1949-2008

My old friend died peacefully yesterday at 1:15 p.m. Many thanks to all for your kind thoughts and prayers during this time. The images and words come from a letter he wrote to me while he was in Vietnam in 1970.

NOT OUT OF SORROW, BUT IN WONDER

Encounter

As I continue to prepare to travel to California for a visit with an old friend in a VA hospital, I am feeling more sorrow than wonder. Czeslaw Milosz' poem "Encounter" offers me a shift in consciousness to that of wonder and even gratitude.

(photo taken in Half Moon Bay, California, in 1970, by the 20-year-old woman who was to become Old Girl Of The North Country in December of 2006)

GREAT HAPPINESS

Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding -- Yehuda Amichai

(photo taken at Half Moon Bay, California, in 1970)

COSMO

While searching for a poem or song to go with this flower, I heard one of my neighbors shout to his dog, "Cosmo!" My cat, Oboe, woke up, stood up and looked out the window. So I looked up the meaning of "cosmo" and found:

Greek, kosmos -- order, form, arrangement, the world or universe.

May soon be traveling to Northern California to visit with my old friend in the ICU at the VA Hospital. Thanks to all who have been stopping by here. I am having a hard time staying in the present.

Four things, among many, that have been helpful:

Stroke of Insight

How do you know?

Scroll down to hear Mavis Staples sing "Have A Little Faith"

Facing Death and Finding Hope

HERE COMES THE SUN

". . . they are leaning out for love and they will lean that way forever . . . " (Leonard Cohen)

INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE

Did anyone else hear the thunder between 4 o'clock and 5 o'clock this morning?

See I-Ching, Hexagram 25. Wu Wang / Innocence (The Unexpected).

AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

William Blake

("Calendar Series: 38th Month / Innocence (The Unexpected)," painted by Old Girl Of The North Country, using gouache and watercolor, 1988)

RETURN OF THE TREE SWALLOWS

TWO INNOCENTS WITH EXPERIENCE (2000)

All desire. No forgiveness.
Years later it was early spring with red-winged blackbird,
Goldfinch, faithful Canada goose on the trail
And return of the tree swallows.

“The tree swallow glides in circles,
Ending each glide
With 3 or 4 quick flaps
And a short climb.”*

Then I remembered.
He was sitting close to me.
Mr. Solitary Crow skipped by us like a child.
We laughed until we were children again.

This was how I experienced love.
I was innocent of forgiveness.

* from A Field Guide to Western Birds, second edition, 1961, by Roger Tory Peterson, p. 159.

("People Listening" (1984) and "Two Innocents with Experience" (2000), by Old Girl Of The North Country)

When I looked out at Scudder Pond yesterday afternoon, the tree swallows were flying back and forth in the sunlight above the golden cattails.

SAN FRANCISCO MOONDANCE

Woke up. Read for awhile. Couldn't go back to sleep. Toasted some raisin bread and dipped it in olive oil. Found the above image on Sausalito Cam.

"Dear friend, all theory is gray
And green the golden tree of life."
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

ANOTHER DAY IN THE WORLD HERE

DAY AFTER TOMORROW

I got your letter
Today
An' I miss you oh so much here

I can't wait
To see you all
And I'm counting the days dear

I still believe that there's gold
At the end of the World

An' I'll come home
To Illinois
On the day after tomorrow

It is so hard
And it's cold here
And I'm tired of taking orders

And I miss old Rockford town
Up by the Wisconsin border

What I miss you won't believe
Shovellin' snow,and rakin' leaves

And my plane will touch down
On the day after tomorrow

I close my eyes
Every night
And I dream
That I can hold you

They fill us full of lies
Everyone buys
'Bout what it means
To be a soldier

I still don't know how I'm s'posed to feel
'Bout all the blood that's been spilled

Will God on his throne
Get me back home
On the day after tomorrow?

You can't deny
The other side
Don't wanna die
Any more than we do

What I'm tryin' to say
Is, don't they pray
To the same God
That we do?

Tell me
How does God choose?
Whose prayers does he refuse?

Who turns the wheel
Who throws the dice
On the day after tomorrow?

I am not fighting
For justice
I am not fighting
For freedom

I am fighting
For my life
And another day in the World here

I just do what I've been told
We're just the gravel on the road

And only the lucky
Ones come home
On the day after tomorrow

And the summer
It too will fade
And with it brings
The winter's frost dear

And I know
We too are made
Of all the things
That we have lost here

I'll be twenty - one today
I been savin' all my pay

And my plane
Will touch down
On the day after tomorrow

And my plane
It will touch down
On the day after tomorrow

(For some unknown reason, to hear Tom Waits sing this, I had to click on "Clank Boom Steam"

Update from March 25, 2008: Thank you to jsk for letting me know that Linda Thompson can be heard singing this song on "Versatile Heart"

My friend in the VA Hospital in Palo Alto was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit over Easter Weekend. Please send love and kindness to him today as well as to all veterans of war and to soldiers throughout the world. We are all in this together.

SPRING EQUINOX MORNING

I'll look for you in old Honolulu,
San Francisco, Ashtabula,


















Yer gonna have to leave me now, I know.
But I'll see you in the sky above,


















In the tall grass, in the ones I love,
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

(from "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go," Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks, 1974) Click and scroll down to hear Bob sing

I remember a Steve Goodman concert where he sang, "When the red, red robin comes Bob, Bob Dylan along, along . . .")

BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MOURN

"He who has wheat, share it." (African proverb)

The Four Noble Truths

The truth of suffering:






















The truth of the cause of suffering:






















The truth of the cessation of suffering:






















The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering:






















Is there a word stronger than "war," a word better able to express the reality of suffering?

If you want to survive this present period of institutionalized madness with your heart intact and our humanity authentic, by all means read this book -- Joan Chittister

"I had anger but never hate. Before the war, I was too busy studying to hate. After the war, I thought, What's the use? To hate would be to reduce myself." (Elie Wiesel, from an interview in O : The Oprah Magazine November 2000)

"Self-Portrait of an Old Friend as a Young Man," drawn in pastel on paper by Old Girl of the North Country in 1982 from a photograph sent to her from Vietnam in 1970.

One last thing I forgot to say. Sometimes, while doing yoga poses, spontaneous images or thoughts come to me. This morning while doing Savasana (the corpse pose), the last pose, I suddenly "saw" a soldier after a war. He was at peace. In peace. Being peace.

REMEMBERING MY DAD

My dad died on St. Patrick's Day in 2003, about a month after he turned 89 years old and just a few days before the Iraq War began. For the past ten days, I've been thinking about a post in memory of him along with this photo of him holding me, his firstborn daughter, on the day of my baptism. My first thought was to post some of his woodcarving. Posted are:

A flower carved into a redwood block.

A roadrunner carved from a piece of driftwood he found on a nearby beach.

Two views of a piece he called "Gorilla," carved from redwood.

A piece he carved in redwood and painted and titled "Wake Up!"


















































































































Then I found this audio clip read by William Stafford that reminded me of my Dad, especially because William Stafford was also born in 1914, the year World War I began. A post by Solitary Walker led me to the Mendocino Botanical Gardens and reminded me of my dad's love of gardening and the landscape where he and my mother lived for many years after my dad retired.

This morning I found this prayer he wrote exactly nine months before he died:


MY DAILY PRAYER TO MY ALMIGHTY GOD

You are above all creation.

In it You have created all universes and everything in them.

In it You have created millions of stars and planets, far apart.

In it You have created the greatest physical force in our Universe, the magnificent sun.

In it You have created the planet for us all to live on, the Earth.

In it we have You, the sun, oceans, mountains, caves, rivers, lakes, rain, snowflakes, waterfall, forests, land, air waves we cannot see, every living creature and the most powerful force of all, Love.

Thank You my Almighty God for everything on our planet, Earth.

I ask You, my Almighty God, to forgive me for any harm I have done.

I ask You, my Almighty God, to forgive anyone who harmed me, whether I knew it or not.

You are above all human beings that You have created.

No one on Earth can be compared to You, my Almighty God.

Amen.

Dad, thank you for being my father.

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)

OBOE WITH SOME BOOKS I'M KEEPING

The thin blue book in the lower center of the photo is a well-worn copy of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali that I bought after my mother died in 1994, at which time I made a deeper commitment to my yoga practice. This translation and commentary by T.K.V. Desikachar is titled "PATANJALI'S YOGASUTRAS: AN INTRODUCTION.

Here is what T.K.V. Desikachar wrote about Yoga Sutra 1.2, which in Sanskrit is written:

yogascittavrttinirodhah

"What is Yoga? It is a word with many interpretations and connotations. Patanjali defines his understanding of the word."

-- Yoga is the ability to direct the mind exclusively towards an object and sustain that direction without any distractions --

"The object can be a concrete object either external to ourselves or part of ourselves. It can be an area of interest, a concept, or something beyond the level of the senses, such as God."

Although I had bought of copy of B.K.S. Iyengar's translation of the Yoga Sutras sometime in the 1970s, it was not until the 1990s that I was able to read the Yoga Sutras without being annoyed by any mention of "God" or anything that might be what I considered a code word for "God." What helped me with that was the comment of a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, "There is no God and there is no not-God." Since 1994, I have bought and studied five other translations, all as different as are the numerous translations of the Tao Te Ching.

Now that I think of it, it was my mother who introduced me to yoga sometime in the 1960s when she bought this book by Richard Hittleman:















Interesting that the cover design uses the yin/yang symbol.

As my mind goes back to those years, I am recalling that the first time I heard about yogurt was from Jack La Lanne (the "intro" made me laugh with delight) who, along with Richard Hittleman, had a TV show during the time I was growing up.

FOG AT 7 A.M. / 32 DEGREES

Yesterday I completed the emptying of my storage unit. I feel as if I have moved away from a place where I lived longer than I needed to. It's a good feeling. Still have to sort through the last of the possessions that I brought home yesterday, most of which are books, some of which belonged to my mother and father. As I was carrying them into my home I thought, "If I didn't have all these books, it would be much easier to move." I'll be wearing a dust mask as I sort through them, letting go of those that I can't read again anyway because of my sensitivity to book mold. Most of the books were in my storage unit for that reason, but I wasn't ready to let them go completely. I remember how difficult it was to let go of my father's moldy papers from his college days because letting them go felt like a betrayal of him.

A few days ago, while sorting, I found these handknit socks which were a gift from the mother of a former classmate who came from Turkey to study at our local community college in the early 1980s. I love them. They keep my feet warm on this chilly foggy morning.






















Update: A clear sunny day at 11:30 a.m. after the fog burned off. It's 55 degrees out on the porch now. I forgot to say that the fog this morning was filled with the sound of the Canada Geese who arrive here this time of year. The swallows usually arrive within the next week. This is the week my daffodil bulbs will begin to bloom.

I am finding that I am able to let go of approximately half of the books which were in the storage unit. That half will go to "The Friends of the Library" who will sell them, and the money will go to the public library. My delight in the other half of the books is still strong, and I've made room for them.

A VIEW APPROACHING SPRING

The late-day light was dramatic yesterday when I took the above photo. Click on photo for best viewing. Today, even with the dense morning cloud cover, there is light here at 6:30 a.m. Won't be long until the Spring Equinox.

While moving framed paintings from my storage unit to my home, I accidentally put some deep scratches in the paint of the car of a neighbor who takes great pride in his car. Now I'm looking at having to pay for the damage with the money I would have saved in the coming year by not having a storage unit. Isn't it odd how things happen that way sometimes? Still, I am feeling happy that I can fit all my belongings into my home and won't need a storage unit in the future.

To read a fine poem about happiness by Raymond Carver, click here.

Thank you all for the comments on my last post. This morning I was finally able to respond to them.

A VIEW INTO MY HOME AT 5:45 A.M.

After a long difficult spell which began during the Gulf War, a time when I became unable and then unwilling to draw or paint, I bought a digital camera in 2005. Thousands of photos later, I continue to be amazed at what a simple digital camera can do. This morning I stood out on my porch in the dark and took the above photo through the window of what has been my home since 1984 when I left married life. It was difficult to leave a house with a garden and view that I loved. I began to live alone for the first time. I have been content living alone for a long time in a tiny place with a small second-story porch garden and an expansive view. It feels new to me over and over again. Like Georgia O'Keeffe after Alfred Stieiglitz died, I can live alone as an artist and not be lonely. In October of 2006, I adopted a talkative cat named Oboe. I can't truly say that I live alone anymore :-)

One of my favorite books about home and a "sense of place" is ALWAYS COMING HOME, by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Here is the first photo I took with my digital camera:

















It's part of the cover of this book for children. At the time I bought my digital camera, I was a volunteer shelf-reader in the section for children at our local library. Each week during those three years, I brought home an armload of books written for young children and read at least one before I went to sleep each night. Unfortunately, I began to develop frequent severe headaches from a form of mold that lives in library books and have had to limit my time spent in libraries. Otherwise, I would love devote a part of my reading time to all those splendidly illustrated children's books which only take a short time to read. I wish I'd kept a list of those I read. It's possible that my online public library account would have saved all those titles.

GRATITUDE AT 6:18 A.M.

Some more things I found while sorting through my storage unit:

Two photographs of the view from my parents' living room during their retirement years when they lived in Gualala, California. My middle sister gave these framed photos to me many years ago. After my parents had both died, I put the photos in my storage unit. Now I'm ready to look at these morning and evening views again.

and this from a magazine clipping:

KINDNESS

Before you know what kindness really is
You must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions and kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread

only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye
(page 35, Ions Noetic Sciences Review, April-July 1999)

and this, marked by my mother in a book (MIND IN THE WATERS) she sent to me for Christmas in 1975:

"So many things fail to interest us, simply because they don’t find in us enough surfaces on which to live, and what we have to do then is to increase the number of planes in our mind, so that a much larger number of themes can find a place in it at the same time."

José Ortega y Gasset

2008 / 1991 / 1971 / 1970

Today my Zen calendar says:

"Koans will change your idea of who you are, and this will require courage . . . Everyone thinks they want happiness, but they might not. They might rather keep their stories about who they are and about what is impossible."

(John Tarrant)



In the last two months, I have been coming to terms again with what happened, beginning in 1969, when my first boyfriend was drafted into the U.S. Army, the year we were 19. It wasn't until 1987, when I saw "Platoon," that I began to understand what had happened to us and what is still happening to us and what happened to countless men and women throughout history. I began the process of grieving and healing. During the Gulf War, we both began to manifest symptoms of PTSD. Today I have a clearer picture of what is possible and what is impossible. I continue to have inexplicable hope.

Here is Oboe at 4 a.m.:

















When my mother died in 1994, I inherited all her books, paintings, art materials and some caned chairs that had belonged to her parents. I chose to rent a storage unit because I didn't have room for all that. After my father died on St. Patrick's Day in 2003, there were more paintings, slides and old photographs to store. This week I am attempting to empty the storage unit, sorting through what I am finally ready to let go of and holding onto what I can now find room for in my small living space. Last night, I came across this from May 6, 7 and 8 of 1991:






















and this photo, taken in 1971 with a self-timer, of somewhere in the coast hills off of Skyline Boulevard in San Mateo County after my boyfriend returned from Vietnam:

















and this photo, taken on Oahu, using a self-timer, during the week of the 4th of July, 1970, my boyfriend's R&R:

















and this one he took on his parents' porch in Half Moon Bay, California, on the day he left for Vietnam in the winter of 1970:






















I am keeping these photos and the Doonesbury strips, among other things. Letting go of some stories that aren't true. Being open to what is true.

TRAUMA AND RECOVERY

Click on the following quote which begins an essay well worth reading, written by David Murphy and found in The Journal of Aesthetics & Protest:

Recovery is based on the empowerment of the survivor and the creation of new connections.

-Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery

("Woman Trying To Remember What She Is Trying To Forget," painted and drawn in gouache, watercolor and chalk pastel on Arches Watercolor Paper in 1986 by Old Girl Of The North Country)

RUMORS OF PEACE

TALKING 37TH DREAM WITH RAINBOW

The young man she loved always,
Who she believed loved her,
The young man for whom she waited,
Came back from the war
For the 37th time.
She heard a red-headed woman saying,
“He’s a good man.”

He didn’t want her to touch him.
He drank once from a clear bottle of beer,
Looked at her intently
And left the houseful of people
Where she lived alone.

She kept waiting for his return.
There was no 38th return
And between them appeared a rainbow.

The young woman he loved always,
Who he believed loved him,
The young woman for whom he waited.

("Evolution Of Forgiveness Dream," painted in gouache and watercolor on paper by Old Girl Of The North Country in January of 2000; "Talking 37th Dream With Rainbow," written by am on February 25, 2008 in pencil in a Ampad lined subject notebook with Wirelock binding)

7:45 A.M. / 30 DEGREES OUTSIDE

BEANNACHT (BLESSING)
For Josie

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the gray window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the curach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

Posted by permission — Author’s estate. © John O'Donohue. All rights reserved.

For more about John O'Donohue, see http://www.johnodonohue.com/


Listen to John O' Donohue reading this poem

I'm not sure, but I believe I first heard about John O' Donohue in a Sounds True catalogue. He spoke in Seattle in recent years, at which time he signed my copy of his book titled ANAM CARA. I asked him to write out in Irish:

Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí

which I understood to mean "praise the youth and she will grow," a phrase that I had heard on a set of his tapes from ANAM CARA. When I first pronounced it, he looked puzzled but smiled broadly when he figured out what I was trying to say.

The last few weeks have been challenging. I've not been able to respond to comments, emails and letters as I would wish to. Thanks so much for continuing to visit.

SOMETHING BREAKS THE HEART OPEN

"God breaks the heart
again and again and again
until it stays
OPEN."

Hazrat Inayat Khan

(quote from February 17, 2008, a post on caregiving)

Something breaks the heart open, that's for sure. Each tradition and non-tradition has its own word or absence of word for that something. The word I choose to use is "Love."

A book worth reading.

("Gifts Of Love From Imaginary Brothers" painted in gouache and watercolor on paper by Old Girl Of The North Country in 1989)

BELOVED PERSON IN BIRD COSTUME

("Beloved Person In Bird Costume Painted From Memory," gouache and watercolor on paper, May 1993, by Old Girl Of The North Country)

PERSON WITH QUESTIONS

("Person with Questions," 1984, by Old Girl Of The North Country, using gouache, watercolor and pastel on paper)

NOT FAR FROM HOME

A little too abstract, a little too wise,
It is time for us to kiss the earth again,
It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies,
Let the rich life run to the roots again.
- Robinson Jeffers

Click here for the inspiration.

SAILING DOWN MY GOLDEN RIVER

Sailing down my golden river,
Sun and water all my own,
Yet I was never alone.
Sun and water, old life givers,
I'll have them where e'er I roam,
And I was not far from home.
Sunlight glancing on the water,
Life and death are all my own,
Yet I was never alone.
Life to raise my sons and daughters,
Golden sparkles in the foam,
And I was not far from home.
Sailing down this winding highway,
Travelers from near and far,
Yet I was never alone.
Exploring all the little by-ways,
Sighting all the distant stars,
And I was not far from home.

Words & music by Pete Seeger, 1971

("Calendar Series: 24th Month / Virgin Forest, Golden River and Seedings," by Old Girl Of The North Country, painted in gouache and watercolor in 1987)

42 YEARS AGO

"With Imaginary Brother As Witness," drawn using pencil on newsprint by Old Girl Of The North Country while attending high school in 1966.

INKLE BELT BUSY BEING BORN

Today I was finally able to weave a few inches of inkle belt. It's still not quite right because the left border is slightly wider than the right border. That's okay. Progress, not perfection, is my goal. I'm a recovering perfectionist.

"Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance."

--Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

WEAVING REVISITED / FIFTH TIME AROUND

Funny how things work out sometimes. Above is my latest attempt, not completely successful (but good enough), to warp the inkle loom for a simple weaving pattern of five tiny deep-red rectangles repeated throughout the length of a black belt. Yesterday when I sat down to weave (see photo from yesterday), I realized that I put the cotton rug warp on the loom in such a way that it was impossible to begin weaving. It was as if I somehow built a house without remembering to make any doors or windows and found myself sitting outside, feeling pretty silly.

Last night before I went to bed, I unwound all the cotton rug warp and began the process of warping again, stopping after a few rows.

This morning, during my "drawing" time, I worked on putting together a portfolio of 15 pieces of art work in digital form for a CD that will accompany my application for the Visual Communications (Graphic Design) Program for Fall 2008 at the local community college. That was another challenge because I had to teach myself to use Microsoft Powerpoint. Fortunately, I was able to keep a relative sense of humor in that process.

As a break from the computer, I decided to finish up warping the inkle loom so I could take a photo for today's post, a photo which would show the correct way to warp an inkle loom. Just as I was almost finished, I noticed that I had made a mistake at the point where I had stopped warping last night, so I unwound the warp. About half way through the next try, I saw that there was yet another problem. What I thought I needed to do was make a splice, but I was wrong.

Finally, the best solution I could come up with was to accept that I had to give up on the idea of having five tiny deep-red rectangles repeated throughout this particular belt and settle for a black belt with three tiny deep-red rectangles repeated throughout.

It is possible that the left-over yards of spliced black and red warp can be made into the belt with the pattern I originally chose. The first time I tried doing this simple pattern last summer, I made several mistakes that weren't obvious until I was at a point where I was NOT willing to start over. My goal this time was to be careful and not make any mistakes. FUNNY!

It's important to me to give myself the opportunity to make ALL the mistakes that need to be made as I learn how to weave again. If I didn't love weaving, I would find this impossibly frustrating.

If I didn't love life, I would find it impossible.

I like the way Oboe is looking at my imperfect, but good enough, solution.

WEAVING YOGA WITH HUMOR

Any weavers out there who can see the humor in this photo?

An unexpected benefit of my yoga practice is an increasing ability to experience humor where I was once able to experience only tears and frustration.

"Practise what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know."
-- Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)