Auspicious

Pileated Woodpeckers are 14 to 16 inches long.  It is fairly unusual to see one on my porch.  On the rarest of occasions, there were three on my porch at one time.  That was years ago.  I do see them at times when I am walking in the woods.  There is something about seeing a Pileated Woodpecker that feels auspicious to me.  This might be the first time I have been able to photograph one.  They are skittish.

"Occupied by living"

A woman occupied by living.

No Time to Spare

The news of Ursula K. Le Guin's death at age 88 just came to me.   It was a few days ago that I had finished reading her book of essays, No Time to Spare, borrowed from the public library.  Each essay was taken from a blog she started a few years ago.  As always, since I was 21 years old and read A Wizard of Earthsea, she challenged me to think deeply and she brought me to tears and to joy.  What a lively free spirit, living on through her writing.

From a post I wrote in 2010 on the writing of Ursula K. Le Guin:

"We have to learn what we can but remain mindful that our knowledge does not close the circle, closing out the void, so that we forget that WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW remains boundless, without limit or bottom, and that what WE KNOW may have to share that quality of being known with what denies it.  What is seen with one eye has no depth ..."   

(Quote from Always Coming Home, by Ursula Le Guin, but the capitalization is my mother's.  She typed that out for me on a little piece of notepaper with a drawing of Rattlesnake Grass from California's North Coast and enclosed it in a letter she wrote to me during the 1980s.  I may have posted this quote before, but I feel like posting it again because I love it.  The photo was taken a few days ago from the trail just before the small bridge over Whatcom Creek at Derby Pond). 

























And this:

"They walked softly here. So will the others, the 

ones I seek.

The only way I can think to find them, the only 

archaeology that might be practical, is as follows:

You take your child or grandchild in your arms, or

borrow a young baby, not a year old yet, and go 

down into the wild oats in the field below the barn.

Stand under the oak on the last slope of the hill,

facing the creek. Stand quietly. Perhaps the baby

will see something, or hear a voice, or speak to

somebody there, somebody from home."

                  

                 Towards an Archaeology of the Future

Thank you, Ursula. 

Bellingham People's Movement Assembly 2017 and 2018

The second Bellingham People's Movement Assembly took place all day this past Sunday.  Although the transcript for the first assembly takes some time to read, it is well worth reading.  The people in the above photos are identified in that transcript.  Most all of those pictured in the transcript were present again. The first assembly was held on Inauguration Day 2017.

The second assembly followed similar guidelines and was held a year and a day after Inauguration Day 2017.  It is heartening to see that more members of the Whatcom and Skagit County communities attended this year than last year.  A delicious rice dish for lunch was donated and served by members of the Sikh community of Whatcom County.  Bellingham is in Whatcom County.  Skagit County is directly south of Whatcom County in the Northwest corner of Washington State.  Whatcom County borders British Columbia to the north.  Both counties have numerous Indian reservations of various sizes, as do many counties in Washington State.  Because a portion of both counties is comprised of farms, there are several generations of farm workers.  Most of the population is white.  My impression yesterday was that most of those who attended were white.  The ratio of attendance by ethnicity closely matched the demographics for Whatcom and Skagit Counties.

The local issues that were addressed in the first assembly were:

1.  Food Sovereignty.
2.  Sanctuary City / local citizenship and citizenship.
3.  White Supremacy and Settler Colonialism.
4.  Racial Profiling / Mass Incarceration.

This year an issue involving a 5th group of local people who have been impacted by the current presidency was included and the issues this year were identified (to my recollection) as:

1.  Food Sovereignty / Economic Solidarity.
2.  DACA.
3.  White Supremacy and Settler Colonialism.
4.  Racial Profiling.
5.  Homelessness.

Here is how counties in Washington State voted in the 2016 presidential election:

County Results Clinton   40-50%   50-60%   60-70% Trump   40-50%   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%

There is reason to believe in the power of community and dialogue in these challenging times.

Rosalinda Guillen / A Local Voice of Love in Action

"... We are not saying, like many other organizations and many other political leaders and farm worker leaders about moving farm workers out of farm work into career enhancement or success, which is only translated as out of agriculture.  What we want to do is ensure that farm workers are respected within agriculture for what we do, which is helping the industry to raise food.  We are core to the production of food.  Farm workers have keys to improvement of the food system in the United States, to protect the soil, protecting Mother Earth but also feeding people in a healthy manner.  I believe farm workers should stay in farm work, but they should be respected for it, valued for it, and paid for it.  We need better wages, better treatment, to be recognized in this country, just like farmers are recognized."

Martin Luther King Day 2018 / Strength to Love

Thanks to Beth in Atlanta for drawing my attention to Crystal Valentine's voice today:



Thanks to The Endless Further for this:



Thanks to 37Paddington for this:

Friendship / Light

From Maria Popova at Brain Pickings:

... Shortly after the American painter was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown and instructed by doctors not to paint for a year, Kahlo sent her an epitome of what Virginia Woolf so aptly called "the humane art."

...

Georgia, 

Was wonderful to hear your voice again. Every day since I called you and many times before months ago I wanted to write you a letter. I wrote you many, but every one seemed more stupid and empty and I torn them up. I can’t write in English all that I would like to tell, especially to you. I am sending this one because I promised it to you. I felt terrible when Sybil Brown told me that you were sick but I still don’t know what is the matter with you. Please Georgia dear if you can’t write, ask Stieglitz to do it for you and let me know how are you feeling will you? I’ll be in Detroit two more weeks. I would like to tell you every thing that happened to me since the last time we saw each other, but most of them are sad and you mustn’t know sad things now. After all I shouldn’t complain because I have been happy in many ways though. Diego is good to me, and you can’t imagine how happy he has been working on the frescoes here. I have been painting a little too and that helped. I thought of you a lot and never forget your wonderful hands and the color of your eyes. I will see you soon. I am sure that in New York I will be much happier. If you still in the hospital when I come back I will bring you flowers, but it is so difficult to find the ones I would like for you. I would be so happy if you could write me even two words. I like you very much Georgia.

Frieda

(Interesting that Frida handwrites her name as "Frieda.")

Children learning about songbirds and ducks / Teaching Children and Learning From Children / Goodness

                                          

“All the goodness and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut down again and rise up. It isn’t that the evil thing wins — it never will — but that it doesn’t die.” (John Steinbeck)

Facebookistan? / Icy Foggy Morning / Red Cedar in Flight, Refusing to Die / Update on Facebook issues

"There are a lot of people who don't trust Facebook but use it anyway because everybody else is on Facebook, but I think they recognize that there could be a tipping point where suddenly, you know, everybody just leaves." (At 56:21 -- Rebecca MacKinnon, a Facebook user, author of Consent of the Networked, internet activist, and co-founder of Global Voices)

My Facebook page is only deactivated, not deleted, and this video gave me much to think about in our connected world today.  So much depends on being on Facebook, often including being able to get a job. I have not yet left Facebook completely, but if there ever were to be a fee to use Facebook, I would leave.  There are other options for being in touch with those I want to be in touch with.  I am grateful for the option of blogging.  May it always be free and allow us to be as anonymous as we wish to be.

Then, of course, there is the issue of loss of net neutrality and the real possibility of less freedom on the internet and beyond.  There is also the possibility of more freedom in the realm that has nothing to do with the internet.  I'm going to focus on that possibility.

We grieved when this extraordinary Red Cedar tree, which had survived against all odds, was cut down this past summer because someone from the local parks department with power and a chainsaw determined that it was "dead."  A few days later, we noticed the two young trees that had been growing from its side for some time.  Our Red Cedar tree is not dead.

Here, in Red Cedar language, is the story of the tree that is not dead. May the two young trees that are growing from it like new wings carry on the Red Cedar tradition of storytelling far into the future.

Update.  Mark Zuckerberg accepting responsibility for problems with Facebook:

"We won't prevent all mistakes or abuse, but we currently make too many errors enforcing our policies and preventing misuse of our tools. If we're successful this year, then we'll end 2018 on a much better trajectory."

May it be so.

The Healing We Took Birth For

It has been almost two years since Stephen Levine died.  Sometime in the early 1980s, a friend told me about his book Who Dies?.  I read and re-read that book over and over again.  My copy is full of underlines and stars and my comments.  From then on, I read every book he wrote, up to Unattended Sorrow in 2005, a book that spoke to me in a deep healing way.  While meditating early yesterday morning, I remembered something Stephen Levine had said about the heart's role in meditation.  When I finished meditating, I began to search for that online and found the moving update from Ondrea Levine.  I have now ordered a copy of Stephen's last book, Becoming Kuan Yin:  The Evolution of Compassion.

Ondrea's story, The Healing I Took Birth For, which was told by Stephen Levine in a way that reflected Ondrea's dyslexia, is a book I can recommend.  It is my understanding that both Stephen and Andrea had serious health problems at the time they made the YouTube video. Ondrea's health improved.  Stephen's health didn't.

"Buddha left a road map, Jesus left a road map, Krishna left a road map, Rand McNally left a road map.  But you still have to travel the road yourself." (Stephen Levine)

New Year's Eve / Red-winged blackbirds and Starlings singing in the early morning fog / Crows cawing in the afternoon sunshine

In this world,
hate never yet dispelled hate.
Only love dispels hate.
This is the law,
ancient and inexhaustible.
(Buddha)

Mandala #28: Family Alchemy

On December 24, I completed my 28th mandala.  According to my book on Chinese calligraphy, the character at the center of my mandala signifies "family name." My family of origin has had numerous broken places in it for many generations.  Those broken places played out again in my generation and the two generations that follow mine.

My mandala is a vision of my family of origin being healed, resulting in a new family name that reflects the healing of who-knows-how-many generations of brokenness.  At this point, I cannot imagine how that would happen, but I want to see it as possible.

As of today, I deactivated my Facebook page in hopes of alleviating some of the pain that I experience in connection with my family.  I have not posted on Facebook for over a month now and have several other ways to keep in touch with friends and family I am close to, many of whom are not on Facebook.

I am grateful for the healing that I have experienced within in connection with my family of origin, much of it in connection with having a family of choice.  There is much less pain for me than there used to be.  It is a gradual process.  Facebook has not been contributing to healing in my family of origin.

May all families be healed and whole.  May all beings be healed and whole.

"... meant to be sung, not read on a page ..." / 1966 and 2017: Through me tell the story / With Addendum

(a cover from "Tempest," released on September 10, 2012, the last collection of songs written and released by Bob Dylan before receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature)

"... When Odysseus in The Odyssey visits the famed warrior Achilles in the underworld – Achilles, who traded a long life full of peace and contentment for a short one full of honor and glory –  tells Odysseus it was all a mistake. "I just died, that's all." There was no honor. No immortality. And that if he could, he would choose to go back and be a lowly slave to a tenant farmer on Earth rather than be what he is – a king in the land of the dead – that whatever his struggles of life were, they were preferable to being here in this dead place. 

That's what songs are too. Our songs are alive in the land of the living. But songs are unlike literature. They're meant to be sung, not read. The words in Shakespeare's plays were meant to be acted on the stage. Just as lyrics in songs are meant to be sung, not read on a page. And I hope some of you get the chance to listen to these lyrics the way they were intended to be heard: in concert or on record or however people are listening to songs these days. I return once again to Homer, who says, "Sing in me, oh Muse, and through me tell the story." (am's italics)

(from the concluding words of Bob Dylan's Nobel Lecture, including the first words of Homer's Odyssey)

From nearly 30 years ago:

The final words of Homer's Odyssey, with the goddess Athena calling for an end to the war:

And now would they have slain them all, and cut them off from returning, had not Athena, daughter of Zeus, who bears the aegis, [530] shouted aloud, and checked all the host, saying: “Refrain, men of Ithaca, from grievous war, that with all speed you may part, and that without bloodshed.” So spoke Athena, and pale fear seized them. Then in their terror the arms flew from their hands [535] and fell one and all to the ground, as the goddess uttered her voice, and they turned toward the city, eager to save their lives. Terribly then shouted the much-enduring, goodly Odysseus, and gathering himself together he swooped upon them like an eagle of lofty flight, and at that moment the son of Cronos cast a flaming thunderbolt, [540] and down it fell before the flashing-eyed daughter of the mighty sire. Then flashing-eyed Athena spoke to Odysseus saying: “Son of Laertes, sprung from Zeus, Odysseus of many devices, stay thy hand, and make the strife of equal war to cease, lest haply the son of Cronos be wroth with thee, even Zeus, whose voice is borne afar.” [545] So spoke Athena, and he obeyed, and was glad at heart. Then for all time to come a solemn covenant betwixt the twain was made by Pallas Athena, daughter of Zeus, who bears the aegis, in the likeness of Mentor both in form and in voice.

This post came about after I read the text of Bob Dylan's Nobel Lecture, which I read while thinking about a drawing I did in the early 1980s from a photograph taken in Vietnam of my R and sent to me by R in 1970.   The drawing was returned under mysterious circumstances a few days ago, December 14, nearly 40 years after I had given it away.  

I was not going to post anything more about my R, feeling that I had told the story too many times already.  However, when my drawing was returned a few days ago on the anniversary of the day I met R in December 1966, there is something new to tell.  Another coincidence? (I had mentioned the first words of Homer's Odyssey on Valentine's Day of this year in connection with a dream visit from R).

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." (John Muir)

  

("Self-Portrait Of An Old Friend As A Young Man," chalk pastel on paper, 18 x 24, by am -- returned to me on December 14, 2017)

Addendum:  This morning I found an extraordinary cover of a lesser known Bob Dylan song.

A song from the early 1980s by Bob Dylan sung in Italian

Included in the English lyrics is this which caught my attention today:

They say that patriotism is the last refuge
To which a scoundrel clings
Steal a little and they throw you in jail
Steal a lot and they make you king

On the top of my list of books to read / The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, by Masha Gessen

"Putin and Trump are 'a new generation of monsters' claims journalist, Masha Gessen.  In her new book, she argues the totalitarianism has gripped Russia again and discusses whether something similar could happen in the U.S." (from Channel 4 news on Facebook)

Shedding Light

Love the body of water sparkling and the birds singing as Laurie Anderson speaks to us.  Hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

And this:



Still, it is sobering that U.S. voters (given that only a portion of the population chooses to vote) are so evenly divided and polarized.  Life in the balance.  Light alternating with darkness.

Here's what Rachel Barenblat of Velveteen Rabbi wrote:

"Whatever clothing we wear, whatever persona we adopt, it's our job in this world to be human candles.  To shed light in the darkness, wherever we go."

Sweet Potatoes / Haiku / Four Generations / December 8, 2006 and Gratitude

I've been enjoying sweet potatoes on a daily basis for some years now. Currently, I cook several pounds of them for 10 hours in a slow cooker and keep them in the refrigerator until I am ready to slice and heat them in oil in a cast iron skillet.

Yesterday morning I discovered a haiku that I wrote last year on December 10:

December snow mixed with rain
Heart knows the way
One with the ocean

Today I am looking out at an ice fog.  It is 32 degrees outside.

Yesterday I discovered this, too, written by an unknown person about Monarch butterflies:

These fragile creatures make a journey of thousands of miles, but it takes four generations to complete the trip.  No single butterfly ever flies the full route, yet somehow the species continues to pass on the pattern of migration.  If butterflies can be part of a pattern that they never fully know, I think that the same may be true for us.

My blog began on December 8, 2006, with the name "Old Girl Of The North Country." December 8, 1970, had been the day the man I loved returned from Vietnam, and early that morning I had to face the reality of the devastating consequences of war.  In December 2006, a perceptive woman suggested doing something different on that date that had been a source of emotional pain for the previous 36 years, since I had been 21 years old.  I made the decision to start a blog and post a retrospective of the art work I had done since 1966.  Here is what I posted for the month of December 2006.

Blogging has been a healing experience for me for 11 years now in this community of kindred spirits.  I am grateful to everyone who blogs along with me, no matter what happens, and much has happened in these 11 years.

Thank you!

If butterflies can be part of a pattern that they never fully know, I think that the same may be true for us.

"War is never holy, just a greedy man's dream"

A friend brought this to my attention via Facebook, where there is an extraordinary video of Buffy Sainte-Marie singing 'The War Racket." There is an interview, too.

I'm recommending the biography of Buffy Sainte-Marie.

Still learning to play the autoharp

Several years ago I bought a used Oscar Schmidt autoharp (made in the 1970s) from a local music store and enjoyed trying to teach myself to play it, not realizing that it was too large for me to play effectively. Because I wasn't making much progress and felt discouraged, I stopped playing it.  A friend loaned me a smaller autoharp recently, and I have been practicing again, using the songs with chords from here (scroll down the sidebar on the left).

Song!

Thanks to Beth, one of my first blog friends (our friendship beginning around 10 years ago) for bringing Virginia Mae Schmitt to my attention this morning.  The 11th anniversary of my blog is coming up on December 8.  When I started this blog, I didn't realize how much I needed the experience of worldwide community that has unfolded over the years through blogging.  It has enriched my experience of local community.  And today it has brought a new dimension to the voice of Walt Whitman.