LOOKING UP AT FISH

The true end of a war is the rebirth of life;
the right to die peacefully in your own bed.
The true end of war is the end of fear;
the true end of war is the return of laughter.
(Alfredo Molano)

It must have been in 2006 when I was in the midst of a yoga pose and began to shake with unexpected laughter. With the war in Iraq far from over, my inner war was showing the first signs of a true end.

Looking up this morning at the clouds and the blue sky:























("Kids Wish," drawn by am, using a IBookG4 trackpad and Appleworks "painting" program, in August of 2006)

NATARAJASANA

"The essence of finding meaning in the future is not to forget my past, as I have been told, but instead to embrace my past. For it is in listening to the music of the past that I can sing in the present and dance into the future."
(from UNDERSTANDING YOUR GRIEF, by Alan Woldfelt, Ph.D., p. 92)

Last night I dreamed that R came home from the war. With him was a friend he had served with in Vietnam. His friend was from the American Southeast and had a face shaped like the moon. He looked like one of the prisoners from "O, Brother Where Art Thou?" R's friend laughed easily. R was quiet and serious. I was staying with friends in a house near a river. R and I hugged and kissed each other. R said, "You were always here for me. Thank you." That was the last time I saw him in the dream. As I sat by the river with my friends, I began to understand that R was telling me that his death was near, that he was not afraid and didn't want me to be afraid either. Just before I woke up, I stretched my legs out so that I could feel the river's current. I thought, "Where is R? I want him to see this beautiful river." It seemed that he wasn't far away.

Last year in December, I posted the above photo of me in a variation of the Yoga pose called Natarajasana or the King of the Dancers pose. Today I'm going to use some of my credits at Yoga Northwest and sign up for a Restorative Yoga class which meets on Sunday evenings. I miss practicing yoga with a teacher and with other people.

On Thanksgiving, my "ClustrMap" was archived, and all the red dots were removed. Here is a list of visitors since then. I'm curious to know how people from all over the world happen to visit my blog.








United States (US) 122
United Kingdom (GB) 11
Canada (CA) 10
Turkey (TR) 2
Australia (AU) 2
India (IN) 2
Germany (DE) 2
Lithuania (LT) 1
Russian Federation (RU) 1
Sweden (SE) 1
Denmark (DK) 1
Sri Lanka (LK) 1
Europe (EU) 1
Philippines (PH) 1
Saudi Arabia (SA) 1
China (CN) 1
Switzerland (CH) 1
Czech Republic (CZ) 1

Next to my front door, before dawn this morning:






















Remembering John Lennon (1940-1980) today:

Instant Karma

"We all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun."

Stand By Me

STILL TALKING ABOUT WHAT IS NOT BROKEN

Today is the 2nd birthday of my blog.

Two months after I adopted Oboe from an animal shelter (an auspicious turning point because I had lived alone, without even a cat, for more than 22 years), I was inspired by the blog of Rebecca MacKinnon to start a blog of my own. I had been reading blogs since sometime in 2004, the year I bought my first computer, an iBookG4. Rebecca's blog was the first one I read. Her blogroll led to many of the blogs I still read. Rebecca's parents had visited my family in 1970 when Rebecca was a baby, and RTN was in Vietnam. I took a picture of them in the sunshine in our family's backyard, using the Minolta camera that RTN had sent me from Vietnam.

Today is also the anniversary of the day that RTN returned from Vietnam in 1970. He had told me not to tell his mother which day he was coming home, asking me to come alone when I picked him up at the airport. He called me from the San Francisco Airport at 3 o'clock in the morning. About a half hour later when I arrived in the luggage area, no one was there.

In my memory, the airport is dark and silent and empty. I walk to the right, toward the escalators. As I approach them, I see him riding down. When I look at this memory of seeing him for the first time that day, I can't see him clearly because it is dark. Something is wrong, although this is the moment for which we have been waiting for nearly 12 months. We embrace at the foot of the escalator. He tells me that he took amphetamines for the flight home. He is wide awake. He is exhausted. He looks around for a trash can. Finding one, he stuffs his Army uniform into it. We are together again and absolutely alone. Something is terribly wrong. The day is a blur of jarring moments. There is no memory of the next day or the next week. I don't know how long I am without memory.

My next memory is of waking up in the dark in our bed, hearing him yelling to another soldier. In his sleep, he turns to me and punches me in the face, giving me a black eye. He wakes up to find me crying, and he is bereft of any relief he may have had at being home again.

Bereave (bi rev'), v.t., -reaved or -reft, -reaving. 1. to deprive ruthlessly or by force (usually fol. by "of"): The war bereaved them of their home. 2. to deprive or make desolate, esp. by death (usually fol. by "of"): Illness bereaved them of their mother. 3. to take away by violence.

We lived together from December 8 until sometime during the following May. It was night again. We were talking about a possible separation. Living together was not working. He wasn't ready to be living with me. I cried easily. He couldn't deal with that. I couldn't deal with his anger and daily drug use. Especially problematic for me was his amphetamine use, which made him paranoid and prone to rage. As we talked, something in him snapped. He hit me hard in the arm and pushed me to the floor. He yelled, "I don't want you to have any happy memories of me!!" As he continued to hit me, I found my voice in midst of my shock and yelled as loud as I could, "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! YOU CAN'T HIT ME!!!!!!! He stopped immediately, bereft of any peace he may have found until that moment of hitting me. He said he was sorry. He was. On the next day, we made the decision to stop living together.

There was little support for soldiers coming home or for those who loved them. "The war bereaved them of their home." I am not convinced that our outcome would have been different, even with support. War is ruthless.

On December 8, 2006, I had been out of touch with RTN since 2003. PTSD, along with drug and alcohol abuse, had left him close to homeless, but he rented space with friends and family for various periods of time between 2003 and 2008. In the last six months of his life, his home was a VA hospital where he received supportive care from a team of compassionate men and women until the moment of his death on April 20, 2008. He did write a letter to me in late September of 2005. The letter was disturbing, appearing to have been written by a drunk person or a person with brain damage. I showed the letter to several mental health professionals who, feeling concerned about my well-being as well as his well-being, strongly recommended that I not respond to the letter. I contacted his sister, who confirmed that he was not doing well, moving from place to place in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.

On December 8 in 2006, a thoughtful person suggested that I do something new on the anniversary of his return from Vietnam, so that in 2007 I would have a first anniversary of something new in my life. I took the suggestion to heart and created this blog which I named "Old Girl of the North Country." In September of 2001, when RTN was given a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer and was living with his parents while undergoing chemotherapy, his mother told me that she had found a piece of paper with my name on it and the lyrics for Bob Dylan's song titled "Girl of the North Country." My intention was to post a 40-year retrospective of my art work, from 1966 to 2006, and to sort out my experiences as RTN's "Girl of the North Country" and "Old Girl of the North Country."

This morning before dawn, these lyrics come to mind again:

"And I recall the promise they made
With a faith I can but admire
That she’d be the one he adored
and he’d be her hearts desire
It didn’t come true in the end
they went their separate ways
He couldn’t change what he was
she wasn’t ready to wait
They couldn’t live in the daylight
they let the night close in
and the holy ground took care of everything
I remember the loving time
and nothing else really counts."
(from "The Loving Time," lyrics by Noel Brazil, sung by Mary Black)

Talking about what happened and what we are like now is part of the grieving and healing process. RTN painted during his last days. In writing this down and posting on this blog, I am healing. Many of us are engaged in healing during these winter days and nights.

May all soldiers and veterans and those who love them find the love and support they need today and always.

May all beings find the love and support they need today and always.

Thanks so much to all who have stopped by to read and comment since I began this blog in December of 2006!






















(The above photo of Oboe in the winter sun was taken a few days ago. "Talking About What is Not Broken" was painted by am in the late 1980's)

?

?

I wrote a long post. When I click on "Publish Post," it doesn't post. That's weird.

DECEMBER 1970 AND 2007 (REVISITED)

(NOTE: The image and post are a re-run from December 2007. My left baby finger is in a splint, so I'm typing slowly for the time being.)

(1 hour and 15 minutes, 4:30 to 5:45 a.m., drawn using Appleworks6 "Painting" program, while listening to "Chants of India," which plays for approximately 1 hour and is a work of love by Ravi Shankar and George Harrison, as well as listening for the last fifteen minutes to "Dead To The World," by Patti Smith)

(Click on drawing for better image)

"Of course you will say that I ought to be practical and try to paint the way they want me to paint. Well, I'll tell you a secret. I have tried and I have tried very hard, but I can't do it. I just can't do it! And that is why I'm just a little crazy." (Rembrandt Van Rijn 1606-69)

December 2008, looking southeast from my porch:

BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER THE WAR (REVISITED)

(The following post is a re-run from December 2007, before I knew that RTN had had a brain stem stroke in September 2007 and had been recovering from that in a VA hospital. The drawing was done using the Appleworks "Paint" program and my right index finger on the track pad of my iBookG4. I love that it gives the effect of a woodcut or linocut. I have not done any drawing or painting since January of 2008, but have been working on a book of my art work since sometime during the summer of 2008.)



"Now I know, at least a little bit, why I am so resistant to drawing and painting. Once I start, I find it difficult to stop.

This morning, when I woke up at 4 a.m. which has been my chosen waking time recently, it occurred to me that, as with my yoga practice and my blog/writing practice, if I don't make time in the morning to draw, the chances of doing a daily drawing practice diminish as the day progresses. So, a complication arises. I want to do yoga, writing and drawing, but once I start drawing I don't want to stop to do writing and yoga. Actually, it's not that I don't want to do writing and yoga, it's that I need to figure out how to stop drawing in time to do writing and yoga before I enter the responsibilities of the day.

My drawing today is based on a recurring dream that was dreamed once again last night just after I first fell asleep. Ever since sometime in 1970, when my boyfriend was in Vietnam and I was living in my parents' home, I have had a recurring dream that has taken many forms over the years. In the original dream, I was startled awake by a Viet Cong who was lunging towards me, trying to kill me. It took a few seconds for me to realize that I was dreaming, because the vision of someone beside my bed was so vivid. My heart was beating in that frightened way that sounds as if everyone in the house can hear it. It took some time before I was able to return to sleep. I was afraid that my boyfriend had died in Vietnam.

It was only in the first dream that the person was a Viet Cong. In the recurring dreams, the shadowy figure by my bed has taken many forms, usually as a man, but also as an unidentifiable woman, as my mother, as my father, as a quiet curious child I don't know, as a dog, as a wolf, as a fox, as a cat. Usually the figure is threatening my life, but occasionally it has not been threatening. On the occasions when the figure is not threatening, I still wonder what it is doing in my bedroom. Always there is the loud racing heartbeat. Over the years, the fear became mixed with anger at the dream appearance of someone uninvited, no matter now benign they might be.

At one time I had hoped that I would never have this dream again, believing that when I stopped having the dream it would mean that something in my psyche was healed, but gradually I came to see this dream as an unusual gift. I am struck by the fact that it occurred again on the night before I planned to start drawing again and that this time there were two people, a man and a woman.

Although the dream was of the frightening kind, when I tried to draw it a shift occurred, and it became "Before, During And After The War."

Now it's almost 7 a.m. The sun won't rise this morning until nearly 8:30. Time to do my yoga practice. Not sure how I will be able to do yoga, writing and drawing once I start my 8 a.m. classes in January, but anything is possible."

(A year later, I am waking up at 6 a.m. I dropped my classes a few weeks after learning about RTN's stroke. I was unable to focus on studying. Although I haven't been doing my regular Yoga practice, I have been walking 1-1/2 hours daily. As I was walking yesterday, it occurred to me that what I am doing might be called "Walking Yoga." On December 1, I had the recurring dream twice. This time it was a basketball player falling flat on his face near my bed (?). He wasn't threatening me, but my heart pounded in fear, as it does in all recurring dreams of this nature. Mixed with my fear was concern for him. On December 2, I broke my left baby finger. As a result of that and a flare-up of ocular rosacea, I'm not working on the refresher course in medical transcription for the time being. Typing slowly, I can spend my time working on my book until my baby finger heals and the ocular rosacea is under control again with the help of a good ophthalmologist. It took me about three hours to complete this post and comment on another blog. The image that follows is another photo taken before dawn. The upper left hand corner of the image was a luminous blue. Wish you could see it as I saw it. If you tip your computer screen forward, that corner looks more blue.)

WEDDING AND MARRIAGE

I found the wedding video of Joi and Mizuka at One Word, Zhoen's blog. Listen to her and D's podcasts by clicking on "One Word Aloud" at the top of her blog. I've been reading her blog for some time now, but just heard her voice and D's music in the last few days.

If my parents were still alive, yesterday would have been their 60th wedding anniversary.

What I remember most clearly about RTN in these last few days is his laughter, especially the day in 1970 when we quietly laughed so hard each time we looked at each other that we had to leave the church, the only time we were in a church together. When we were safely outside, we laughed for a long time in the California sunlight.

("Wedding and Marriage," painted in gouache and watercolor by am sometime soon after December 14, 1999, when I talked on the phone with RTN who was recovering from surgery for throat cancer. We had met on the beach at Half Moon Bay, California, on December 14, 1966. There was no wedding and no marriage, but there were 42 years of friendship)

STILL TALKING ABOUT WHAT IS NOT BROKEN

Today is the 2nd birthday of my blog.

Two months after I adopted Oboe from an animal shelter (an auspicious turning point because I had lived alone, without even a cat, for more than 22 years), I was inspired by the blog of Rebecca MacKinnon to start a blog of my own. I had been reading blogs since sometime in 2004, the year I bought my first computer, an iBookG4. Rebecca's blog was the first one I read. Her blogroll led to many of the blogs I still read. Rebecca's parents had visited my family in 1970 when Rebecca was a baby, and R was in Vietnam. I took a picture of them in the sunshine in our family's backyard, using the Minolta camera that R had sent me from Vietnam.

Today is also the anniversary of the day that R returned from Vietnam in 1970. He had told me not to tell his mother which day he was coming home, asking me to come alone when I picked him up at the airport. He called me from the San Francisco Airport at 3 o'clock in the morning. About a half hour later when I arrived in the luggage area, no one was there.

In my memory, the airport is dark and silent and empty. I walk to the right, toward the escalators. As I approach them, I see him riding down. When I look at this memory of seeing him for the first time that day, I can't see him clearly because it is dark. Something is wrong, although this is the moment for which we have been waiting for nearly 12 months. We embrace at the foot of the escalator. He tells me that he took amphetamines for the flight home. He is wide awake. He is exhausted. He looks around for a trash can. Finding one, he stuffs his Army uniform into it. We are together again and absolutely alone. Something is terribly wrong. The day is a blur of jarring moments. There is no memory of the next day or the next week. I don't know how long I am without memory.

My next memory is of waking up in the dark in our bed, hearing him yelling to another soldier. In his sleep, he turns to me and punches me in the face, giving me a black eye. He wakes up to find me crying, and he is bereft of any relief he may have had at being home again.

Bereave (bi rev'), v.t., -reaved or -reft, -reaving. 1. to deprive ruthlessly or by force (usually fol. by "of"): The war bereaved them of their home. 2. to deprive or make desolate, esp. by death (usually fol. by "of"): Illness bereaved them of their mother. 3. to take away by violence.

We lived together from December 8 until sometime during the following May. It was night again. We were talking about a possible separation. Living together was not working. He wasn't ready to be living with me. I cried easily. He couldn't deal with that. I couldn't deal with his anger and daily drug use. Especially problematic for me was his amphetamine use, which made him paranoid and prone to rage. As we talked, something in him snapped. He hit me hard in the arm and pushed me to the floor. He yelled, "I don't want you to have any happy memories of me!!" As he continued to hit me, I found my voice in midst of my shock and yelled as loud as I could, "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! YOU CAN'T HIT ME!!!!!!! He stopped immediately, bereft of any peace he may have found until that moment of hitting me. He said he was sorry. He was. On the next day, we made the decision to stop living together.

There was little support for soldiers coming home or for those who loved them. "The war bereaved them of their home." I am not convinced that our outcome would have been different, even with support. War is ruthless.

On December 8, 2006, I had been out of touch with R since 2003. PTSD, along with drug and alcohol abuse, had left him close to homeless, but he rented space with friends and family for various periods of time between 2003 and 2008. In the last six months of his life, his home was a VA hospital where he received supportive care from a team of compassionate men and women until the moment of his death on April 20, 2008. He did write a letter to me in late September of 2005. The letter was disturbing, appearing to have been written by a drunk person or a person with brain damage. I showed the letter to several mental health professionals who, feeling concerned about my well-being as well as his well-being, strongly recommended that I not respond to the letter. I contacted his sister, who confirmed that he was not doing well, moving from place to place in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.

On December 8 in 2006, a thoughtful person suggested that I do something new on the anniversary of his return from Vietnam, so that in 2007 I would have a first anniversary of something new in my life. I took the suggestion to heart and created this blog which I named "Old Girl of the North Country."

In September of 2001, when R was given a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer and was living with his parents while undergoing chemotherapy, his mother told me that she had found a piece of paper with my name on it and the lyrics for Bob Dylan's song titled "Girl of the North Country." My intention was to post a 40-year retrospective of my art work, from 1966 to 2006, and to sort out my experiences as R's "Girl of the North Country" and "Old Girl of the North Country."

This morning before dawn, these lyrics come to mind again:

"And I recall the promise they made
With a faith I can but admire
That she’d be the one he adored
and he’d be her hearts desire
It didn’t come true in the end
they went their separate ways
He couldn’t change what he was
she wasn’t ready to wait
They couldn’t live in the daylight
they let the night close in
and the holy ground took care of everything
I remember the loving time
and nothing else really counts."
(from "The Loving Time," lyrics by Noel Brazil, sung by Mary Black)

Talking about what happened and what we are like now is part of the grieving and healing process. R painted during his last days. In writing this down and posting on this blog, I am healing. Many of us are engaged in healing during these winter days and nights.

May all soldiers and veterans and those who love them find the love and support they need today and always.

May all beings find the love and support they need today and always.

Thanks so much to all who have stopped by to read and/or comment since I began this blog in December of 2006!






















(The above photo of Oboe in the winter sun was taken a few days ago. "Talking About What is Not Broken" was painted by am in the late 1980's)

LIGHT BEFORE DAWN

Click on image to enhance the light before dawn

Google/Blogger comment problem?

Seems that something is wrong with the comment function on Blogger today.

While trying to find out what's happening I found this. If you have time, watch to the end. Tar is a student at the Michigan School for the Deaf.

ODETTA / MOTHERLESS CHILD

Poet Maya Angelou once said "If only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and a soul like Odetta's would come along, the centuries would pass so quickly and painlessly we would hardly recognize time." (click below for rest of article and Odetta singing last July.

December 31, 1930 - December 2, 2008

Listen

I am grateful to have heard Odetta in concert when she came to Bellingham in the 1980s. Unforgettable.

Update: Interview with Odetta

ANDANTE -- A WALKING PACE

From A Winter Walk:

"Countless people on many differing spiritual paths, and on none at all, have made a pilgrimage of winter."
(Tolbert McCarroll, p. 10)

My tradition since December of 2006 is to read a chapter each day, beginning December 1 and finishing on New Year's Day.

1 dec 2008

This morning I received a Grant of Permission from the Princeton University Press Permissions Department. This allows me to use hexagram names from the Richard Wilhelm translation of the THE I CHING, OR BOOK OF CHANGES (THIRD EDITION) with forty-two of my drawings, paintings and a sculpture in my book 42 YEARS: A BOOK OF CHANGES.

The catch is that the permission is void if more than 10% of the forthcoming work is composed of material copyrighted by Princeton University Press. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then I have 45,000+ words in my book, and there is no problem. As of now, my book has approximately 400 of my words, 44 pictures of my art work, 1 photograph taken using a self-timer, and 209 words taken from Richard Wilhelm. Looks as if my task now is to do some more writing!

One step at a time.

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

Something to think about:

From Alan's conversation log -- Question: Where have you been my blue-eyed son? Answer: I've been here the whole time, talking to people; Question: How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? Answer: I'm not so really great at all with that complicated mathematics stuff; Question: How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand? Answer: More than you can imagine.

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.

ANOTHER NEW MORNING

Am finding myself with very little energy on these new mornings. Or the rest of the day, for that matter. Will post again when my energy comes back. It always does. 

Just finished re-reading Toil, by Jody Proctor. One of my favorite books, published in 2000. RTN was a carpenter. Toil helped me understand just what it might have been like for RTN to have made his living as a carpenter.

A well-loved place

"The remedy of all blunders, the cure of blindness, the cure of crime, is love."

(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

STAND UNDER THE OAK

"They walked softly here. So will the others, the 

ones I seek.

The only way I can think to find them, the only 

archaeology that might be practical, is as follows:

You take your child or grandchild in your arms, or

borrow a young baby, not a year old yet, and go 

down into the wild oats in the field below the barn.

Stand under the oak on the last slope of the hill,

facing the creek. Stand quietly. Perhaps the baby

will see something, or hear a voice, or speak to

somebody there, somebody from home."

                  

                 Towards an Archaeology of the Future

(page 114, WAY OF THE WATER'S GOING:  IMAGES OF THE

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA COASTAL RANGE, with 

photographs by Ernest Waugh and Alan Nicholson

and text from Ursula K. Le Guin's ALWAYS COMING HOME)

("Person with Questions," gouache and watercolor on 

Arches watercolor paper, painted by am in the early 1980s)

Thank you to all who continue to visit NEW MORNING 

IN THE NORTH COUNTRY. I am grateful for your

presence.

OBOE SLEEPING ON A HOT DAY

TALKING SONGS OF EXPERIENCE

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious."

(Albert Einstein)

AUGUST FLOWER

OBOE'S YOGA PRACTICE

THERE WAS WIND BEFORE THE RAIN

"Think of it; all that speech pouring down." 

(Click to see complete quote at Whiskey River)

ORANGE IMPATIENS 8 A.M. / I'M PATIENT

Today my Zen Calendar says: "When you get free from certain fixed concepts of the way the world is, you find it far more subtle, and far more miraculous, than you thought it was." (Alan Watts) A few days ago I got my turntable out of the closet, along with my collection of Bob Dylan albums. "What's the matter with me, I don't have much to say . . . " (from "Watching the River Flow" -- Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Vol. II, 1971)

"Your vision will clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." (Carl Jung) "No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear." (C.S. Lewis) "Fear is felt in the upper chest and breathing passages. It is a sense that somehow our life and survival are being threatened. It is felt as a sense of dread and anxiety which eventually spreads throughout the entire body." (John Friel and Linda Friel)

NEW MORNING AT SCUDDER POND

A while back, my sister emailed this video to me. It just takes a few minutes to watch. I've been meaning to post it.

I've been listening to a CD with the title of "Graceful Passages." I bought it at the hospital gift shop during my father's last years, the years that followed the death of my mother. I was drawn by these words on the back of the CD case:

"A powerful tool for the grieving; a healing comfort for the heart." -- Stephen and Ondrea Levine

"Music with spoken messages and prayers, presenting a peaceful reflection on the eternal questions of life while helping us care for ourselves and our loved ones. Spoken by:

Ram Dass
Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh
The Very Rev. Alan Jones
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D.
Fr. Maximillian Mizzi, O.F.M. Conv.
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
and other mentors and guides.

Introduction by Ira Byock, M.D.
Foreward by Sam Keen
Epilogue by Kathleen Dowling Singh, PH.D.

Epilogue:

PRAYER FOR PRESENCE:

Let us be the ear that listens without judgment and with deep compassion
to all that the voice of our loved one has to say in the phase of Chaos.

Let us be the still and quiet point of acceptance where the personal life is
reviewed and resolved, honored and released.

Let us be the silent and understanding companion to the voiceless time
of Surrender.

The love will endure, never fear. In fact, beyond the personal self,
love just gets stronger, purer, freer, deeper. Go there with your
loved one.

Sit and breathe with your loved one, matching your rhythms.

Sit and meditate with your loved one, matching your visions.

Sit and pray with your loved one, matching your deepest longings.

Let us share, far beyond the last breath and even through a breaking
heart, in our loved one's Transcendence; the entrance, at the edge
of life, into the peaceful luminous Center."

I had put the CD away before my father died and completely forgotten about it until a few weeks ago.

















"So happy just to be alive
Underneath the sky of blue." (Bob Dylan, "New Morning," 1970)

TALKING WESTERN SKY