"To be is to do" / Meditation with beloved rain falling once again / True love

Doo-bee-doo-bee-doo Doo-doo-dee-dah Dah-dah-dah-dah-dah, ya-ya-ya

I find out with a little googling that Frank Sinatra hated this song from 1966 that is loved by so many.  In 1966, I was listening to Bob Dylan and had no inclination to listen to anything that Frank Sinatra sang.  Paradoxically, Bob Dylan was listening to Frank Sinatra and in recent years has recorded three Frank Sinatra cover albums, without ever covering "Strangers in the Night."  The only Frank Sinatra song that Bob Dylan covered that truly spoke to me was this one from 1949, the year I was born.  Could I have heard it on the radio as a baby?

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I remember my early days living in Washington State in the mid-1970s when there was little I yearned for more than to return to Northern California.  There was nothing I liked about Washington State, except the rain.  Since then I have grown to love Washington State, both the cool damp western part of the state and the eastern part of the state, to the east of the Cascade Mountain Range.  Eastern Washington is much much colder in the winter and hotter in the summer.  It's a different landscape, a different world, in all ways.  Although I don't love Washington State in the same way that I love Northern California, Washington State is one of my true loves nonetheless.

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"And it has to do with a tree, a singular one, not like these careening and cascading trees all around me here, but one tree that prised open the shell of me, led me out of the enclosing maze, the impasse of the heart, and showed me, yes, I could breathe again, and find love within me, and find that -- which can touch our hearts -- isn't only a person, it can be -- anything really, a sunlit mountain slope, a tree -- it isn't out there that we find love, though it can be some 'out there' being that slides back the shutters and we find the whole landscape of love is within us ..."

(p. 103, Bouyancy of the Craft, by Morelle Smith, who blogs from Scotland and to whom I am deeply grateful for her novel celebrating the life of Annemarie Schwarzenbach)

The recent smoke is slowly lifting / So happy just to be alive

!

PM2.5

x1

PM2.5 concentration in Bellingham air is currently 1 times above WHO exposure recommendation

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This morning the sky had cleared enough for me to have my first glimpse of Orion above the mountain to the east.  I look forward to the turning point every year when Orion appears again. There is still smoke in the sky above 3044-foot Stewart mountain which is about 7 miles east of here, but most of the sky has returned to a reassuring blue.  Our astounding faithful sky is at work, clearing itself of smoke.  I don't take this for granted and feel immense gratitude and love for the endlessness that we look out into, beginning with our sky, which reminds me of :

George Harrison realizing something endless within:

"... Try to realize it's all within yourself, no one else can make you change, and to see you're only very small and life flows on within you and without you ..." 

"... I keep traveling around the bend
There was no beginning, there is no end
It wasn't born and never dies
There are no edges, there is no size
Oh yeah, you just don't win
It's so far out - the way out is in ..."

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"... So happy just to be alive on this new morning ..."  (Bob Dylan)

"... you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone ..."

Sitting inside with the air cleaner on, along with an air conditioner, what came to mind was Joni Mitchell's song that I first heard in April 1970 when I was 20 years old.  Turning to YouTube, I found this cover that I love, posted in the last few days.  

The unhealthy air due to fires is teaching me to appreciate being able to go outside and breathe fresh air -- one of the simple joys of life that is not available for the time being.

*

 

!

PM2.5

x3

PM2.5 concentration in Bellingham air is currently 3 times above WHO exposure recommendation.

This is an improvement from yesterday's 9 times above but fire season is not over and continues to jeopardize the health of countless sentient beings throughout the world.

It is occurring to me that when I left the San Francisco Bay Area late in the summer of 1973, there were days when the air quality was not all that different from what I am experiencing today.  In those days, the source of the pollution was not smoke from fires.  Much of the air pollution from 1974 is gone from the west coast of the United States, but now we are dealing with a form of unhealthy air that is beyond control and is world-wide, affecting environments where other forms of compromised air are minimal or non-existent.

Living in a world where smoke-free air cannot be promised is sobering, to say the least.  So much that can no longer be taken for granted.  

Is it ever a good idea to take something or anything for granted?  

60 years after / 15,000 years later / Time out of mind / Who knows?

Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)

The ice is quickly melting,

A vision for 15,000 years later:

It's been a long hot summer together / The ice is quickly melting / Together seeking a return to balance (perseverance furthers)

 

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Remembering my father and the gift he gave me in 1982 / An unexpected reunion

This early morning I was moved to tears, suddenly aware as I had never been before, of the thoughtfulness of my father in planning a trip to New York City and Washington, D.C., after I graduated from Western Washington University with a degree in English Literature and Studio Art in 1982. 

In 1984, my father had a massive stroke which resulted in a dramatic personality change.  Previous to that he had never shown or expressed how he felt -- a man of few words.  After his stroke, he cried easily and said things that were honest but insensitive and deeply hurtful.  

After my mother died in 1994, my relationship with my father was extraordinarily painful.  Because I  am the oldest of three sisters, it was determined by his siblings that he would come to live here in Bellingham and that I would be the one responsible for looking out for him.  I had no idea how difficult and emotionally painful the next 9 years would be.  My sense of failure as a daughter and human being was devastating.

It is occurring to me now that it was not easy for him either.

In 1982,  I was still suffering from bulimia and in an unhappy marriage, still 2 years away from leaving that marriage and 5 years away from lasting eating disorder recovery, still like my father prior to his stroke -- unable to show or express myself honestly, feeling like a victim, and suffering in a way that was not clearly visible to most people but which was eating me alive from the inside.

Fortunately, I didn't have to experience a stroke to come to a point where I could begin to show and express my true feelings.  1987 was only a bare beginning.  I cried and cried, beginning in 1987.  I was suddenly in touch with anger toward my parents and pushed them away.  They were surprised and hurt.  I didn't care, anymore than a toddler would care.

It has occurred to me that in some odd way, my emotional development had stopped when I became a toddler and dared to say "NO!" and began to be beaten and shamed.  I remember being a toddler.  In order to try to avoid being beaten and shamed, I learned to never say "No" and to try with all my tiny might to please them so that they wouldn't hit or shame me.  Because my attempts were futile, I began to comfort myself with food.  I learned that my tiny self was unacceptable to them and determined that not being myself was the key to survival.

Now I can see that neither of my parents felt safe being who they were, and I can see the pain that caused them throughout their lives.  It occurs to me that this pattern is intergenerational.  I come from people who did not feel safe in the world, even in their own families.  

This morning I am grateful for whatever it was in 1984 that gave me the courage to leave my marriage and whatever it was in 1987 that turned the tide for me so that I became free of bulimia and binging on food for relief of what I now see as intergenerational trauma.  My parents were never free to be themselves in the way I am today.  This has not been an easy road.  I am not completely free but have come a long way.

When I started writing this post, I thought that I had little to say.  Much has been revealed to me this morning.

Becoming my true self is an ongoing process, possibly never-ending.

I do remember the exhilarating feeling I had in New York City in 1982, of getting in touch with what I saw as a mysterious untapped "wild part of me" that would lead to the healing I took birth for, that would eventually lead to renewed contact with my creative spirit. 

The excruciating years between 1994 and 2003 were a replay of my childhood.  I regressed emotionally to that toddler who didn't dare to be herself but this time I wasn't turning to food for relief.  I  experienced all the painful feelings that were unbearable to a tiny child.

Today I am seeing, for the first time, the positive and crucial part my father played in my healing when he gave me the gift of that journey to New York City and Washington, D.C., in 1982, where I was reunited with the wild and free child within me.

¡Musica! / Harp, Flute, Viola / August 8, 2021

 

Rachel Ferris, harp

Mark Teplitsky, flute

Matthew Cohen, viola  

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Program:

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Carl Nielsen - The Fog is Lifting for flute and harp

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Jacques Ibert - Two Interludes for Flute, Viola, and Harp (arr. Andrew Lipke) 

     I. Andante Espressivo 

     II. Allegro vivo 

 

Maurice Ravel - Sonatine for Flute, Viola and Harp (arr. Kanga) 

     I. Modéré 

     II. Mouvement de menuet 

     III. Animé 

 

INTERMISSION

​

François Devienne - Duo for Flute and Viola in C minor, Op. 5 

     I. Allegro Molto con Espressione 

     II. Rondo-Majeur 

 

George Gershwin - St. Louis Blues Rhapsody for flute and viola

 

Arnold Bax - Elegiac Trio for flute, viola and harp

​

Claude Debussy - Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp 

     I. Pastorale 

     II. Interlude 

     III. Finale 

*

The young man playing the viola is the son of a dear friend who is the sister of one of my oldest and dearest friends who played the accordion as a child; the ukulele, the autoharp, and the guitar as a teenager; and later the flute and the piano, and finally the viola de gamba.  She died in 2019.  She was so proud of him from the beginning when he showed early promise as a musician, and all those years ago she sent me a recording of a performance he did for her when he was a little boy learning to play the viola. 

Just because (just because)

"... She's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she's free to look back if she wants to..."

"... And reads us stories out of the I Ching ..."

Yesterday YouTube churned up a song I remember well from 1967, the year I bought the Richard Wilhelm copy of the I Ching for three reasons.  One was that Bob Dylan had mentioned it in an interview, second was that Country Joe and the Fish mentioned it, and third was that my college roommate had a copy and taught me how to use pennies to consult the I Ching.

Today Blogger let me know that someone had visited one of my old posts which mentions the I Ching:

"It is very difficult to bring quiet to the heart."

"True quiet means keeping still when the time has come to keep still, and going forward when the time has come to go forward. In this way rest and movement are in agreement with the demands of the time, and thus there is light in life."

For some reason today, my attention was drawn to my blog archive:

Interesting to see that during my first year of blogging I posted almost every day of the week and that ever since I have not come close to that.  The smallest number of posts were during my last year working as a medical transcriptionist before I retired.  The largest number of posts were the year after the year R died.  Given that this is only August of 2021, I'm well on my way to an unusually prodigious year of blogging.

December 8, 2021, will be the 15th birthday of my blog.  I find it astonishing to think about all that has come to pass during these years and am grateful for the lasting connections made with blog friends near and far in this unforeseen community.

 

Hiroshima Day Meditation / They come and stand at every door

Jacob Lawrence's Hiroshima Series

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Jacob Lawrence's Hiroshima Series was inspired by John Hershey's book titled Hiroshima:

"It was time for someone to describe the bomb in terms that the human mind could grasp. As Hersey finished The Bridge of San Luis Rey, he realized that emphasizing minutiae, not grandeur, was the way to drive the point home. Not everyone could comprehend how the atomic bomb worked or visualize an all-out, end-of-days nuclear world war. But practically anyone could comprehend a story about a handful of regular people — mothers, fathers, grade school children, doctors, clerks — going about their daily routines when catastrophe struck. Hersey would take readers into the victims’ kitchens, on their streetcar commutes, into their offices, back on that sunny summer morning of August 6, 1945, and show what befell them."

Koko Kondo speaks Wednesday [am's note:  That was August 6, 2020] in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome near the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. (Eugene Hoshiko/AP)

“I’m so glad John Hersey wrote that book because that is what happened,” Kondo said in an interview.

But she also worries that it has been forgotten. One piece of evidence in favor of that conclusion is that nuclear weapons still exist.

I come and stand at every door
But no one hears my silent tread
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead, for I am dead

I'm only seven although I died
In Hiroshima long ago
I'm seven now as I was then
When children die they do not grow

My hair was scorched by swirling flame
My eyes grew dim, my eyes grew blind
Death came and turned my bones to dust
And that was scattered by the wind

I need no fruit, I need no rice
I need no sweets nor even bread
I ask for nothing for myself
For I am dead, for I am dead

All that I ask is that for peace
You fight today, you fight today
So that the children of this world
May live and grow and laugh and play

(Nâzım Hikmet)

*

".. the Second World War, it came to an end ..."

*

Speaking with and without words, sending love near and far.

*

ADDENDUM:  After posting this, I noticed that one of Jacob Lawrence's images in the HIroshima Series is called "Boy With Kite."  I hadn't noticed that when I chose the cover by Dave and Tyler who are identified as "A Boy and His Kite."  Take what you have gathered from coincidence.

Summer of 2021 Fire Meditation / Listening to Crow Rez Radio

Yesterday was mixed overcast and cool.  Late in the afternoon I noticed that the patterns of light on my porch had taken on the faint sickly yellowish cast that I now recognize as a sign that smoke from fires near and far has filled our skies -- that the air that I am breathing has smoke in it, although I cannot smell the smoke and find myself hoping beyond hoping that things won't get worse before they get better.

This morning at 3 a.m. when I went out on my porch, I saw that the waning moon in the sky to the northeast was reddish yellow instead of white.  I've closed my windows and brought out my portable air cleaner and portable air conditioner from their places in my hall closets, placed them in my living room and turned them on for the duration.

When I went to my laptop to ask Google about where was the best place to set up my air cleaner and air conditioner, I noticed that this had appeared spontaneously.  I'm listening to it as I write this post.  

Trying to remember which year it was that we in the northwestern corner of Washington State first experienced hazardous air from wildfires, I found that it was late summer in 2015.  The red sun seen through the trees in the photo above is from that summer.

Growing up in California in the 1950s and early 1960s, I remember hearing about the season of fires in Southern California.  The home of my Uncle John Wald, a radio announcer, was one that a fire in 1961 spared.  I remember hearing my mother saying that the houses on either side of his were destroyed.  For some reason, the fire jumped over his home.

October 1967, in my weeks of college at University of California at Irvine, was the first time I experienced what is beginning to be the late summer experience here and for much of the western United States.  The sky darkens with smoke and the sun turns red.  I remembering thinking in 1967 that what I was seeing looked "like Mars." It was just as disconcerting then as it is now.

*

Ojibwe prophecy speaks of a time during the seventh fire when our people will have a choice between two paths. The first path is well-worn and scorched. The second path is new and green. It is our choice as communities and as individuals how we will proceed.

-- Winona LaDuke

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“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

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High Romanticism shows you nature in all its harsh and lovely metamorphoses. Flood, fire and quake fling us back to the primal struggle for survival and reveal our gross dependency on mammoth, still mysterious forces.

-- Camille Paglia

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So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us.

-- Gaston Bachelard

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If the Lord comes and burns - as you say he will - I am not going away; I am going to stay here and stand the fire, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! And Jesus will walk with me through the fire and keep me from harm.

-- Sojourner Truth

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Pessimism and optimism are slammed up against each other in my records, the tension between them is where it's all at, it's what lights the fire.

-- Bruce Springsteen

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I try to keep that fire burning inside of me.

-- Rita Marley

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Technology is, of course, a double edged sword. Fire can cook our food but also burn us.

-- Jason Silva

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I remember June 8, 1972. I saw the airplane. And it's so loud, so close to me. Suddenly, the fire everywhere around me. The fire burned off my clothes. And I saw my arm got burned with the fire. I thought, oh, my goodness, I get burned. People will see me different way.

-- Kim Phuc Phan Thi

*

Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.

-- Buddha

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“It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice -- there are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.”

-- Frank Zappa

*

Bob Dylan 2021:

So many possibilities beyond what we know.  

Right here, right now.

Against all odds.

Crow Rez Radio