Indefinite / Mystery and ambiguity

 

Tiny Mandala #26 of 53

(4 x 4 inches, drawn with non-dominant left hand)

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Daily Tao / 255 – Indefinite

12

September

Indefinite

Spring was a time of swaggering declarations.

Reaching autumn, one finds few absolutes.

Life is mystery and ambiguity,

Toward winter, that now seems agreeable and comfortable.

When young, one makes heroic attempts. 

The world will surely bend to our will, we think, 

and we will surely make grand contributions. 

Social injustice will be righted. 

The big questions will be answered.

I once went to see a master writer. 

Long retired, white-haired and fragile, 

she nevertheless evinced a sharp and discerning mind. 

I was a novice writer. 

She had edited hundreds of great authors. 

I peppered her with all my anxieties

and asked her all the questions that my teachers never answered. 

To most of my questions she would only answer, “Yes.” 

She knew all the answers, 

and she knew all the exceptions, 

and she knew the best thing that an older person

could tell a younger person was

“Yes.” Yes, the affirmative. 

Yes, as in keep exploring. 

Yes, as in there are no ultimate answers.

I used to push for an immediate resolution to daily problems. 

Now, I am not so anxious. 

Is science right about things, or is religion? 

Is there good and evil on a metaphysical level? 

Is there one god, or are there many gods, or no gods? 

A hundred answers exist for these questions. 

They are all known, but no one agrees. Today, I think it all very fine. 

Let there be a hundred answers with none of them entirely correct. 

The asking of the question is already enough.

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Not that I am comfortable.  

Or agreeable.  

Things are the way they are.  

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)

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It follows that I am not writing this book 

out of any sense of objection to what

anyone believes now. 

Beyond all reason is the mystery of love: 

you know we are all equal, 

no one in truth needs any help 

from anyone else, 

no one needs to be told anything

or given anything—and then you 

do the most compassionate act anyway, 

do the best for your brothers and sisters 

that you have in you. 

I'm relaying what was given to me 

when I felt I needed it: 

if I felt that way, 

maybe someone else does, too. 

This is a letter to my brothers and sisters, 

a love note to try to show how, 

when we thought love wasn't working, 

it was working perfectly.

(Thaddeus Golas)

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Tiny mandala #27 of 53, work in progress:

Tears of joy revisited / Boundless Love

In the first month after my R returned from Vietnam in December 1970, he bought tickets for us to see the exhibit of Vincent van Gogh's art work at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.  It is occurring to me this morning that I sensed Vincent van Gogh's presence as I stood with R in front of the paintings that Vincent van Gogh had stood by or sat in front of or carried with him through his life.  I saw then and see even more now that R had much in common with Vincent van Gogh.  R was an artist.  R's life held both profound joy and immense grief and sorrow and pain.  Watching this video again this morning after a friend sent me the link, I see R healed and whole, walking in peace somewhere beyond reason, somewhere eternally beautiful, with Vincent van Gogh and so many others like them, like all of us, worthy of unconditional love.

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This brought tears of joy, too.  Thank you, beth coyote.

All Of Us Going Forward Without Denying The Past AND The Present

A friend emailed me a link to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfZPl4CFEUc&t=6040s

I don't have HBO and may not have heard about this otherwise.  A quick check with our public library shows that it is available there on DVD.  Maybe some of you have seen this already, given that it was released in 2019.  I just finished watching it.

I'm grateful to diverse friends who bring to my attention what needs to be brought to my attention.

At the end of the documentary, Sweet Honey in the Rock sings "We'll Never Turn Back."  With a little googling I found that Mavis Staples featured it on an album released in 2007.

I found the following quote here about "We"ll Never Turn Back."

"One of the symbolic songs of the civil rights movement in the USA, interpreted by many artists starting from The SNCC Freedom Singers, through Sweet Honey in the Rock and Barbara Dane. However, I preferred to attribute it to Mavis Staples for the recent, very intense interpretation of hers in the 2007 eponymous album." 

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A local young woman:

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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)

Vincent van Gogh visits the gallery

Sometimes YouTube brings me what I need to see, just when I need to see it.  A random act of kindness.

"... How many deaths will it take 'til he knows that too many people have died? ..." / Summer Solstice 2020 / The Parable of the Sower

Although the early morning sun is still visible from my porch, it won't be long before it will be hidden behind the dense grove of cottonwood trees to the northeast.  Summer solstice is not that far away.  On that day, the official sunrise will be at 5:07 a.m. and sunset at 9:19 p.m., but the first light and the last light are much earlier and much later than that.  When I get up at 4 a.m. on the morning of the Summer Solstice there will be light in the sky.  The birds will be awake.  Summer Solstice in the time of COVID-19.

My 18th birthday happened during the first few days of my freshman year, 1967, at University of California, Irvine, but I didn't tell anyone.  Someone found out, and an informal un-birthday party was arranged for me a week or so later.  All anyone knew about me was that I was an art major.  Someone went to the University Bookstore and bought a print of Vincent van Gogh's "The Sower" and wrapped it up as a birthday gift.  For the past 53 years, it's been on one wall or another wherever I have lived.  Recently I moved it to a place where it can be seen when I walk through my front doorway.  This morning when I looked at the print, the idea suddenly came to me to put one of my older mandalas where the sun is, in the spirit of collage.

Sometime in the 1980s, I made a collage along the same lines, combining another painting from Van Gogh's Sower series with a self-portrait by Rembrandt and "The Luncheon of the Boating Party," by Renoir.

When I Googled "the sower," I discovered this:

"... But the road to freedom is long, arduous and dangerous. "They run into this fire that they know they can't control and then an earthquake happens. Lauren makes a choice. She cannot control the earthquake or the fire. But she can control the path she and her people take."

Many thanks to 37paddington for introducing me to the writing of Octavia E. Butler.

For some time now, I've been saving a quote which just happens to affirm everything I hoped to say in this post.

"May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears."
(Nelson Mandela)

Meditation on the first day of a 70th year

"How can I be useful, of what service can I be?  There is something inside me, what can it be?

(Vincent van Gogh)

I have two younger sisters.  My youngest sister emailed this to me for my birthday:

At many points in my life, I looked at lists of possible career choices for someone of my personality type.  When I saw that one of my options was "shepherd," I laughed out loud, and said, "Yes, that's it!  I would love to be a shepherd.  I would be good at that."  Who knows?  I wouldn't be surprised if one of my female ancestors in the Middle East took care of a flock of sheep.  I know that my sister doesn't know that I thought I would make a good shepherd.  I continue to take what I have gathered from coincidence.

Much of my life prior to retirement a year ago was spent in looking for a way to use my innate skills and be useful in the world of work.  I was useful in the medical industry as a medical transcriptionist for 22 years, but I never felt that I was making full use of my abilities, and in my last 5 years as a medical transcriptionist, the financial compensation for my work dropped to close to minimum wage due to the advent of speech recognition technology and exploitation of medical transcriptionists who work from home.

Prior to beginning to work as a medical transcriptionist at age 34, I was a production worker after having dropped out of college in 1968 and vowing that I would not take a job that supported the war in Vietnam in any way.  I lacked the social skills to be a waitress.  I lacked the simple mathematical skills to make change as a salesperson.  I refused to learn to type.  I had no "marketable skills." I remember the first time I saw this photo

and thought that I would like to have a job like that.  I proceeded to apply for jobs as a production worker.  I have come a long way since that time.  I did finish college at age 32 with a degree in English Literature and Art.  It baffles me that I would have seen a future for myself in this photo of an exploited girl, and yet I ended up working as a medical transcription subcontractor with as few rights as that girl working in the textile mills of Massachusetts where my great great grandfather who came from the Black Forest in Germany worked as a weaver in the 1800s and died of suicide by hanging at age 90.

As a child and young adult, I never pictured myself as a mother.  Never.  I wanted to be a cowgirl.  I wanted to be a doctor.  I wanted to save the world from the Nazis.  I wanted to write books.  I wanted to be an artist.  I wanted to be a librarian, but that required learning a second language, and I didn't have the confidence in myself to believe I could learn a second language.

On a personal level, the child and young adult that I was wanted an "ideal" man to love me.  I wanted that beginning when I was 6 years old and watched "Lady and the Tramp." Having watched that movie since then, I find it equally baffling that "Tramp," who is nearly as distasteful to me now as someone with a similar name who is our current president, would become my childhood vision of the "ideal" man I wanted to love me.

The brief history above does much to explain why I always test as an INFP.  

Today is the first day of my 70th year.  I am grateful to have lived a full life so far, experiencing great joy and great sorrow, and am curious as to what the coming years will bring to the world we live in.  The difficulties we face have deep roots that are more and more apparent with each passing day.  I don't know how I know, but I know that we will survive against all odds.  I am grateful for the darkness and the gentle rain in the early morning on my birthday.  

My two younger sisters wished me a happy birthday via email.  It's 2018. 

A few old and new friends, near and far, sent funny, playful, loving thoughtful cards.

I keep a low profile on my birthday.  I avoid commotion.  Peace and quiet is my wish.  A walk with a friend. Talking on the phone with an old friend from college who lives on the other side of the United States.  I enjoy being surprised by the good things that happen unplanned.  I am an INFP.

I am grateful for the community of bloggers who have been a steady part of my life since December 2006.

I am grateful for all the men that have been brothers to me in the best of ways:

My mother appeared to be healthy until the day she died of a massive heart attack in 1993 at age 78.  My father was not at all healthy when my mother died, but he lived until 89 years old when he died of congestive heart failure.  Maybe I will live 8 more years.  Maybe I will live 20 more years.  I don't have a great desire to live longer than that.

I do have a desire to be useful and of service for the rest of my life, no matter how many years I have ahead of me.  That is what I want most to say on the first day of my 70th year.

Labor Day 2018 / Working on a Mandala

You turn the tide on me each day and teach my eyes to see,
Just bein' next to you is a natural thing for me
And I could never let you go, no matter what goes on,
'Cause I love you more than ever now that the past is gone.

(lyrics from "Wedding Song," Bob Dylan, 1973)

Alive Alive-O

How can I be useful, of what service can I be?  There is something inside me, what can it be?
-- Vincent van Gogh (March 30, 1853 - July 29, 1890)



O, what kind of love is this that goes from bad to worse?
-- Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Tears of Rage"

Sorrowful, yet rejoicing / Spiritual growth / Letters from Iraq

Rachel Carson:

I am not afraid of being thought a sentimentalist when I say that I believe natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of an individual or a society. I believe that whenever we destroy beauty, or whenever we substitute something manmade and artificial for a natural feature of the earth, we have retarded some part of our spiritual growth.

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It is my understanding that Vincent van Gogh took these words to heart:

Sorrowful, yet rejoicing.

Vincent van Gogh and Karma Yoga

"Painter on the Road to Tarascon" (1888)

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)

There are six branches of yoga, each with a different focus:

Raja yoga (path of meditation)
Karma yoga (path of service)
Bhakti yoga (path of the heart)
Jnana yoga (path of the mind)
Tantric yoga (path of ritual)
Hatha yoga (path of physical health through postures and breathing practices)

Celebrating the life and heart of a writer

"Perhaps, I fear, this decision deprives society of one great programmer in favor of one mediocre writer. And let’s not hide behind the cloak of uncertainty, let’s say we know that it does. Even so, I would make it. The writing is too important, the programming too unenjoyable.

And for that, I apologize."

(Aaron Swartz)

Although I don't know much at all about Aaron Swartz -- only becoming aware of him as a result of his suicide -- I am moved by his writing.

(The above gouache on paper is a work in progress by am.  I am wondering why I find it so hard to sustain a painting and drawing practice, even though painting and drawing are things I am good at.  At this time in my life, I would rather write something on this blog or answer email or read a book or take a long walk or practice yoga or get together with friends most mornings at 7:30 a.m. for a breakfast of sorts.  It's not that painting and drawing are unenjoyable, though.  It's something else that hinders me.  What could it be?)

"So let us go forward, quietly, each on his own path, forever making for the light."
(Vincent van Gogh)

Visions of Johanna meditation on a foggy morning a few days before 2013

Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law, Johanna, with Vincent's nephew, Vincent.

"Vincent undertook to nurse a victim of a fire in the mine. The man was so badly burned and mutilated that the doctor had no hope for his recovery ... Van Gogh tended him forty days with loving care and saved the miner's life.  Vincent [said Gauguin] "believed in miracles," in maternal care.

(from The Eye of Spirit:  A Integral Vision for a World Gone Slightly Mad, by Ken Wilber)

"The Good Samaritan (after Delacroix) -- Vincent van Gogh 

The view from my porch this morning:

Glimpses of the younger generation of kindred spirits to Bob Dylan:

"And Madonna, she still has not showed

We see this empty cage now corrode

Where her cape of the stage once had flowed

The fiddler, he now steps to the road

He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed

On the back of the fish truck that loads 

While my conscience explodes

The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain

And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain"

(the last verse of "Visions of Johanna" -- Bob Dylan, 1966)

Paintings by Marc Chagall:

The Blue Fiddler

The Fiddler

From page 300 of Writings and Drawings of Bob Dylan, published in 1973:

RECONCILIATION DREAM / FEB. 2008

"So let us go forward, quietly, each on his own path, forever making for the light."

-- Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)






















Two Lovers (fragment)
Painted by Vincent van Gogh in March of 1888

RELATIONSHIP

"In the midst of total uncertainty, we can love."

(from ST. NADIE IN WINTER: ZEN ENCOUNTERS WITH LONELINESS, Terrance Keenan)

Thanks to WHISKEY RIVER for guiding me to Terrance Keenan's book.

A friend directed my attention to Van Gogh's "Rain--Auvers," one of his last paintings. Looking at it made me think of R who was an 芸術家 who made a living as a 大工 and, I am certain, felt a kinship with van Gogh as he painted his last paintings at the VA hospital where he died last April.

"In the midst of total uncertainty, we can paint."

LANDSCAPE WITH RISING SUN

Vincent van Gogh, quoted on my Zen Calendar a couple of days ago:

I am an artist . . . It's self-evident that what that word implies is looking for something all the time without ever finding it in full. It is the opposite of saying, "I know all about it. I've already found it." As far as I'm concerned, the word means, "I am looking. I am hunting for it, I am deeply involved."

Here is "Landscape with Rising Sun," by Vincent van Gogh:















and "Vincent van Gogh Painting Sunflowers," by Paul Gauguin:

THE GOOD SAMARITAN

This is a painting by Vincent van Gogh that I hadn't seen before.

ANDO HIROSHIGE (1797-1858) / VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890) / BEFORE DAWN

34. The Bridge of Boats at Toyama in Etchu Province, by Ando Hiroshige, from "Famous Views of the 60-odd Provinces."

I am delighted by the image of a bridge of boats!

Bev of Burning Silo mentioned Ando Hiroshige's "Famous Views of the 60-odd Provinces" in a comment. My work has been influenced by Vincent van Gogh who was influenced by Ando Hiroshige. I had not seen this particular series before and find it exhilarating to see these landscapes that so resemble the landscapes of my paintings and dreams and memories, although I have never been in Japan. I had not seen the following image by Vincent van Gogh, "The Bridge in the Rain," when I began my Calendar Series, although a friend gave me a postcard of "The Bridge in the Rain" after seeing some of my paintings from that series. Funny how I've been influenced consciously and unconsciously.



















This morning I was up early again:

Of What Service Can I Be?

(Vincent van Gogh, pastel drawing by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec)


How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?
~~ Vincent Van Gogh

Two Innocents with Experience / We Are Still Talking About Vincent's Ocean (2002)

WE ARE STILL TALKING ABOUT VINCENT'S OCEAN

When there was no teacher, life gave us a bridge.
When no bridge, a star.
When no star, a silence.

Far beyond silence,
His ocean was a starry night,
A bridge of palpable forgiveness,
A teacher of immense gratitude.

Life Drawing of a Young Woman (1982)

In 1971, I was given a box of Rembrandt pastels which I never used because I didn't know how to use them. In 1982, I brought them to a drawing class at Western Washington University and surprised myself by doing this drawing which was one of five pastel drawings done in a life drawing class setting. The drawing professor, R. Allen Jensen, asked me if I had seen the work of R.B. Kitaj or Francis Bacon. I hadn't, but I went to the university library to search for the work of those artists and understood why he had asked that question. The artists, Mary Cassatt and Georgia O'Keeffe, both of whom worked in pastel, had influenced me, along with Marc Chagall, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Arshille Gorky, Wassily Kandinsky, The Blue Rider group and Bob Dylan's music.