Just now, searching for a question rather than an answer, I opened my Wilhelm/Baynes version of the I-Ching at random. This is what I found on page 41:
9. Hsiao Ch'u / The Taming Power of the Small
...
THE LINES
Nine at the beginning means:
Return to the way. How could there be blame in this? Good fortune.
It lies in the nature of a strong man to press forward. In so doing he encounters obstructions. Therefore he returns to the way suited to his situation, where he is free to advance or to retreat. In the nature of things this will bring good fortune, for it is wise and reasonable not to try to obtain anything by force.
A friend emailed me a link that led to California Transect, the blog of a young man who, right now, is walking to Yosemite along the route that John Muir took not that long ago. See here for a newspaper article about Alex McInturff's journey.
To my great surprise, I just discovered that Alex walked through the tiny town of Santa Nella, which is where half of R's ashes are buried at the San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery. R's sister learned a few weeks ago that one of R's brothers placed half of R's ashes on the rocks, in the sand, and in the ocean at El Granada Beach at the north end of Half Moon Bay, California, where I met R in December of 1966.
In October 2001, the last time I saw R before the last week of his life, we drove up Highway 120 to Yosemite. Despite feeling ill because he was on chemotherapy for lung cancer, he wanted to see Yosemite again, but when arrived at the Highway 120 entrance, he said quietly, "I've suffered enough today. Let's go back."
Although R's ashes rest at Santa Nella and at Half Moon Bay, I know that one of the places he walks in beauty and joy without obstruction is Yosemite Valley.
What you see at the top of the photo is the floodgate for Whatcom Creek. When I took the photo I was standing on Upper Whatcom Creek Bridge. Yesterday I walked for 3 hours -- two 1-1/2 hour walks. At the south end of Whatcom Falls Park is Bayview Cemetery, where I saw the woman with wings for the first time.
"I've done the portrait of M. Gachet with a melancholy expression, which might well seem like a grimace to those who see it. And yet I had to paint it like that to convey how much expression and passion there is in our present-day heads in comparision with the old calm portraits, and how much longing and crying out. Sad but gentle, yet clear and intelligent, that is how many portraits ought to be done. At times it might well make some impression on people."
(page 496, from THE LETTERS OF VINCENT VAN GOGH, translated by Arnold Pomerans. This is from a letter of June 1890, written to his sister, Wil)
It was after hearing that Robert Hunter, lyricist for the Grateful Dead, co-wrote eight of the new songs on Bob Dylan's "Together Through Life," that I was prompted to see if my memory served me well with the recollection that the last vinyl album I bought was "Dylan & the Dead." Yep.
Previous to this week, when I bought a vinyl copy of Bob Dylan's "Together Through Life," the last vinyl album I bought was "Dylan & the Dead," a live album from Grateful Dead Productions, Inc, released in 1989. I only listened to it one or two times, as I was not much of a Grateful Dead fan after 1971 and wasn't impressed with Dylan on that live album. A few days ago, I listened to "Dylan & the Dead" again. It sounds much better than I had remembered. We're all so much older, that's for sure. Many of us have died. Those who were born in 1989 are as old today as Dylan was in 1961.
When I look at the tracks on that old live album, recorded in 1987, I see that two of its seven songs are from "Slow Train Coming" (Bob Dylan's Christian years of the early 1980s), and the final song is "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" from the soundtrack of "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid" from 1973.
On the new album is a song titled "Forgetful Heart." It ends with:
"The door has closed forevermore If indeed there ever was a door."
So twenty years went by, just like that. Albums were replaced by cassette tapes, cassette tapes replaced by CDs, CDs replaced by iTunes. Not to mention years of war, terrorist attacks and more war. And Barack Obama is President of the United States today.
As with all except the first of the Bob Dylan albums, I can't say that I like all the songs on this new album. They hurt where I hurt. They are hard to listen to. There is anger, sorrow, loneliness, grief,and dark humor here. The old songs couldn't touch where we hadn't been hurt yet. The new songs don't touch where we haven't been healed yet. Still, as always, I am moved in unexpected ways.
"And if you should conclude from these remarks that I meant to suggest your advice was worthy of a quack, then you have completely misunderstood me, as I have no such thoughts or opinions about you. If, on the other hand, you believe that I would do well to follow your advice literally to become an engraver of invoice headings & visiting cards or a bookkeeper or factotum -- or the advice of my very dear sister Anna to devote myself to the baker's trade or many other suchlike things, curiously at odds and hardly compatible -- you would be making another mistake."
(page 63, from THE LETTERS OF VINCENT VAN GOGH, translated by Arnold Pomerans. This is from a letter of August 1879, written to his brother, Theo. Vincent did his first painting in November of 1881, after spending several years learning to draw rather than taking a job "at odds and hardly compatible."
Although I don't think of Vincent van Gogh as someone who walked in the woods or painted woodlands, I found this from 1882 when he was still living in the north. His woods look oppressive, unlike the vibrant paintings he did in the south of France.
Last night I dreamed that I saw an ad for a job as a medical transcriptionist in the hospital where I used to work. The ad had been placed in a comic strip. I jumped up in excitement at the thought of being employed again. Then I stopped and said to myself, "Hey, wait a minute. Why would I want that job again, much less in a comic strip world?"
"At odds and hardly compatible," as Vincent said to Theo.
"Someone who has been wandering about for a long time, tossed to and fro on a stormy sea, will in the end reach his destination. Someone who has seemed to be good for nothing, unable to fill any job, any appointment, will find one in the end and, energetic and capable, will prove himself quite different from what he seemed at first."
(page 73, from THE LETTERS OF VINCENT VAN GOGH, translated by Arnold Pomerans. This is from a letter of July 1880, written to his brother, Theo.)
This morning I took a 1-1/2 hour walk in the city park in my neighborhood. That's Whatcom Falls in the morning light as I was returning home. The black and white and shades of grey photographed truer than any color I could photograph.
"For look: people used to think that the earth was flat. That was true, and still is today, of, say, Paris to Asnieres.
But that does not alter the fact that science demonstrates that the earth as a whole is round, something nobody nowadays disputes.
For all that, people still persist in thinking that life is flat and runs from birth to death.
But life, too, is probably round, and much greater in scope and possibilities than the hemisphere we now know."
(page 370, from THE LETTERS OF VINCENT VAN GOGH, translated by Arnold Pomerans. This is from a letter of June 1888, written to his brother, Theo.)
Dear blog friends, new and old,
With my limited energy, it's all I can do to post on my blog recently. I am grateful for your comments and grateful for your blogs with their beauty, insight and humor. I don't mean to be rude when I don't respond directly to comments recently. Am trying to pace myself. When I had more time and energy, I was spending from 6 to 8 hours each day responding to comments and making comments on other blogs after posting on my blog. I loved doing that! For the time being, I need to work on my book and go back to school so that I can find a job again. Hope your day is a good one!
What a relief to have Barack Obama as President of the United States. Still, I winced when he said that we need more soldiers.
When I heard about the difficulty of finding enough soldiers to go to Afghanistan, I remembered the quote, "Someday they'll give a war and nobody will come." My recollection was that Carl Sandburg wrote those words, but I was unable to verify that. Several of the sources I found said that it came from the following poem:
It doesn't, unless Carl Sandburg didn't read his entire poem. Does anyone know for certain what the source is?
"It is sometimes so bitterly cold in the winter that one says, 'The cold is too awful for me to care whether summer is coming or not; the harm outdoes the good.' But with or without our approval, the severe weather does come to an end eventually and one fine morning the wind changes and there is a thaw. When I compare the state of the weather to our state of mind and our circumstances, subject to change and fluctuation like the weather, then I still have some hope that things may get better."
...
Yours truly, Vincent
(pages 63 and 64, from THE LETTERS OF VINCENT VAN GOGH, translated by Arnold Pomerans. This is from a letter of August 1879, written to his brother, Theo.)
This morning there were sand dune-shaped clouds in front of the sun as it rose above the cottonwoods. It was only after I downloaded the photos I took of the clouds and sun that I noticed a swallow in the sky. A few minutes ago when I went out on my porch, a swallow flew from the swallow nesting box. I had put the nesting box out last year, but the swallows didn't use it. That made me think of:
"Anyway, Henri Conscience may not be a perfect writer by any means, but no two ways about it, what a painter! And what loving-kindness in what he said and hoped for. There's a preface in one of his books on my mind all the time (the one to Le conscrit), where he writes that he has been very ill, and says that during his illness, despite all his efforts, he felt his affection for mankind draining away, but that his feelings of love returned on long walks in the countryside."
(pages 451, from THE LETTERS OF VINCENT VAN GOGH, translated by Arnold Pomerans. This is from a letter of September 1889, written to his brother, Theo.)
"Still, perhaps my journey to the south will yet bear fruit, for the stronger light and the blue sky teaches you to see, especially, or even only, if you see it all for a long time.
The north will undoubtedly seem quite new to me, and I have looked at things so much here that I have become very attached to them, so I shall feel sad for a long time."
and:
"Well, do you know what I hope for, once I allow myself to begin to hope? It is that the family will be for you what nature, the clods of earth, the grass, the yellow wheat, the peasant, are for me, in other words, that you find in your love for people something not only to work for, but to comfort and restore you when there is a need. So, I beg you not to let yourself get too exhausted by business, but to take good care of yourselves, both of you -- perhaps there will still be some good in the not too distant future."
(pages 455 and 456, from THE LETTERS OF VINCENT VAN GOGH, translated by Arnold Pomerans. This is from a letter of September 1888, written to his brother, Theo. Theo had just married Johanna.)
The Central California Coast is not a place I can live except in my dreams. On the other hand, I've lived there for most of my life in my dreams, after having left my birthplace in the San Francisco Bay Area in summer of 1973. I was 23 years old and curious about the world outside of California. Never imagined how difficult it would become to return to California, except as a visitor.
The photo above was taken during my visit to California last October. I've used it before. It remains a favorite of mine.
Many thanks for the positive responses to the glimpses of my book! I'm experiencing a situational depression and am finding it increasingly difficult to get out of bed in the morning, to make phone calls, respond to email and to comments. Posting on my blog is about all I can do right now. Thank you for your understanding.
"I also think it is possible to achieve success without having to start out with despair. Even though one loses out here and there, and even though one sometimes feels a falling off, one must rally and take courage again, even though things should turn out differently from what one originally intended."
(p. 205, from THE LETTERS OF VINCENT VAN GOGH, translated by Arnold Pomerans. This is from a letter of October 1882, written to his brother, Theo.)
That's another photo from the San Gregorio webcam. I thrive in cool, not cold, overcast weather where there is relatively low humidity. My inner landscape is a good place, a creative place.
There's too much glare here for a good photo this morning. But listen to a bit of what what I can hear outside.
Many thanks to those who keep stopping by my blog even though I've been quiet lately. My creative energy for drawing and painting is at a low ebb. My book of art and poetry is almost ready for self-publishing. The prototype is a 98-page book, 6 x 8 inches, made on a Mac, perfect bound at Apple, Inc, in Elk Grove, California, and then FedEx'd to my home. Amazing! My plan at this time is to have a local printer make 1000 copies. The local independent bookstore will take my book on consignment, so it may be possible to order it eventually from their web site. I'm trying to make this as simple as possible for me and everyone involved.
The photo is from my current favorite webcam. More here. That's the Pacific Ocean in the distance.
"In case you think Gauguin and I get down to work effortlessly, let me tell you the work does not always come easily to us. And my wish for our Dutch friends, and for you as well, is that they should feel no more discouraged by their difficulties than we do."
(p. 424, from THE LETTERS OF VINCENT VAN GOGH, translated by Arnold Pomerans. This is from a letter of December 1888, written to his brother, Theo.)
A second-third century Adullam burial cave with a "rolling stone." I discovered the photo in a Bible dictionary that belonged to my father. Then I went outside and took a photo of the day lily foliage.
Been making my way through the complete collection of "Kung Fu" episodes on DVD. Pretty much stopped watching television around 1967. I remember a friend telling me I should at least watch "Kung Fu." That was probably in the spring of 1974. I didn't. I needed to wait until now.
From "The Chalice," first broadcast on 10/11/1973:
"That we are possessed by that which we would possess. Held in bondage to earth and vested things by the attachments we form for them. Even so holy a thing as a chalice, so slight a thing as a pebble."
In that episode, Caine promised a dying priest that he would find and return the chalice the priest had made with his own hands and then stolen, only to have it stolen from him by outlaws. Caine said to the priest that whatever an artist makes belongs to the artist always. Then Caine proceeded to search for the chalice so that it could be returned.
If it were not for my 16-year-old nephew, who mentioned Kung Fu on his MySpace page some time ago, and for R's sister gift of the DVDs, I might never have watched these "Kung Fu" episodes. Funny how things work out the way they do.
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant" -- Martin Luther King (1929-1968)
Just came across this interview with Bob Dylan where he talks about mysticism, Barack Obama, and the American South.
And have been meaning to post the talk below by the woman who wrote and illustrated THE PRINCIPLES OF UNCERTAINTY, one of my newest most treasured books:
Click below on the excerpt from the poem linked to by Velveteen Rabbi on April 7 to find out more about the Blessing of the Sun:
And a new song by the man who joked with Mavis Staples about having read something in "Snoozeweek."
(The sunrise-through-the-cottonwood-trees photo was taken from my porch this morning. Notice the right ear of the driver in the car in the photo directly above. Great photo. I wonder who the photographer is. There are at least six people in this photo. When I first saw the photo, I thought it was a man and a woman in the back seat of the car, but now I'm not so sure. I'm curious about the tattoo. Come to think of it, this photo is splendidly full of people -- of the past, the present and future.)
Several years ago, a young man who was playing old Bob Dylan songs in a local park asked me the name of my favorite Dylan album. He expressed surprised when I said without hesitation, "Love and Theft."
In 2001, I looked forward to September 11 because that was day that the first copies of "Love and Theft" were going to be available. Sometime that afternoon, reeling from what had happened that morning, I went out to buy my copy of "Love and Theft." The store was quieter than usual, but the young clerk looked calm and had a smile on his face. I went home and put the CD in the CD player and was startled to hear Bob Dylan singing in a raspy voice:
Tweedle-dee Dum and Tweedle-dee Dee They're throwing knives into the tree Two big bags of dead man's bones Got their noses to the grindstones
Living in the land of Nod Trustin' their fate to the Hands of God They pass by so silently Tweedle-dee Dum and Tweedle-dee Dee
I listened all the way through the CD to the last song which ended with:
Sugar Baby, get on down the line You ain't got no sense, no how You went years without me Might as well keep going now
I played it over and over again that day. I haven't listened to it all the way through for a long time. "Mississippi" is the song that made the deepest impression on me:
Every step of the way we walk the line Your days are numbered, so are mine Time is pilin' up, we struggle and we scrape We're all boxed in, nowhere to escape
and:
But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free
With the appearance of BOB DYLAN LYRICS: 1962-2001 in bookstores in 2004, it seemed that "Sugar Baby" might stand as Bob Dylan's last published song, but then came the CD titled MODERN TIMES in August of 2006. On April 28, another CD is going to be released. It's called TOGETHER THROUGH LIFE.
Again I'm reminded of my artist friend's words from sometime in the late 1980s. He died of ALS in June of 1991. From his heart, he wrote to me, "We're all in this together." The last time I heard his voice, it was almost impossible to understand what he was saying, but his laughter was as it always was. Pure joy. Pure love of life!
He does what he must do and he does it well. His songs are homeopathic medicine for me.
homeopathy, n. the method of treating disease by drugs, given in minute doses, which would produce in a healthy person symptoms similar to those of the disease.
homeo-, similar, like.
-pathy, suffering, feeling, ...often used with the meaning "morbid affection."
(from THE RANDOM HOUSE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, THE UNABRIDGED EDITION, 1981)
When I took a look at the lyrics for "Buckets of Rain" in my copy of BOB DYLAN: LYRICS 1962-2001, I noticed that this is yet another song for which the lyrics have been changed from the original recording. You is changed to I, and I is changed to you in the first verse. Hips is changed to lips in the third verse. Then it occurred to me that I was almost sure that Bob Dylan had written something previous to 1962. Sure enough, on the page facing "Talking New York" (1962) are handwritten lyrics to a song he wrote previous to 1962 and titled Big City Blues.
"Buckets of Rain" ends with another of Dr. Bob's koans:
I'd thought that bedrest would be the best way to recover from shingles. It seems that being up and around at home is what works. I feel better when I write something down and share something I hope is meaningful in some way to someone else as it is to me.
"Whatever gets you through the night, it's all right." (John Lennon)
Reading some excellent posts about Thomas Hardy's novel THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE led me to Griffin House's video. I'd not heard of him before.
In May of 1955, my sisters and I had chicken pox. Still have a small scar from that. My guess is that all the kids in our neighborhood and at school came down with it that spring. We called it "Chicken Pops."
Just as I was feeling unusually good and ready to draw again, I've come down with a second bout of shingles. The first was in spring of 2001 -- a time of continuing severe emotional stress for me. As you may already know, shingles is caused by the same virus as chicken pox. For many people the virus remains dormant for the rest of their lives. For others it becomes active in times when one's immune system is not working well or in times of emotional stress. Previous to recent years, I was plagued with frequent upper respiratory infections that would linger for weeks and weeks. I also suffered from environmental allergies -- a sign of immune system dysfunction. My immune system must be working relatively well now because I haven't had a cold for several years and have not suffered from allergies in the way I used to. Still experience emotional stress, though. Especially this past year.
The medical term for shingles is herpes zoster. Herpes means snake and zoster means girdle. In my first experience with herpes zoster, the "snake girdle" was at my waist on my right side and very painful. This time it is not as severe, with numerous small "snakes" attacking my right leg. I'm not one who is afraid of snakes, but I do have respect for them. I had a dream a few days ago that the pattern of the rash along the dermatomes was actually quite beautiful to see. A work of art. Something to look at with wonder and appreciation.
I'm wondering if there is something about feeling unusually good that is stressful for me. On the other hand, I'm approaching the first anniversary of R's death.
There's some blue sky, sunshine and bird song this morning. Yesterday I saw a pair of wood ducks out on Scudder Pond. Probably my favorite sign of spring.
As might be guessed, I'm not feeling well physically and will be taking time away from blogging for a few weeks. A good time for just plain book reading in bed. In a few weeks, it may be warm enough to have all the windows open and for some good long walks in the woods!
I've been meaning to post this ever since I found the link at Chatoyance, Lori Witzel's blog. Gave me much to think about. Especially liked the story about Tom Waits in traffic. Have not read anything by Elizabeth Gilbert but do like what she has to say here.
"Well, even in these depths of misery I felt my energy revive & said to myself, I shall get over it somehow, I shall set to work again with my pencil, which I had cast aside in my deep dejection, & I shall draw again, & ever since I have had the feeling that everything has changed for me, & now I am in my stride & my pencil has become slightly more willing & seems to be getting more so by the day. My over-long & over-intense misery had discouraged me so much that I was unable to do anything."
(Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh in a letter, p. 79 from THE LETTERS OF VINCENT VAN GOGH)
I'm re-reading the letters of Vincent van Gogh to his brother.
I've loved this song since the moment I first heard it. I couldn't help but see R "in the sky above, in the tall grass, in the ones I love." Still do. The album's liner notes said something like, "Somewhere a red-haired girl smiles." I smiled when I read that. I hadn't smiled quite like that in a long time.
Haven't been able to light the candle lantern on my porch lately because of wind. A few days ago I added a colander as an impromptu windbreak. It works!
Being able to see the home movies of R with his parents and his nine siblings throughout his childhood and part way through his teenage years is deeply affecting for me. As the date of R's death last year approaches, the recent gift of the home movies from R's sister fills me with gratitude. R and I were born within 24 hours of each other in 1949. He was a one year old in New Jersey. I was a one year old in California. There is healing for me in telling our story in words and photos and drawings and paintings. It wasn't all good. It wasn't all bad, either. It was something else.
It's still in the thirties here, but I took a short walk with a friend yesterday. This is a view from Marine Park, looking out at Bellingham Bay and the San Juan Islands:
I have the same question that Dale asked in his comment on my post from a few days ago titled "FREEDOM." What to call the above image and others like it? Are they truly drawings?
They are not drawings in the traditional sense, but they are done using the same mind/eye/hand coordination required for drawing on paper. What is different is that I make the drawing/painting movements on my computer track pad, and those index finger/hand/arm movements result in marks on my laptop screen drawing plane.
On the other hand :-) , the process is much like fingerpainting. As I move my index finger on the computer track pad, I am reminded of childhood experiences of using my index finger to move fingerpaint around on paper to create images.
The now-obsolete Apple Painting program on my iBookG4 allows me to vary the size of the lines, to blend the lines as if I were using charcoal and to use various other functions that are much more tedious on a computer than simply drawing on paper. The program will easily make perfect circles and lines, if I choose, but I choose to draw freehand. The best thing about the process, especially given that I am unemployed, is that I don't have to buy art supplies, except for printer ink and paper to print the images on.
The resulting image on a computer screen, though, appears to be a woodcut or a linocut, a silk screen print or, possibly, a scratchboard drawing. I have so far used the term "trackpad drawing" to describe these images I have created freehand.
It's something like drawing a picture on packed beach sand with one's index finger, without touching the sand. I'd rather be on a Northern California beach drawing in the sand, but I can make the best of what is right at hand :-)
("A Question For The Teacher" is a trackpad drawing from several years ago by old girl of the north country. The day lilies are thriving this spring in that planter on my porch.)
R's sister emailed that she was sending me a DVD of their family's home movies. When I checked my mail yesterday, there it was. I had seen the home movies in R's family's living room in the distant past and never imagined that I would see that footage of R and his family again after all these years.
The home movie clip where the image above originated was probably taken in the winter of 1965("in the winter of '65, we were hungry, just barely alive" -- The Band), when we were 16, a year before R and I met, three years before he was drafted into the Army. When we were 52, he told me that he had almost died from a drug overdose just before he met me in December of 1966.
In my first days of friendship with R, he frequently surfed as well as fished at Miramar Beach, which is across Highway 1 and down the road from the house where he lived with his mother and father and six of his siblings, the youngest of whom were fraternal twins born in December of 1964. His oldest brother may well have been married by then. His next older brother was in the Army in Thailand. R had become the oldest one who lived at home. He had dropped out of high school and had started working odd jobs and possibly selling drugs. Somewhere I have a drawing I did of him as he stood facing the ocean with his fishing pole.
At 16, I was an extremely shy young woman who loved horses, the ocean, swimming, drawing, the Beatles and Bob Dylan --a girl who spent hours and hours in her bedroom reading books and other hours and hours walking great distances with our family's dog, exploring deep into the countryside outside of city limits. I was 16 and "never been kissed." My self-esteem was so low that I couldn't imagine that I ever would be kissed.
Unable to imagine that I would ever be married, I had the notion that I wanted to be a nurse, and so I volunteered in the pediatrics ward of a nearby hospital as a "Candy Striper," talking with childen who were hospitalized. It didn't take me very long to discover that my life, difficult as it appeared to me, had been a sheltered one. A young boy I talked with calmly told me that he was in the hospital because his father had stabbed him in the stomach with a knife. I had no idea what to say to him beyond that I was sorry that had happened to him. I was in way over my head, not sure at all that I could ever be useful as a nurse or anything else, for that matter. All I knew for sure was that now I wanted to be with R.
After having met R in December of my senior year in high school, I would drive my parents' car to the hospital on Sundays to volunteer my hours and then drive out to the coast, hoping to find R walking on the beach. I told him about the boy. He told me about his friend whose father would get drunk and chase him around the house with a knife. R told me that he never wanted to be a drunk. Drugs, yes. Alcohol, no.
When were 16, both of us listened closely to Bob Dylan and the Beatles. That year we would have been listening to Highway 61 Revisited and Rubber Soul:
"Like a Rolling Stone" "Tombstone Blues" "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" "From a Buick 6" "Ballad of a Thin Man" "Queen Jane Approximately" "Highway 61 Revisited" "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" "Desolation Row"
and:
"Drive My Car" "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" "You Won't See Me" "Nowhere Man" "Think for Yourself" "The Word" "Michelle" "What Goes On" "Girl" "I'm Looking Through You" "In My Life" "Wait" "If I Needed Someone" "Run for Your Life"
It was R who called me from California in 2001 and let me know that George Harrison had died. Two weeks after he returned from Vietnam in 1970, he had given me a copy of George Harrison's double album, "All Things Must Pass" as a Christmas present. George Harrison and R both died from brain tumors, but R survived his first bout of lung cancer, going into remission in 2002 and living until April of 2008. He returned to drug and alcohol abuse in those years, and his capacity for physical and emotional abuse of me was clear. For my physical and emotional safety, I had to keep my distance. I detached from him -- first with fear, then with anger, then with love. Anger and fear alone would have killed me.
A year ago yesterday, R suffered acute respiratory failure at the VA hospital but was resuscitated and placed on a ventilator and feeding tube in the ICU. Although I was unaware of what had happened to R that Friday, I had a strong urge to call the VA hospital that weekend. Something else told me not to call but I struggled with that something else until Easter morning when I made the call.
His nurse must have thought I was his sister or another nurse and told me everything about his medical condition, including the part about the stage IV brain tumor. In shock, I just listened. She told me that as he was being transported to the ICU, she had asked him a question to see if he was oriented. He spoke in the only way he could, with a "thumbs up." When I heard that, I felt sure that he was going to be okay.
"I keep traveling around the bend There was no beginning, there is no end It wasn't born and never died There are no edges, there is no sides Oh yeah, you just don't win It's so far out -- the way out is in Bow to God and call him Sir But if you don't know where you're going Any road will take you there" (George Harrison)
"Unable are the Loved to die/For Love is Immortality" (Emily Dickinson)
In 2001,when we were 52, R said that the only thing real about him was his soul.
George Harrison quoted this on his last album:
"The soul does not love. It is love itself. It does not exist. It is existence itself It does not know. It is knowledge itself How to Know God, page 130"
You know, I'm not really expecting comments on all this, but it does help that I can write this story as best I can and be heard. Like the boy in the pediatrics ward, I just need to say what happened. That a person I loved and should have been able to trust hurt me. I was implicitly threatened with a Bowie knife on one occasion after R returned from Vietnam and then later struck and knocked to the floor by R, the person I loved more than anyone in the world. I had to leave him but continued to love him. That there were times that I wanted him to hurt, too. It has taken most of my life to sort that out. I can say now that I've come a long way. I'm finding it harder and harder to call it a love story, but it is a soul story.
Anyone else remember the following episode of "The Twilight Zone" and how it ended?
Although I watched all of the episodes of "The Twilight Zone" as a adolescent, I was unable to watch more than one episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" because it frightened me deeply, seriously undermining my tenuous sense of safety in a world controlled by adults. I'm sure than I'm not the only one who had that experience in 1961. "The Twilight Zone" gave me things to wonder about, but "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" only gave me nightmares.
The Beatles were just warming up in 1961. What a relief it was to see the Beatles for the first time in early 1964. For the first time in my life, I felt glad to be alive. "The Twilight Zone" gave me things to wonder about, but the Beatles gave me hope as a young girl.
A wise woman, who was traveling in the mountains, found a precious stone in a stream.
She reverently placed the gem in her bag.
The next day, she met another traveler, who was hungry.
The wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone in the wise woman's bag, admired it, and asked the wise woman to give it to him.
The wise woman did so without hesitation.
The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune.
He knew the jewel was worth enough to give him security for the rest of his life.
But a few days later he came back, searching for the wise woman.
When he found her, he returned the stone and said,
"I have been thinking. I know how valuable this stone is, but I would like to exchange it in the hope that you can give me something much more precious. If you can, teach me the secrets about the power you have within you, the power than enabled you to, without hesitation, give me this precious stone."
Some years ago, it was suggested to me by a yoga teacher that I study several interpretations of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The above story introduces the only interpretation I have that was done by a woman. Interestingly, her focus is on the first two of the four books, and she suggests, "As your curiosity about Books III and IV develops, I encourage you to read the many translations available."
The other interpretations I have been reading are:
LIGHT ON THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI, by B.K.S Iyengar.
THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI, translation and commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda.
THE ESSENCE OF YOGA: REFLECTIONS ON THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI, by Bernard Bouanchaud.
In the last few days, I've also been listening to THE YOGA SUTRA OF PATANJALI TUTORIAL, chanted by T.K.V. Desikachar. Reading one sutra early each morning and discovering how the Sanskrit words are pronounced is becoming part of my yoga practice.
("Woman Listening" was drawn in chalk pastel by Old Girl of the North Country in the early 1980's)
Something reminded me of the moment in 1970 when I was at an intersection somewhere along the Alameda de las Pulgas, not far from Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, California, driving somewhere north in my blue-green 1965 VW. R was in Vietnam. The car radio was on, as it always was in those days. Aretha Franklin started singing "I Say A Little Prayer." I wasn't someone who believed in God or said prayers, but I knew that Aretha understand how much love I felt for R and that I wasn't alone in loving someone that much. I can still feel the joy that song brought to me. For all I know, it was thirty-nine years ago today.
(Notice how Aretha and the back-up singers hold their hands in prayer as a Buddhist might before bowing or as someone in the tradition of Yoga might do as they said, "Namaste.")
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)
Welcome to "37TH DREAM (RUMORS OF PEACE)".
The photograph currently at the top of my blog was taken from my porch before sunrise on October 29, 2023.
"OLD GIRL OF THE NORTH COUNTRY" (the earliest name for my blog -- http://oldgirlfromthenorthcountry.blogspot.com
) came to life in early December of 2006 so that I could post a 42-year retrospective of my paintings and drawings and through that action, create a new relationship with the day the man I loved returned from Vietnam in December 1970. For a while (sometime after spring of 2008, which is when he died) my blog was "TALKING 37TH DREAM WITH RAINBOW (RUMORS OF PEACE)". For a number of years, it's been "TALKING 37TH DREAM (RUMORS OF PEACE)." As of April 12, 2017 my blog was titled "37TH DREAM / TALKING 37TH DREAM (RUMORS OF PEACE/LOOKING UP)". Somewhere along the way it became 37TH DREAM (RUMORS OF PEACE).
To begin viewing the retrospective with narrative, scroll down to December 8, 2006, on this page:
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. -- Martin Buber (1878-1965)
It is only a little planet, but how beautiful it is.
-- Robinson Jeffers
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.
-- Alfred Molano
Enjoy every sandwich -- Warren Zevon (1947-2003)
Not in God's wilds will you ever hear the sad moan, "All is vanity." No, we are paid a thousand times for all our toil, and after a single day spent outdoors in their atmosphere of strength and beauty, one could still say, should death come — even without any hope of another life — "Thank you for this most glorious gift!" and pass on.
-- John Muir (1838-1914)
Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do? Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well. Hugh Fennyman: How? Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.
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