Cat / Sunrise with Geese in the Sky

"...Your work needs you as much as you need it. Your work begs your expression. You need to materialize it on a daily basis, from your enriched life--the better side of your nature. Without your personal focus and action, your magic cannot and never will exist. Think of all the great work you have left to do. Think of how necessary it is for people to see good work. "Work," said Kahlil Gibran, "is love made visible."

from The Painter's Keys

Yesterday, Halloween, I applied for early Social Security benefits and am curious to see if I can simplify my life enough to live on that. There is something of the excitement of graduating from high school. The working at a job part of my life may well be over, but there is still work to do.

Is the cat working or playing, or something else?

This morning I Iooked up from my laptop at 8:20 a.m. and realized that the sun still hadn't appeared over the foothills to the east. I noticed a flock of geese flying across the sky above where the sun would appear. Picking up my camera, I went out on the porch to make a video. Gradually it occurred to me that because daylight savings time extends so far into fall, sunrise on November 1st looks very much like sunrise on the winter solstice. Daylight Savings Time ends this year on November 6. Makes me wish I lived in Arizona or Hawaii, where there is no Daylight Savings Time. If you look closely, you will see the geese flying across the morning sky in V-formation.

Stecher Family Album

Finally got around to photographing images from an album that I believe was assembled by my grandfather. He identifies his mother, his aunts and uncles and cousins who lived in and around Boston and in New York state. His mother (my great-grandmother) was one of 11 children of Melchoir and Helene (Roethler) Stecher of Achern, Germany. After Helene died, Melchior decided to come to America with his younger children. His oldest daughter, Jacobine, remained in Germany.

Above is a photo of my great-grandmother who was born in Achern, Germany, in 1836. Her firstborn son died during a cholera epidemic in Boston. As far as my grandfather knew, his father simply disappeared. Below is a photo of my great-grandmother's younger sister, Caroline. Caroline died at age 34 in 1879. My great-grandmother died at age 59 in 1895. Her death certificate said that she was married (rather than widowed or divorced or separated) at the time of her death. I found a record on Ancestry.com that showed evidence of separation papers, but I was unable to obtain those records as they had been lost somehow. My great-grandmother looks world-weary compared to her younger sister, and no wonder. Family secrets and tragedy must have weighed heavily on her. I keep thinking that something will turn up on the internet some day to solve the mystery of my great-grandfather's disappearance. I was shocked to find on the internet that my missing great-grandfather's father, a retired weaver, committed suicide by hanging, at age 93, in 1891.






















There are no photos of my grandfather in the old album, but here is a photo of him in 1916, the year my mother was born, before he served in the Army as a doctor in World War I, and another with my grandmother in 1920:





































I've added a Flickr badge with photos from the album my side bar on the right with photos of descendants and in-laws of Melchior and Helene Stecher from Achern. Still have more photos to take from the album.

Late in the day, as I was working on this, I looked up and saw a rainbow:






















Update: Oh dear. I can't believe I spelled descendant as "descendent" on the URL for my Flickr page for the Stecher family photos.

As a dear person once said to me, "Welcome to the human race."

As a former medical transcriptionist, I have lived for many years with the expectation that my spelling be perfect. Little room for mistakes in that field. It feels very strange to realize that I can make spelling mistakes like everyone else now without taking a cut financially! I've been amazed again and again that not all people work at jobs where there is such a pronounced expectation of perfection.

You mean I don't have to be perfect?

What a relief!

With a big tree and a little tree, looking out across Bellingham Bay to the Lummi Nation on a grey November morning/ View from my parked car

Something for the eyes that can listen and the ears that can see (thanks to Loren for that last concept).

Drawing while eating in the hospital cafeteria / A different way of thinking

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same thinking that created them."

-- Albert Einstein


















Interesting to try to draw an oil painting with pencil on paper. "Aguas Verdes" is a large diptych (53" x 68") painted in oil on linen by Caryn Friedlander. It hangs in the St. Joseph Medical Center cafeteria in Bellingham, Washington, and is a renewing presence in a hospital setting.

Drawing what is in front of me

Woke up at 2 a.m. this morning and found this. Thank you to R. L. Bourges, a writer and photographer living in France.



Still awake at 5:49 a.m.

Birdsong and slow moving clouds / Early evening

Looking from my porch to the east:


















Looking southeast. Listen:

PTSD (All Over Again) / Alex and Toggle

Listen

We're all in this together.

We can send love and encouragement as well as experience, strength and hope, to the newest generation affected by American wars, represented in part by Alex and Toggle in Doonesbury in the last several days.

We do what we can, when we can

With Occupy Wall Street in mind, I challenged the small corporation I have been working for, at home, since March 2010. About a week ago, they asked me and my co-workers to re-do work that we had lost due to problems with their software, without compensation for the time we spent on the work that was lost.

When the news came down, I was so angry that I cried what can only be called tears of rage. As it is, we are not paid for at least 30 minutes a day for work we do because this is a "production-oriented work environment," where we are only paid for the lines of dictation we produce (picture farmworkers being paid for how much lettuce they can pick in a day). There is a long list of tasks we do that are considered part of the job but which don't produce lines and for which we are not compensated.

Who, you ask, would work under those conditions? This was the only job I was able to get at age 60, and until last week I considered myself fortunate to be working in a time when many people my age will never be hired again. From what I know of my recent co-workers, they are generally young women with children, women near retirement age who have lost their well-paying hospital jobs due to hospitals outsourcing to companies like this one in order to save money, and disabled people who cannot easily work outside the home. These are desperate times. It is not easy to get a job.

When I calmed down enough, I emailed the Human Resources Director and the Vice-President of the company, saying that I was not going produce lines without compensation, that their request was likely illegal, and that I was not going to fill out my time sheet until they compensated me for my time. It is my guess that they must have talked with their lawyers because it took several days before they responded to my email. The Human Resources Director told me that I would hear from the Vice-President with the company's decision. The Vice-President emailed me saying that I would be given what is basically a $3.25 credit for my time, but said nothing about changing their policy, which means that every time their software fails, I have to use unpaid time to get credit for time worked in good faith, while making less than $10/hour.

Because I am 62 now and can collect early Social Security, I made a decision on October 11 to retire rather than continue to fight a daily exhausting losing battle for near poverty wages. Medical transcriptionists who work at home need a Caesar Chavez. What was once a profession where a person could make a decent living has become something like being a farmworker before Caesar Chavez. I'm no Caesar Chavez, although I wish I were.

My Social Security benefits will put me below the poverty line. My challenge now is to find a way to make a living for the rest of my working life, which may be the rest of my life. I'm feeling shell-shocked. And relieved to have made a good decision.

I do what I can, when I can.






















From The Novice: A Story of True Love, by Thich Nhat Hanh:

...We began with what we knew and the few resources that we had. We did not expect anything from the government, because if you wait for the government, you will wait a long time.

...Sister Tri Hai practiced walking meditation all night so she could keep herself together and not lose herself in the fire. She went back to her true home within herself. Her true home is not in Paris, London or Tra Loc, because that home can be bombarded or taken away. Your true home is within yourself. The Buddha said, "Go home to the island within yourself. There is a safe island of self inside. Every time you suffer, every time you are lost, go back to your true home. Nobody can take that true home away from you." This was the ultimate teaching the Buddha gave to his disciples when he was eighty years old and on the verge of passing away..."

I read a mixed and somewhat sarcastic review of this book in Tricycle magazine. This is not going to be a bestseller. This is a story from Vietnamese Buddhist tradition, retold by Thich Nhat Hanh. The Dalai Lama says, "He shows us the connection between personal, inner peace, and peace on earth." I agree.

(At the top of this post is "The Typist," by Dubuffet. These days everyone is a typist)

Human Rights Campaign / Rivers and Roads

A young woman and a young man were standing near the two entrances to Bellingham's Community Co-op today, educating the public on the Human Rights Campaign. While I was eating my lunch on a tall stool at one of the window seats, I drew a picture of the young woman. What you can't see is the steady stream of people who stopped to talk with her in solidarity, to give their support and encouragement. I was just one of many witnesses to the dignity and courage of those two young people today, and one of many witnesses to the goodness of human beings.



Listen. You can thank my nephew, as I do, for sending us in the direction of these musicians and singers based in Seattle. His Facebook page has The Head and the Heart under favorite music. It's been a while since I've been so deeply moved by new music. Listen especially for when the woman starts singing.

With immense gratitude to Steve Jobs

Listen to "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" from 1964:

"... I gazed down in the river's mirror
And watched its winding strum
The water smooth ran like a hymn
And like a harp did hum

Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song your strum
And rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum"

In 1979, when I was 29 years old (and had a different name), and personal computers were just coming up on the horizon, and I didn't want anything to do with them, I made the above linocut, inspired by a photo of Bob Dylan on the Basement Tapes album, never dreaming that Steve Jobs (another serious fan of Bob Dylan) would design a computer that would open up a world of creativity for me, including allowing me to compose a book of my art work and poetry and to self-publish it.

While I was out walking on the South Bay Trail along Bellingham Bay this morning, it occurred to me that the creative energy and gratitude in this song likely spoke to Steve Jobs.

If you have time, listen to this. I had heard this once before. It's worth listening to again.

Delayed reactions / Coincidence?/ "Tug on anything at all.."

I just watched the movie below with the voices in American English. Wonderful to find this beautiful film in many languages!

I have to say, though, that I was startled by the scene in the bath in this film, given that in American culture it is not a typical scene except perhaps in early childhood when the mother is absent, as in this movie where the mother is ill and in a hospital. I am not sure of the ages of the two girls, but the older girl appears to be about 10 years old. I do realize that this is traditional in Japanese culture, although I don't know much about this tradition, and the traditional personal boundaries that must be connected with it.

I do know that when I expressed concern in confidence to a mental health counselor on a crisis line that a 10-year-old was still taking showers with a parent of the opposite sex (I later learned that both parents thought this would be fine until the child was 12), the Mandatory Reporting Laws in the State of Washington required the crisis line mental health counselor to contact Child Protective Services, and there was an investigation and a confidential Educational Intervention to ensure that the parent stopped taking showers with the 10-year-old of the opposite sex and that she understood that what she was doing was not appropriate in American culture and not in the best interests of her child growing up in the context of American culture. The showers with the parent stopped, although the mother was, of course, angry about the intervention and argued that she had done nothing wrong. The child has grown up and is excelling in everything he does. Still, I do not like to think what would have happened had the showering continued until the boy was 12.

I wonder what the outcome would have been if I had expressed my concerns to the parents only. I do not have children of my own and, within 12 hours (delayed reaction) of learning of the situation with the showers, woke up in the morning with a sick feeling inside, and talked with a mental health counselor on a crisis line because I wanted professional clarification of my instinctive concern. The mother may never talk to me again, thinking that I was the one who called in Child Protective Services, and "tried to destroy her family."

My delayed reaction that morning, upon awakening and calling the crisis line, was that I did know that I couldn't imagine myself taking a shower or bath with my father when I was 10 years old.

And I do know that when I was 4 years old, when my mother was in the hospital giving birth to my youngest sister, my other sister and I were left for a week with a younger couple who were friends of my parents and who had two adopted sons close to my age, and that I was in the bathroom with my sister and with the man without his wife present. All I remember clearly is being in the bathtub without water, with my sister, and being angry at the man. I can see the 4-inch square bathtub tiles in my mind, and the man sitting on the floor next to the bathtub. This is one of my early childhood memories.

Many years later, a few months after Richard and I separated, I was in a department store at the customer service desk, and the woman who was helping me recognized my name. She was the wife who wasn't present when my sister and I were in the bathtub. She asked me about my life. I told her that I had just separated from my boyfriend who had just returned from Vietnam, and that the relationship had ended in violence. She said that she had just gotten a divorce from her husband who had become severely mentally ill and had been locking her in a closet when he would leave the house.

I get a chill today, this morning, just thinking of that. I have no memory of being hurt by that man, just of being angry at him. Now I am wondering again what happened in that bathroom that day in 1954 when I was 4 years old.

Coincidence or not, I am only beginning to thrive at age 62. It is never too late to heal.



(The painting at the top of the post is "Calendar Series: 15th Month/Night." I had it removed from its frame and scanned recently. The Calendar Series began with the 14th Month, inspired by the John Lennon and Yoko Ono Calendar of 1970, to which they had added a 13th Month. Richard was in Vietnam in 1970. The 13th Month was the month we were to be together again. I felt that I was lost in the 13th month for years. Now I am recalling that I starting the Calendar Series as a way of healing in the same way that I started this blog. Yesterday was the birthday of John Lennon and Sean Lennon, by the way)

"Tug on anything at all, and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe."
(John Muir)

Born during the same 24 hours in 1949 / Coincidence?

Yesterday was my birthday, and today would have been my old friend Richard's 62nd birthday. I have one other photo of us together, but that one is in silhouette as we are walking hand in hand in the direction of the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean. If it weren't for Richard, I wouldn't have any photos of us at all. For both photos, he set up the camera and stepped into the picture.

Today when I was getting groceries, I ran into a man that Richard worked for as a carpenter in California a long long time ago. I don't see him around that often. What are the chances that some years ago, I would get out of my car to deliver some paintings to an art gallery and that a man would get out of the car next to me and offer to help and that it would turn out that Richard had worked for him? And that as he and his wife were in the grocery store parking lot today, he would recognize me and stop to talk on Richard's 62nd birthday?

Then, this morning, I was talking with Richard's sister, Dorothy, who had left a message yesterday for my birthday. She said she was driving on a back road in the coast hills on the San Francisco Peninsula and saw a solitary crow skipping along the road. She knows that whenever I see a crow skipping I think of Richard. I even wrote a poem featuring a skipping crow and innocence and forgiveness when Richard and I were both 50 years old.

TWO INNOCENTS WITH EXPERIENCE

All desire. No forgiveness.
Years later it was early spring
with Red-Winged Blackbird,
Goldfinch, faithful Canada Goose on the trail
and return of the Tree Swallows.

Then I remembered.
He was sitting close to me.
Mr. Solitary Crow skipped by us like a child.
We laughed until we were children again.
This was how I experienced love.
I was innocent of forgiveness.

If you have time, listen to something that spoke to Richard's heart and which speaks to mine.

"Distinguished yet youthful ..."

It's my 62nd birthday today.
I'm keeping it simple, as always.
This made me laugh in delight:






















Inside the card, it says:

A look not everyone
can pull off.

Happy Birthday






















"Woman With Hands Full," pastel drawing from 1986 by am, inspired by the "Basement Tapes" album cover photograph with Bob Dylan pictured below. Every drawing has to start somewhere...

Painting in America/Reconciliation Dream

There's a long puzzling story here, but the drift is that the day after I decided to give away one of my paintings, "Reconciliation Dream," to one of my cousins on my father's side, an old painting of mine titled "Painting in America," appeared next to my front door with a note from someone I have not seen in years, who wrote that she wasn't expecting to see me again but wanted to thank me for giving it to her in 1986, and that it was time for her to let it go and for it to come back to me.

If you would like, take a look at North and South America and another previous post about "Reconciliation Dream."

I've been drawing again in the last few weeks, inspired by the spirit of Suze Rotolo and by Bob Dylan's recent exhibits of drawings and paintings that are clearly a result of his relationship with Suze:

"Her constant sketching inspired him to take up drawing and painting, and some of the songs relating to their relationship were written during a months-long separation while she studied art in Italy."

















I've just been bringing my sketchbook with me when I go out, and I have been drawing what is in front of me when I sit down--a form of prayer and meditation. It feels very good to be drawing again just for the joy of it.

"... Oh, ev'ry thought that's strung a knot in my mind,
I might go insane if it couldn't be sprung.
But it's not to stand naked under unknowin' eyes,
It's for myself and my friends my stories are sung ...
(From "Restless Farewell," by Bob Dylan, 1964)

"It's for myself and my friends, these drawings are done."
(am)

"Thoughts on Nature as experienced in wartime..."

Take a look at what I found this morning on my first day back at blogging--something Chris Highland wrote here:

"Particularly drawn to her thoughts on Nature as experienced in wartime, I was immediately impressed by her description of a friend, Jackie, who was, not surprisingly in the context of WWII, anxious and fearful. Jackie grew calm looking at “the things of nature” according to Anne. With the wind in the trees and the gathering of mountainous storm-clouds, she discovers within herself a happiness “that no one can take away.” Anne concludes this simple sketch of her troubled friend with her own wisdom gained in hiding: “Anyone who looks at nature, which is the same as looking into oneself, long and deeply enough, will, like Jackie, be cured of all despair.” This could not have been written better by John Muir or Henry Thoreau."(am's italics)

It's been a good blog break. Was able to put this slide show retrospective together, able to do the first drawings I've done in a long time, able to take a few more walks, and spend time with old friends and relatives near and far (email and otherwise!)

It was an old friend who now lives in Santa Margarita, California, who gave me a copy of Meditations of John Muir: Nature's Temple, by Chris Highland, first published in July 2001. Reading the beginning of that book again this morning and finding Chris Highland's blogs were the inspiration for this post today. I've got that book on the table where I blog and paint.

Beginning this evening, will be reading my favorite blogs and doing my blogging in the evening after I finish work. Mornings are the best time for drawing and walking and yoga before starting work at noon. The morning is passing quickly. It's difficult to get up from my laptop once I sit down here.

This is my 1000th (or 1001st--I'm not sure now) post since December 8, 2006.

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."
(Thomas Merton)

Miles to go before I sleep

On a day when my morning is full, sometimes I only have about 20 minutes before work to take a walk. In 20 minutes I can walk 1/2 mile and back from where I sit right now at my laptop at my art work table. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but it's not a snowy evening, and I'm not Robert Frost. It's a late summer morning, and I'll be 62 years old in a few weeks.

The little movie begins yesterday at the turning point, at the place I can walk to in 10 minutes. At that point, there are 3 trails to choose from, or I can turn around and go back home to start work at noon. My job does give me some flexibility, and I do have the option of starting work at 1 p.m., but then I have to work later into the evening, and that means I go to bed later and get up later. Easier to just start work at noon.

Anyway, what I am getting to is that I am going to take a blog break and won't be posting on my blog or reading any blogs for little while. I've taken a break from posting before but never from reading blogs.

Hope to use these weekday mornings for some drawing and painting and photography and to have more time for walking. Or maybe just being open to inspiration. Open to a good open-hearted direction.

You will all be in my thoughts, and I look forward to reading your blogs and posting again in a few weeks. Maybe I need to save my blog posting, reading, and commenting for the weekends in the future. We'll see.

If I get up now and take a walk, I can walk for about an hour before work. That sounds good.

Kind wishes,
am

chicka-dee-dee-dee / a Scudder Pond morning

Listen

If I ever moved away from Northwest Washington (I've been here for 37 years now, so that seems more and more unlikely) I would choose to visit this time of year. It's the time I love the best .

Yesterday a neighbor friend and I took an 8-9 mile walk up the hill to the north, down the hill to the west to Memorial Park (created during World War I and including the current war, 2003- ) and then the long gradual roundabout uphill way back to Scudder Pond heading east, then south, then east, then north. Lots of people out walking on this Labor Day weekend.

Dry, sunny, warm, slight breeze. The air smelled like ripe blackberries much of the way.

The world on its side / Birds and bells / Reclining Buddhas

This is the second time I've made a little movie in vertical format, forgetting that Apple's iPhoto doesn't allow rotation when it comes to movies. YouTube is a horizontal format. A movie format. The wide screen rather than the narrow vertical screen.

As opposed to books which are mostly in vertical format. And iPads and iPhones, which are in vertical format, more like books, but they don't open like books.

My first computer was an iBookG4. It opened like a book, but was "read" in horizontal format like a movie. Laptops are books that open to become movies.

Why can't I make a movie and play it vertically, except on my camera? Or can I but just don't know how?

I can imagine a movie theater with a vertical screen showing vertical movies. Why not?

Funny, the places that the mind goes when noticing patterns and relationships.

Ring them bells from the sanctuaries
’Cross the valleys and streams
For they’re deep and they’re wide
And the world’s on its side
(Bob Dylan)

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
(Leonard Cohen)

The world looks different when you are lying on your side. If I recline like Buddha, I can watch my little movie as it was meant to be seen.

Oboe's Haiku

When I adopted Oboe from an animal shelter around this time of year in 2006, the first thing I became aware of after bringing her home was that she is a talking cat. Could this be a series of haiku by Oboe?

Waterfall on Whatcom Creek / Beatles 1963

Listen. It must have been in the summer of 1963, when I first heard "Please Please Me," on the radio, before the Beatles came to the United States. Didn't know who was singing but immediately loved the song and felt like dancing.

48 years ago today / Something more powerful than the mountain of despair/ Nonviolence

On August 28, 1963, I was an almost 14-year-old girl, living 25 miles south of San Francisco, who had seen very few African-American people except at the distance that was generally maintained at that time, and on television as entertainers or as sports figures. Throughout my school years to that point, all the students were white along with a few Mexican-Americans. When I started high school that September, there were, as I recall, 3 Japanese-American students in my large high school. That was before President Kennedy was assassinated and before the Beatles but not before the Civil Rights Movement.

I remember walking into our family living room on what was probably a very hot California summer afternoon and hearing Bob Dylan singing on our black and white television set. I was only vaguely aware of Bob Dylan at that time, mostly through his songs as sung by Peter, Paul and Mary. I stopped to listen to him sing and understood that he was part of something powerful and peaceful that was happening at that moment. In my memory, I am alone in the living room. My parents had probably turned the television on, but I don't remember them sitting there watching the events. I don't recall my younger sisters, 13-years-old and 9-years-old, being there. Sad to say, I don't recall listening to Martin Luther King, Jr., speak, but I do remember a feeling that is very similar to what I am feeling today as I turn to video news sources (I don't have a television) and hear again something powerful and sustaining and nonviolent that has brought us through these last 48 years. Something that has probably always been with us and always will be with us, and which was voiced so eloquently by Martin Luther King, Jr., and those people who formed the American Civil Rights Movement and worked together. Not alone.

Listen.

A sunlit wood where the true way was a koan

At 20 years beyond what may have been the middle of the road of my life, I awoke in a sunlit wood where the true way was a koan.
(with many thanks to Dante Alighieri)

This film clip shows the approach to the children's fishing pond and the little bridge over the fishing pond dam on Whatcom Creek You can hear the water rushing over the dam as well as a small waterfall just beyond the dam. You can see a little of the fishing pond. Nice surprise to see a man and his young daughter out enjoying the sunny day.

"...not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart..." / A Memorial Koan

Listen to Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 30, 1967:


"Let me say finally that I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and, above all, with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world. I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. And there can be no great disappointment where there is not great love (am's italics). I am disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. We are presently moving down a dead-end road that can lead to national disaster. America has strayed to the far country of racism and militarism. The home that all too many Americans left was solidly structured idealistically; its pillars were solidly grounded in the insights of our Judeo-Christian heritage. All men are made in the image of God. All men are brothers. All men are created equal. Every man is an heir to a legacy of dignity and worth. Every man has rights that are neither conferred by, nor derived from the State--they are God-given. Out of one blood, God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth. What a marvelous foundation for any home! What a glorious and healthy place to inhabit. But America's strayed away, and this unnatural excursion has brought only confusion and bewilderment. It has left hearts aching with guilt and minds distorted with irrationality.

It is time for all people of conscience to call upon America to come back home. Come home, America."



In this speech, Martin Luther King, Jr., remembers and relates to the anxious and sorrowful Jesus taking up his cross and then a few moments later speaks of an angry God. The angry God part of Christianity and Judaism has always troubled me. People are asked to be nonviolent. The violence is left up to God? I don't think so. The whole thing sounds like a koan, doesn't it?

Still meditating on Buddha's empty hands and Mahalia Jackson singing "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands," remembering that Martin Luther King, Jr., nominated Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, for the Nobel Peace prize in January of 1967 and that Thich Nhat Hanh had urged Martin Luther King, Jr., to publicly and peacefully oppose the war in Vietnam.

Meditating on the thought that it is not easy for any of us, including President Obama and Martin Luther King and Thich Nhat Hanh, to live up to these ideals, and that a memorial to Martin Luther King during the troubled presidency of Barack Obama speaks of the inner koans that President Obama and all people of conscience must live with each day no matter what their spiritual perspective.

From the Nobel lecture by Martin Luther King, Jr.:

"We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say "We must not wage war." It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace."






















"The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure. To live it you have to explode. In that last hour of need, we entirely agreed, sacrifice was the code of the road."
(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)"

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes."
(Walt Whitman, from "Song of Myself")

(Pastel on paper, "Self-Portrait of an Old Friend as a Young Man," drawn by am in the early 1980s from a photo sent to me by my friend, Richard, taken of him in Vietnam in 1970)

Reconciliation meditation

Listening to the old songs by Donovan over the last few days has brought up unexpected feelings of grief and loss, and the realization that when I was 18 years old, I listened to Bob Dylan and Donovan in equal measure, with immense gratitude.

"I rejoice to hear he's well, but I must go inland. Thank you for the words you've brought of my banjo man."
(Donovan)

"Two riders were approaching. The wind began to howl."
(Bob Dylan)

"It ain't so bad. I'm just a lad. So many more things to do. I intend to come right through them all with you."
(Donovan, lyrics from "Celeste")

"Let us not talk falsely now. The hour is getting late."
(Bob Dylan)

My gut feeling is that it's not too late to be that hopeful and vulnerable and honest again. I am feeling a reconciliation of two parts of myself that had been estranged for 40 years.

The Song of Wandering Aengus

As a teenager, I listened over and over again to Donovan's early albums along with Bob Dylan's albums and could never understand why some people couldn't hear the difference between their two distinct voices. Sometime around 1971 when Richard returned from Vietnam, I stopped listening to Donovan.

It was Bob Dylan's music that spoke to me then and continued to speak to me. He was not ethereal. He was deeply human and was making some serious mistakes, just as I was. He was also playful and paradoxical. He didn't appear as fragile as Donovan. I was fragile. I wanted whatever it was that Bob Dylan had that keep him going. Listening to his music kept me going.

Yesterday I spent some time watching the many YouTube videos of Donovan's early work. This is the one I liked the best. I love the old Donovan songs. That was a time of relative innocence for me and for many of us.


THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS

by: W.B. Yeats

Went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

'The Song of Wandering Aengus' is reprinted from An Anthology of Modern Verse. Ed. A. Methuen. London: Methuen & Co., 1921.

Convolvulus

So far this summer, there have been two Convolvulus blooms from my "Children's Garden" seed mix. I love the mix of delicate flowers that I planted in May around my lavender plant in a planter on my porch.

"Most twining plants seem to follow the course of the sun and bind round a support from left to right, but the convolvulus will always twine against the sun, confounding all attempts to train it, even dying in the process. Characteristics: The flowers close in damp weather. Habitat: The plant is indigenous to Europe and eastern U.S. Production: The upper part of the herb is harvested during the flowering season and dried at temperatures of no more than 40°C in a well aired place."
- Joerg Gruenwald, Ph.D., PDR for Herbal Medicines





















Listen

Tangled Up in Blue / The Old Guitarist

Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century

...

The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew
Tangled up in blue.

...

But me, I'm still on the road
Headin' for another joint
We always did feel the same
We just saw it from a different point of view
Tangled up in blue.

(Bob Dylan, from "Tangled Up in Blue")

"The Old Guitarist," by Pablo Picasso:

Imaginary Brothers / No Easy Walk

In Broken Images
Robert Graves
24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985

He is quick, thinking in clear images;
I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;
I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images.

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;
Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact;
Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.

Thanks to wood s lot, July 26, 2011, for the poem by Robert Graves.

“You can see that ‘there is no easy walk to freedom anywhere,’ and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountain tops of our desires.” - Nelson Mandela, quoting Jawaharlal Nehru, from a presidential address to the ANC Transvaal Congress (also known as the “No Easy Walk to Freedom” speech) Transvaal, South Africa, Sept. 21, 1953.

("Self-Portrait with Imaginary Brothers," painted by am in the late 1980s)

Fair Nottamun Town / Passion / Paradox

“Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson


FAIR NOTTAMUN TOWN

In fair Nottamun town, not a soul would look up
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down
To show me the way to fair Nottamun town

I rode a grey horse, a mule roany mare
Grey mane and grey tail, a green stripe down her back
Grey mane and grey tail, a green stripe down her back
There wa'nt a hair on her be-what was coal black

She stood so still, she threw me to the dirt
She tore -a my hide and she bruised my shirt
From saddle to stirrup I mounted again
And on my ten toes I rode over the plain

Met the King and the Queen and a company more
A-riding behind and a-marching before
Came a stark naked drummer a-beating a drum
With his heels in his bosom come marching along

They laughed and they smiled, not a soul did look gay
They talked all the while, not a word they did say
I bought me a quart to drive gladness away
And to stifle the dust, for it rained the whole day

Sat down on a hard, hot cold frozen stone
Ten thousand stood round me and yet I's alone
Took my hat in my hand for to keep my head warm
Ten thousand got drownded that never was born

(Medieval English Folk Song)

Nothing was delivered / Something was delivered / Yoga Nidra

A few days ago when walking in the woods before work, I saw a man and a woman about my age (almost 62) walking slowly with trekking poles, coming up the trail from the fishing pond in Whatcom Falls Park. We smiled and said hello as we passed on the trail. When I reached the little bridge at the far edge of the fishing pond, I stopped to look over at the water spilling over the small dam and then turned around to go back home the same way I had come. It wasn't long before I saw the couple with the trekking poles, ahead of me on the path. As I approached them, I was looking in curiosity at their trekking poles. Just as I was about to pass them, I looked up and noticed that on the back of the man's dark blue T-shirt was a fairly recent image of Bob Dylan in concert with the words "Bob Dylan" above the image.

In wonder and delight, I said, "Bob Dylan," and they both turned around to look at me. The man said that they had seen Bob Dylan in concert in the last year. He said that he loved Bob Dylan's music but that Bob Dylan shouldn't be touring anymore. He said the concert was awful, and that he felt ripped off. He said Bob Dylan should just give it up. He sounded both angry and sad.

As far as he was concerned, it was the "Nothing Was Delivered Tour" (lyrics and audio clip).

A few weeks ago, a dear friend of mine died peacefully in her sleep at 86 years old. She was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and had been sober for the last 14 years of her full and rich life. She was one of the few women of her generation to earn a PhD and had a successful career in her field of psychology and active retirement years. She was a professed atheist, but said that even though she didn't believe in God, there was something that had removed the demons that had haunted her until 1996, at age 72, when she realized that she was a real alcoholic and, in her words, "It would be insane for me to take a drink."

Part of the Yoga Nidra meditation I have been listening to suggests considering that both of the following thoughts are true in the same moment:

Nothing needs to be done.
Something needs to be done.

Bob Dylan said:
"Nothing is better, nothing is best
Take heed of this and get plenty of rest"
(lyrics from "Nothing was Delivered")

and:

"Sometimes somebody wants you to give something up
And tears or not, it’s too much to ask."
(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Floater (To Much To Ask)"

As Solitary Walker commented on my last post, "And 'nothing' is always 'something', after all."

And that seems to be what Yoga Nidra is about.

("The Composer," drawn with chalk pastel on paper by am in the early 1980s)

Masked and Anonymous

The apparent dilemma rests upon a false impression about the nature of nothingness as a state of mind. The ability to accept ourselves as nothing is not easily developed. It runs counter to all our desires for identity, for an apparently meaningful existence, one filled with hope and promise. To be nothing seems a form of psychological suicide. We cling to our somethingness with all the strength at our command. The thought of being a nothing is simply not acceptable. But the fact is that the person who does not learn to be as nothing cannot feel that he is but a plain, ordinary, everyday kind of person, who merges with the human race — and as such is humble, lost in the crowd, and essentially anonymous. When that can happen, the person has a lot going for him.
(Harry M. Tiebout, MD)

"I'm ready for to fade / into my own parade." (Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Mr. Tambourine Man")

"Mona Lisa and the Clown and the Cool Rain of the Law"
(watercolor, gouache and chalk pastel on paper, by Amanda Wald Rachie, from the early 1980s)

42 years: a book of changes / Here Comes The Sun

Just came across this that I put together in 2008.

"Things that one carries ..."

Worth listening to, if you have the time.

"Garry Trudeau was outside my office." (47:27)












"Oh, I awoke in anger. So alone and terrified." (Bob Dylan, from "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine")

Still thinking about Mahalia's image of God's hands holding everything (everything) and Buddha's hands holding emptiness, and now having seen that cartoon from Garry Trudeau, and recalling that at the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, California, where my friend Richard died, and where the Darrah Westrup works with women veterans, there was a Zen Buddhist chaplain available in spring of 2008. I wonder what he or she would say to a woman veteran.

From the Dalai Lama:

Q: You have said that according to Buddhist philosophy there is no Creator, no God of creation, and this may initially put off many people who believe in a divine principle. Can you explain the difference between the Vajrayana Primordial Buddha and a Creator God?

A: I understand the Primordial Buddha, also known as Buddha Samantabhadra, to be the ultimate reality, the realm of the Dharmakaya-- the space of emptiness [am's italics] --where all phenomena, pure and impure, are dissolved ...

And then I came across this, in contrast to Mahalia's imagery and the imagery of the Buddha's empty hands:

No one can keep us from carrying God
Wherever we go. (from the Persian Sufi, Hafiz)

"Things that one carries ..."

Sending love to Norway / Great Aunt Julia / Mystery ship / Dancing boy from Norway

This last weekend my cousin invited me over to see her father's scrapbooks and photo albums that she had recently brought back from Montana, where her mother lived after her father died. Wonderful to see old photos from the 1920s and 1930s and 1940s of our fathers and uncles and aunts and cousins and great aunts and uncles, and grandparents and our great grandmother, Mary. I was surprised and delighted when my cousin gave me an oil painting she had brought from Montana of a sailing ship at sea, painted by our Great Aunt Julia:














Without thinking too much, we assumed the flags were Norwegian, which is our heritage on our fathers' side. When I looked around on Google, I discovered that the flags look more like flags of Iceland but don't have the white edge on the red-orange cross on the blue background that would made them clearly Icelandic.






















Although I looked around on Google images for a similar sailing ship that Great Aunt Julia might have used as a model, I was unable to find one. Anyone know anything about sailing ships?

















The painting is hanging over my art work table now. Our Norwegian great grandparents came to the United States (Minnesota) on a much larger sailing ship in the 1800s by way of Quebec. They came on a new ship that was not built for passengers, according what our grandfather wrote in the 1940s. Our grandfather was the first in his family to be born in the United States.






















"... My parents left Norway [am's note: They were from Nordfjord] for America in May 1871. They had four children who were born in Norway, two girls died in infancy and two boys, Christian and Mons, who went with them to America ... The ship on which they crossed the Atlantic was called Argo. It was a new ship. It had made only one previous trip and that was to South America. They had to wait for it for over a week in Bergen, because they had to make new accommodations on the ship for emigrants, because the ship had not been previously built for that purpose ... My brother, Christian, at that time was only a little over five years old, and as mother could not look after him [am's note: He writes earlier that she was seasick for most of the trip] and he being somewhat wild at the time, had a wonderful time running around on the deck and even tried at times to climb the ropes connected with the sails because it was a sail-ship. It has been said that he would dance around like little boys of that age would do and the passengers enjoyed it very much and they encouraged him by throwing little pieces of money to him in order to have him continue ..."

(written by our grandfather in the 1940s)

I just found this on Google, from the passenger list of the Argo in May 1871:

Lasse Christian Rake 44 m farmer
Dorothea !! Rake* 37 f
Christian !! Rake* 5 m
Mons !! Rake* 2 m

Amazing what can be so easily found on the internet today.

Our grandmother Amanda and her sister Julia's grandparents (family name Kongslien) came from the area of Vang, Valdres in Norway in 1852. With a little searching, I could probably find that a passenger list for them, too, but I have to work today ...

Sending love to the people of Norway.

Read this from Sabine.

But she breaks just like a little girl / Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse (1983-2011)

Took my breath away when I heard the news of her death on Saturday morning.

Just as it did when I had no idea who she was but first heard her singing, "No, No, No," in the background music in a doctor's office. Could that have been in 2007?

Yes, I'm sure it was. My friend, Richard, was still alive, and that could have been him singing.

Rest in peace.

Listen

No, No, No (1:03)

Listen (2:06)

“I’m not a natural born performer. I’m a natural singer, but I’m quite shy, really. You know what it’s like? I don’t mean to be sentimental or soppy but it’s a little bit like being in love, when you can’t eat, you’re restless, it’s like that. But then the minute you go on stage, everything’s OK. The minute you start singing.”
(Amy Winehouse)

"... when I come back, you'll know, know, know..."
(Amy Winehouse, from "Rehab")

Little garden by the cattail ocean

The work of lightning

"A vibrant painting: the size of the canvas allows for activities in seven plain dreamings following a lightning storm. The rich symbolism of the painting is supplemented with pleasurable use of colours." (from here, painting by Moses Fry)




Watch for the flash of lightning around 1:19.

Thunder on the Mountain

"I'm just average, common too
I'm just like him, the same as you
I'm everybody's brother and son
I ain't different than anyone
It ain't no use a-talking to me
It's just the same as talking to you."
(Bob Dylan)

“This life of separateness may be compared to a dream, a phantasm, a bubble, a shadow, a drop of dew, a flash of lightning."
(Buddha)

"And the world will live as one."
(John Lennon)

"Just then a bolt of lightning
Struck the courthouse out of shape
And while ev’rybody knelt to pray
The drifter did escape."
(Bob Dylan)

“Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does all the work."
(Mark Twain)

Listen for the sound of young Bald Eagles

0:05
0:43
0:53
1:13
1:24

And this about love and memory.

10,000 steps / Uphill all the way home

You've seen this before but not in video. The image is pretty clunky, but you get the idea of the beginning of the path that leads past Scudder Pond and into Whatcom Falls Park. You will hear more birds as I get closer to Scudder Pond, which is to the right of the path. The first 5,000 steps are almost imperceptibly downhill until the very end of the path. It's clearly uphill all the way home.

Still thinking about Buddha's empty hands. The absence that is a presence. And Ayin (nothingness). And Mahalia Jackson singing, "He's got the whole world in his hands."

And walking, not running, on empty.

(In 1965, I was 15. In 1969, I was 19. In 2011, I am 61, which is the best so far. Funny how empty feels full now.)

Wind, birds, cattails and coincidences

Yesterday, given a few unexpected hours of time off from my job, and inspired by a cedar-wrapped 1956 Metro on display at the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, which brought back good memories of my friend Richard and the Metro that he had in 1968 or 1969, the front hood of which he decorated by hand with paint, I sat down with my watercolor and gouache paint tubes and brushes and did what I usually do after not painting for a long time, which is to just make some brush strokes on watercolor paper and see where they lead me. Playing with paint with nothing in particular in mind. I started with Payne's Grey, which looks black but is really a dark grey-blue. I tried to paint a horse, but it turned out looking like a cat. Then I filled in some areas with Cobalt Blue and then Chinese Red and then Permanent White. I accidentally dropped the paintbrush filled with Cobalt Blue and it fell in front of the cat who is walking up a red and white path. This kind of painting is like dreaming.

















This morning when I was out walking up the hill with a goal of 10,000 steps or 100 minutes or 5 miles, I looked down and saw a single piece of a Rubik's Cube on the ground. I picked it up and was delighted to see that three sides were Payne's Grey and the remaining three sides were blue, red and white.






















At the top is my first successful download of a video from my digital camera. Until today, all my attempts to post my own videos to my blog were unsuccessful.

Perseverance furthers.

Oboe dream

Listen.

When was it? 2004? I dreamed that my old friend, Richard, a carpenter, had made an extraordinary musical instrument out of a variety of woods. He brought it to show to me. He looked more at peace than I had ever seen him since he returned from Vietnam in December of 1970. He demonstrated how the instrument worked by touching one type of wood at a time. When he touched the first one and we listened to the sound, he looked at me joyfully and said, "Oboe." That was all he said during the dream.

It must have been 2004 or later, because when I woke up I went to my iBook G4 and Googled "oboe." Sooner or later I came across Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf," which had been a favorite of Richard's as a small boy, and I learned that the oboe was used for the duck's theme:

In the story's ending, the listener is told that "if you listen very carefully, you'd hear the duck quacking inside the wolf's belly, because the wolf in his hurry had swallowed her alive."

Reading those words, it occurred to me that, as a child, I always thought the duck somehow found its way out of the wolf's belly. For me, it may have been the end of the story but not the end of the duck.

Anyway, in late September of 2006, I decided to go to an animal shelter and find and adopt a cat that resembled the wood that Richard had touched in my dream and name him or her "Oboe."

That is Oboe sitting in the July morning sun just after 7 a.m. She will be approximately 6 years old in next month.

More about Oboe.

She speaks of the great kind spirit and of doubt

If you have a free half hour during this long weekend for the U.S. and Canada, listen to Louise Erdrich.

"...I go through a continual questioning. And I think that is my assurance that if I was to let go of my doubt, that I would somehow have surrendered my faith. My job is to address the mystery..."

— Louise Erdrich (from interview with Bill Moyers, April 9, 2010)

Any day now, the golden day lilies will be blooming!

July 4th update: