Rocks, with Ms. Goldeneye

Please click on image for a larger, unpixelated view.

Update: Sorry, apparently clicking takes you nowhere. More blogger woes.



"Rocks, with Ms. Goldeneye"

This photo is for the JorgDotOrg PhotoHunt: A Mineral (with an animal for an extra point).

I went to the Potter Park Zoo in Lansing for the first time last evening since my kids were little. The mountain goats were very cautious about me, but they posed nicely.

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The ledges

Note: I have had reports that the first 3 photos have not loaded for some readers. I don't know the reasons for this, but if the problem persists after my next post, I'll contact Blogger.

Click on image for a larger view.



I drove 30 minutes after work yesterday, the opposite direction from home, back to my childhood home town, Grand Ledge.


I grew up in this little town of 7,000 people, where the sandstone ledges line the Grand River just two blocks from the house where I lived.



As a girl I could walk down the street any time I wanted (usually with a sibling) and stroll the 1.5 mile river path. I loved it.




The quiet is almost eery, and yesterday I felt the old subtle trepidation that something (or someone) was peeping out at me from one of the caves. Or like Frodo, Merry, Pippin and Sam, I could hide under this tree ledge (above) and be protected from something evil.



Climbers "top rope" climb these ledges. No rapelling or lead climbing allowed.

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War is a mind-set

Just read about another bomb in Antalya, Turkey. So I'm going to share what I read this morning:

"In certain cases, you may need to protect yourself or someone else from being harmed by another, but beware of making it your mission to 'eradicate evil,' as you are likely to turn into the very thing you are fighting against. Fighting unconsciousness will draw you into unconcsciousness yourself. Unconsciousness, dysfuntional egoic behavior, can never be defeated by attacking it. Even if you defeat your opponent, the unconsciousness will simply have moved into you, or the opponent reappears in a new disquise. Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists." [my bold]

- Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, page 74-75, Penguin Books, 2005

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Pears in the rain

If photos appear pixelated, simply click on image for a better view.

(I'm experimenting with photo size. I'm happy to have the larger format. But I'm unhappy with the pixelation. Hmm, back to the drawing board. Update: After some feedback and more experimenting, it doesn't seem to matter with what tool I load the photos, on some people's computers the photos are pixelated; on some they are not.

Don canned spiced pears from those that had fallen to the ground. Cinnamon stick, cloves and ginger (and a little cognac to make them more interesting).

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Dean Johnson's farm

If you don't have animals on your little 5 acre farm (except for our elegant barn cat Bishop, above), then you have to visit your neighbors' animals if you want to rub shoulders with kashmir goats, Texas longhorns and a llama.



This mama, below, wouldn't leave me. I thought I was going to hurt myself on the electric fence.



The photo scavenger hunt blog I used to post on went defunct, and now is back, and the theme this week is "an animal." So I have to get busy. Unlike my blog friend Rauf who must have thousands of exotic animal photos, I'm challenged in this department. Plus, we're supposed to take the pics the week of the hunt, and not cheat using old photos.

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New Paris post

There is a new post on my Paris Deconstructed blog. Check out a church you probably never heard of.

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Happy me, to birthday . . .

No, it’s not a typo (it’s not supposed to read “Happy birthday to me”). It’s sort of like an Emily Dickinson line with a strange verb: to birthday.

It’s just my way of saying that on this, my 50th birthday, I have as much happiness as anyone can stand, and “to birthday” in this life is a gift I deeply appreciate.

• I am happy to be half a century old and be healthy and of sound mind (mostly).
• I am happy to have a smart, handsome, handy, faithful, funny, healthy husband of 28 years who treats me like a (Leo) queen.
• I am happy to be mother of a woman and a man who make me proudest for who they are, not what they have accomplished (which is a lot).
• I am happy to be part of an extended family that is incredibly loving and supportive, and crazy when necessary.
• I am happy to have friends who love me very well. Yes you. (Family included.)
• I am happy to live on a splendid little farm with animals, birds, trees, stones, buildings, paths, chairs and a nature spirit that has bid me welcome from the moment we first met.
• I am happy to work at a job I love (mostly).
• I am deeply, intensely happy, even without all these things, at least I believe that I am. If I was like Job, and all this was taken from me, would I still be full of joy?
• I am happy to be connected to Life.

I could make a list of 50,000 things I am happy for. The point is, I share my happiness with you today. Happy (my) birthday – to YOU! AND, thank you for the gift of you.

(Can you guess why I chose the photo, above? Hint: there is more than one reason. First, do you know what it is?)

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Friday night concert

Our son Peter, a recent graduate of MSU in psychology, is in an alternative pop/blues/rock band with a bit of country mixed in (more lately than before). Pete is 23 and has been playing guitar since he was 12. I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I said he's played the guitar every day for 11 years. And man, has his practice paid off.

Pete's influences are Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix and John Mayer. (He might add more.) I also would not be exaggerating to say that Peter's the best guitarist I've ever heard. Thankfully, he teaches guitar, and are his students fortunate!



Brian, the singer in the band, has a unique, gorgeous voice, and last night in downtown East Lansing in their Friday night concert series they rocked and rocked for an hour and a half. Mark at drums and Mike on bass are gifted as well, and combined, they have a smooth, tight, sweet sound. Give them a listen at their myspace site.


Pete, Brian and Mark (Mike isn't in the shot -- sorry, Mike!)

I'll post about Peter in another month when they play a concert in the park in Plymouth, MI. They have one CD (you can order it from their web site) and another coming out in the next couple of months. Peter's my favorite musician. Can you blame me? He's good, he's cute, he's smart and he calls his mother "bo."

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Going direct

Warning: I'm going to rant philosophically.

Osho said “the sunrise is not a word.” In other words, the word is not the thing itself. When we know the name of something, do we then know anything about it?

What is the moon in this photo? Its light is not the moon, is it? The light is reflected from the sun.

Have you ever looked at an apple (or anything) for 15 minutes straight? Without judgment or description, like “Oh, that’s a beautiful apple, so shiny and a great shade of red, and I'm sure it will be crispy and delicious”? Just look at it and see it for what it is?

To come directly into contact with what is – what does that mean?

How can an old chair worth just a few dollars in Arles, France, be transformed into a chair worth millions of dollars when painted by Van Gogh? (idea from Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth) What is the chair’s essence? What is there beyond the chair that gives it meaning? Or maybe, within the chair?

What do I take time to meditate upon and contemplate, for greater understanding? Anything?

I find these questions compelling, because I am overwhelmed by the barrage of information I encounter every day. There is so much I want to give my attention to, but haven’t the time. I don’t really know anything that I do not know directly.

Knowing something or someone, without separation, is that possible?


Van Gogh's "Chair with Pipe"

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What do you do with rudeness?

my painting, a "copy" of Paul Klee's Senecio

Yesterday a man called my office. I’d say he was in his 20s and is brother to an incoming freshman woman who will attend MSU this fall. Her academic orientation is next week, when she will enroll for classes (that begin in 2 weeks).

He was angry and rude. For fifteen minutes he ranted about how late his sister’s orientation is and how all the classes will be filled. I reassured him that we have been doing this for years, that we reserve seats for students such as his sister, etc., but he kept on ranting and spewing his diatribe that we would “screw up” his sister’s first year in college. Nothing I said could appease him. He had no respect for me as a person or a professional. At the end of the call, I fed back to him my concern that he is undermining his sister’s chances for trusting her adviser. He denied this.

For the rest of the day, I stewed about it. It was painful to think about, but I kept it there, ready to share it with our department secretary or my husband.

This morning, in meditation, I tried letting it go. I have a helpful meditation taught me by a friend where I visualize my green heart chakra creating an opening from my head down through my toes for the Divine Intelligence Formerly Known as God (Rob Brezsny’s title) to flow like a river. Then I place all my worries or uglies in the river, letting them flow to the earth. Then the earth transforms them, filters them, and sends back energy into my 7 chakras, and I do a balancing meditation.

But it wouldn’t work this morning. I didn’t want to let that man’s rude behavior go.

So I followed Krishnamurti’s advice and acknowledged that I AM the emotion I was feeling. What was it? What was I feeling?

“He can’t do that to me! He can’t talk to me like that!”

As soon as I said those words in my head, recognized them, I realized:

He CAN do that. He gets to do what he wants. He is free.

And “whooooosh” it slipped away.

By resisting the man’s behavior, I kept it inside ME. Is there any possible way that could be good?

A smart person said, “when someone throws you a ball, you don’t have to catch it.”

It’s my response that matters. I don’t have to receive it. I don’t have to “accept” it in the sense of approval. I CAN let it go right through me, without “catching” it, without letting his mean spirit stay in me.

Freedom.


Amedeo M0digliani's Jeanne Hébuterne with Yellow Sweater, 1918–1919 (in the Guggenheim)

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Farm Day

Click on photos for larger views (especially if you want to see just how blue these eyes are)

my "great" great-niece Lydia decorating a stepping stone

Hezbollah and Israel and the UN were coming to a ceasefire agreement. But we weren't paying any attention.

It was a perfect day, and more than 30 of us (my side of the family) were on the farm, loving each other, playing, making stepping stones, painting birdhouses, playing badmitten, volleyball, ping pong, croquet and foursquare. We were eating, singing, sitting on hay bales around the bonfire, playing a drum or a guitar. We were talking about our lives and watching little ones pick queen anne's lace, clover and timothy grass. We were riding Don's tractor. We were riding Lesley's bike "Betty."

We were sitting in the "atelier" feeling the residual life started by chickens 100 years ago.

We laughed until we cried. We cried until we laughed. We hugged and hugged.

Some of us slept and woke up and did it all over again.


Lydia (in Don's t-shirt) painting a birdhouse

Some of us took pictures. I only took a few, and the only ones I'm happy with are these two of Lydia, my nephew Paul's daughter. Forgive me, the rest of you, for not posting your photos here, but they are not worthy of you. Ginnie, maybe you will have a post of Farm Day soon. The rest of you, please visit there for an upcoming post of our wonderful day/s. (Ginnie, my sister, is our unofficial official family photographer. And she is SO good!)

There's a new post at Paris Deconstructed.

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Fleur de lis

Another symbol: fleur de lis.

To some, it represents the beauties of France, and even New Orleans!

To some, it represents the Royalists at the time of the French Revolution. Yikes!

These are in Dublin. Go figure.

Click on the post title for wiki's rundown.

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Eagle: courage or aggression?

Lately I’ve felt uncomfortable with two symbols of our country: the eagle and the flag. The flag has come to represent patriotism, which often seems, from my perspective, to be blind patriotism.

The bald eagle, America’s national bird and symbol, has come to represent aggression. I see it there on the dollar bill or monuments and cringe at the truth behind it: the strength, grace and courage, yes, but also the arrows in that one talon. Even Benjamin Franklin was not in favor of the bald eagle as national bird (he favored the wild turkey) because of its not-so-gallant ways (lazy, takes prey from other birds who’ve done the work, cowardly, in his opinion). (photo found at http://www.military-graphics.com/)


image found at http://watch.pair.com/eagle.jpg

I was stunned in my wanderings around St. Patrick’s cathedral in Dublin, to come upon the eagle lectern, pictured below. What? A bird of prey as the support for the words of God? We were told the eagle was chosen as a symbol for the gospel being taken forth boldly to the world. Isn’t this the wrong message? Maybe in hindsight it works as we look back at history, but what happened to the dove as an intentional symbol of the Church's message?


image found at www.stpatricks-cathedral.org/south.htm


image found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluetit/83588404/in/set-276807/

But then I remembered eagle feathers being associated with healing in Native American tribes. In fact, eagles symbolize many different things, according to www.eagles.org.

Here is a list of characteristics www.eagles.org says are associated with the eagle:

• bravery/courage
• messenger of gods and goddesses
• strength
• life-threatening effects of environmental pollution, habitat loss, wildlife persecution, and man's clash with nature
• closest animal to the Creator
• highest pursuits
• power
• eagle medicine: power of the Spirit
• high ideals

Just shows the complexity of language and cultural symbols. How do you view the eagle, symbolically or otherwise?

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Wild blackberries

On the northwest edge of our little farm wild blackberries grow like crazy. More than we can eat and preserve, although Don keeps pushing us to give it a good farm try. This Saturday is "Farm Day," a reunion for my side of the family, so we're determined to harvest as many of these jewels as we can for topping ice cream.

I am daunted by them, I admit. Their thorny, arching canes love to grab skin and clothes. And, poison ivy often grows nearby.

But then, when you see that black fruit dangling, almost hidden by tangled grassy cover, something else grabs hold. You develop an expert delicate touch with fingertips tugging ripe berries off the stem. (Blackberries differ from raspberries in that the "receptacle" stays intact; raspberries are hollow, leaving the receptacle on the stem. Also, some blackberries are twice as big as raspberries.) It's tricky to pick them without being stuck with an invisible thorn from the stem. The challenge is intoxicating because the rewards are so delicious.



White flowers first turn into green berries, then red, then almost black (very dark purple actually), which are ripe for picking. Some of these red ones will be ripe by tomorrow. See the berry, below, that is half red, half purple?




The Web site embedded in the post title tells of an English folktale I've never heard (and being just returned from Ireland, I'm intrigued by folktales). It tells of the day the devil fell from heaven, October 11, into a thorny blackberry bush. He avenges the day every year by spitting on (or peeing on, depending on the version) the blackberry bushes, making the berries inedible from that day on. No worries, for our blackberries are long gone by October 11.

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Feverish city

poor, sick daughter with a fever

We knew it would be hot. We didn't know it would be hot enough to hit record highs in New York City: 41 celsius/105 Fahrenheit the morning we arrived, Wednesday. With the heat index it felt as high as 119 in some parts of the City.

Lesley was feeling sick that day, her first day off since moving to NYC in June (she works at a coffee shop in addition to her design internship). Maybe slowing down let the bug catch up? We took her to the doctor Friday, and she had strep. :( When we left this morning she was already recovering with the help of the Z antibiotic she got.

As sorry as we were to see her sick, we didn't mind not venturing out into the City on such blasted days as Wednesday and Thursday were. We just went far enough to buy food, the concrete radiating heat up into our faces as we snuck out to the vegetable and meat markets. (I found out you don't pay the man who cuts the meat. He gives you a slip, and while he cuts, you take the slip to the man behind the window and pay him, he stamps the slip, and you go back to the cutting man with your stamped slip to get your cut-up chicken.)



With a little TheraFlu in her, we enjoyed sitting in Lesley's cool air conditioned apartment catching up on each others' lives, watching movies ("Munich", "Something New," and "Delicatessen"), and cooking and eating.

We loved seeing the Astoria, Queens neighborhood where Lesley and her roommate Julie live. Above is a lady in Lesley's building making sure the cannas, begonias and hydrangeas wouldn't suffer.

Here's a view of the apartment building across the street from Lesley. Silly me, I didn't take a pic of Lesley's building, which is just as pretty! Friday night we sat on Lesley's balcony -- it was finally cool enough -- and watched the world go by.

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New York Region Braces for Triple-Digit Temperatures

Yay, for us, we are heading to NYC tomorrow until Saturday to be with our daughter, Lesley! This photo is Lesley on a loom weaving a gorgeous fabric at art school where she just graduated. Now we get to see her in her new environment.

Too bad for us the heat shows no sign of letting up, here or in NYC. The headline on the NYTimes reads like the title of this post. Here's the article. Mayor Bloomberg has removed fees for state beaches and city pools so folks can cool down. All over the Midwest and East coast there are cooling centers for the elderly and anyone who needs to keep cool. We need to conserve energy to prevent power outages.

I doubt there will be time for a blog post from NYC, and anyway, I'll save a little bit of energy by not turning on a computer. :

I'll talk with you when we're back. Love you all!

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