Rainy day series, part 1

"One of the attractions of being in the Northwest is the rain.  If I don't feel good or I don't feel creative, if I can get near the water something might start to happen." (Dale Chihuly)

Morning Sky And Bird Show / Something For The Mind To Hold Onto

There is a Hindu story comparing the mind to the trunk of an elephant – restless, inquisitive, always straying. In our villages in India, elephants are sometimes taken in religious processions through the streets to the temple. The streets are crooked and narrow, lined on either side with fruit and vegetable stalls. Along comes the elephant with his restless trunk, and in one sinuous motion, he grabs a whole bunch of bananas. He opens his cavernous mouth, and tosses the bananas in – stalk and all. From the next stall he picks up a coconut and tosses it in after the bananas. No threats or promises can make this restless trunk settle down. But the wise elephant trainer will give that trunk a short bamboo stick to hold. Then the elephant will walk along proudly, holding the bamboo stick in front like a drum major with a baton. He doesn’t steal bananas and coconuts now, because his trunk has something to hold onto ...

(from Eknath Easwaran's Thought for the Day for March 31)

"Always be proud of who you are and what you are" (Lummi man speaking on April 6, 2013, at an Idle No More gathering )

As I drove towards downtown Bellingham on Saturday morning, I noticed a group of people from the Lummi Nation gathered at the side of the road at the entrance to the Lakeway Holiday Inn where a conference associated with the CERA was taking place.  This morning I found the above video of their brief peaceful protest of the conference.

I did some Google research and found this:

Both the CERA and the CERF are made up of white owners of Indian Reservations lands. The CERF and CERA members are third and fourth generation descendants of the people who profited from acquiring Indian lands.  What alarms them these days is that tribes are re-acquiring some of these lands in order to build an economic base for their people again.  The hate groups can't stand the idea that Indians would get some land back, no matter now it happens.
(from Racism in Indian Country, by Dean Chavers, published in 2009).

It would be worth your time to listen to the voices of some of the Lummi people whose reservation is next to the town of Bellingham, Washington.

Pacific Tree Frogs At Midnight

Raining Quinces

On Sunday morning, having recently read solitary walker's newly published book of poetry, Raining Quinces, I noticed several flowering quinces in containers at a nearby nursery.  Sensing there was some synchronicity involved in the unexpected appearance of flowering quinces that day, I bought and planted one next to where the golden day lilies will bloom on my little porch in June. I'm not much one for writing book reviews, but I can recommend his book if you are a person who lives with gratitude and awareness, in both levity and gravity, walking down as many paths and trails and roads as possible, both on foot and in the heart and mind.

Today's view from the porch, looking east toward the light:

Celebrating Cesar Chavez's 86th Birthday on Easter 2013 / "... the enormous invulnerable beauty of things ..."

(1927-1993)

Occupation:  Farm Worker, Labor Leader, Civil rights activist

Religion:  Roman Catholic

Words of Cesar Chavez:

Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.

It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere.  But God did not promise us that the world would be humane and just.  He gives us the gift of life and allows us to choose the way we use our limited time on earth.  It is an awesome opportunity.

What do we want the church to do?  We ask for its presence with us, beside us, as Christ among us.  We ask the church to sacrifice with the people for social change, for justice and for love of brother and sister.  We don't ask for words.  We ask for deeds.  We don't ask for paternalism.  We ask for servanthood.

Cesar Chavez, Coretta Scott King, Dorothy Day

My words:

Although I do not belong to an organized religion or spiritual tradition, I am grateful to those people who do belong to them and practice them with love and compassion, those whose hearts are not closed to those who don't share their experiences.  Through their teachings, they have brought grace to my life and the lives of many of us who belong to something beautiful, too, in the experience of not belonging to an organized religion or spiritual tradition and yet not being alone either.  

From "Nova," by Robinson Jeffers:

Meanwhile the sun shines wisely and warm, trees flutter green

in the wind, girls take their clothes off
To bathe in the cold ocean or to hunt love; they stand laughing
in the white foam, they have beautiful
Shoulders and thighs, they are beautiful animals, all life is beautiful.
We cannot be sure of life for one moment;
We can, by force and self-discipline, by many refusals and a few
assertions, in the teeth of fortune assure ourselves
Freedom and integrity in life or integrity in death. And we know
that the enormous invulnerable beauty of things
Is the face of God, to live gladly in its presence, and die without
grief or fear knowing it survives us.

(am's italics)

(am's photo of the landscape where Robinson Jeffers lived and wrote his poetry)

Now it's time to thank this blogging community for all the inspiration you give to me and to go meet for breakfast with another diverse community of friends.  Some of us belong to organized religions or spiritual traditions. Many of us don't. We are fortunate to have found each other.

"... He said, 'All men shall be sailors until the sea shall free them'..."

Leonard Cohen: Dear Seth, I don't really have a 'take on the state
of Christianity.' But when I read your question, this answer came to
mind: As I understand it, into the heart of every Christian, Christ
comes, and Christ goes. When, by his Grace, the landscape of the heart becomes vast and deep and limitless, then Christ makes His abode in that graceful heart, and His Will prevails. The experience is recognized as Peace. In the absence of this experience much activity arises, divisions of every sort. Outside of the organizational enterprise, which some applaud and some mistrust, stands the figure of Jesus, nailed to a human predicament, summoning the heart to comprehend its own suffering by dissolving itself in a radical confession of hospitality.

...

Lars: How can I actually be sure that this is Mr. Cohen writing?

Leonard Cohen: Dear Lars, What kind of proof would you need. Kelley's typing this. I don't type very well. But to answer your question, you can't be sure. 

(source)


(additional source)

White birds going home

My sister who lives in Mississippi on the Gulf Coast looked up and saw a large flock of white birds high in the sky.  I've been Googling around, hoping to find what they might be.  My best guess is that she saw a flock of homing pigeons that had been released at a wedding or funeral or other event.

Any other ideas?

(if you are like me, it's easier to look at the birds if the sound is muted)

Oh Shenandoah / River imagery / Bob Dylan's voice

I prefer Bob Dylan's version of "Oh Shenandoah" but was moved by the river imagery in the first video, and that prompted me to look for Bob Dylan's version on YouTube.   I am always puzzled when I hear someone say that they like Bob Dylan's songs but not his voice.  There is something in his voice throughout the years that has held my attention in a way few other voices have.  Considering how much Bob Dylan's voice has changed since I first heard it in the early 1960s, maybe it is not the voice itself but that something in his voice. Try muting the voice on the river video and listening to it with Bob's voice:




These other lyrics come to mind:

"... It was for her I crossed the water ..." (from the version of "Oh Shenandoah" that Bob Dylan sings)

"I crossed that river just to be where you are ..." (lyrics from "Mississippi" on "Love and Theft")

The water is wide, and we can cross over.  That's the story I hear Bob telling in these songs.

Early spring again with memories

"... Crazy Chester followed me, and he caught me in the fog.

He said, "I will fix your rack, if you'll take Jack, my dog."

I said, "Wait a minute, Chester, you know I'm a peaceful man."

He said, "That's okay, boy, won't you feed him when you can ..."

(J. R. Robertson, "The Weight")

(That's a zoom view from my porch in the last few days.  I like the blurred effect.)

Swallow's Nest Mandala Revisited / "All The Little Birds"

This morning while reading at our local newspaper's website just before 7 a.m., I noticed this headline for an evening musical event.  For some reason -- unclear to me but significant in its outcome -- I clicked on the headline to read more.  These days I rarely go to any events in the evening because I go to bed very early so that I can wake up between 4 and 5 a.m. without needing an alarm clock and get 8 to 9-1/2 hours of sleep.  For that matter, I rarely go to live music events or public gatherings, preferring to spend my social time in walking and in meeting with friends daily at breakfast time.

There was something compelling about the intensity of the gaze of the young woman next to young man in the news article's photo, and the mention of "Child Ballads" drew me in further.  Next I clicked on the link to Anaïs Mitchell's website, while musing that she was likely named after Anaïs Nin. There I found myself moved by the fascinating shifting nature of the image on the cover of the album she had recorded with Jefferson Hammer.  Entering the website, I clicked on "Media" and went to her videos.  I scrolled down, and the words "Mad River Rising" caught my eye, as I had spent some time years ago near the Mad River in Humboldt County in Northern California.  What also caught my eye was the name "Daniel Houghton" as the director of the video and that the animation was done by students at Middlebury College in Vermont. On my mother's side of the family are people named Haughton who came from Ireland to Canada to New England, and I idly wondered if Daniel Houghton were a distant relative.  I also thought of bev and her new stringed instruments from Vermont.

This is a classic example of how I am drawn into the internet by chance clicks that lead me places I never expected to be -- where I feel things I never expected to feel, where things I never expected to heal can begin to heal through the creative efforts of others.

Before I left to meet with my friends, I had watched the first half of the video and found myself in tears but didn't want to be late for my friends.

Caught up in the stories of my friends, I forgot my tears until a few hours later when I returned home and finished watching the 13-minute video:



I didn't realize how much I had needed the relief of unexpected tears in these few days after the anniversary of my father's death in 2003 and the anniversary of yet another time that my Richard nearly died but was resuscitated in 2008.  He lived for another month -- just long enough for me to be able to visit with him in the ICU before he died in the afternoon of April 20, 2008.

Although I didn't pick up all the details on the first watching, the second time I did notice many significant details I had missed the first time including the Scandinavian knitting pattern that my mother had used when she made a pillow for me many years ago:

The pattern now seems to me to be of four little birds.

Here's the commentary for "Mad River Rising":



And footage of the Vermont flood of 1927:



Watching this little animated film today was healing for me on so many levels.  I take heart when I see what younger creative people are doing with their energy these days.  Although I won't be able to stay up late to hear Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hammer in person, I am grateful to have discovered them today through the magic of the internet.

(the photo at the top of the post came from a post of mine from 2010 called "Swallow's Nest Mandala.")

St. Patrick's Day 2013 / Thinking about our father

Our father died of congestive heart failure on St. Patrick's Day of 2003. In the above photo taken in April of 1977, our father was 63 years old -- the age I am now.  The photo was taken by our mother somewhere in Mendocino County, California -- probably not far from where they lived in the tiny coastside town of Gualala.

I'm thinking about our father today and his life's journey beginning with his birth in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1914; his travels to the East Coast with his father and a historian in the 1930s; his move to Los Angeles, California, in the late 1930s; his first marriage (which was a secret until after our mother died); his marriage to my mother and their move to San Francisco in 1948; their moves to San Mateo, Palo Alto, Taft, and Redwood City, California, before I was 8 years old; their move to Gualala when he retired in 1974; his retirement travels to Norway, the Orkney Islands, the Middle East, China and India; his move to where I live in Bellingham, Washington, after the death of our mother in December of 1994; his move in August 2001 to Seattle, Washington, to live near his youngest daughter, her husband, and their son (our father's only grandchild); and ending with his ashes being buried, at his request, in Minneapolis, next to our mother, his younger brother, and his parents.

I don't think of his spirit as being in Minnesota, though.  I still think of him and our mother living their quiet and private lives close to the Pacific Ocean.

Here is more about our father from a previous post:

"On the day after my father died, I walked alone on a beach in West Seattle and looked out at the relatively calm expanse of salt water, which suddenly appeared to me to be much like my father. I could only see its surface from my place on the shore. I knew nothing of its depths and neither did anyone else."

Here is the view from my porch today:

Clinch Mountain Backstep

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. (Heraclitus, philosopher, 500 BCE)

Radiant Woman with Cedar Hat and A Young Man Speaking from Indian Country

While looking at the above photo from the news today of the signing of the Violence Against Women Act, I noticed a woman wearing a woven cedar hat much like those woven at the Lummi Nation -- a few miles from where I live.

With a little Googling, I was able to identify the woman as Deborah Parker, the Vice Chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington State.  Listen to her story (recorded in 2012):



Now read the words of activist Gyasi Ross of the Blackfeet Nation writing from Indian Country yesterday:



"The President's legacy with Native people will ultimately be determined by how he deals with the environment, climate change and Keystone XL. Why?  We're the stewards of this land -- we cannot "go back to where we came from." We come from right here.  Some, that do not understand Native people's relationship to the land, will argue "there are no federally protected sacred sites affected!" Those folks just don't get it -- it's not just the few places that the government determines are "sacred" that we're concerned about.  No, all of this land is sacred and is not supposed to be ripped apart for a few coins.  Soon, after the euphoria of winning the VAWA war wears off, we'll realize that the Obama Administration snuck a fast one past us--the day after VAWA passed!"

Please read the entire article for context.

We can celebrate the signing of the VAWA and International Women's Day and not forget the problem of violence against Mother Earth.

Thoughts on procrastination 48 hours later / Not wasted time / Progress / Vitality

This morning:

48 hours ago:

Thank you to The Solitary Walker for the concept of swinging between procrastination and procrastination.  Now that you mention it, I can either be postponing some challenging task or postponing something I thoroughly enjoy doing  (-:

I think often of the header on Sabine's blog that says, "Live all you can:  It's a mistake not to."

Thank you to Sabine for offering a German equivalent for the word "procrastination." It's frühjahrsmüdigkeit, which literally means "spring tiredness."

Given that spring can be my season of greatest procrastination, I relate to Sabine's equivalent and find myself wondering if I might think of spring as a season for celebrating procrastination, using my yearly diminished momentum as joyfully and creatively as possible with my limited energy.

My MacBook's Dashboard gives these words for "procrastination."

French -- temporisation (as in wasted time?)

Italian -- indugio (as in indulgence?)

Spanish -- dilación (as in dilly-dallying?)
Dutch -- uitstel (as in uitsted time?)

And then there's:

"Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

Yesterday morning I had been wondering if vitality might be the opposite of procrastination.  When I am working on a blog post or reading blogs or out walking or practicing yoga or meeting at breakfast time with my eccentric friends most mornings of the week, I experience vitality -- even if in doing so I postpone other creative work and looking for paid employment.  The truth is I don't really want a job at this time as I am enjoying life in a way I never have before.  There is something to be said for that.

When I asked one of my eccentric friends what word came to her mind as the opposite of procrastination, she paused and then replied, "Progress."

Any other thoughts on a word for the opposite of procrastination?

Between

I swing between procrastination and being really thorough so either way things aren't getting done quickly.

(Freema Agyeman)

Oye como va (-:

Thanks to the Doonesbury website video archives for March 2, 2013.

On the MacBook "Dashboard" oye como va translates as it hears as it goes   (-:

Bob Dylan and Walt Whitman as Inadvertent Yoga Nidra Teachers and Fierce Grace and White Horse With One Ear (Drawn From Memory) / Black Horse Blues

Well my ship's been split to splinters and it's sinkin' fast
I'm drownin' in the poison, got no future, got no past
But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free
I've got nothin' but affection for all those who've sailed with me
(lyrics from "Mississippi," by Bob Dylan in 2001)

It is said that Yoga Nidra helps us develop a deep capacity to meet any and all circumstances we may encounter in life.  Part of the Yoga Nidra practice is a welcoming of contrasts into awareness -- a splintered sinking ship along with a heart that is light and free and not weary, and eventually being able to experience them as one -- to experience fragmentation and wholeness simultaneously.

Throughout the decades, the songs of Bob Dylan have explored contrasts as they coexist as two necessary parts of the whole:

"She knows there's no success like failure and failure's no success at all."

(lyrics from "Love Minus Zero / No Limit, by Bob Dylan -- 1965)

"I've been meek and hard like an oak."
(lyrics from "Buckets of Rain" -- 1974)

"I came to a high place of darkness and light.  A dividing line ran through the center of town."
(lyrics from "Isis" -- 1975)

"Alarm bells were ringing to hold back the swelling tide.  Friends and lovers clinging to each other side by side."
(lyrics from "Tempest" -- 2012)


As many of you know, with my experience in 1970-1971 of having lived with a dearly loved man from the early December morning he arrived home from Vietnam until the following May, I am a veteran of that shattering aftermath of war, and I continue to come to terms with the depth and breadth of those life-changing months and am just now beginning to appreciate the Fierce Grace that came to me at a young age.   I thought I was alone in what had happened to me and the man I loved and who loved me.  Now I know I wasn't alone.  Never was.

Recent drawn-from-memory sequence with my PC's "paint" program -- printed and scanned to my MacBook:

 

A Yoga Nidra pairing of contrasts could be the above sequence of drawings, done in the present time of relative tranquility, with the drawing below where I faced ongoing emotional turmoil over three consecutive Augusts, dating the scratchboard drawing three times in frustration at not being able to find my way.  The third August was four months after the death of my beloved friend and veteran.  Nearly five years have passed since his death.

I like the way the drawings look together on this page and how they interact in the context of Yoga Nidra.

Walt Whitman could have been talking Yoga Nidra when he made this acknowledgement of the truth of human wholeness:

"Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then I contradict myself.  I am large.  I contain multitudes."

Sora's voice in the darkness before dawn

When I woke up at 5 a.m. a few mornings ago, I went out on my porch as I usually do to look and to listen and to smell the fresh morning air.  I heard a loud and distinctive bird voice I couldn't immediately identify. Turns out I was hearing a Sora who continued to cry out intermittently in the darkness before dawn.  You will hear the Sora's voice three times in the short video.

Sora photo from Wikipedia

We Are Augustines

"Mama, You Been On My Mind" may have inspired "Chapel Song"

Gualala memories / Robinson Reef view

Just came across this video.  After my sisters and I grew up, my parents had a house in Gualala, California, for 25 years until my mother's death in 1994.  The first part of the video shows where I used to walk in Gualala Point Regional Park.  It was about a 3-mile walk south from my parent's house to Gualala Beach.  I would see grey whales, pelicans, sea lions, wild flowers, ice plant, crows and ravens, phoebes, rabbits, squirrels, and lizards. Looking at the video footage reminded me how much love I still feel for that landscape and how much I enjoyed visiting with my parents in those years.  I haven't been there since September of 2001.

My sister brought this to my attention:



That is the lot in front of the house my parents used to own.  A two-story house would likely block the splendid view from that small one-story house.  Hard to imagine that someone would buy a lot and build a house that would block the view of their close neighbors in an isolated and sparsely populated coastside community.

On the other hand, that lot was for sale when my parents bought their home in 1970.  Many people must have thought twice about building in front of someone else under those circumstances.

Artichoke Picker (1960)

Print by Emmy Lou Packard (1914-1998)

Ceremony / To Try To Have Some Healing

Listen to the entire story.  It takes some time.

"Great Spirit, Great Mystery, the things which are thine are powerful and numerous."
(song from "Dakota 38")

Silar Hagerty:  With Smooth Feather Productions, when we decided to give these films away, no strings attached, when we made that shift, it did feel like in some way the universe supported that.

Silas Hagerty:  For me, the word ceremony means calling in help from something greater than yourself.
(from "To Try To Have Some Healing:  A conversation with Silas Hagerty," Parabola magazine, Spring 2013)

Hills, trees, and sunlit meadows in the clouds

"For What It's Worth" at the end of "Jimi Thing" / Dave Matthews Band

Begin listening at 5:39.

Valentines Can't Buy Him Or Her / Remembering my Richard (1949-2008) and Bob Dylan's Suze Rotolo (1943-2011)

Double self-portrait of am and R in early 1971.  R set up the camera.  It had been only a short time since his return from Vietnam. We were walking across a meadow to a small pond to the west of Skyline Boulevard and to the east of Half Moon Bay, California, as the sun set over the Pacific Ocean horizon several miles away.

Listen

"Together"

"... you're the missing verse in my song ..."

Listen
"Love waits forever for one and for all"
(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Beyond the Horizon," from "Modern Times")

My father would have been 99 years old yesterday

That's my father in the middle.  He had two brothers and two sisters.  His youngest sister had her 90th birthday in December.  They all grew up in Minnesota.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Listen

Soon / George Gershwin Tribute

Birds singing in black and white in Bellingham / 24 hours at Westminster Abbey -- just across the border in Canada

Westminster Abbey in Mission, B.C., has hosted retreats for Zen Buddhists from Vancouver, B.C. as well as retreats for AA groups from the United States.  I have no religious affiliation and felt welcomed and at home there.  The meals, prepared by the monks, are delicious.  The atmosphere is peaceful.  The property is beautiful.  A true refuge.  My simple private room looked out across the Fraser River valley to snowy mountains.  

"We can start / Moving forward"

And many thanks to Sabine for posting this:

I love the internet

The sheer

dull

scintillating

infantile

anarchy

of

it

all.

Boisterous Brughel medieval market.

Futuristic Middle Ages

Directed
by

Friar Tuck.

And offset, whispers
of
Robin
lurking
in
wood.

I love the internet.
Cos it's ours.

 http://barringtonkevin.blogspot.com/

(where I left my warm winter gloves while happily making video clips)

Funny how, for me, being relaxed and happy sometimes goes hand in hand with losing things.  If that's the price for joy, I'm willing to pay.

Play them both at the same time for full effect of standing on the bridge and looking upstream and then downstream.

Emily Dickinson in Red, White, Black and Grey

Trackpad painting by am

Boy riding home / No longer alone

... We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always -- home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country -- all of us --
facing the stars
hope -- a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it -- together

(from "One Today," inaugural poem by Richard Blanco, 2013)

(trackpad drawing by am from January 2008)

Invocation

Arise / Meditation on ice fog with Red-winged Blackbirds singing on the Sunday of Martin Luther King weekend

If you don't have time for this long rambling post but do have a few minutes, just scroll down to the bottom and listen to a cover of "Blackbird" by Rachel Ann Cauilan.

 

Today's meditation began with waking up in the early morning darkness to the continuing ice fog here in Bellingham and recalling and then looking for George Harrison's song about a fog upon L.A. on YoutTube and noticing that George Harrison is wearing white face makeup as he sings "Blue Jay Way," and recalling Bob Dylan's white face make-up in 1976 during the Rolling Thunder Review Tour:

and going to Google Images for more examples of white face makeup:

Geisha:


Kabuki:

Queen Elizabeth I:

From "Les Enfants du Paradis:

Peggy Alston (from "Zooman and the Sign"):

Heath Ledger (during filming of "The Dark Knight" in 2008):

and then reading:

Thought for the Day

and then documenting the fog here with Red-winged Blackbirds singing:

and then documenting the sun breaking through the fog while hearing George Harrison singing "Here Comes the Sun" in my mind:

and looking out from my porch again a little while later to see blue sky and sunshine:

Last of all I found this.  I'm glad I listened all the way through this heartening video:



"... all your life you were only waiting for this moment to arise ..."

Thank you to Rachel Ann Cauilan whose blog I discovered just now after listening to her acoustic cover of "Blackbird."

Remembering Janis' 70th birthday today on Martin Luther King weekend / Musica universalis

Interesting how Janis Joplin's birthday and Martin Luther King weekend coincide.  I can picture Janis as a beautiful and wise 70-year-old woman, free of the drugs and alcohol that took her life and bright spirit from us in 1970.

I love hearing the young people singing their songs as well as the songs we first heard so long ago.

Martin Luther King would have been 84 on January 15.  I can picture him, too, a vital spiritual leader with so much life ahead of him and ten years younger than Nelson Mandela is today.



And then I came across this to complete my meditation for today.

Focusing / Pier meets voyage

Thanks to Keara for her comment that reminded me that for a while I have meant to post these two videos as an introduction to focusing -- something I have found not only useful but enlightening in the past year or so.  The book on focusing by Eugene Gendlin is inexpensive,  and I feel it is much more than worth the price.

Above is a drawing I did in September of 2006 using the Appleworks painting program and my computer trackpad.  That was three months before I started this blog and became quickly drawn into the world of blogging.  Even though there are only a few blogs I read regularly, and I don't post as regularly as I did at first, blogging continues to be a source and outlet for my creative energy.

Celebrating the life and heart of a writer

"Perhaps, I fear, this decision deprives society of one great programmer in favor of one mediocre writer. And let’s not hide behind the cloak of uncertainty, let’s say we know that it does. Even so, I would make it. The writing is too important, the programming too unenjoyable.

And for that, I apologize."

(Aaron Swartz)

Although I don't know much at all about Aaron Swartz -- only becoming aware of him as a result of his suicide -- I am moved by his writing.

(The above gouache on paper is a work in progress by am.  I am wondering why I find it so hard to sustain a painting and drawing practice, even though painting and drawing are things I am good at.  At this time in my life, I would rather write something on this blog or answer email or read a book or take a long walk or practice yoga or get together with friends most mornings at 7:30 a.m. for a breakfast of sorts.  It's not that painting and drawing are unenjoyable, though.  It's something else that hinders me.  What could it be?)

"So let us go forward, quietly, each on his own path, forever making for the light."
(Vincent van Gogh)

"...life is for learning ..." / "What are you doing?" / Gratitude

Just found the following video today.  What a treasure!  I attended that performance in October of 2009:

http://vimeo.com/50411931

That's my nephew, Lee, at 2:36, singing:

Well maybe it's the time of year
Well maybe it's the time of man
And I don't know who I am
But life is for learning

We are stardust
We are golden
We are billion-year-old carbon
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
(Joni Mitchell lyrics, 1970)

Some of you have already seen the above photo from 1971.   I had just turned 22 years old and felt much older than that.  My life had taken a dark turn.  It would be years before I would see any light in that darkness.  I had lessons to learn in the darkness.

At 63 years old (and feeling younger than that), I still have plenty to learn.  Even the darkest days now are so much lighter than they were in the years between 1971 and 1987.  It was in May of 1987, as I was traveling through Half Moon Bay, California, that there began to be light in that darkness.  My life took a turn that let the light in.  It was just as I was about to do something I had done many times before -- always expecting a positive result, always experiencing negative consequences.

A question came to my mind as I stopped my car a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean.  The question was like a koan because I couldn't come up with an answer.

My mind ceased talking, and I began listening for something in the darkness.

The question, as I recall it today, was, "What are you doing?"

Below is "Woman with Hands Full," in chalk pastel, watercolor and gouache, by am, from sometime around 1987 when light appeared in the darkness.

I'm grateful today for both the light and the darkness.  My life is full.

All You Need Is Love

Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy.
There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you
in time - It's easy.

All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
All you need is love (all together now)
All you need is love (everybody)
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
(Lennon-McCartney)

Today is my nephew's 20th birthday.  His favorite music comes from Sam Cooke, The Beatles, and The Head and the Heart. 

For anyone who hasn't seen the video below before, that's Lee on the left singing "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher."

Happy Birthday, Lee!

Love always from your Aunt Amanda.

Memory from July of 1969 / Ocean Beach January 2013

 I remember going to the Family Dog on the Coast Highway (San Francisco, California -- Ocean Beach) in July of 1969 to hear "It's A Beautiful Day" in concert.  I was 19 years old.  This could be the poster for that evening concert.  

Good to see Ocean Beach this morning via the magic of the internet.

(It takes about 15 seconds for the live webcam image to appear)

New Year's Day 2013 / The Head and the Heart -- Down in the Valley (Acoustic)