GRIZZLY BEAR DREAM

Have not been feeling well. Slept most of yesterday. Woke up early this morning with a mild headache. My eyes have been bothering me. May have figured out what the problem is and hope to feel better soon. Will be seeing an ophthalmologist early on Tuesday morning.

Have had a series of vivid dreams, including one where I was walking in a California landscape (rural San Mateo County) and saw a grizzly bear crossing the path, not far ahead of me. The bear was moving from left to right, unlike the bear in the California flag. I googled for images of grizzly bears, but none looked so much like the one in my dream as the one in the California flag. In the dream I felt terror and began to run away from the bear, although the bear wasn't threatening me. It was only crossing the path in front of me. My running away caused the bear to begin chasing me. I escaped the bear by running into a house that was some kind of institution. Later in the dream I was at a lake. A tank-like makeshift boat pulled up to the the shore and then continued to the right along the shore. The front of the boat was like that of a diesel truck. The back of the boat appeared to be Scotch-taped. Something happened inside the "institution." I spent the rest of the dream there but cannot remember anything of what happened there.

From UNATTENDED SORROW, by Stephen Levine:

As a teacher of mine once said, "The mind creates the abyss and the heart crosses it." Love is the bridge.
(p. 63)

talking about what is not broken / thanksgiving 2008

Variations on a Theme by Rilke

(The Book of Hours, Book I, Poem 1, Stanza 1)


A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me -- a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic -- or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

(Denise Levertov)

















("Emily Dickinson with Paintbrush" -- pastel drawing on paper by am from the early 1980s)

(handwritten thank you and update note from RTN while in the stroke rehab unit of the VA hospital in January 2008. Many thanks to his sister for sending it to me)

Here are some notes about a song first recorded in March of 1966:

"I think I was on the road . . . I think I wrote it in Kansas City or something, on Thanksgiving, yeah I'm pretty sure I did . . . I was invited over to somebody's house for Thanksgiving dinner but I didn't go, didn't feel like doing anything, I wasn't hungry, I stayed in my hotel room and wrote this."

Listen

Then go see Bev's beautiful clip of a Water Ouzel and a waterfall.

And "Thankful" on Loren's blog.

CARROT DREAM

Last night I dreamed that I finally found a job -- harvesting carrots that were drifting in with the tide on a steep ocean beach in the winter sunshine. Some of the carrots were the size of telephone poles. Not a problem. I worked hard. I worked alone, feeling strong and healthy and useful. Grateful to be employed.

As I was going up the hill on my way home from my daily walk in Whatcom Falls Park this morning, I remembered the dream. It cheered me up.

I've felt off balance since Veteran's Day and have been experiencing two physical symptoms that show that I am feeling deep distress -- my skin itches and I have a stiff neck. My hands have been getting numb at night again, most likely the result of having been trying to increase my typing speed in hopes of being employed as a medical transcriptionist. Folly?

I'm feeling discouraged and at the same time encouraged by my funny hopeful dream.

"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)

Blue Scholars -- Back Home

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En8DwCeKa6M

"Bring 'em back home,
for my brotha's and my sista's who been gone too long we say;
Bring 'Em Back home, and I don't want to have to keep singin' this song,
We say; Bring 'em back home, for my brotha's and my sista's who been gone too long we say;
Bring 'em back home, and I dont want to have to keep singin' this song."

(with thanks to my nephew)

AND I REJOICE TO HEAR HE'S WELL

EPISTLE TO DERROLL

Come all you starry starfish - living in the deep blue sea
Crawl to me I have a proposition to make thee
Would you walk the North Sea floor to Belgium from England
Bring me word of a Banjo Man with a tattoo on his hand

The spokesman of the starfish spoke as spokesmen should
If'n you met our fee then certainly we would
Should you cast a looking glass upon the scalloped sand
You'll have word word of this Banjo Man with the tattoo on his hand

Oh come you starry starfish - I know your ways are caped
Maybe it's because you'r astrologically shaped
Converse with the herring shoals as I know you can
Bring me word of the Banjo Man with the tattoo on his hand
The eldest of the starfish spoke after a sigh
Youthful as you are young man you have a Wisdom Eye
Surely you must know a looking glass is made from sand
These young stars are fooling you about your Banjo man

Oh come then aged starfish - riddle me no more
For news I am weary and my heart is sore
All on the silent seashore - help me if you can
Tell to me if you know of the Banjo Man

All through the seven oceans I am a star most famed
Many leggies have I lost an many have I gained
Strange to say, quite recently, I've been to Flemish land
And if you are courteous I'll tell you all I can

You have my full attention - I answered him with glee
His brother stars were twinkling in the sky above the sea
So I sat there with rapt attention on the sand
Very anxious for to hear of the Banjo Man
I have seen this tattooed hand through a ship's porthole
Steaming on the watery main through the waves so cold
Heard his tinkling banjo and his voice so grand
But you must come to Belgium to shake the tattooed hand

Gladly would I come - O gladly would I go
Had I not my work to do and my face to show
And I rejoice to hear he's well but I must go inland
Thank you for the words you brought of my Banjo Man

I walked along the evening sand as charcoal clouds did shift
Revealing the moon shining on the pebble drift
Contemplating every other word the starfish said
Whistly winds they filled my dreams in my dreaming bed
(lyrics by Donovan Leitch)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsyvPY4z3qs

(Have been unable to download YouTube videos to my blog for awhile now)

(RTN had a tattoo on his hand. He taught me some banjo picking. I listened to this song by Donovan Leitch over and over in 1967, the year we turned 17, never knowing at that time if I would ever see RTN again)

(The watercolor, gouache and pastel image on watercolor paper was made by me around 1984 and is called "Woman with Her Hands Full.")

VETERAN'S DAY 2008

click here.

AM'S MACRAME (1971)

"The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind."
(Maya Angelou)

OBOE STEPS OUT ON A RAINY "SUN"DAY

The Infinite Goodness has such wide arms that it takes whatever turns to it.
(Dante Alighieri)

Have been studying 7 hours a day, Tuesdays through Saturdays, in hopes of being employed again in 2009. For now, there's not much time at all to post on my blog or visit other blogs. Thanks to all who have visited and continue to visit. I miss having the time to travel to my favorite blogs on a daily basis. At best, I can post and travel on Sundays and Mondays and will try for that.

(click on photo to see Oboe's whiskers and toes)

Sacred House of Dreams

One thousand George Bushes and one thousand Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down.

"They will, however, be leaving office, dropping the national tragedies of Katrina, Iraq, and our financial crisis in our laps. Our sacred house of dreams has been abused, looted, and left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs care; it needs saving, it needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power or a quick buck. It needs strong arms, hearts, and minds. It needs someone with Senator Obama's understanding, temperateness, deliberativeness, maturity, compassion, toughness, and faith, to help us rebuild our house once again. But most importantly, it needs us. You and me. To build that house with the generosity that is at the heart of the American spirit. A house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow citizens. That is where our future lies. We will rise or fall as a people by our ability to accomplish this task. Now I don't know about you, but I want that dream back, I want my America back, I want my country back."

Bruce Springsteen
(from post at wood s lot)

(photograph taken at Big Sur by am)

BIG SUR MORNING

"The philosophy of waiting is sustained by all the oracles of the universe."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

HE WALKED AN ISTHMUS / SYNCHRONICITY

Anu Garg's word for the day (wordsmith.org) is "isthmus"

He presents this quotation:

"As a young man [Nathaniel] Hawthorne had been a recluse. His gift of vision made him different, as he walked an isthmus between time and eternity." (Patrick J. Walsh; Hawthorne's God; Weekly Standard (Washington, DC); Jan 2, 2006.)

As I prepare to leave two days from now for a trip to Oregon and then California, during which time I will be visiting old friends and RTN's grave, I have to smile at the synchronicity in the appearance of the word "isthmus" on A.Word.A.Day today.

A few days ago, Anu Garg's word was "shoal" and included the above photograph. When I looked at the photograph, I thought, "Isthmus."

In April, two days before I drove to California to be with RTN for what was to be the last time, I engaged in a 20-minute meditation, using music and silence, during a counseling session. My mind became very quiet. Then something in my mind spoke the word "isthmus." My next thought was "The Isthmus of Panama." The experience was much like the series of brief early morning "word dreams" I had in the first days after RTN died, when I heard the words "Shore," "Understand," "Send Love," and "Beep-Beep!"

While I was spending time with RTN in the intensive care unit, I had a conversation with one of the many VA hospital nurses who took such good care of RTN. The daughter of an American man working in Panama, she had been born there and had lived and worked all over the world. I told her about my experience in the counseling session. We talked at length. I told her that I had to drive back to Washington on the following day. She said, "He is going to miss you." I said, "It is very difficult for me to leave him." I didn't know that he was going to die a week after I left.

It feels auspicious to come across the word "isthmus" again.

". . . he walked an isthmus between time and eternity."

THE SWIMMING SONG

Listen to Kate and Anna McGarrigle.

AS I WENT OUT WALKING

Having trouble uploading images today. Looking forward to walking in Yosemite on October 1.

"Ramble to the summit of Mount Hoffman, eleven thousand feet high, the highest point in life's journey my feet have yet touched. And what glorious landscapes are about me, new plants, new animals, new crystals, and multitudes of new mountains far higher than Hoffman, towering in majestic, snow-laden, sun-drenched, vast domes and ridges shining below them, forests, lakes, and sky brooding them all -- a glory day of admission into a new realm of wonders as if Nature had wooingly whispered, "Come higher." What questions I asked, and how little I know of all the vast show, and how eagerly, tremulously hopeful of some day knowing more, learning the meaning of these divine symbols crowded together on this wondrous page."

(John Muir, on page 123 of MEDITATIONS OF JOHN MUIR: NATURE'S TEMPLE, compiled and edited by Chris Highland, 2001)

Update: Uploading is working again.

When I went out walking a few days ago, I wore my winter gloves and brought my camera. More than half way through the 1-1/2 hour walk I realized that I didn't have my gloves. Somewhere early in the walk, I had taken them off so I could use my camera. Though I've lost these gloves before, I had a sinking feeling that this time I wouldn't find them again. Then I remembered something a friend told me when I was in my early 20s -- "Whenever you are worried because you can't find something, relax and tell yourself that it has fallen into the snag and will reappear eventually." I don't know how many times her words have saved me from obsessive worrying. Anyway, with the thought that my gloves were safe in the "snag," I kept walking and did find them arranged in this way on a speed bump. They are the warmest winter gloves I've ever owned. Good to know I'll have them for another winter.

PLANT MY HEART

After RTN experienced a brainstem stroke in September of 2007, he was in a coma for two weeks. When he came out of the coma, he was unable to speak or walk and was transferred to the stroke rehabilitation unit of the VA hospital. During that time he painted this mysterious image on canvas and titled it "Plant My Heart." His painting was displayed at the VA hospital. I was not aware that he had had a stroke until the end of December. We had been out of touch since 2003. His sister had lost my phone number, home address and email address. After I sent her a winter holidays card, I got a card letting me know about RTN's stroke.

His sister and brother-in-law shipped me this painting after RTN died five months ago. They sent me RTN's wooden easel and art supplies as well.

On first viewing, I saw a Northern California coastal landscape and a heart. Then I began to see a woman. A friend pointed out a much smaller woman with reddish hair in the upper left hand side of the canvas. When I was young, my hair was red. She appears to be sitting down with her legs crossed. Does anyone see anything else? I look often at the painting and wonder. Final gifts. I am grateful that I was able to spend time with him in the intensive care unit for four days in the week before he died. I miss him. All that remained unresolved between us seemed to be resolved in his last days.

When I went walking in the rain today in Whatcom Falls Park, I saw lots of red leaves and remembered how much RTN loved the colors of the leaves in the fall,























and I saw this, which I believe is an Amanita formosa.

AFTER

Bellingham's waterfront did not always consist of pockets of sandy beaches, reminiscent of the ocean beaches I grew up with in Northern California. These local beaches have been engineered in the past few years to resemble something other than the coast of the Salish Sea.

They are entirely lovely. At the same time, they are disconcerting. Washington is not California. I wonder about this blurring of differences, this disregard for the integrity of the Pacific Northwest landscape.

FLOWERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF GOODBYE

Click on flowers for close-up. Click here and scroll down for clip of "Please Stay." Also, listen to "Keep Me In Your Heart." Warren Zevon's last album is a treasure.
Please stay
Please stay
Two words I've thought I'd never learn to say
Don't go away
Please stay
Don't leave me here
When so many things so hard to see are clear
I need you near to me
Will you stay with me to the end?
When there's nothing left
But you and me and the wind
We'll never know till we try
To find the other side of goodbye
Please stay
Please stay
Two words I've thought I'd never learn to say
Don't go away
Please stay
(Warren Zevon)

In the hospice-sponsored grief support group I've been attending, two people told stories of plants flowering that had never flowered before, flowering after the death of their loved ones. This morning I found tiny purple flowers when I looked at the plants on my porch. That plant has never flowered before. Another kind message from RTN?

HOZHO

The Navaho word hozho, translated into English as “beauty,” also means harmony, wholeness, goodness. One story that suggests the dynamic way that beauty comes alive between us concerns a contemporary Navajo weaver. A man ordered a rug of an especially complex pattern on two separate occasions from the same weaver. Both rugs came out perfectly and the weaver remarked to her brother that there must have been something special about the owner. It was understood that the outcome of the rugs was dependent not on the weaver’s skill and ability but upon the hozho in the owners life. The hozho of his life evoked the beauty in the rugs. In the Navaho world view, beauty exists not simply in the object, or in the artist who made the object; it is expressed in relationships.

- J. Ruth Gendler, Notes on the Need for Beauty

The quote, which was taken from A Pause for Beauty, affirms my experience of relationship with RTN. The hozho of his complex life has come through in my drawings and paintings over the past 42 years. This painting from 2002 clearly grew from the healing shape of our relationship that year.

Thank you to all who continue to visit my blog during this time when I have little to say or post. I am deeply grateful for your silent presence, your comments, your blogs.

42 years: a book of changes

"What we call the beginning is often the end, and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."
(T. S. Eliot)

Using the iPhoto application on my MacBook, I created a 50-page book of a selection of art work created as a result of RTN's presence in my life for the last 42 years. The book includes a short introduction and a poem after the art work. The book was shipped to me via FedEx. This first attempt was an experiment, allowing me to learn that I can design a high-quality soft-cover book using my MacBook. However, the book cost me about $50.00, including shipping. One step at a time.

A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER

"We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot live without human affection."

(Dalai Lama)

Thinking about the human affection visible in photographs of Barack and Michelle Obama and their two daughters.

Thinking about the Dalai Lama, a man with no wife or children, a man who gives and receives human affection as if he did.

Thinking about the extreme changes in the weather that are part of life on the Gulf Coast of the United States.