Monday, August 31, 2009

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

















"There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
(Zora Neale Hurston)

Saturday, August 29, 2009

LIGHT TO THE WEST

ACIDANTHERA MURIELAE SPEAKING / OBOE LISTENING / WHERE'S MY ENERGY?

















Many thanks to Nancy from Iowa, the reader of my blog who sent the bulbs that produced this beautiful flower which comes from Ethiopia and is also called an Abyssinian Gladiolus. Actually, she sent the bulbs to the art farmer and asked the art farmer to give them to me.

To get the best light for the photo, I had to move the plant from its place next to the porch railing to a spot next to one of my porch windows where the blue sky is reflected. I crouched down so that only the flower, foliage and sky are visible.


















Thanks to all who commented on my last post. That must be the record for comments on a single post of mine!

I'm still experiencing bewilderingly low energy with bouts of drowsiness that make it difficult to do all the things I need to do and would like to do, including becoming employed again. Conventional medical tests show that there is nothing obviously wrong with me, so I have turned to a naturopathic physician for help. If I didn't need to work, it would be less of a problem because I could sleep as I do now when the drowsiness overtakes me.

As long as I can remember, I have had a tendency to be drowsy part way through the day, but that seems to have been profoundly exacerbated by my use of minocycline (antibiotic) for ocular rosacea over the past two years. Although I stopped taking the minocycline in May, with a resultant rebound in energy, that energy rebound didn't last. I'm hoping that the supplements suggested by the naturopathic physician will bring me the energy I need. Naturopathic remedies take time, though. There is a process of trial and error. For example, the thyroid supplement I tried for borderline high TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone) caused anxiety as did the adrenal support supplement which contains ginseng. I have stopped taking the thyroid supplement and am re-starting the adrenal support (with ginseng), using only 1/4 of the original dosage.

What's odd is that, except for the drowsiness and recent situational (and supplemental!) anxiety, I feel better than I have in years. No more regular 3-day migraine headaches. No more colds and sinus infections. Even the rosacea, ocular and otherwise, is in remission. For the most part, I sleep well and have a good appetite, without the craving for extra food that I used to experience on a regular basis.

I can easily take nearly daily vigorous 1-1/2 hour walks from my home to the woods and back, but struggle to stay awake when I try to do the studying I need to do in order to become employed again!

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

AS I WAS WAKING UP THIS MORNING






















As I was waking up this morning, my first thoughts were anxious ones. Immediately I began to try to figure things out. Suddenly I remembered the words I heard from Jack Fate/Bob Dylan at the end of the film titled "Masked and Anonymous":

"I stopped trying to figure everything out a long time ago."

and I felt my anxiety slip away.

Listen.

I know that Bob Dylan's words and music don't have this effect on everyone, but they worked for me this morning.

"Understanding is the ultimate seduction of the mind. Go to the truth beyond the mind. Love is the bridge."
(Stephen Levine).

That's Oboe looking through the Poor Man's Orchids at me with my camera. She is curious, but she doesn't try to figure everything out (-:

Can you see the sunflower? A friend who sells and delivers fresh vegetables from her garden brought it this morning.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Thursday, August 13, 2009

"SOMETHING GOOD THIS WAY COMES"



Grasshopper jump in the road
Grasshopper jump in the road
Kids they're all running home
The kids
They're all running home

'Cause they know
Something good this way comes
Yeah
Something good this way comes

(from "Something Good This Way Comes," by Jacob Dylan)

The interview is from 2008.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

SUMMER SUN/ SUMMER RAIN


















To be with Tao is harmony.
To separate from Tao is disaster.
To act with Tao, observe and follow.
To know Tao, be still and look within.

(Deng Ming-Dao)

Update:
Listen.

Monday, August 10, 2009

FROM THE BEACH AT GUALALA POINT






















Yesterday I spoke with an old friend who has been finding Chumash markings on loose rocks and stones a few miles from the coast in Central California, and I was reminded of something I found in the early 1980's at the mouth of the Gualala River in Mendocino County in Northern California on what was once Pomo land. I am convinced that it is a tool with deliberate markings on it, but when I showed it to some professors and students at the local university they said they didn't think so. Here is a map showing the lands of the people who were the original residents of California.

Here are more views:






















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I can't imagine that I am the first person in the history of the world to have held this beautiful wedge-shaped tool.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

AUGUST 6 AND AUGUST 9, 1945


















"The Family," from The Hiroshima Series by Jacob Lawrence

“I would describe my work as expressionist. The expressionist point of view is stressing your own feelings about something."

-- Jacob Lawrence

Saturday, August 8, 2009

SHELTER

















Earlier this summer, I noticed a small shelter at the side of the trail through Northridge Woods. It's much like the shelters constructed with driftwood that we used to see on the ocean beaches in Northern California. A person could sleep there during the summer.

One has to duck down to enter from the trail side, which is visible above. The forest side has a larger opening. The shelter appears to have been there for a long time although the trail through the woods was created only in the last few years.

Friday, August 7, 2009

THE BLOWIN' IN THE WIND KOAN / EARLY RISIN'

















Listen to Koan

and:



And two excellent sources of information about China:

Stephen MacKinnon and his daughter, Rebecca MacKinnon.

If you have the time, listen to a discussion about the Internet and China.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

A KINGDOM OF KOANS

















Translated from my dream:

And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of koans, and an holy nation.
(Exodus 19:6)

Listen to Steller's Jays' songs and calls.



Update:

If you have time, listen to Bob.

Monday, August 3, 2009

WHAT A WAVE MUST BE

















“I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be.”

-- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Sunday, August 2, 2009

VOICE THAT FINDS ITS WAY


















FOR MY YOUNG FRIENDS WHO ARE AFRAID
There is a country to cross you will
find in the corner of your eye, in
the quick slip of your foot - air far
down, a snap that might have caught.
And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing
voice that finds its way by being
afraid. That country is there, for us,
carried as it is crossed. What you fear
will not go away: it will take you into
yourself and bless you and keep you.
That's the world, and we all live there.
- William Stafford

Many thanks to Whiskey River for this poem.

("Self-Portrait with Imaginary Brothers" painted by am in gouache and watercolor just before the First Gulf War)

Saturday, August 1, 2009

WALKING AGAIN

Part-way-to-the-woods view at 9 a.m.:






















Entering the woods:

















Listen.