Sunday, January 29, 2017

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Early Morning Light




















We are so lightly here. 
It is in love that we are made. 
In love we disappear.
Leonard Cohen, Boogie Street

Thanks to Beth for the quote.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Absolutely on Music



Thank you to Lori for the inspiration.

I'm in the process of reading Absolutely on Music and have found myself inspired to retrieve my Suzuki keyboard from my bedroom closet and pick up where I left off in teaching myself to play the piano nearly 20 years ago.


Sunday, January 15, 2017

Papoose / Martin Luther King's Birthday 2017 / Alberta Williams King / Dream Variations / Women's March 2017















Around 4 a.m., I awoke, and the word "papoose" came to me, along with a surprising sensation of being loved, cared for, and protected, no matter what danger threatens.  I went back to sleep.  When I woke up again, I realized that today is the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Just now I found this:

"Also, little known is that in the 1963 March on Washington there was a sizable Native American contingent, including many from South Dakota. Moreover, the civil rights movement inspired the Native American rights movement of the 1960s and many of its leaders. In fact, the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) was patterned after the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund."

and this where Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote about his mother, Alberta Williams King.

"My mother confronted the age-old problem of the Negro parent in America: how to explain discrimination and segregation to a small child. She taught me that I should feel a sense of "somebodiness" but that on the other hand I had to go out and face a system that stared me in the face every day saying you are "less than," you are "not equal to." She told me about slavery and how it ended with the Civil War. She tried to explain the divided system of the South—the segregated schools, restaurants, theaters, housing; the white and colored signs on drinking fountains, waiting rooms, lavatories—as a social condition rather than a natural order. She made it clear that she opposed this system and that I must never allow it to make me feel inferior. Then she said the words that almost every Negro hears before he can yet understand the injustice that makes them necessary: "You are as good as anyone." At this time Mother had no idea that the little boy in her arms would years later be involved in a struggle against the system she was speaking of."
"Nothing lights a fire like a dream deferred."
Papoose.  A child.  Something lovingly made, in which a child is kept safe.  All children.  All people.  Loved, cared for, and protected.  We carry the dream as if it were a beloved child. 


Friday, January 13, 2017

Self-Portrait with "you" / the mystery of encounter and relationship







































A few days ago, I started re-reading a book written by a Zen teacher with Jewish roots.  He had visited a Trappist Monastery and was startled by the anger and violence that appeared along with joy and wonder in the Psalms that were sung on a daily basis.  He talked with the monks about the anger and violence and listened to their perspective that human emotions find healing through expression.  He decided to investigate the Psalms for himself (just as Joni Mitchell investigated for herself the story of Job and that particular definition of "God").

Throughout these translations that came of his investigation, Norman Fischer replaces the word "God" with the word "you."  His perspective is that of a Zen teacher encountering life and death in all its fullness and mystery and sorrow and joy and intimacy.  

Here is what he says about the "you" that he addresses in his own poetry and (I am extrapolating) in his translation of the Psalms:

"The person to whom my poems actually seemed to be addressed was someone much more silent and much more profoundly receptive than any human being could possibly be.  This person wasn't a person at all. It was nobody, nothing, and it wasn't anywhere or at any time.  It was even beyond meaning.  So poetry is important to me not because it gives me a chance to express myself, or to communicate, but because it is an encounter with that which is both so close to me that I can't see it and so far away I can never reach it.  Poetry evokes the unknowable."

(the italics are mine -- am)


Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Saturday, January 7, 2017

We have this momentum



We have this momentum.  Nothing can stop us.

Wish I had more time for blogging.  My free time is very limited these days.  

Grateful to be self-employed and coming close to being able to pay my bills after 1-1/2 years doing medical transcription editing.  Once I reach the goal of basic survival, my next goal is to be able to put money in savings.

 

Monday, January 2, 2017

Finally arrived at going forward without regret



Looked for a version of this sung by a woman.

That YouTube version by this man is just what I needed to hear this morning.  Making my way out of the darkly seductive and destructive times in my past and present that this song evokes.

How long can we search for what is not lost?

"How long, babe, can you search for what is not lost?..... Everybody will help you.  Some people are very kind ... Everybody will help you discover what you set out to find ..." (Bob Dylan)

The sun is rising over the foothills this very moment.  My life feels right this morning.  No regrets.  Nothing lost.

Where the Yin Yang symbol came from: 

"When observing the cycle of the Sun, ancient Chinese simply used a pole about 8 feet long, posted at right angles to the ground and recorded positions of the shadow. Then they found the length of a year is around 365.25 days. They even divided the year's cycle into 24 Segments, including the Vernal Equinox, Autumnal Equinox, Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice, using the sunrise and Dipper positions.
They used six concentric circles, marked the 24-Segment points, divided the circles into 24 sectors and recorded the length of shadow every day. The shortest shadow is found on the day of Summer Solstice. The longest shadow is found on the day of Winter Solstice. After connecting each lines and dimming Yin Part from Summer Solstice to Winter Solstice, the Sun chart looks like below. The ecliptic angle 23 26' 19'' of the Earth can be seen in this chart." (from sacredlotusdotcom)