Bellingham and someone who walks and dances and writes here

Pirate playground at Boulevard Park

Bow pose from Taylor Street Dock

Looking back to the north

More here.

Foggy late September morning / Thinking about Bob Dylan and John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Foggy Bellingham morning 7:30 a.m., looking toward downtown Bellingham

Driving through town toward the South Bay Trail

Looking to the northwest from the turnout on Boulevard

Low tide at Padden Creek Lagoon (on foot now)

September colors alongside Padden Creek Lagoon

Entering the area of the Alaska Ferry Terminal

Ground near the skateboard shop

Train tracks leading to Canada

Looping back through Fairhaven

Message rock noticed tucked under larger rock -- photographed, and then replaced.

Approaching Taylor Street Dock

A black and white and grey moment

From the September 27 Rolling Stone interview with Bob Dylan:

"... When that narrator talks about walking this or that road, do you have pictures of those roads in your mind?

Yeah, but not in a specific kind of way.  You can feel it, without being able to see it.  It's an old-time thing:  the walking blues.

The walking could be what somebody witnesses.  It could be the road to death; it could be the road to illumination.

Sure, all those roads.  How many roads must a man walk down?  Not run down, drive down or crawl down? I've been raised on that.  The walking blues.  "Walking to New Orleans," "Cadillac Walk," "Hand Me Down My Walkin' Cane." It's the only way I know.  It comes natural."

The person who's walking in these songs, is he walking alone?

Sometimes, but then again, sometimes not. Sometimes you got to get into your own space for a while.  It never really dawns on me, though, whether I'm walking alone or not.  Seems like I'm always walking with somebody ...

From "The Final Days," by Yoko Ono, in the recently published special collector's edition of the Rolling Stone dedicated to John Lennon, who would have been 72 years old on October 9:

"... John liked being prompt.  John was English.  I was Japanese.  The result was both of us possessed extreme austerity and hilarity back to back ..."

View from the Lake Padden Trail

"If we're responsible to ourselves, then we can be responsible for other people, too.  But we have to know ourselves first.  People listen to my songs and they must think I'm a certain type of way, and maybe I am.  But there's more to it than that. I think they can listen to my songs and figure out who they are, too."

(Bob Dylan, from the recent Rolling Stone interview by Mikal Gilmore)

Out walking in mid-September in Bellingham

Splendid mural by Lanny Little in the Fairhaven District of Bellingham, Washington.

Listening to "Tempest" / Heading home on Mt. Baker Highway

Scroll down on the left side here for lyrics and chords tabbed by Eyolf Østrem.

Radiant golden mist to the east at dawn

Yesterday when I bought my copy of "Tempest," I noticed that the DVD for "Titanic" was displayed at the check-out counter.  I'd never had any desire to see "Titanic," but because I am always curious about anyone or anything mentioned in songs by Bob Dylan, I bought the DVD.  After returning from my trip up Mt. Baker Highway to Heather Meadows while listening to Bob Dylan's fierce and challenging stories in song, I sat down at my work table to watch "Titanic." It is eerie how the cinematic images of the sinking Titanic in April 1912 resemble the camera-documented images of the twin towers collapsing in September 2001.  

"It has been said that sometimes we need a story more than food in order to live."

-- Rachel Naomi Remen, from My Grandfather's Blessings:  Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging.

Below is a view of Mt. Shuksan, taken just down the road from Heather Meadows.  You can hear the opening to "Duquesne Whistle," the first of 10 songs on "Tempest":

"... Leo took his sketchbook / he was often so inclined ..." (lyrics from "Tempest")

Above are the apostles Peter and John in a detail from "The Last Supper," by Leonardo da Vinci.

Still thinking about the layers of imagery in the songs "Roll on John" and "Tempest"and "Duquesne Whistle" from Bob Dylan's soon-to-be-released album "Tempest." 

Of note, Bob Dylan has been singing "Visions of Johanna" frequently in recent concerts.

Johanna is the feminine version of John and has its roots in the Hebrew name Yohanan which means "graced by Yahweh." The last book of the Christian bible is titled "Revelations" and contains the visions of the Apostle John who is depicted by Leonardo da Vinci in "The Last Supper" as looking just like a woman.

"... you old rascal, I know exactly where you're going...

(from "Duquesne Whistle")

At age 71, Bob Dylan has not lost his ability to create a musical collage of mystery and edginess leavened with sublime and earthy humor that is ultimately an affirmation of life.  It is that essence of creativity that has kept me listening for so many years and moved my creative spirit time and again.

Here's Oboe sleeping under her bower of Achimenes skinneri:

Leaves are beginning to fall here.  The cloud cover is back today, and the wind is up.

Learn Something New Every Day

A few days ago, I noticed a small unfamiliar flower, about an inch across, blooming on my porch where I had planted seeds from a packet given to me by a friend last year.  "Sweet Baby Blues" was the name given to the seed mixture and promised soothing hues of blue, violet, lavender, purple and white. Turns out the flower is a "Five Spot", as in The Five Spot Cafe:

I'm still learning.  Eric Dolphy was born in Los Angeles in 1928.

Question 42 / Late summer days / "The scenery in his mind"

"All sorrows can be borne if you can put them into a story or tell a story about them." 

(Karen Blixin / Isak Dinesen)

"But it's not to stand naked under unknowin' eyes

It's for myself and my friends my stories are sung." 

(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Restless Farewell," early 1960s)

From Bob Dylan's first album 50 years ago.  Fifty years ago:

"Perseverance furthers." (from the I-Ching)

"... Leo took his sketchbook

He was often so inclined

He closed his eyes and painted

The scenery in his mind ..."

("Titanic" lyrics by Bob Dylan from "Tempest")

Bob Dylan - Roll on John lyrics / John of Patmos / Talking Apocalypse Blues

 The traditional Roll on John":

Tentative lyrics to the new "Roll on John" from the soon-to-be released Bob Dylan album "Tempest" (you can hear the entire album for free on iTunes until September 11):

Doctor, doctor, tell me the time of day

Another bottle's empty

Another penny spent

He turned around and he slowly walked away

They shot him in the back and down he went

Shine your light, move it on, you burn so bright, roll on John

From the Liverpool docks to the red light Hamburg streets

Down in the quarry with the Quarrymen.

Playing to the big crowds

Playing to the cheap seats

Another day in the life on your way to your journey’s end

Shine your light, move it on, you burn so bright, roll on John

Sailing through the tradewinds
Bound for the south

Rags on your back just like any other slave

They tied your hands and they clamped your mouth

Wasn’t no way out of that deep dark cave

Shine your light, move it on, you burn so bright, roll on John

I heard the news today, oh boy

They hauled your ship up on the shore

Now the city’s gone dark

There is no more joy

They tore the heart right out and cut it to the core

Shine your light, move it on, you burn so bright, roll on John

Put on your bags and get ‘em packed.

Leave right now you won’t be far from wrong

The sooner you go, the quicker you’ll be back

You’ve been cooped up on an island far too long

Shine your light, move it on, you burn so bright, roll on John

Slow down you’re moving way too fast

Come together right now over me

Your bones are weary

You’re about to breathe your last

Lord, you know how hard that it can be

Shine your light, move it on, you burn so bright, roll on John

Roll on John, roll through the rain and snow

Take the righthand road and go where the buffalo roam

They’ll trap you in an ambush before you know

Too late now to sail back home

Shine your light, move it on, you burn so bright, roll on John

Tyger, Tyger burning bright

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

In the forest of the night

Cover him over and let him sleep

Shine your light, move it on, you burn so bright, roll on John

Something tells me this song is about John of Patmos ("...You’ve been cooped up on an island far too long...") as well as John Lennon.

("A Birthday In May," in watercolor, painted by am in the early 1980s)

Another view from my yoga mat

"But I was talking today to a friend of mine, and it came to me that Christ's image is just the perfect symbol for our civilization. It's a perfect event for us - you have to die to survive. Because the personality is crucified in our society. That's why so many people collapse, why the mental hospitals are full. Nobody can survive with the personality that they want, which is the hero of their own drama."

(Leonard Cohen)

"...There are heroes in the seaweed 
There are children in the morning 
They are leaning out for love 
And they will lean that way forever ..."

(Leonard Cohen)

... and then come back to life ...

Although this is my favorite time of year, I woke up a few days ago with an uneasy feeling.  When I focused on the feeling, an image came to me of something small that was trying to grow but was hindered -- something like a plant trying to grow under a rock.  As I focused on the image, it shifted to a crumpled piece of paper, at which point I remembered a poem I wrote for a poetry class I took in 1967, during my first year of college:

All the babies were whining for candy

everyone I talked to said they

hated the weather

the poems in my head

had all been savagely crumpled

by my mind's hand

and when I went out to talk to the ocean

I found it had been drained

and put in storage

only an infinity of water tanks

remained

upon 

the silent sand

The professor wrote "good."

While sorting through some stacks of CDs this morning, I found this, torn from a calendar block in February of 2008, during the last months of Richard's life:

Let go over a cliff, die completely, and then come back to life -- after that you cannot be deceived.

(Zen saying)

"We died and were reborn and left mysteriously saved."

(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Oh Sister")

Listen to Bob Dylan at 23 years old, being interviewed on the Les Crane Show:

Crane: There is a message ...
Dylan: Yeah.
Crane: ... in almost everything you say. What is your main message?
Dylan: Eat?
Crane: No, I don't think that's it. And that's a cute answer but that's not the message.
Dylan: Yeah. Aah. My main message is, ah, you know (giggles), you want it in one word (giggles, audience laughs), one word!
Crane: No.
Dylan: Well, I'll tell ya Les.
Crane: Yeah, Bob.
Dylan: One word message. It's just, ah, 'Be', you know.
Crane: Be?
Dylan: Be. Be period. Is.
Crane: How about love?
Dylan: Love? That's an OK word, yeah, That's all right I guess, but it's been used a LOT, it's been used a lot.
Crane: But that's part of your message, isn't it?
Dylan: Love? Well, yeah, but everybody says that.
Crane: That doesn't make it anything wrong with it.
Dylan: No, yeah, anybody can say it.
Crane: What about 'swing'?
Dylan: Swing? That's a good message.
Crane: Is that part of your message?
Dylan: Swing. Swing. Love. Be. Is. Was. Were. Double.
Crane: Double?
Dylan: Double up, once in a while.
Crane: Yeah (audience laughter). You're gonna sit there and I, I put on these duds for you tonight.
Dylan: You did?
Crane: In a tribute to you and you're gonna sit there and put me on, right?
Dylan: No, I'm not putting you *on*, everybody always thinks that (audience laughter).

The transcript came from here.

"... couldn't ask for a better grief counselor"

Thanks to this YouTube Channel:

About Dylan Den

I am a farm girl from Southwestern Ohio and proud of it.

I love my family, friends, my two cats, Nascar, Ohio State football, all music, especially Bobby Dylan.

Two years ago I lost both my husband and my father. Both of them were all about music. My husband, rock and roll, Rod Stewart primarily. My daddy, country and bluegrass. But they both had one thing in common, they both liked Bob Dylan.

I went thru all the grief counselling shit, nothing worked for me. Then I saw Bob Dylan last year, all of that changed.

This channel is dedicated to Bob Dylan. I couldn't ask for a better grief counsellor.

Bob's music has gotten me thru the toughest time in my life. I am forever grateful.

Thank you, Bob.

"Can't you hear that rooster crowin'?" / Zen Bob's Koans and the Theater of Cruelty meet the Days of Awe

Listen

"... Can't you hear that Duquesne whistle blowin'

Blowin' through another no-good town

The lights of my native land are glowing

I wonder if they'll know me next time 'round

I wonder if that old oak tree's still standin'

That old oak tree, the one we used to climb ..."

(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Duquesne Whistle")

That's the Blue Moon waxing in my little video.  It will be full tomorrow night, August 31st.

This morning as I was waking up I could hear the delighted laughter of the baby boy with blue eyes who had appeared in a dream fragment.  So happy just to be alive.

Thank you to Velveteen Rabbi for the following from This is Real And You Are Completely Unprepared:  The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation, by Rabbi Alan Lew:

"Look! I put before you this day a blessing and a curse."  So begins parshat Re'eh, the weekly Torah portion we read as the month of Elul begins.  Look.  Pay attention to your life.  Every moment in it is profoundly mixed.  Every moment contains a blessing and a curse.  Everything depends on seeing our lives with clear eyes, seeing the potential blessing in each moment as well as the potential curse, choosing the former, forswearing the latter (pp. 65-66)

The disturbing "Duquesne Whistle" video with its rollicking soundtrack could be a demonstration of how every moment is profoundly mixed.  And who is Bob Dylan?  The young man? The young woman? The young man lying battered on the sidewalk?  The jaded old man walking around the young man? The 71-year-old man singing, "I can hear a sweet voice suddenly calling / Must be the mother of our Lord"?  A little bit of everyone in that video? Maybe we've been treated to another of Bob's koans.  Maybe it's a nod to Antonin Artaud.  I sure don't know.  I've been listening to Bob Dylan since I was 14 years old,  and I'm grateful for the presence of his mysterious creative energy in this world of curses and blessings, in which we are given the freedom to choose where we want to put our energy.

Strange Days Have Come Again / The Master of Cognitive Dissonance / "We Are The World"

Warning:  The following is not going to be easy to watch:

Duquesne Whistle

This is another side of Bob Dylan:

Bob Dylan rehearses for "We Are The World"

Last Saturday I looked up in the sky to the southwest and saw a cloud that looked like a curtain or a veil.  It was a cirrus vertebratus cloud.  That isn't my photo.  I have lost the link that identified its source.

It's time to take a long walk.

May all beings be relieved of suffering.

May love bless and keep us always.

(Or maybe it was a virga cloud.  This isn't my photo either, and the link has been lost.)

A change in the weather / Threshold time

A few weeks ago, when I went to the downtown area of Bellingham to visit the Whatcom Museum so I could see "American Quilts:  The Democratic Art," I was startled by and drawn what to turned out to be an embroidered mourning quilt (c. 1900) from California.  It reminded me of a painting I did in April of 2007 as part of my own grief process -- close to a year before I traveled from Washington to California to visit with Richard before he died.

With the change in the weather in the last few days, the sky has been putting on a splendid cloud show.  I'm a late summer, fall, and winter person.  It is threshold time again.  I feel a sense of relief and anticipation as the days grow shorter and cooler.  I walk throughout the year no matter what the weather, but late summer and fall are my favorite seasons for walking in and around Bellingham.  I've decided not to travel away from Washington this fall.  There is so much beauty and variety here in Western Washington as well as Eastern Washington.  If I do travel at all, I will go over the mountains to Eastern Washington.

Above this there is supposed to be a short video of the sky as seen from my porch this afternoon.  It shows up on the preview but not when I publish.  I'll try publishing this post once more.

Laughter and creativity

Thanks to whiskey river for these insights into laughter and creativity:

"A great many people don't know how to laugh at all. A man can give himself away completely by his laughter, so that you suddenly learn all of his innermost secrets. Laughter calls first of all for sincerity, and where does one find sincerity? Sincere and unspiteful laughter is mirth. A man's mirth is a feature that gives away the whole man, from head to foot. Someone's character won't be cracked for a long time, then the man bursts out laughing somehow quite sincerely, and his whole character suddenly opens up as if on the flat of your hand. Only a man of the loftiest and happiest development knows how to be mirthful infectiously, that is, irresistibly and goodheartedly. I'm not speaking of his mental development, but of his character, of the whole man. And so, if you want to discern a man and know his soul, you must look, not at how he keeps silent, or how he speaks, or how he weeps, or even how he is stirred by the noblest ideas, but you had better look at him when he laughs. If a man has a good laugh, it means he's a good man." 

(Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

"The fact is that we are living in a time when the decision to be an artist, to continue to create in spite of everything that's happening around us, IS a radical political act. This is, I feel, quite a dark time, potentially destructive to the best and most noble aspects of the human spirit. And that's precisely why it is terribly important for artists in all disciplines to continue to create, even when it feels like there's little market and little appreciation for our work. Just doing it, and making the difficult decision to continue to do it - to live creative lives that celebrate what life is and can be - is both defiant and affirming, and it's crucially important. People need to know that someone they know - a neighbor, a friend, a cousin - is committed to the arts. Young people particularly need to know this."
 (Beth Adams)
the cassandra pages
via negativa

"... 'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I don't need your organization' ...'"

Thanks to the Doonesbury website for "Alan Watts Animated."

While I was out walking by Bellingham Bay this morning I could hear Bob Dylan singing "I'll Keep It With Mine" in my mind.

That's Oboe up there looking out of her cat-tree house.

I'm still in quiet mode, enjoying these late summer days and nights.

Here's what Bob Dylan was singing in 1978:



The years are flying by.  How could 1978 be 34 years ago?

With fall approaching, I am feeling some creative energy again.  In this last week, I had that recurring dream that the open ocean is right here in Bellingham instead of hours away.  After I write this blog post, I am going to move my 36" wide work table to a place in my living room where I can open it out to 60" in length.   

I've been checking out the recently released 1940 census of the United States of America.  I found my father at age 26.   Couldn't find my mother and grandfather, although I did find the boarding house where they were living in Los Angeles in 1940 according to a photo in my mother's photo album, and I did find my mother's brother, sister-in-law, and niece who also lived in Los Angeles.  

I also found Jack Kerouac at age 18:

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/K4VT-JM6

A view from my porch here and now:

And Oboe here and now under the Poor Man's Orchid:

 Still wondering about Bob Dylan's "Tempest" to be released on September 11th.

I came to the place where the lone pilgrim lay
And pensively stood by his tomb,
When in a low whisper I heard something say,
"How sweetly I sleep here alone.The tempest may howl and the loud thunder roar,
And gathering storms may arise,
But calm is my feeling, at rest is my soul.
The tears are all wiped from my eyes.
The cause of my Master compelled me from home,
No kindred or relative nigh.
I met the contagion and sank to the tomb,
My soul flew to mansions on high.
Go tell my companion and children most dear
To weep not for me now I'm gone.
The same hand that led me through scenes most severe
Has kindly assisted me home."

"I can't provide for you no easy answers

Who are you that I should have to lie?"

(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky" -- 1985)

Inscription on the Statue of Liberty, by Emma Lazarus:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

In the midst of writing this blog post, I heard two clips from "Tempest":

Gives me a chill.  Yep.

"Dear Word Detective: I was researching the origin of the word "yup" and Google sent me to your discussion about the term "sea change" being found in The Tempest. You wrote, "Well, as old William Shakespeare himself would say, 'yup."' I did not find any mention, beyond your Shakespearean quote, of "yup" on your web site. Did someone other than Shakespeare create the word "yup"? -- Linda Roberts.
Yup. Actually, if you read that sentence you quoted closely, you'll notice that I never said that Shakespeare said (or wrote) "yup." I said that he "would" have said "yup." I meant that he would have said it if he'd been born in, say, Texas, sometime after about 1900. As it happened, however, boy Willie was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. His equivalent of "yup" was probably something along the lines of "verily" or "forsooth," neither of which has ever been very popular in Texas."

Yup.  It's been that kind of summer.

"Do you know the way to Cold Mountain?"

Something to listen to.  Thanks to Meng-hu at Hermitary for bringing this to my attention.

Those are Poor Man's Orchids behind my Amaryllis plant that decided to bloom a few days ago after not blooming for seven years.

My days have been full.  Still reading my favorite blogs on a daily basis but am in quiet mode.

Just finished reading The Long Walk:  The Story of War and the Life That Follows, by Brian Castner.  Not any easier to read than What It Is Like To Go To War, by Karl Marlantes, but well worth reading to  get a sense of what soldiers and veterans of our current wars are experiencing.

Now I'm re-reading The Spiritual Life of Children, by Robert Coles. Here's an excerpt:

"Here, for example, is what I eventually heard (in 1975) from a ten-year-old Hopi girl I'd known for almost two years:  'The sky watches us and listens to us.  It talks to us, and it hopes we are ready to talk back.  The sky is where the God of the Anglos lives, a teacher told us.  She asked where our God lives.  I said, 'I don't know.' I was telling the truth! Our God is the sky, and lives wherever the sky is. Our God is the sun and the moon, too; and our God is our [the Hopi] people, if we remember to stay here [on the consecrated land]. This is where we're supposed to be, and if we leave, we lose God.'
Did she explain the above to the teacher?
'No.'
'Why?'
'Because--she thinks God is a person. If I'd told her, she'd give us that smile.'
'What smile?'
'The smile that says to us, 'You kids are cute, but you're dumb; you're different--and you're all wrong!'
'Perhaps you could have explained to her what you've just tried to explain to me.'
'We tried a long time ago; our people spoke to the Anglos and told them what we think, but they don't listen to hear us; they listen to hear themselves, my dad says, and he hears them all day. [He was a truck driver]. My grandmother says they live to conquer the sky, and we live to pray to it, and you can't explain yourself to people who conquer--just pray for them, too. So we smile and say yes to them all the time, and we pray for them.'

... she had seemed a quiet, aloof girl who never had much to offer during our discussions at school, and now here we were standing on the side of a gentle hill near her home, and she was taking 'nature' quite seriously and letting me know that we are also part of that 'nature,' not outside it as perhaps I thought."