 was the last time I saw R before he died.  In those last few days before R died, I felt that June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash were close by in spirit, understanding fully what I was experiencing and giving me courage. 

Sending love near and far.

Shy

"The face is scarred and craggy like a strip-mined Appalachian mountainside. The eyes are dark and somber. So, too, are the old-fashioned suits and string ties that Johnny Cash wears onstage as homage to his longtime hero, rough-hewn, plain-speaking Andrew Jackson. Then there's the deep rumbling voice that would rather converse with God or the dogwoods than almost anybody else. When Cash does sit down to talk, there are long silences and faraway glances. "I'm a country boy, still," says the Arkansas farmer's son. "I'm a very shy and private man, but don't get me wrong. I can make it real good on a stage with 20,000 people out there. I like performing."
(from a 1986 article by Andrea Chambers)



He was suddenly being billed as the 'King of The Beatniks', and manufactured against his will, as some kind of public Guru for a movement that never existed. Jack was a private person, extremely shy, and dedicated to writing. When he drank, he became much more expansive, and this was the only part of his personality that became publicized.
(from a 1969 article by David Amram)

When I saw that interview with Jack Kerouac some years ago on YouTube, I had the oddest feeling that I was witnessing someone even shyer than I was. Shyness is excruciating.

A few days ago, I happened upon some film footage of Bob Dylan and Isaac Stern receiving the Polar Music Prize in 2000. Watching Bob Dylan's face, I was unable to find words to describe his shifting expressions, but I was reminded of the shyness of Jack Kerouac and Johnny Cash and searched for the images of those men that were coming to mind. 

In 1986, during the first few years after one of his last relapses on painkillers, Johnny Cash went out on a book tour for Man in White and made a stop at the independent bookstore in the small Northwest Washington town where I live. He was dressed in black and appeared quite uncomfortable, sitting hunched over at a small table in the middle of the crowded store as he signed copies of his book. There was a small line of people who had bought his book and wanted him to sign it. I didn't buy a copy of his book about Paul the Apostle (I regret that now and have just put the book on hold at our public library to make amends for my rudeness for not being open to what he had written), but I brought my copy of "Nashville Skyline," with its back cover featuring his poem about Bob Dylan, for him to sign. I'm not as shy as I used to be, but in those days I was quite shy and couldn't help but empathize with how extremely shy he appeared when he wasn't on stage. When I came to the front of the line, I handed him my album cover and asked if he could sign it for me. He slowly turned his head and looked up at me briefly. The curious expression on his face was something like that of Bob Dylan listening to the woman speaking about him at the Polar Music Prize ceremony. Without saying a word, Johnny Cash signed my album and handed it back to me without looking at me again.  I was moved to touch his shoulder and thank him. 

In the following year, I stopped drinking and began to recover from the eating disorder that had been part of my life since I was 10 years old and so painfully shy that I didn't know how I was going to make it through life. No wonder I didn't feel so alone after first hearing Bob Dylan when I was 14 years old, or felt an odd kinship while reading about Jack Kerouac in my late teens and, at 36 years old, witnessing Johnny Cash signing his book in a bookstore despite his shyness. 

Looking At Old Stories Without Words and Planting Seeds and Listening To A Dream on Memorial Day 2015

Early this morning, I planted seeds of yellow and red Zinnias out on my porch. It turns out that I did the same thing last year on Memorial Day. I had forgotten.

A Birthday in June

A Horse and Chariot Meditation / Morning Light with Birds Singing

(drawing you may have seen before, from childhood, by am)

April 28 (from Eknath Easwaren's Words To Live By)

Know the Self as Lord of the chariot, the body as the chariot itself, the discriminating intellect as the charioteer, and the mind as the reins. The senses, say the wise, are the horses, selfish desires are the roads they travel. 
  – Katha Upanishad

The Upanishads say that your body is like a chariot drawn by five powerful horses, the five senses. These horses travel not so much through space as through time. They gallop from birth towards death, pursuing the objects of their desire. The discriminating intellect is the charioteer, whose job it is not to drive you over a cliff. The reins he holds are the mind – your thoughts, emotions, and desires.

This image is packed with implications. For one, the job of the intellect is to see clearly. The job of the mind is to act as reins. When everything is working in harmony, our highest Self makes all the decisions. The intellect conveys these decisions to the mind, and the senses obey the mind. But when the senses are uncontrolled, they immediately take the road they like best: personal satisfactions, mostly pleasure. Then we are not making the decisions; the horses are.

(Johnny Cash appears, too)

Further On Up The Road

Eternal thanks to Rae for telling me about PeaceTrees and being a good friend for all these years.

Listen.

Janis Joplin was born on January 19, 1943 / She is one of us

Listen to Johnny Cash singing "Me and Bobby McGee" in the year after Janis died.

"What about Janis, man?"
(from the film "Masked and Anonymous")

"It's gonna be a long hard drag, but we'll make it."
(Janis Joplin)

"I'm one of those regular weird people."
(Janis Joplin)