"... Well something's lost, but something's gained In living every day ..." / "Rule #24: When you eat real food, you don't need rules" / Winter Solstice 2023

As someone who struggled with an eating disorder from age 10 to age 37, this book serves as a gentle reminder that my nearly two decades of war with food are long over because instinctively I began to eat in the way that is suggested by Michael Pollan's 83 general rules.  

Rule 83:  Break the Rules Once in a While

Enjoy every sandwich.

(Warren Zevon)

Then there is Rule #52:  Have a glass of wine with dinner.

There is one personal rule I don't ever break and that is that I don't drink alcohol in any form anymore.  I used to drink wine and had no trouble stopping after drinking a small amount, but that small amount always resulted in an unbearable craving (a sign of alcoholism) that made it virtually impossible for me to stop eating.  I didn't want to be an alcoholic and so I turned to more and more food instead of more alcohol.  Of course, food couldn't stop a craving for alcohol. It was astounding to discover that my eating disorder disappeared when I stopped drinking alcohol -- that my eating problems were actually alcoholism.  Wine is a delightful healthy food for most people throughout the world but for alcoholics like me it only led to insatiable craving for food and years of unrelieved depression that ended 36 years ago in May 1987 when I had my last drink (a champagne breakfast in a restaurant with my parents), followed by my last bout of suicidal depression.  

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Winter Solstice.

The sun rose here at 8 a.m. and will set at 4:16 p.m.  

A turning point.

Celebrating the return of the light with friends near and far, while enjoying the improved quality of sleep I enjoy during most, but not all, of the long dark winter nights.  

Calendar Series:  28th Month (Return / The Turning Point)

-- am's painting from 1988

"... It stays pretty green ..."

(Joni Mitchell)

Women Holding Things

a love song to women
and at times everyone
(as exhausted as we all are
from holding everything)

it was born from a little booklet
made during the pandemic.
and then expanded upon.
with 86 paintings.
ruminations
and digressions
of course.

-- Maira Kalman

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"Woman With Her Hands Full"

(pastel drawing by am from the mid-1980s)

"Unspoken: America's Native American Boarding Schools"

YouTube suggested this to me about a week ago.  I've been watching it when I had time and finished watching it just now.  I recommend it.  

"... I want to go to the sea today ... because it's that time in December"

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Still studying Spanish on a daily basis.  It's been a little more than three years since I learned about Duolingo and committed to fulfilling a nearly lifelong dream of learning a second language.  At this point, I have the fluency and joy of a three-year-old child learning a language, which is immense progress.  This came to my attention recently and has been encouraging.  My reading comprehension is far beyond my listening comprehension, although if a person speaks slowly I can understand much that I never dreamed I would be able to understand.  Although my accent is good (except for those rolled r's -- and even those are coming along -- something I never thought possible), my confidence in being able to speak is still a work in progress.  It's not difficult for me to come up with a large number of nouns and the "to be" form of verbs, but my ability to speak the way I would like to speak is limited.  I know that as long as I don't engage in daily conversation, my knowledge of Spanish will remain focused on reading and listening.  It has occurred to me that I am more of a reader and listener and writer than a conversationalist in English.  It's okay.  The joy of language is still there.

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Not sure where I learned about this website.  On a daily basis, thoughtful essays are suggested to me, some of which I read and many of which I have meant to share for some time now.  That day has come. When I read something on a specific topic, the website sends me more essays on that topic.  

Here's another essay. 

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It's that time of year when the cloud cover can be so heavy that it looks and feels like dawn or dusk all day long.  This morning there are openings where blinding light comes through the dark clouds.  Interesting to see that on 4.0x Zoom on my cell phone, the image is textured.

Growing up in the 1950s / Taking a December walk in the 2020s

Loved this TV show when I was a little girl.  With a little googling, I found that it was on TV from 1955 to 1960.  

One of my first drawings at 5 years old in 1955 was of a horse.

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In awe of California coast redwood trees

Life after the 2020 fire in the redwood forest in Big Basin.

"A Hidden Life"

This extraordinary and timely film was brought to my attention at Ordinary Plots: Meditations on Poems + Verse.  Our public library had a copy of the DVD.

The following appeared at the end of the film:

“The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” – George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Revisiting "Old Girl From The North Country" / Still Willing To Give Peace A Chance

My 17th blog birthday is coming up on December 8, the anniversary of the day that my beloved R returned from a year in Vietnam, serving as a helicopter mechanic in Da Nang.  That was the year 1970.  Something happened to him during that year that he kept inside.  It ate him alive.  Things happened to me after he came home that are still healing.  In 2006, a wise and concerned woman suggested that I do something good for myself on December 8, that I give that day a new meaning.  I had been reading blogs for about a year at that point, including Robin and Roger's blog "Dharma Bums."  

My blog was to be a retrospective of the art work I had created throughout my life, beginning with a drawing I had made in my senior year in high school, a drawing that came to represent R.

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Somewhere along the line (2008?) I inadvertently changed my blog address from

http://oldgirlfromthenorthcountry.blogspot.com

to what it is now.

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After R died in April 2008, I changed the name of my blog to:

 TALKING 37TH DREAM WITH RAINBOW (RUMORS OF PEACE)

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I've changed my blog name several times since them and most recently to:

37TH DREAM / RUMORS OF PEACE AT SUNRISE

(with SUNRISE repeated 7 times)  

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In the last years of his life, during the war in Afghanistan, R wrote on the envelope of a letter to me, "Give Peace A Chance."

The light without beginning or end

Thank you to Sabine for bringing this song to my attention back in 2019.

Just now, before any sign of dawn, this song began to play in my mind, my heart, and my soul.

The dark hours of the day are getting longer and longer, as they always do, and spring will come again and again.

Songs of Experience

 

Unlike a lot of the videos making the rounds on social media, this one does not celebrate Israeli unity, righteousness and resilience since the Oct. 7 terror attack by Hamas. Instead, it captures the fracture and despair many Israelis feel about the Netanyahu government. 

“In the dark times / will there also be singing? / Yes, there will also be singing. / About the dark times.” (Bertolt Brecht).

Lily Gladstone (Addendum)

Not alone

Tiny Mandala #33 of 53

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FOR PEACE

As the fever of day calms towards twilight
May all that is strained in us come to ease.

We pray for all who suffered violence today,
May an unexpected serenity surprise them.

For those who risk their lives each day for peace,
May their hearts glimpse providence at the heart of history.

That those who make riches from violence and war
Might hear in their dreams the cries of the lost.

That we might see through our fear of each other
A new vision to heal our fatal attraction to aggression.

That those who enjoy the privilege of peace
Might not forget their tormented brothers and sisters.

That the wolf might lie down with the lamb,
That our swords be beaten into ploughshares

And no hurt or harm be done
Anywhere along the holy mountain.

John O'Donohue, Irish poet and philosopher

From the book, Benedictus

Listening

Thanks to Beth at Wait - what? for posting this.

Looking both ways, looking up, looking outward, looking inward / Love Has Many Faces

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Two timely book recommendations.  

A first cousin who lives in Florida sent me a copy of The Seed Keeper, which takes place where our first-generation American grandfather was born in 1871 in Minnesota of Norwegian immigrants, in the wake of the Sioux Uprising of 1962 and subsequent hangings of 38 Dakota men. 

These two books explore complexities of history, present-day life, and relationships within the vast human family.  They offer no easy answers.  Both books celebrate the many faces of love.  In each book, the expressive beauty of the natural world is ever present to be experienced amidst interpersonal, social, political and spiritual unrest.

and 

Beyond The Lion Gate was written by my blog friend, Morelle Smith who lives in Scotland.  I've bought several of her books over the years and continue to find the writing on her blog and otherwise, whether poetry or prose or novel or book review or essay, to be compelling.  The photos on her blog from her travels and from Scotland are sublime.

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Before and after dawn ( possibly only of interest to those who take an interest in Bob Dylan) / A song from the distant past comes to mind / Where am I now?

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The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure To live it you had to explode And at the last hour of need, we entirely agreed Sacrifice was the code of the road

(Bob Dylan -- 1978) 

"... You may say I'm a dreamer ..." / Turning to music for sustenance as the sorrow of war unfolds

 

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".... Imagine all the people ..."

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“Once I traveled far above the earth. This beloved planet we call home was covered with an elastic web of light. I watched in awe as it shimmered, stretched, dimmed, and shined, shaped by the collective effort of all life within it. Dissonance attracted more dissonance. Harmony attracted harmony. I saw revolutions, droughts, famines, and the births of new nations. The most humble kindnesses made the brightest lights. Nothing was wasted.” ~ Joy Harjo

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“The child in each of us / Knows paradise. / Paradise is home. / Home as it was / Or home as it should have been. // Paradise is one’s own place, / One’s own people, / One’s own world, / Knowing and known, / Perhaps even / Loving and loved. // Yet every child / Is cast from paradise— / Into growth and destruction, / Into solitude and new community, / Into vast, ongoing / Change.” *— Parable of the Talents (Octavia E. Butler)*

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Sending love near and far to all suffering from the effects of wars past and present.

Light

Thank you to Beth for bringing this to my attention on her Tumblr page.

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Onward on my journey

Awe

 Thanks to Beth at Wait - what? for posting:

The annular eclipse over Chaco Canyon, Dinétah, NM. :: [Robert Scott Horton]

Although I may never see another total eclipse, I have not forgotten the awe I experienced during the totality of the eclipse in Fossil, Oregon, in 2017.  The strange quality of the light.  The sudden darkness and coldness.  The street lights in the small town coming on.  The children shouting and dancing in the darkness.  The little boy who looked at me afterward and said, "EPIC!" 

Grieving a world of wars without end, always listening for rumors of peace / Robin Wall Kimmerer and Chris La Tray / Annular eclipse 2023 / Tiny Mandala #30 / Owls

Robin Wall Kimmerer and Chris La Tray

Braiding Sweetgrass: What does the earth ask of us? 

This talk will be accessible until October 17.  

Chris La Tray is the recently named Poet Laureate of Montana.  I've been reading his blog for several years now and recommend it.  I've bought two of his books of poetry and am looking forward to reading his book which will be published in 2024, Becoming Little Shell.

"... He maintains an online journal called "An Irritable Métis," where he grapples with matters of cultural identity, the natural world, and the path Montana is taking ..."

(quote from Native News Online)

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Annular eclipse 2023

From my porch, I took a photo of the sun just before the max view,

 

and was startled to see what appeared to be a reverse image of the eclipse on the right side of the photo.  Take a look.  A mystery!

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In a world of wars without end, I grieve and continue to listen for rumors of peace.

All are invited to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day 2023 with the Lummi Nation at the Wex'lium Community Building

Indigenous Peoples' Day Celebration

Speakers:

Santana Rabang

Dr. Evan Adams

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For those who are on Facebook, the celebration can be experienced Here today from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

It's also streaming on YouTube.