Oboe and Birds Morning Meditation

A few Christmases ago, my middle sister gave me a DVD called So Many Feathers: Bird Watching Without Binoculars. At that time, I may have posted photos of Oboe watching the DVD and even standing up on her hind legs and reaching for the birds on the screen. I found the DVD again a few weeks ago and have been meaning to see if Oboe still found it engaging. This morning I made an 8-minute video which shows her watching intently for that length of time. I trimmed the video down to 1 minute so that I could post it here.

Howl: Innocence and Experience

Painting by Mark Rothko

Progress not Perfection: Fearless and Asymmetrical Mandalas

On September 17, 2014, I began working on the first mandala of the "Fearless and Asymmetrical Mandala Series," (scroll down past today's post) using an inexpensive box of watercolor pencils made for children. My mother's mandala series was the inspiration. Below is the palette I used for Mandala #1. I was using 17 colors from the spectrum, minus the shades of brown. As I continued making mandalas, I found it frustrating that some of inexpensive pencil tips continued to break off over and over again as I used them. As a result, I was using fewer and fewer colors with each mandala I made.

Yesterday I finished Mandala #9, using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils with a completely different palette that I chose by eye from the shelves at the Dakota Art Store. However, my new palette doesn't have as many colors as the old palette, and looking at this last mandala, I want to remedy that.  

My new pencils are not watercolor pencils, and I don't need to worry about accidentally getting the paper wet and having the colors run. They aren't showing any signs of breakage either.

Here is the limited palette I used for Mandala #9:

Here's the palette in progress I'm using for Mandala #10:

I'm going to go back to the Dakota Art Store with the original watercolor pencil palette and try to duplicate it as closely as possible. May not be possible, but I'll give it a try. I loved the names of the children's pencils. The names of squirrel jacket, hedgerow, dew at 5 a.m., rabbit boots and berry pie appeal to me more than cadmium orange, viridian, light cobalt turquoise, crimson and violet.

"I had to rearrange their faces and give them all another name."

(Bob Dylan)

This is the longest run of works on paper that I have had since the First Gulf War began in 1990. That was when I began to experience symptoms of the post-traumatic stress disorder that is the result of my experiences during the war in Vietnam. Recently I've been hearing in my mind the words that Richard wrote in the summer of 2002:

"Please take all my love and go on with your life."

It's been 45 years this month since Richard left for Vietnam and 44 years since he returned as a haunted man. For so many years, I didn't feel I could go on with my life as long as he was suffering. It's been almost 7 years since he died. It's never too late to accept his love and go on with my life. Half measures avail me nothing. What am I waiting for? Why not now? There is nothing holding me back except me.

"Question from Robert Love: And productive work is a kind of salvation in your view? To feel pride in what you do?

Answer from Bob Dylan: Absolutely."

(from the AARP interview)

I've had a upper respiratory infection with a headache for the past 11 days. My voice is still hoarse. I still cough occasionally. The sore throat has finally left, along with the headache. Haven't been able to work on my job retraining program. When I have a cold, I experience the kind of depression that used to be a part of my everyday life for years and years. Yesterday I went out to do some errands because I was feeling better. Once I was out and about, though, I realized that I'm not back to my usual relatively good health. I don't take relatively good health for granted after so many years of compromised health.

Then I came across this.

And here is a view with a surprise guest while I was making a video from my porch. I thought that I had lost this footage and was unusually philosophical about that. I've lost so many things. A second surprise was discovering the footage this morning:

Remembering Janis on her 72nd birthday

"Oh, Sweet Mary"

Yeah! 

Oh, sweet Mary, child of confusion, she runs the hills to cry
Past the willows or an illusion, Lord, tell me the reason why.
Tell me why, why is it all so hard ?
Breathing in the air Breathe in the air
Anyone to care.
Oh! 

(Alright, yeah!) 

Oh, sweet Mary, in our story, have we nothing left to give ?
But don't we all know, babe, if we're pressed to, that that's the way we live.
Tell me why, why is it all so hard ?
Breathing in the air Breathing in the air
Anyone to care, oh, yeah! 

Hop now, hop now, hop now, hop now, hop now, hop now,
Hop now, hop now, hop now, hop now, hop now, hop now, whoa, yeah!

Io's music

Io died on January 18, 2011. He lives on in his music. We celebrate Io's life.

Meditation on unarmed truth and unconditional love on the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr

From the Plum Village website:

Thich Nhat Hanh on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr:

The moment I met Martin Luther King, Jr., I knew I was in the presence of a holy person. Not just his good work, but his very being was a source of great inspiration for me... On the altar in my hermitage in France are images of Buddha and Jesus, and every time I light incense, I touch both of them as my spiritual ancestors... In Vietnam, we refer to Dr. King as a "Bodhisattva," an enlightened being devoted to serving humanity...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Thich Nhat Hanh:

I know Thich Nhat Hanh, and am privileged to call him my friend... [He is] an apostle of peace and non-violence... He has traveled the world, counseling statesmen, religious leaders, scholars and writers, and enlisting their support. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.
[Nominating Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Price in 1967]

Update on Thich Nhat Hanh's health.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
(Martin Luther King, Jr.)

"Inside a Cartoonist's world"

Thanks to Doonesbury's video archives

Oboe with me at my art and music table

The practice of Zen is not limited to the meditation mat. The practice of Zen is our entire life and is the very thread that binds our different lives together. Discovering this truth is called awakening, and it takes a circuitous route.
(Janet Jiryu Abels)

If we go down into ourselves, we find that we possess exactly what we desire.
(Simone Weil)

Whether it is the time or the method, true labor is half initiative and half knowing how to let things proceed on their own.
(January 8,  from 365 Tao: Daily Meditations, by Deng Ming-Dao)

Celebrating my nephew's 22nd birthday today

May gifts of joy and peace and creative energy come to my nephew on his 22nd birthday and always!

Lummi Nation

Good news.

On Having Two Places To Call Home

This book came into my life some time ago. My "countries" are the California of my birth and the Washington State where I have lived since I was 24 years old.  They are two very distinct places. In 1973, I lived briefly in Massachusetts near Walden Pond but didn't feel any sense of being at home there.  Forty years have gone by very quickly in Washington State.  I haven't been able to travel to California since 2008, but I visit often in dreams and memories and blogs. When I look through this book, I feel close to Allen Say and his grandfather.

"The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other."
(Allen Say, from Grandfather's Journey)

I have loved and been loved by two places.

Mandala #8

Listen to the Great Animal Orchestra

While reading "Forest & River News" from Trees Foundation yesterday, I learned about Bernie Krause and The Great Animal Orchestra.

Then I watched this.

Wow! Listen.

The Lives of Chairs and Families

When my mother's parents were newly married in the early 1900s in Boston, Massachusetts, they bought six Duncan Phyfe-style chairs with caned seats and a Duncan Phyfe-style dining table. It is possible that my grandfather bought the chairs second-hand and repaired and caned them. It is possible that he made them from a kit. They have odd quirks, including holes that are drilled at odd angles along with added nails and bolts and different kinds of wood for the stretchers. Not long after their marriage, our grandparents moved to Hastings, Minnesota, bringing the chairs and tables with them. My mother and her older brother grew up with those chairs and that table. As I understand, my grandfather re-caned the chairs whenever the caning broke down. After my grandmother died in the 1930s, the table and chairs were moved to Hermosa Beach in Southern California with my grandfather, my mother, my uncle, my aunt, and their daughter. After my grandfather died in 1945, the table and chairs went to my mother, and she brought them to her marriage to my father in 1948. The table and chairs were moved from Southern California to a small apartment in San Francisco, and then to an apartment in San Mateo, and from there to a house in Palo Alto, to a house in Taft, and to a house in Redwood City.

My sisters and I grew up with that table and those chairs, although we were taught to be very careful with the caned chairs, and our family rarely used the table except for holidays and special occasions. Of course, as small children, we stood on seats of the chairs and eventually the caning broke down, and the chairs went into the storage in the garage. In Redwood City, my parents bought a new dining table and new chairs with upholstered seats. I can remember the old dining table being used peripherally, at least until I went away to college in 1967. I remember seeing the chairs with their broken seats in the garage in storage. When my parents moved into an apartment again before moving permanently to their retirement home on the Mendocino Coast, I think that they must have sold the table or given the table away, but my mother kept the six old chairs.

When I was still in my 20s in my first years in Bellingham, my mother gave me two of the chairs. I took a class in furniture refinishing, and learned to do chair caning. I toyed with the idea of becoming a chair caner, but hurt my neck while working on the first chair that I was paid to cane and gave up on that idea.  That chair that I was paid to cane was an antique oak swivel office chair with a curved back and curved sides -- a complex caning job. I did a beautiful job of caning, but I didn't work quickly enough to make any money at that job. When I tried to work quickly, I hurt my neck.

After my mother died in 1994, the other four chairs came to me because my sisters didn't want them. Two were in very poor condition, and I put them in storage, but I had the other two re-caned by a professional caner along with my first two which also needed re-caning again. By that time I was working full-time and didn't have the time or energy for caning. 

Now, another 20 years later, I am having one chair caned at a time by an expert caner (take a look at her website) who just moved to Bellingham in the past few years. There hadn't been a caner north of Seattle for some time. The two chairs which were in such bad condition have been finished and repaired and re-caned now. Just this week, I picked up another finished caned chair and dropped off another for caning. After that, there is one chair left that needs caning. When I picked up the chair and dropped the other off, Stella showed me two chairs nearly identical to my set of chairs. However, those two chairs had had their legs sawed off so that they were about 6 inches shorter. They were clearly of the same design but had more caning holes and slightly different dimensions. They were like cousins to my chairs -- even down to the quirkiness of their construction!

I hope that either my nephew or one of my cousins on my mother's side of the family will take the chairs and use them when I am gone. One of them is for sitting on when I play my autoharp, ukulele and dulcimers. Two are at my dining table with my father's mother's chair with the needlepoint seat. One holds a knit afghan. One is in my bedroom. The last one that still needs caning is in my hall closet and may have to remain there with two stuffed bears and two bins of old books sitting on it. The chairs are dear to me because of their history in our family.

Mandala #7: Yep

A New Baby Boy On Bodhi Day 2014

Although I am not affiliated with any spiritual or religious tradition, I listen carefully to the teachings of all traditions and find wisdom in each one. Today is Bodhi Day in Buddhist tradition.

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find anything that agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
-- Siddhartha Gautama Buddha

In what I hope is in the spirit in which the Buddha teaches, these thoughts came to mind after reading the above quote because through a process of observation, analysis, and reason, I don't believe that observation, analysis, and reason are everything. There is much to be said for the wisdom and experiences of the heart:

"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing."
-- Blaise Pascal

"I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad.
'They say they think with their heads,' he replied.
'Why of course. What do you think with?' I asked him in surprise.
'We think here,' he said, indicating his heart."
(Carl Jung, during a visit to New Mexico, in conversation with Ochwiay Biano, a Pueblo Indian, quoted from Memories, Dreams, Reflections)

"I believe in the impossible, you know that I do."
-- Bob Dylan

"I don't believe in Buddha."
-- John Lennon (who died on December 8, 1980)

"Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible"
-- Thich Nhat Hanh (Zen Buddhist monk) from Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers

"Because suffering is impermanent, that is why we can transform it.
Because happiness is impermanent, that is why we have to nourish it."
-- Thich Nhat Hanh, 10 June 2014

Today is the 8th birthday of my blog which began in December of 2006 as "Old Girl of the North Country," a vehicle for a 40-year retrospective of my art work. From that beginning, this blog became for me a path of healing from unresolved grief dating back to the last years of the war in Vietnam.

Although I do not post as much as I did that first year or read as many blogs as I once did, blogging has continued to play a huge part in keeping my creative spirit alive. I have immense gratitude to you whose blogs I visit regularly and am grateful to you for visiting my blog.

This past year has brought one dear baby after another into my life, along with a sense of a place of peace within me no matter what happens, and much has happened this year to challenge that peace.

A few weeks ago I began helping a younger friend and her husband who are in their early 40s and have recently adopted fraternal twin infant boys who were born to a meth-addicted single mother who had no prenatal care and simply appeared at a hospital in labor and, through an adoption agency, chose my friends to parent her twin boys. What a joy it is to be able to be part of a group of their friends who are spending mornings and afternoons helping this first-time mother and father by comforting, feeding, and talking to and playing with their baby boys. We are doing our best to take the place of the grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts and uncles who do not live nearby or who are no longer living.

Today on Bodhi Day at 10:38 a.m., a sweet baby boy was born in New York City and one of my oldest friends became a grandmother for the second time and emailed the above photo.

Welcome to L.L.S in his first few hours of his life!

It is only a little planet, but how beautiful it is.
-- Robinson Jeffers

Listen to this from "The New Basement Tapes"

Wow! Rhiannon Giddens singing! Lyrics from 1967 by Bob Dylan.

Have also been listening to the "The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 11." It's a treasure.

Thanksgiving 2014 / Child with Gift and Gratitude

(a trackpad drawing from 2005 by am)

True Names and the Door of Compassion

Please Call Me by My True Names

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow – Even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving. To be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive.

I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am a child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, and plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people dying slowly in a force-labour camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh
This poem was written in 1978, during the time of helping the boat people 

(From this website)

One Breath At A Time With Thich Nhat Hanh

Our own life has to be our message -- Thich Nhat Hanh

I am thankful for Thich Nhat Hanh.