βιος post #1190 / An Inadvertent Series of Lessons

Today's lessons include How to type in Greek on a computer:

We just never know where internet searches may lead us.  Early this morning when I checked my email, I saw this subject line:  Check out Journal of Surrealism and the Americas.  Although I was about to delete it, wondering why I was receiving this particular unsolicited email, something prompted me to open it.  We all know how this goes. Within seconds I realized that I had read something from the JSA before and must have given them my email address, and I was engaged with reading 'My World is Surreal,' or 'The Northwest Coast' is Surreal, by Charlotte Townsend-Gault (educated in England, taught in Scotland, Nova Scotia, and currently teaching in British Columbia) and was soon compelled to find out about Giorgio Agamben.  Part way down the Wiki page on Agamben, I came across this:

"bare life" — zoe (Gk. ζωή), as opposed to bios (Gk. βίος): qualified life

βίος looks like  Blog, doesn't it?

When I tried to copy and save "βίος" in a Word document, it copied as:  ____

Of course I couldn't let that stop me, and in the process I learned how to type in Greek letters on a computer and discovered that the Greek letter sigma's capitalized form is Σ and that it has two lower case forms -- σ and ς. The former is used within a word, and the latter is used at the end of word.  Ιt took me a little longer to figure out that in order to type the final Σ, I would have to use the  "w" key.

In the midst of these rich lessons, my attention was drawn outside to where I listened to the wind beginning to thrash the cattails before the drenching rain began.

And now another lesson in listening :



I had to play this a second time before I began to hear the high notes of "Amazing Grace" woven into the droning.

If you'd like to know more about Koomei, click here.

That's all for today.  Thanks for stopping by.

Born in 1949 / We travel like an ox

I buyed me a little dog

Color it was brown

I learned him how to whistle

Sing and dance and run

His legs they were 14 yards long

His ears they were quite broad

Around the world in a half a day

And on him I could ride

Sing Tattle O’Day

I buyed me a little bull

About four inches high

Everybody feared him

That ever heard him cry

When he began to bellow

It made such a melodious sound

Until all the walls in London town

Came tumbling to the ground

Sing Tattle O’Day

I buyed me a flock of sheep

I thought they were all wethers

Sometimes they yielded wool

Sometimes they yielded feathers

I think mine are the very best sheep

For yielding me increase

For every full and change of the moon

They bring both lambs and geese

Sing Tattle O’Day

I buyed me a little box

About four acres square

I filled it full of guineas

And silver so fair

Oh now I’m bound for Turkey

I travel like an ox

And in my big chest pocket

I carry my little box

Sing Tattle O’Day

I buyed me a little hen

All speckled gay and fair

I sat her on an oyster shell

She hatched me out a hare

The hare it sprang a handsome horse

Full fifteen hands high

And him that tells a bigger tale

Would have to tell a lie

Sing Tattle O’Day

Yesterday something happened.  I've been feeling an underlying sense of progressive depression and fatigue for some time now, and yesterday morning I just didn't want to get out of bed and chose instead to enter into a form of meditation and soon drifted back into sleep.   

I dreamed a dream that didn't make me sad.  Because I was dreaming that I was in bed, I didn't completely realize that I was dreaming until I woke up. In the dream, I was awakened from sleep by a frightening commotion and loud voices and a tempest strong enough to force my body to move down my bed in the direction of my open bedroom window. 

For a few seconds, I fought being moved from my bed and then remembered a dream I had in October of 1998 while traveling on the coast of Northern California.  In that dream, I didn't realize that I was dreaming either because the dream also involved me being awakened from sleep while in bed. In that dream, I dreamed that I awoke to the sound of Hell's Angels on motorcycles outside the rented cottage where I was staying on the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean in southern Mendocino County. I awoke in terror, feeling myself being pulled by my feet from my bed by an invisible force at the foot of the bed.  The feeling in that dream was similarly and oddly familiar, and felt like a memory from my childhood.  The dream room in that previous nightmare was filled with a subdued golden light which should have been reassuring but was not.

Still thinking that I was awake, as I fought the tempest and recalled that previous nightmare which had seemed to be based on a childhood memory, I noticed that everything in my vision was illuminated by a white light, and my distress shifted to the curiosity of lucid dreaming.  

Understanding clearly that it was within my power to make a decision to relax and see what would happen, I did just that.  Instead of finding myself flying out the open window, it was as if the tempest went through me, and then I woke up.  

I've felt disoriented and aimless since 2008 when Richard died. Or was it when the First Gulf War started in August of 1990 or was it in December of 1970 when Richard returned from Vietnam or was it somewhere way back in my childhood?

When I woke up this morning, I found that I suddenly had the ability to focus my energy enough to sit down at my work table for the first time in a long long time and listen to Another Self Portrait while I prepared a plan for warping my inkle loom and then warped the loom and began weaving.  

Listening to Another Self Portrait this morning inspired me to look through my CDs for the rest of the Bootleg Series, and I found I was missing Vols. 6 and 7 and promptly bought them both on iTunes and began assembling a Bootleg Series random playlist for listening while I am doing creative work. So far the playlist is over 10 hours long! 

After August 1990, as I began to exhibit symptoms of PTSD similar to those which many Vietnam veterans began to experience at that time, I found that preparing to do creative work only upset me. What was once the source of my solace had been transformed into a dark place that I could no longer tolerate.  

Although I had frequently been inspired by listening to Bob Dylan's voice in the past, I haven't been able to bring myself to do that for years when I have sat down in an attempt to do art work. In the past few weeks, I've come to realize that I can listen to the alternative versions and live versions of songs sung by Bob Dylan and can feel something new instead of reliving the past.  

P.S. I'm still playing my ukulele daily, inspired by George Harrison:

'Cept the one you can't see with your eyes

Listen.

And there's no exit in any direction
'Cept the one you can't see with your eyes.

(from "Series of Dreams," music and lyrics by Bob Dylan, 1991)

I'm awake because of the third in a series of nightmares that turned thoughtful and brought unexpected healing to some very old wounds. The first nightmare was last September. The second was a few nights ago.

I'd already gone the distance
Just thinking of a series of dreams

(from "Series of Dreams," music and lyrics by Bob Dylan, 1991)

RED DUCK DREAM

Painted in gouache and watercolor on a watercolor paper block by Old Girl Of The North Country in 2006.

























"So-called sentimental, transcendental dreaming seems the only sensible and substantial business that one can engage in."
(John Muir)



















"Series of Dreams", written by Bob Dylan in 1991

Scroll down to MP3 samples, Disk 3, Song 16

And from my Zen Calendar today:

"Tell the Truth but tell it slant . . .
The Truth must dazzle gradually
or every man be blind."
(Emily Dickinson)

Beloved Person in Bird Costume Painted from Memory / Be Loved (1993)

On December 8, 1979, nine years to the morning that my boyfriend had returned from Vietnam, I began to record in my written journal some fleeting images (several of which were of sculptures) from a series of dreams that became increasingly complex and mysterious. Of course, it is very difficult to translate dream images onto paper because dream images are elusive. The recording of the dream images led to my decision to return to college to finish my degree in English Literature with a minor in Studio Art and preceded ten years of intense creativity and growth.

In October of 1990, feeling my inspiration slipping away, I went through my written journals and copied those dream images onto four pieces of 13" x 17" watercolor paper. Many of those images appear in my paintings in the 1990s, including the "beloved person in bird costume."

































































It was on December 8, 2006, thirty-six years to the day that my boyfriend had returned from Vietnam, that I decided to create this blog, which has led to a renewed commitment to myself as an artist and writer.

Calendar Series: 57th Month / Traveling Through the Fertile Land of Memory and Forgiveness (1989)

Untitled Witness (1983)

Until now, I hadn't made the connection that "Untitled Witness" from 1983 is related to the drawing from 1966 that I posted on this blog on December 8, 2006, "Imaginary Brother as Witness": In both images, I see a young person who is a witness to something unnamed, a person who is marked and changed by what was witnessed. He is not guilty, but he is no longer innocent. 

As I look at these drawings I remember Bob Dylan singing: “. . . Ring them bells, for the time that flies, for the child that cries when innocence dies . . .” (from “Ring Them Bells,” Bob Dylan, 1989) “ . . . In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face . . .” (from “Every Grain of Sand," Bob Dylan, 1981) “ . . . I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn . . ." (from "Shelter From the Storm,” Bob Dylan, 1974) “ . . . The geometry of innocent flesh on the bone . . .” (from “Tombstone Blues,” Bob Dylan, 1965) 

 "I was thinking of a series of dreams Where nothing comes up to the top Everything stays down where it's wounded And comes to a permanent stop Wasn't thinking of anything specific Like in a dream, when someone wakes up and screams Nothing too very scientific Just thinking of a series of dreams Thinking of a series of dreams Where the time and the tempo fly And there's no exit in any direction 'Cept the one that you can't see with your eyes Wasn't making any great connection Wasn't falling for any intricate scheme Nothing that would pass inspection Just thinking of a series of dreams Dreams where the umbrella is folded Into the path you are hurled And the cards are no good that you're holding Unless they're from another world In one, numbers were burning In another, I witnessed a crime 

In one, I was running, and in another All I seemed to be doing was climb Wasn't looking for any special assistance Not going to any great extremes I'd already gone the distance Just thinking of a series of dreams" (from "Series of Dreams," Bob Dylan, 1991) 

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Today is the last day of 2006. 

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Child stepped

leapt 

grew steady 

everything under the sun is new. 

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Kind wishes to all for the New Year.