"When you hit a plateau you have to be willing to get a little bit worse before you get massively better." ~ Tony Robbins

Dedicated to those who once knew me and now just look through me...

"You don't stand a chance against my prayers...
You don't stand a chance against my Love..."

A Good Day

To step outside of the uterine walls
To stumble and fall
To jump without a 'chute and fly without a net
To risk it all on a long shot
To be your own light while you ride a dark horse
And hunger for more after the last course
To look for love in an unlikely place
To see yourself in every face.

(c) 2010

Awakened by a Dream

You have awakened in me a dream
that is so precious, so rare, so beautiful
The Life that you described to me
The Love that you express for me
The Passion that you arouse in me
And the Peace that we have found (in) each other
Has culminated into a fierce realisation that we were born to be together
I have found you and you recognized me
And we are One until the final sustained chord of God's unknowable Purpose.


(c) 2004

I write like
Raymond Chandler

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Jack Kerouac's Cat

Up all night man
Firing off brain cells
Like they're in a shooting gallery
Shooting stars
Off the paper

Sometimes,
I think, if only,
I had Jack Kerouac's cat
Curled around my feet
And his hat
cocked low over my brow
I too could write
Angel-headed love poems
To the stars

But my feet are cold and dusty
And I only have words
They fall like stars
from lotus footed cat paws.

(c) 2010

Dreams I

Dreams II

Personal Statement

During this transitional phase of my life I have been working on a personal statement. Something to use in my daily practice to help remind me who I am.

It is a work in progress, much like myself.



With fearless optimism I trust the process I am going through.
I believe in the inherent goodness of the Universe.
I am accountable to my highest power first.
I am honest, honorable and act with integrity.
I have faith in myself and trust my inner wisdom.
Patience is my spiritual practice and my authentic self is the creative expression of my divine purpose.


I endeavour to improve myself everyday without seeking the approval of others and I am constantly evolving.
I create a loving and thriving environment for myself and for those around me.
I cultivate a generous spirit. I am compassion, understanding and empathy.
I protect myself from others' negative energy and return it with love and forgiveness.
I live my truth to the best of my ability.

Happy Mother's Day

Let's hear it for sexy librarians...

Happy birthday to Alice Bertha Kroeger (May 2,1864 – 1909) librarian; born in St. Louis, Mo. A protégée of Melvil Dewey. She taught librarianship at Drexel Institute (Philadelphia) and became the first director of Drexel's Library School (1892–1909). Her Guide to the Standard Usage of Reference Books was a widely used text. The Guide began as a labor of love of Alice. Her legacy is the Guide to Reference, published in 2008 as the online successor to Guide to Reference Books, is a selective guide to the best print and online reference sources. An editorial team of reference librarians and subject experts have selected and annotated some 16,000 entries, which are organized by subject. It is a subscription database, published by the American Library Association, and is updated on an ongoing basis. It is intended as a resource for libraries when answering reference questions, planning library instruction, identifying items to purchase, and training staff. The print edition was published regularly since 1902 by the American Library Association, and had been a staple of academic reference libraries throughout the United States. She was an active suffragist.

Happy Birthday Rod McKuen

EXCELSIOR by Rod McKuen

I celebrate your eyes
because they looked at me
without restraint
and no shame.

I celebrate your breasts
in the darkest night
I could find them blind
and feeble.

I celebrate your tears
even if they cry for something
that I’ve done.

I celebrate you
playing shuffleboard
or tennis
or playing with my balls
while I sleep.

I celebrate
all the night sounds
that you make
but won’t admit to
your conversations with yourself
in sleep.

Most of all
I celebrate the god
that gave me you
and asked for nothing
in return.
He’ll get a better man
one with more compassion
because he let me
stumble onto you.

-from "Celebrations of the Heart," 1975

What if you woke up tomorrow and your life had completely changed, would you keep to your routine? Would you have the temerity to keep your head and heart intact?

What if you woke up tomorrow and your life was just the same, would you have the courage to change yourself?

Wilma Mankiller's Spirit Takes Flight

From the Facebook page of Joy Harjo: "Beloved Wilma Mankiller has left us for the next part of the journey. No words. Only a song for her safe journey. And a song so that we make it through our grief."

Wilma Pearl Mankiller (November 18, 1945 - April 6, 2010) has died of pancreatic cancer. She was the first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation. She served as the Principal Chief for ten years from 1985 to 1995.



Official Site

Cherokee Phoenix

Blue Moon Wolf

Here is a short (approximately five hundred words) piece that I recently submitted to a writing contest.


In a time, not too long ago, a wolf became the intense but secret attraction of a beautiful young maiden. Everyday the maiden would wait while remaining completely still and quiet just hoping to catch a glimpse of the magnificent animal. Occasionally, she would steal a glance of the wolf and then her heart would become hot as the sun and beat hard in her chest like a drum. Eventually, her love for the wolf overcame her fear and she dared to speak to the wolf.

“I have watched you and I believe you are kind. Won’t you let me run with you a while and learn your ways?” she asked the wolf.

But the wolf was a Lone Wolf and he had no need for this woman and would not encourage her. Still, he was a kind beast and seeing the sincerity of her appeal he would not deny her request. And so, without a reply, the wolf pranced away, turning back only once to see if she was following his trail. And she immediately picked up the chase.

The wolf went about his wolf business, hunting, running, drinking and howling at the moon. And the woman would hunt when the wolf hunted, and she would rest when the wolf rested, when the wolf drank she too would drink from the same water’s edge. And when the moon was full she would join her own voice with the howls of the wolf as they sang stories and blessings upon the pearlescent lunar orb.

After the coming and going of many moons, through many seasons, the woman became like the wolf in every way, until her spirit and the wolf’s spirit were one.

Then one day, as they drank together from the same clear, cool pond the woman caught a glimpse of her reflection in the water. But she no longer recognized herself. In fact, she no longer saw the reflection of a beautiful young woman but that of She-Wolf.
She then became so confused that the She-Wolf nearly went mad in searching for her lost Self. And the wolf no longer recognized her and he began to distort his tracks so that she could no longer follow him. The wolf became the Lone Wolf once again.

Eventually, the woman regained much of her own unique spirit back from the wolf. She no longer ran and hunted with the wolf, though sometimes she would still howl at the full moon. She was once again a beautiful woman but she would never be the same as she was before she became one with the wolf. In the giving-away of her self to the wolf she could never again keep a part of herself separate from the wolf. For the wolf and the woman had shared an existence once and the spirit of love transformed them. Upon the realization of this spiritual love between her and the wolf, she gained an all-knowing power and joined the other Sky Cloud beings of beneficence and enlightenment for All.

It is Maundy Thursday so I thought I'd post my favourite image of the Last Supper by Salvador Dali. I like the surrealistic nature of the interpretation more than the blond Jesus. To me, the imagery is meditative and full of Spirit.

I remember the first time I saw this painting on a school field trip to the Washington DC National Gallery. It moved me as a child then and I bought the postcard as a souvenir. To my mind's eye it was such a stark contrast to the more wildly popular daVinci Last Supper. Here the disciples are all interiorized in prayer as opposed to the other where they all seem to be despairing or clamouring for Jesus' attention when he tells them "One of you will betray me".

Patience

I've had some scanner issues so I haven't been able to upload the SoulCollage® I've been working on recently. Here's one though with a message of Patience.

More to come...



Background is called Ta Prohm or "Ancestor Brahma" was erected in 1186 by Jayavarman VII solely to house a statue of his mother. It was abandoned and overtaken by the Cambodian jungle.

Robert Frost - Wind and Window Flower

LOVERS, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the cagèd yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,

He marked her through the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by,
To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,
Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could know.

But he sighed upon the sill,
He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
Who lay that night awake.

Perchance he half prevailed
To win her for the flight
From the firelit looking-glass
And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away.

Happy Birthday Robert Frost

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

~William Wordsworth

Transformative March winds blow through me and the trees

chasing the most timid and reluctant autumn leaves from their winter hold and

display fiery colour as yet hidden from view.

And I sense a change come over me.

I observe.

I feel the fecund earth move underneath my footsteps.

I breath.

There is a path before me and a path that went before

I am anchored only to my center.

(c) 2010

Artwork: Boreas, 1902, from John William Waterhouse

R.I.P. ~ Mark Linkous

I am devastated to learn of the passing of Mark Linkous today. Mark is nothing less than a musical genius whom I had the pleasure to meet in SF after a Sparklehorse show in 2007. And although I could never connect the pieces to confirm our blood relationship we are both nevertheless a part of the Linkous family and, more importantly, a part of this vast cosmology of which he sang so beautifully and painfully. A gentle soul has moved on from this world...Rest in Peace.

George Harrison ~ Pisces Fish



George Harrison ~ Fish on the Sand

A timely reminder...

Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?
~ Matthew 6:26

We all get tired of trying to start again, to rekindle the light in our lives one more time.

Fortitude is a supernatural virtue and is essential to tend to all the good in our lives.

When life delivers you a hard lesson, don't give up. Trust in life, knowing that you are doing the best you can. Despite all the sadness and adversity in this world, Life is always worth Living.

©2009 Humanity Healing. Partial Rights Reserved.

~Maha Shivaratri~

Shiva’s Prowess ~ Maurya Simon

There are ecstatic rituals every do-good deity knows;
there are myriad ways to flout, grin, and pose,

so that even virgins undulate like struck water -
but no one, states the Puranas, will ever master

a fraction of the multi-million postures Shiva savors.
His sacred prowess is cause for my wonder -

coming from a god who smells like burnt grass,
who wears two cobras coiled around his biceps -

what strange fires must smolder beneath his skin,
and what an appetite to quench, when he is smitten;

for he’s a being whose gaze unleashes rivers, an ocean
of desire, a lover whose smile’s a danger zone,

whose touch awakens sunken leviathans to rise
up like fountains from their former lives.

Eight million ways to move, make love, to take
a woman out of her body and soul, and bring her back -

postures whirling like tornados, brief as eclipses,
ceremonial as a rain dance; movements slick

as oiled arias, kisses inspiring drugged trances;
his tongue a glistening shrine, his teeth avalanches,

his mouth hewn from the deepest hole in space,
his breath a meadow of mint, a web of spindrift,

his wide neck taut with cords of rolling muscles,
his chest an orchestra, his heart a ship’s hull,

his arms huge sea nets, opposing shores,
his belly an island forested in ripe mangoes,

his penis a gourd into which the universe flows,
and his entry like the moment of death -

§





art work Yogi Shiva by Samundra Man Singh

Is Toyota the new Pinto?

As a (happy) Toyota owner I feel the urge to chime in on the recent spate of news involving the Toyota recalls. I have owned three Toyota Corollas in my life. My very first car was a little red used one which I bought in 1981 for $1000. My next used Corolla was blue and bought from the original owner with insurance proceeds from a demolished Hyundai. And my current one which I bought new in 2006. Luckily, it is not one of the many models involved in the current recall. Even more lucky, is the fact that I have not had one problem with my '06 Corolla.

Well, actually, a funny thing happened the first day we got it home. And it actually involved a faulty floor mat, but it was completely my fault. Every Toyota I have ever driven has been a manual transmission which requires the pressing down of the clutch before the ignition will engage. After getting the car home I installed my old floor mats and without realising the minuscule depth of clutch pressure prohibited by the floor mat I was unable to get the car started. After several calls to the dealer, the salesman actually came to my house and disconnected the security system and took the car back to the dealer only to have the more astute repair man discover that it was the floor mat all along. Oops. Today it is nearly four years old and has barely 22K miles, and I am hoping to drive it for another ten or fifteen years (*knocks on wood*).

I have complete sympathy for those folks who do own models in the recall. I can't imagine feeling afraid every time you must drive to work or have to strap a young child in one. I can't imagine having to struggle to make that monthly payment to Toyota Financial Services while wondering if you're paying off a death-trap. It's got to be scary and frustrating. I believe Toyota Corp.'s initial anemic response has added greatly to the frustrations of its customers. And that is unfortunate.

I used to be much more brand loyal. Toyota; Levi's; Doc Martens; But ultimately it is the quality represented by the brand not the name itself. I think Toyota may have got a little too big too fast but I do not think they deserve the entirety of blame. Part of their rapid success was built upon the sale of the hybrid Prius® which was fueled by the public demand for more energy efficient vehicles. A demand that American automakers are only beginning to respond to. Honda and Toyota have been the front runners in this movement toward fuel-efficient vehicles for many years already.

Ford survived the Pinto. Chevrolet survived the Corvair. If Toyota is to survive the current recall it will be born of superior customer service and return to a quality product that people will trust in again. I think the trust and brand loyalty runs deep in most Toyota owners. That loyalty and trust would be the most tragic loss for the company. However, still incomparable to those who sadly have lost much more.

Blind Boys of Alabama - I shall not walk alone

Winter Pause

The truth is that in this very moment of deepest winter with all its paradox and juxtaposition, of frosty rooftop mornings, fuzzy magnolia buds and daffodil bulbs yet to burst forth with color and ever new life, that I can be in winter pause and know another spring lies just ahead; that bitterness melts into a caress. The truth is that at this very moment we know - all we are, all we can become and all we might never be. And as I contemplate my deepest, darkest fears, I watch for temperate signs of spring, of hope for a kind renewal and the assurance of perennial love. (c) 2010


artwork: Windflowers by Godward

Live Birds (not Byrds)

Boursier-Mougenot creates a walk-though aviary for a flock of zebra finches, furnished with electric guitars and other musical instruments. As the birds go about their routine activities, perching on or feeding from the various pieces of equipment, they create a captivating, live soundscape.

MLK Day 2010

I got the photos uploaded of my peach cobbler and of the birds enjoying my homemade suet pine cone. Decided to give them a post of their own.



I have had such a good time making this and then watching the birds enjoy it and flit about the Bradford Pear Tree where they naturally come for the red berries at this time of year.




I can't wait to make another one.

Happy New Year! Didn't go anywhere, didn't do anything, didn't buy the t-shirt and had a wonderful time.

The job search continues but I am really enjoying many domestic moments. Yesterday I made a homemade suet pine cone for the birds outside my window. And today I am making a homemade peach cobbler. The smells of cinnamon and fruit baking and warming the house even brought the reclusive man-child out of his cave and video game haze.

I've been reading too much internet blogs and articles and not writing enough, at least that's what those nagging voices tell me. I realise I don't have an easy time talking about myself and an especially difficult time trying to sell myself. That is the hardest part of job-hunting for me.

On the other hand, it seems there is a whole new generation (at least in the online personas I've been reading) where there is no shortage of people who have an extraordinary ability to do just that - sell themselves. There is a whole online community of self-promoters and I really can't see that they're offering anything more than they want to teach me to become a self-promoter too. I've tried to find some value in them as I am always looking for ways of self-improvement but seriously they all seem to be touting this message of snake-oil charm - "You too can have all this, great looks, great health, great smile and hair, make more money than you ever have all for just $1200 I can send you my secrets in ten easy lessons..." Where is the substance. Where is the nugget of truth?

Maybe it is a generational thing. I was born in the early sixties when children were incidental, meant to serve their parents own ends, seen and not heard. By the late sixties and early seventies a shift occurred in parenting styles for many. More liberal minded parents began to make the child a central figure, children were given more liberties, they were often treated as equals and only received positive reinforcement. And I'm not arguing against any of these parenting methods per se but now that generation is entering their late 30s and early 40s and they seem to be vapid, self-absorbed nincompoops who have mastered nothing more that recycling old cliches and creating new buzz words.

It can be hard to keep one's focus with all of that chatter going on and I know that I AM my best coach.