Tapestry / Wildfires / "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"

(Smoky light on my tapestry woven by my friend, Linda Rees.  The link shows this tapestry as well as a few of her works along with the work of a variety of tapestry weavers.)

My windows have been closed for several days, ever since the smoke from the fires in British Columbia increased to an unhealthy level, close to the designation "hazardous." My shades are drawn down to block out the view of the smoke-filled sky.  My air cleaner runs 24 hours a day along with my portable air conditioner.  This helps the indoor air quality to some degree.  I am fortunate to own those appliances.  The air cleaner was purchased long ago to help relieve allergy symptoms. When I began working at home, I purchased the air conditioner so that I would be able to work without being unbearably hot during the summers.

Everyone here is affected by the smoke, especially the growing population of homeless people.  It is difficult to think clearly, difficult to do all the things we need to do.

Just before creating today's post, I read this from beth's blog, the cassandra pages.  I want to share her  post.

Song!

Thanks to Beth, one of my first blog friends (our friendship beginning around 10 years ago) for bringing Virginia Mae Schmitt to my attention this morning.  The 11th anniversary of my blog is coming up on December 8.  When I started this blog, I didn't realize how much I needed the experience of worldwide community that has unfolded over the years through blogging.  It has enriched my experience of local community.  And today it has brought a new dimension to the voice of Walt Whitman.

"... and your very flesh shall be a great poem ..."

In the preface to Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman writes to himself and the men of his time:

"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men—go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families—re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body."

For some reason, that got me thinking about Emily Dickinson and wondering if Walt Whitman read any of her poetry before he died in 1892. She died in 1886. Only a few of her poems were published in her lifetime, but some of her poetry was published posthumously in 1890.  She would have been aware of Whitman, but he may or may not have read any of her poetry.  I searched around a little and found this at Poets.org:

"Though she was dissuaded from reading the verse of her contemporary Walt Whitman by rumor of its disgracefulness, the two poets are now connected by the distinguished place they hold as the founders of a uniquely American poetic voice." 

The little videos at the top of this post show the street next to where I live. Turning left, one goes down a steep hill which leads to downtown Bellingham. Turning right, one can keep driving east for about 50 miles until one arrives (as far as one can drive into this section of Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest) at Artist's Point parking lot which is already closed this year due to snow: 

(photo credit:  Jeff Katzer)

This morning when I woke up in the dark at 5 o'clock, I could hear the wind.  When I went out on the porch to look to the east, the sky was unusually clear.  I could see the crescent moon and Orion.  The temperature is in the 50s this afternoon, with sunshine, wind, and absolutely clear sky.  The humidity is unusually low at 27%.  Ideal weather conditions, as far as I am concerned.  A good time for walking and everything else.  This is the time of year when my flesh feels like a great poem!

One more thing:

Listen.

Bob Dylan and Walt Whitman as Inadvertent Yoga Nidra Teachers and Fierce Grace and White Horse With One Ear (Drawn From Memory) / Black Horse Blues

Well my ship's been split to splinters and it's sinkin' 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
(lyrics from "Mississippi," by Bob Dylan in 2001)

It is said that Yoga Nidra helps us develop a deep capacity to meet any and all circumstances we may encounter in life.  Part of the Yoga Nidra practice is a welcoming of contrasts into awareness -- a splintered sinking ship along with a heart that is light and free and not weary, and eventually being able to experience them as one -- to experience fragmentation and wholeness simultaneously.

Throughout the decades, the songs of Bob Dylan have explored contrasts as they coexist as two necessary parts of the whole:

"She knows there's no success like failure and failure's no success at all."

(lyrics from "Love Minus Zero / No Limit, by Bob Dylan -- 1965)

"I've been meek and hard like an oak."
(lyrics from "Buckets of Rain" -- 1974)

"I came to a high place of darkness and light.  A dividing line ran through the center of town."
(lyrics from "Isis" -- 1975)

"Alarm bells were ringing to hold back the swelling tide.  Friends and lovers clinging to each other side by side."
(lyrics from "Tempest" -- 2012)


As many of you know, with my experience in 1970-1971 of having lived with a dearly loved man from the early December morning he arrived home from Vietnam until the following May, I am a veteran of that shattering aftermath of war, and I continue to come to terms with the depth and breadth of those life-changing months and am just now beginning to appreciate the Fierce Grace that came to me at a young age.   I thought I was alone in what had happened to me and the man I loved and who loved me.  Now I know I wasn't alone.  Never was.

Recent drawn-from-memory sequence with my PC's "paint" program -- printed and scanned to my MacBook:

 

A Yoga Nidra pairing of contrasts could be the above sequence of drawings, done in the present time of relative tranquility, with the drawing below where I faced ongoing emotional turmoil over three consecutive Augusts, dating the scratchboard drawing three times in frustration at not being able to find my way.  The third August was four months after the death of my beloved friend and veteran.  Nearly five years have passed since his death.

I like the way the drawings look together on this page and how they interact in the context of Yoga Nidra.

Walt Whitman could have been talking Yoga Nidra when he made this acknowledgement of the truth of human wholeness:

"Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then I contradict myself.  I am large.  I contain multitudes."

THUNDERSTORM

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
(Walt Whitman)

On action alone be thy interest, never on its fruits.
(Bhagavad Gita)

And listen to this.

TWO TREES IN SEPTEMBER / REALITY

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
(Walt Whitman)

Contradiction is the criterion of reality.
(Simone Weil)