Dedicated to / Thanksgiving 2009

Sending love to family and friends and sending love to all those who are spending Thanksgiving in Iraq and Afghanistan this year and their families and friends.

















Instead of posting links to songs by Bob Dylan, as I did in the two previous posts, I'm going to post his album / CD covers, beginning in 1962 and going through 2009, as an accompaniment to my limited edition art and poetry retrospective of the years 1966 to 2008.





1962






Looking east before sunrise on the day before Thanksgiving:


















Something I think about each year:

Declining an invitation to a Thanksgiving meal, Bob Dylan sat down and wrote "Just Like a Woman" on Thanksgiving Day 1965, while in Kansas City on tour.

opening a book of changes

Listen.

Richard and I heard Bob Dylan singing "Chimes of Freedom" when we were 15 years old.

Oboe's vantage point this early morning:

"OH THE TIME WILL COME UP/ WHEN THE WINDS WILL STOP"

Beginning today, there are 38 days left in 2009. Early this morning I made the decision to post images from my limited first edition book of artwork and poetry, starting with the front cover, proceeding with two facing pages at a time, and finishing on December 31 with the back cover. I'm pleased to say that Village Books has sold two of the three copies that they took on consignment a few weeks ago.

Along with the book images, I'll be posting links to Bob Dylan songs that I would have been listening to before I met Richard, in the decades that followed, and after Richard's death in April of 2008.

In my book, the poetry is purely chronological, while the artwork is generally chronological. Through those 40+ years, while I was drawing, painting, writing poetry and thinking about Richard, Bob Dylan's music was never far from my mind, beginning with the first time I listened to him with close attention in 1963, when I was almost 14 years old. I saw the 22-year-old Bob Dylan on television, singing "When the Ship Comes In" with Joan Baez and then singing "Only a Pawn in Their Game," as part of the Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C. The only song I ever heard Richard sing, accompanying himself on guitar, was "When the Ship Comes In," and that was before he went to Vietnam in January of 1970.

Listen.

Looking east today:

OBOE BEFORE DAWN

Listen.

Lyrics.

I'm trying to love my neighbor and do good unto others
But oh, mother, things ain't going well

(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Ain't Talkin'")

OBOE LOOKING OUTSIDE AT THE TRAIL

solvitur ambulando (it is solved by walking)

-- St. Augustine

AS THE CRESCENT MOON WAXES / NASRUDDIN MEETS THE CHRISTMAS IN THE HEART SUTRA , TALES OF THE HASIDIM, KEN KESEY, AND BOB DYLAN PLAYING GEORGE BURNS

I keep thinking about the anonymous young man who jumps out the window and runs off into the night at the end of Bob Dylan's "Must Be Santa" video, directed by Nash Edgerton.

If you've not seen Bob Dylan's horrifying "Beyond Here Lies Nothing" video, also directed by Nash Edgerton, I don't recommend it. I repeat. I don't recommend it.

However, it did give me a terrifying and sobering and ultimately cathartic and healing glimpse into a scene that could have been from my life in 1971 after Richard returned from Vietnam. What was so distressing to me in the first moments of the "Beyond Here Lies Nothing" video was that I had loved the song "Beyond Here Lies Nothing" until then. Hearing what I thought of as a sweet love song as the soundtrack to scenes of domestic violence broke my broken heart but also freed me from years of denial of what had happened to me and to Richard.

It is in that discordant light that I see and hear and feel "Must Be Santa."

When I woke up this morning, it occured to me that "Must Be Santa" could have had Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" for its soundtrack:

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

What starts out as a silly joking video is shattered for me by the fleeting image of an anonymous man lying outside on the steps of the large white house and then the image of another anonymous young man being chased down the stairs, throwing glasses, keeping people at a distance with a fireplace tool, swinging from the chandelier and jumping out the window. The man jumping through the window and running made me think of the final scene in the movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

Bob Dylan may be playing Santa Claus and George Burns in "Must Be Santa," but I wonder if the young man who dives out into the night is playing the role of Bob Dylan.

"Human beings are alone with their secrets. Masked and Anonymous. No one truly knows them."

(from the words of Val Kilmer's character in Bob Dylan's film "Masked and Anonymous")

SNOW IN THE FOOTHILLS / MEDITATION

From:

the "Who laughs this way: Ho Ho Ho" koan on:

Must Be Santa

to the "O Little Town of Bethlehem" koan:

How silently, oh how silently,
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him, still
The dear Christ enters in.

(Bob sings "Amen" after this, the last song on the CD)

It's all there on "Christmas in the Heart."

"The mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it."
(Sri Nisargadatta)

UNIVERSE AT PLAY INSIDE YOUR DNA / YOU'RE A BILLION YEARS OLD TODAY

Listen.

Red duck
luck
where's my paint

AFTER THE THUNDERSTORM

“Our religion keeps reminding us that we aren't just will and thoughts. We're also sand and wind and thunder. Rain. The seasons. All those things. You learn to respect everything because you are everything. If you respect yourself, you respect all things.”

(William Least Heat Moon)

MORNING WALK / SOUTH BAY TRAIL

Listen.

VETERANS DAY 2009

May all veterans of war find peace today and always.

THAT LUCKY OLD SUN

Listen.

LOOKING NORTH / LISTENING

Listen.

AND THAT'S THE WAY IT IS / SUNRISE

Listen

More often than not, ever since I was 14 years old, Bob Dylan's music has affected me in the way it affected Kyle Theiss. Bob Dylan's music brought me back to life again and again. It's good medicine.

"So bitter and so sweet."
(Joni Mitchell)

CLOUD ILLUSIONS / CELTIC NEW YEAR

See post by Solitary Walker for more about the Celtic New Year and "endless renewal and other things."

Listen.

As she said, "Life is for learning."

New Year!
The sun rose above those clouds today!
New Morning!

SHELTER FROM THE STORM

As I was thinking about having heard my nephew sing "Woodstock" in an "American Rock" performance in Seattle last Sunday, these later lyrics by Joni Mitchell came to me.

"All we ever wanted was just to come in from the cold."

"THE VOICE OF MAHALIA JACKSON CAME THROUGH THE ETHER" (VAN MORRISON)

Sometime between 1954 and 1956, which was the year that I turned 7 years old, I was playing quietly in the living room of my family's rented home in Taft, California. The television was on, but I wasn't paying attention to it until I heard a powerful voice that moved my young heart and soul. I looked up, and there was Mahalia Jackson on the small black-and-white screen. Unforgettable.

"It is easy to be independent when you've got money. But to be independent when you haven't got a thing -- that's the Lord's test."
(Mahalia Jackson)

"I DON'T KNOW WHO I AM, BUT LIFE IS FOR LEARNING" / LEE

Yesterday afternoon I drove to Seattle to hear my 16-year-old (almost 17-year-old) nephew sing in a Vocalpoint! Seattle performance at the Broadway Performance Hall at Broadway and Pine. Imagine how moving it was to hear him sing "Woodstock" with the Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Taylor, Reeves musical accompaniment, with three other young men doing back-up vocals. My nephew's voice is strong and expressive. In another song I didn't recognize, he sang solo while everyone else from Vocalpoint! Seattle danced behind him. I understand that there will be a DVD of the performance. Maybe it will show up on YouTube!

EIST / LISTEN

Brian Bowers sings this song on his CD titled "Bristlecone Pine." He refers to John Spillane in the liner notes. Keep listening until John Spillane sings (1:20).

42 years: a book of changes

About a month ago, I had a limited edition of 25 copies of my book of art and poetry printed up. A few days ago, Bellingham's independent bookstore, Village Books, took three of my books on consignment, with a retail price of $14.95 per copy. I will not be making a profit on this limited edition but do want to make it available for those who are interested. For those readers who would like to purchase a copy and who live in the United States or Canada, try calling Village Books at 1-800-392-BOOK and asking for:

42 years: a book of changes
(by Amanda Wald Rachie)

For those who don't live in the United States or Canada, email me if you'd like to buy a copy.

OBAMA, CAN THIS REALLY BE THE END?

"... We are at the end of the beginning, the hard work starts now ..."
(from President Obama's speech on October 20, 2009)





"An' here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice

Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again"

(Bob Dylan)

*

"What science finds to be nonexistent, we must accept as nonexistent, but what science merely does not find is a completely different matter.

... It is quite clear that there are many, many, mysterious things."

(Dalai Lama)

*

"Om, Mama, can this really be the end?"
(Margaret Hibbing aka Oboe)

"CHRISTMAS IN THE HEART" / "YOU LOSE YOURSELF, YOU REAPPEAR"

Watch and listen to this song from 1965 by Bob Dylan, as he sung it about a year ago. The lyrics are here.

Bob Dylan's recently released "Christmas in the Heart" CD opens with "Here Comes Santa Claus" and closes with these words from "O Little Town of Bethlehem":

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still,
The dear Christ enters in.

Reinhold Niebuhr said, "Humor is a prelude to faith and
Laughter is the beginning of prayer."

I laughed when I heard Bob Dylan singing "Here Comes Santa Claus" and laughed at various places throughout the CD. He is funny, and he knows it. He is also apparently a man of unconventional faith. The CD alternates between popular Christmas songs (many of which I have never liked, even in childhood, because they depressed me -- I still can smell alcohol on their breath and they make me wary of adults) and traditional Christmas hymms and ends with Bob Dylan singing a solemn "Amen," as is done at the end of prayers in Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition.

Although I was raised as a Christian, I began to question what I had been taught at church at about the time I first heard Bob Dylan -- when I was 14 years old. I knew then that I wasn't alone with my questions. I am not a member of any organized religious or spiritual community, but I am still not alone with my questions either. As a woman of unconventional faith, I've got to say that I like Bob Dylan's Christmas CD. It's got heart, levity and gravity. It's not a sermon. He's not preaching. It's not that far from "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," a song he continues to sing in concert:

"It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred"
(Bob Dylan, 1965)

He didn't say that nothing is sacred.

And you've got to hear him sing at the speed of light in "Must Be Santa":

Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen
Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon
Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen
Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton

(Scroll down to my "Feeding America Christmas in the Heart" post and click on the triangle next to "Must be Santa" in the donation widget)

To my ears, "Christmas in the Heart" is a meditation on the oneness of the absurd and the sacred, which ends enigmatically in the manner of a prayer.

I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK

"You can only go halfway into the darkest forest; then you're coming out on the other side."

-- Chinese proverb

(from Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others)

Click here to learn more about a book well worth reading.

BLACK ELK SAW A FLAMING RAINBOW

From Black Elk Speaks:

Then they all stopped short, rearing, and were standing in a great hoop about their black chief at the center, and were still. And as they stood, four virgins, more beautiful than women of the earth can be, came through the circle, dressed in scarlet, one from each of the four quarters, and stood about the great black stallion in their places; and one held the wooden cup of water, and one the white wing, and one the pipe, and one the nation's hoop. All the universe was silent, listening; and then the great black stallion raised his voice and sang. The song he sang was this:


My horses, prancing they are coming.

My horses, neighing they are coming;

Prancing. they are coming.

All over the universe they come.

They will dance; may you behold them.

(4 times)

A horse nation, they will dance.

May you behold them. (4 times)


His voice was not loud, but it went all over the universe and filled it. There was nothing that did not hear, and it was more beautiful than anything can be. It was so beautiful that nothing anywhere could keep from dancing. The virgins danced, and all the circled horses. The leaves on the trees, the grasses on the hills and in the valleys, the water in the creeks and in the rivers and the lakes, the four-legged and the two-legged and the wings of the air--all danced together to the music of the stallion's song.

And when I looked down upon my people yonder, the cloud passed over, blessing them with friendly rain, and stood in the east with a flaming rainbow over it.

(Many thanks to the art farmer, who left me a phone message saying, "Look outside at the rainbow!")

Feeding America "Christmas In the Heart"

Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen
Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon
Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen
Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton

(From "Must Be Santa" -- new lyrics by Bob Dylan)

Click on "Must Be Santa" in the image above to hear the entire song

Then click on this quote:

"The SILENT NIGHT will shatter from the sounds inside my mind" -- Bob Dylan.

WELCOMED BY LIGHT

Click on image to enlarge for full effect of light.

IN THE BEGINNING, LONG TIME AGO

Listen.

Update: The "Listen" link above was changed today due to copyright restrictions that weren't in place when I linked it yesterday.

LATE AFTERNOON WALK BY WHATCOM CREEK

Listen.

OBOE LISTENING TO A WINDY DAY IN EARLY OCTOBER

Listen.

"She once walked right at my side. I'm sure she walked by you."
(Mimi Farina)

"Kiss the 21st century for me."
(what I heard Janis Joplin say in a dream I had in 1999)

BIRTHDAYS

Love is the strongest force the world possesses, and yet it is the humblest imaginable.

-- Mahatma Gandhi

Richard would have been 60 today.

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY, TOO, YEAH

Today is my 60th birthday. Tomorrow would have been Richard's 60th birthday.

Yesterday morning in the middle of a long walk, I stopped to sit on a rock at Marine Park and was looking around at the land, water, sky and sea birds. The thought came to me, "Where are you, Richard?"

Within seconds, I heard Richard's playful voice saying, "I'm here."

WHO, COOKS, FOR-YOU? WHO, COOKS, FOR-YOU, ALL

Listen.

Read.

LIKE THE MOON AND THE STARS AND THE SUN

This Little Light of Mine.

And from John Lennon:

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
Come on and on and on on on
Yeah yeah, alright, uh huh, ah

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
On and on and on on and on

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun

(from "Instant Karma")

LATE AFTERNOON SHADOWS AND LIGHT

Listen.

LATE SEPTEMBER / EARLY OCTOBER

Listen.

Settling.

Thanks so much to Nancy from Iowa for the bulbs that produced these brilliant early fall blooms. Crocosmia?

ROLLING HOME (TO CHRISTMAS IN THE HEART)

Listen.

Addendum:

R.L. asked about what appears to be a marker at the side of the gravel path leading to Bellingham's Bayview Cemetery. It's not a marker, but a small boulder placed there by a landscape designer. It's a place where people stop and rest. Her question did bring to my mind Bob Dylan's words,"here lies bob dylan," from his book Tarantula, written in 1966. I didn't have to look very far on Google to find the rest of the quote:

“here lies bob dylan
demolished by Vienna politeness-
which will now claim to have invented him
the cool people can
now write Fugues about him
& Cupid can now kick over his kerosene lamp-
bob dylan-filled by a discarded Oedipus
who turned
around
to investigate a ghost
& discovered that
the ghost too
was more than one person.”

Which got me to searching for Scrooge and the three ghosts he encountered, including the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Here are some of Scrooge's words to that ghost:

"I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope!...I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”

Which reminded me of the only Christmas card I ever received from Richard (that must have been around 1990) which, as I remember, read:

"Slowly, slowly, Christmas arrives in the heart."

(it was "Softly…Gently…Joyfully…Christmas arrives in the heart." )

Thanks, R.L., for your question.

I love what I've heard of "Christmas in the Heart"!

HOW OBOE GOT HER NAME

During the years when I was out of touch with Richard, he would visit me in my dreams. In one dream, he was as happy as I'd ever seen him. He wanted to show me an large unusual box-shaped musical instrument that was inlaid with wood. For each instrument that would be in a symphony orchestra, there was wood from a different tree. He pointed to a particularly beautiful wood inlay, looked at me in delight and said, "Oboe."

"TODAY THE WORLD IS BORN"

Read.

TAI CHI

See.

BRIDGE OVER WHATCOM CREEK AT 70 AS I APPROACH 60

60. Chieh / Limitation

A lake occupies a limited space. When more water comes into it, it overflows. Therefore limits must be set for the water. The image shows water below and water above, with the firmament between them as a limit.

(p. 231, The I Ching or Book of Changes, Wilhelm / Baynes, Third Edition, July 1967)

And then there's "Love Minus Zero / No Limit":



"The bridge at midnight trembles."
(Bob Dylan)

Where am I going with this?

Forward.

Update: Even if the comments function disappeared on this post.

AWOIK-AWOIK

Listen.

SEE-TI-WEE-TU-WEE / MEOW

A few days ago, the art farmer emailed this beautiful photo to me and gave me permission to post it on my blog. A good friend of hers from Georgia identified the small bird as a Brown Creeper. That's Chai looking at the Brown Creeper. Chai is the Bengal Cat who lives on the art farm and who was so ill a few weeks ago but has made a good recovery.

BROWN CREEPER: Certhia familiaris, 5 to 5-3/4 inches

Field Marks: A slim, well-camouflaged, brown-backed tree-climber. Much smaller than a House Sparrow, with a slender decurved bill and a stiff tail, braced when climbing. It ascends a tree spirally, then flies to the base of the next tree.

Voice: Note, a single high thin seee, similar to quick trebled note (see-see-see) of Golden-crowed Kinglet. Song, a thin sibilant see-ti-wee-tu-wee or see-see-see-sisi-see.

Where found: Eurasia; s. Alaska, Canada to Nicaragua. In East to s. mts; winters to Gulf states. West: Mainly resident from s.-c. Alaska, B.C., c. Alberta, c. Saskatchewan south on coast to c. California (Monterey Co.); in mts. to s. California, se. Arizona, sw. New Mexico, w. Texas (Guadalupe Mts.) Irregular migrant to lowlands. Habitat: Mature forest, groves. Nest: Behind strip of loose bark. Eggs (4-8) dotted.

(From A Field Guide To Western Birds, by Roger Tory Peterson; however, internet sources refer to the American Brown Creeper as Certhia americana)

My guess is that it is somewhat unusual for a Brown Creeper to appear and then remain for an extended period of time at the porch window of a second story condominium that overlooks a marsh. Especially when a Bengal Cat is looking out at it.

Listen.

The art farmer and I were wondering if this little bird had something to do with our dear neighbor, Dora, who died of a stroke on August 1. There is a tradition of stories of birds who appear unexpectedly after the death of a loved one.

Three days after my mother died in December of 1994, a Black Phoebe appeared outside my parents' home on the California coast. It drew attention to itself by calling loudly and flying toward the large windows that looked out toward to the ocean. Then it would fly away a few feet and look intently into the house. For all the times I had visited my parents' home and observed the birds there, I had never been aware of the Black Phoebes that are common in that area.

Richard's sister, who was with Richard when he died, said that as he breathed out for the last time, she had a vision of a bird taking flight.

Thanks so much to the art farmer for the inspiration for this post.

Thanks so much to all who stop by and comment and to all who stop by to look and read quietly.

STILL THINKING ABOUT MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS

Listen.

When I began this blog in late 2006, it was to be a 40-year retrospective of my drawings, paintings and other art work. My retrospective began with a drawing I had done in high school soon after meeting R. The drawing was a portrait of a young man. As the years went by, I began to think of the young man in the drawing as someone who had witnessed something beyond the range of anything life had prepared him for. Someone like R, who spent most of 1970 in Vietnam.

As most of you know, R died of a brain tumor while in a VA hospital in California in April of 2008. I always thought of him (and still do) as Richard, which is what he asked to be called soon after I met him when we were both 17. Today something tells me to start using his given name when I speak of him here.

Although I've had the CD from the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou?" since sometime in 2001, I wasn't able to listen to it from the time between summer of 2002 and this last few weeks. It was Richard who brought "O Brother Where Art Thou?" to my attention on my 52nd birthday, one of the two days we were together in 2001. His birthday is the day after mine. We were born within 24 hours of each other. Anyway, he had watched that movie with other veterans while they were hospitalized at a VA hospital. He liked it immensely and thought that I might like it, too. He was right.

In a few weeks, I'll be 60 years old. Physically, he won't ever be older than 58. I'm still growing older. We never could be together for very long, but we were always together anyway. I miss him. In his last years, his speaking voice sounded just like Bob Dylan. If he had sung to me, he would have sounded like this:

So happy just to see you smile / Underneath the sky of blue.






















Thanks again to Nancy from Iowa who gave me the bulbs that produced the lovely flowers at the beginning of this post. The other set of bulbs she gave me are getting close to their first bloom.

RIVERS THAT RAN THROUGH EVERY DAY

"We are all, in some sense, mountaineers, and going to the mountains is going home."
(John Muir)

The above photo was taken last year on October 1 when I was in Yosemite Valley, listening to the Merced River and walking where John Muir could well have walked, certainly seeing something of what he saw. Until that day in Yosemite, I always thought of the Pacific Ocean in Northern California as where I wanted to go home.

"We are all, in some sense, rivers, and going to the ocean is going home."
(I wrote that)

Listen to Bob sing about mountains and rivers and a love he threw away.

Listen to a song about going home.

THE VALUE OF THE SPIRITUAL

"In the interests of everyone, the artist has a responsibility to use his medium well. In the Tibetan culture, most of the paintings are of deities or Buddhas, and they try to send a message of the value of the spiritual."

(The Dalai Lama)

Today is my youngest sister's 55th birthday. We have been estranged since March of 2003, right after our father's death. I am thinking of her today and sending kind wishes.