nature's gifts

by Diane and Rain
 

 Arizona sunset 12-4-19

With Diane taking a break until 2020, due to her need to be there for her husband healing from major surgery, her hanging a new show at her town's library, and computer problems, I will be posting all the blogs until after the New Year. I'll keep a regular one on Saturdays, as always, but the others may vary for which days or some might just be photos, such as the one above.

It turned out that sometime back I had put in a Word doc what Diane had written about a small stone she had given me and a painting she had done inspired from it. I instantly loved the stone, loved to touch it for its shape and smoothness. Of course, I had to buy the painting. With it she gave me a poem she had written. The stone and painting are in Oregon. I had taken photos of them thinking someday I might use them in a blog.

This seems the perfect time and season for the words and images.

music speaking to and for us

 image from Stencil

It was a difficult week... or month... or year. Writing about it does not feel productive. I heard though the words below shared in Facebook; and although I liked Tom Petty a lot, I was not familiar with all his music. The lyrics to this one seem to say so much about what we as humans go through to exist and hopefully prosper. We aren't all the same, and we never know what someone else might be thinking-- sometimes even someone dear to us.

Also on Facebook I heard someone find fault that people were making a big deal over Tom Petty dying when so many others were. The thing is, some people make a bigger difference to more people. Song writers like Petty fall into that category when they speak to life and what it's all about. He is a loss to his family, especially when he died before what we see as his time, but he's also a loss to the rest of us who won't hear the next song he writes. At least though, we have what he had already written and performed.

Shadow people, what's in their head,
In the car next to you, when the light turns red?
Could be thinking of love, might be thinking of hate.
I guess it pretty much could go either way.

Shadow people in shadow land

That one's thinking of great art and eloquent words.
That one's strapped on a gun and joined up with the herd.
That one's saving up water, got some food stored away,
For the war that is coming on the judgment day.
Shadow people in shadow land

And this one carries a gun for the U.S.A.
He's a 21st century man.
And he scary as hell, 'cause when he's afraid
He'll destroy anything he don't understand.

Well I ain't on the left, and I ain't on the right.
I ain't even sure I got a dog in this fight.
In my time of need, in my time of grief,
I feel like a shadow's falling over me,
Like shadow people in shadow land.
Shadow people in shadow land
Shadow people in shadow land
Waiting for the sun to be straight overhead,
'Til we ain't got no shadow at all.

Shadow People

When I went looking for the year he had written it (it was released on an album in 2014), I came across this:

The singer explained to USA Today: "I'm not extremely political. I just look at what makes sense to me. I would think we'd be in the streets demanding that our children be safe in schools. I see friendships end over politics. I've never seen such anger. That's not how it's supposed to work. In a two-party system, ideas are argued and you compromise. You're not supposed to stop the process." 

 It has not gotten better is about all I can say regarding that...

Song of the Open Road

Because I am so into thinking of the positive, working toward the good, I went back to Walt Whitman's poem and chose a few of my favorite threads for here and to think on as I write and consider my life-- what's been and what's ahead. A woman in her 70s has less options than earlier-- but she still has them.

image from Stencil

From Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,

Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,

Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,

Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,

Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient,

I do not want the constellations any nearer,

I know they are very well where they are,

I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here,

I believe that much unseen is also here.

The earth expanding right hand and left hand,

The picture alive, every part in its best light,

The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted,

The cheerful voice of the public road, the gay fresh sentiment of the road.

I think heroic deeds were all conceiv’d in the open air, and all free poems also,

I think I could stop here myself and do miracles,

I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like me,

I think whoever I see must be happy.

From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,

Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,

Listening to others, considering well what they say,

Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,

Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.

I inhale great draughts of space,

The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought,

I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me.

The complete poem-- Song of the Open Road

the old woman I want to be

First of all, given the title to this blog, I want to clarify something. I do NOT see being old as a negative thing. I don't see it as about feebleness or senility. I do see it as a stage of life involving change which we can either embrace or work to deny. So onto the topic--


Our United States mid-term elections are finally past. It's a new year for those who follow nature religions. Although I don't celebrate any religion as such, this really does feel like the end of a growing cycle with the leaves mostly fallen from the trees, the plants on their way to dormancy (although this was one of the warmest early Novembers I ever remember and the plants must be wondering what is this about when the daytime temps were in the low 70s???).

Nevertheless, it has seemed like a good time to assess myself for where I am and where I want to be-- better than the start of a new calendar year where life sometimes seems too hectic to stop and look at anything.

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about myself right now. It's not just the superficial aspects of aging but something deeper, something that has me wondering who is that woman standing in her garden in September? She looks satisfied and well she should be given she's 67, in apparently pretty good health. But something doesn't feel fulfilled. I had this imaginary vision of what I'd be like when I got really old; and while I am on the road to really old. when I sit down to consider it, I have not been hitting the mark.

There's a bottom-line although I am vague about where it is. I think my dissatisfaction comes from a mix of emotions which would take me different directions. One side of me that wants to be an old woman like I once upon a time imagined I'd be. Another side of me wants to be the person I was even five years ago.

On the one hand be old and fully experience it <-----> on the other hand... well the other hand can't get what it might want as we cannot go backward. I don't think it's unusual though to feel this way. I suspect many elders at one time or another think of what it was like say ten years ago and wish they still had some of that, the stamina, the looks, the lack of aches and pains; but it gets us nowhere. Neither does denying where we are.

When I am around my granddaughter, who is just entering puberty, it makes me even more aware of this whole, actually rather exciting, process of aging. She is at the beginning of something I am at the end of-- not life but hormones. Hormones are turning her into a woman and I see it more every time I am with her. Lack of hormones is turning me into an old lady. She and I are not actually at the beginning and end of life but the beginning and end of hormonal life.

When I was turning sixty, I knew things were going to change ahead. That was my hardest birthday since around twenty-six when I became aware I was leaving youth behind. Before sixty (and I realize we all feel these things at different points), it all seemed middle age stuff and slid along without my noticing big differences in agility, looks, weight, balance, or even ambition. Then it began to change. It happens at some point to almost everyone as they age-- whether they choose to admit it or not.

Clearly it would be foolish to want to go backward as that's impossible. Some people do have face lifts to try and fool themselves that they are still youths. Fine, they can do that, but they won't be. Whether you change your face or work out constantly, your body is the age it is. Faces plasticized only look like faces plasticized. Surgical nips and tucks cause people to lose their individuality. Those lines some would remove mark what we have done in life. It's really a shame we cannot see the beauty of the aged face, but that's the bulk of our society with its superficial emphasis.

What I have to do is let go of that once-upon-a-time woman and look toward the one she is yet to be. Part of that involves looking at which elements of my life should or could change to make this coming period of life better. What don't I yet 'get'?

I have to admit part of me is thrilled to get to old. So many do not. Those of us who did get to this point should feel gratitude. I like the whole idea of being at the other end of all these experiences in life, a part of my life is probably (I take nothing in life for granted) coming that will be different than anything that has gone before-- as will be true with my granddaughter as she leaves childhood for adulthood. She is like me-- partly excited about the potential and partly looking at what it has been and hating to release it.

This change that I want is not so much materially. I have had many material benefits. It's something inside me. Maybe as we do get to real old age, we think more about what is inside as the outside is deteriorating. Life, at any age, is about more than the material even though pretending the material doesn't matter would be silly.

So... despite my not liking to think much beyond where I am, preferring to live in the moment, I am seriously looking at whether where I am right now is where I should be or where I want to be in ten years. Without some planning for what is not working, it's not likely I will fix it.

I don't write a lot of poetry but a little over ten years ago now, I did write something that fits how I still feel today. After I began doing digital painting, I went looking for an image that I could use as background to the words and found a photo of myself when I was 26 holding my son. You'll have to click on the image to read the words.


More coming on this topic.

The Night in Isla Negra

Where it comes to reading, I go in spurts where I read almost no books and then where I always have one or even two going. Often one book leads to another-- sometimes in unexpected ways.

'In This We are Native' by Montana writer Annick Smith wasn't a memoir that I expected would lead me to a Chilean poet, but it did. (Poets and poetry enthusiasts, when you see who the poet is, please forgive me. I am not as widely educated in poetry as many.)

It was his house first but then the life that added to the poetry and made me look for more and more information on Pablo Neruda. To be honest I liked (Is like, such a mild word, adequate? Well, I cannot think of what might be better. Remember I am not the poet) his love poetry, but the poems about place, about his experiences, his soul experiences, they are why I went further in exploring who this man had been. What led to these poems?

Is place what helps create such poetry or are those, who would create that kind of art drawn to certain places by their energy? I am very land oriented. Houses come and go but where they are situated, that is something you cannot create. The setting comes first, but, wherever they are, I love to see the houses that creative people have created or in which they have lived. The houses tell so much more about them.

Neruda's house which he called Isla Negra, from where it is located on the Chilean coast with sand and rocks to look toward, was clearly one of those houses. Perfect setting, intriguing house with large windows, interesting rooms and a concept of making it part of the ground from which it arose. It did not detract but added to its surroundings.

If I had many lifetimes to live or maybe many homes, one would be on the ocean, overlooking an isolated stretch of beach with sand and rocks on a rugged coastline where the waves crash against those rocks and sometimes during a very big storm, you worry what else they will crash against. There are tame stretches of coastline (well most of the time, no ocean is tame all the time), but they have little appeal for me. Isla Negra, steeped in the power of the ocean, of nature, would.

Oh and might I add, I would be a gifted poet who could find words like those below to paint a picture of what I was experiencing. I realize the price for such insights is high but oh how words like these enrich, how they seem to give the reader something to suck into their being, think about, and then draw from themselves feelings they they would not have felt otherwise.

The Night in Isla Negra
Pablo Neruda

Ancient night and the unruly salt
beat at the walls of my house.
The shadow is all one, the sky
throbs now along with the ocean,
and sky and shadow erupt
in the crash of their vast conflict.
All night long they struggle;
nobody knows the name
of the harsh light that keeps slowly opening
like a languid fruit.
So on the coast comes to light,
out of seething shadow, the harsh dawn,
gnawed at by the moving salt,
swept clean by the mass of night,
bloodstained in its sea-washed crater.

Neruda's poetry is online, where I found the poem, at the link above under his name. Because the coast of Chile seems very much like Oregon's, I used one of my photos from May along Oregon's coast at the top. With a little search, I found these photos online of [Isla Negra]. Then I liked this article as it explained the draw that I felt when I began to look into who Pablo Neruda had been: [from the literary traveler].

Romance or something like it

Valentine's Day-- Is there a day more set up to make those who don't have a soul mate kind of love feel sad? How many couples end up with arguments or disappointments over expectations not met! Who gains by days like Valentine's Day? Card/candy/flower sellers? Is it cynical of me to be suspicious of such days?

Here's the thing. If you have a lover, why isn't every day a good day to say I love you and every now and then send a card or flowers? If you don't have someone special in your life, what does Valentine's Day do for you?

For me, romance itself is suspect because it's one of those emotional, heart tugging things that doesn't necessarily lead to a quality life for any couple. I know there must be men who are inherently romantic and love doing special little things for their women, but not many have crossed my path. :) To be honest, I doubt I am the type of woman to be wooed by romantic gestures and most likely if I came across one of those men, I'd find something else wrong with him and go on my way.

Still I like romance when it's in the fantasy realm... kind of. I thought I'd write this blog about some of that romance, the kind that melts my heart. Is it real? Who cares.

Romantic films:
Well there are many great ones but one of my favorites is The Notebook because it is emotional, heartwarming, and covers love at both ends of the age spectrum. There are James Garner, Gena Rowlands as an old couple facing the end of life while at the beginning are Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams-- incidentally, who tried to make love work with each other in real life but unfortunately (for romantics) weren't able to make it last.



Romantic song:
There are many that make me sigh, but at the top of the list would be Unchained Melody which is an oldie. It's about a love that transcends life. This particular video uses Ghost which is a film about a love that reaches beyond death.



Romantic flowers:
Pick me a bouquet of sunflowers or any wildflowers from along a road or in a meadow. Nothing has more meaning, certainly not a bouquet of hothouse roses. And if he just came in from the field with them, well that's at the top of my romantic list.

Romantic places:
The Oregon Coast in a storm, a small motel (ideally with a fireplace) and a view of the churning surf. Or how about a campfire and tent high in the mountains with a stream nearby?

Romantic books:
I had to think about this one for awhile. These days I don't read many romantic novels; but reaching back in time, it'd be Bond of Blood by Roberta Gellis. It's an historic romance about a man who had never learned to love and the woman who taught him.

I read this book when I was in my 20s and loved it so much that I wanted my own copy. It was not in print at the time. I thought about pretending to the library that I had lost it, pay for it, and keep it. I knew I'd never really enjoy it if I got it that way. I went looking for the author's address (not easy in the days before Internet), contacted her with my desire to purchase her book, and as luck would have it, she had some that hadn't sold (a bit musty from being in her garage) sold them to me (at a very good price) with her signature no less. A few years later those first two came out again in paperback with more following. Maybe my letter encouraged her to write more. Who knows but I read many more by her after that first one-- none were better.

Romantic poems:
There are many that make me catch my breath. I thought of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.' That's very romantic but it doesn't make me cry. My criteria for what is romantic apparently is does it make me tear up? This one does it:

Walk Slowly

If you should go before me, dear, walk slowly
Down the ways of death, well-worn and wide,
For I would want to overtake you quickly
And seek the journey's ending by your side.

I would be so forlorn not to descry you
Down some shining highroad when I came;
Walk slowly dear, and often look behind you
And pause to hear if someone calls your name.

Adelaide Love

['Walk Slowly' is in The Best Loved Poems of the American People, one of the first books I bought as a young married woman, and for me still a standard where it comes to popular poetic anthologies.]

Child of the Moon

This computer painting is not a self portrait but more what I feel about the moon. I have painted the moon many times but usually not the crescent which I really liked the other night. I enlarged the size of the moon to emphasize its power for the woman. It is a waxing moon, which means a growing time. The moon is anima.

If there is a purist Jungian reading this, I understand anima is considered man's inner female self and animus is the female's inner male; but this computer painting just has to be anima, which can also mean the inner self or soul . The moon is female.

Marge Piercy wrote a poem to this point, [The Moon is Always Female]. Here are a few lines from near its end:

"I have wandered these chambers in the rock
where the moon freezes the air and all hair
is black or silver. Now I will tell you
what I have learned lying under the moon
naked as women do: now I will tell you
the changes of the high and lower moon."

If you have never tried painting with the computer, you might enjoy it as a relaxing and no pressure way to create without the need for an end product that often stops people before they start.

For mine, I use the paint tools and palette from Corel Photo-Paint 7 and have written about the process before (more about that in Labels under art); and then more recently where I gathered my computer self-portraits and put them on their own blog at [Rainy Day Extras].

Catalina: the creek

As you walk onto the bluff above the creek,
sounds of moving water greet you
and you smile. How could you not?
Ahead lies change, hidden secrets
most of all coolness.
Soon there will be flowers, birds, butterflies.
Life awaits.

The desert is stark and dry,
conserving that it must but
below you hear a different rhythm.
It is the sound of water
as it forms small waterfalls
and bubbles over rocks and around trees.
Water conserves nothing
as it rushes to its date with destiny
to disappear into the desert sands.

One day you will walk the same trail
and before you reach the bluff,
you will hear a loud, rushing sound.
Those are the times of flood,
when the canyon recreates itself,
when it uproots trees,
when huge boulders are tumbled
and trails are washed away.
In the days of flood,
water respects no boundaries.

Another day you will walk the same trail
but no matter how hard you listen,
only silence lies below.
Those are the days of a few stagnant pools,
of dark wet sand.
But even then, you feel the spirit of the creek
as you walk along its banks.
It is as though the creek bed is pregnant
with its awaiting.

All of nature, of which you are a small part
knows that someday again
the stream will run with its joyous sound
Butterflies will dance along its banks
The creek will once again sing of secret places
of unknown things.
Life awaits.

(All of these photographs are from this week and of the creek where I have been hiking.
They could have been taken on many such desert streams in the Sonoran Desert.)

The poet in me

Although my own ability to create poetry is best described as a struggle, I love to read good poets, and there is nothing like sitting by a lit fireplace, candles on the mantle and listening to someone with a marvelous voice reading poetry aloud. You close your eyes and just float away to other worlds and experiences.

To me, poetry is the ultimate distillation of words in a manner that paints a picture, moves the soul, brings to life an emotion, event, or love. I admire those who can seemingly flow the words out-- maybe they don't flow as easily as it looks but a good poem never appears tortured into being. It always looks as though-- of course, that's the only way it could possibly have been written. Poetry brings writing to its knees.

Most especially when it comes to rhyming, properly formed poetry, I am no poet. For me to rhyme anything ends up with some word at the end of a line wrestled into place with no meaning for the rest of the poem. I have written stream of consciousness poetry for years but only recently have attempted to refine it into a finished work. Mostly that inspiration comes after reading some gifted blogger poet's work and once again wondering if magically the ability transformed itself to me... Not yet.

I am always uneasy when I put any of my poetry out. I usually have preferred to not embarrass myself and say instead, uhm those are just words there, not actually a poem, as I cast a sideways glance to see if anybody thought they might be poetry. If they do, I'll smile and be pleased but have not wanted to take the risk of having anybody think I might have meant it to be-- in case it isn't.

My history with poetry is a bit checkered. When I was in seventh grade, I was a little geek of a girl who wanted to fit in but coming from the country, wearing glasses, not much money for clothes and having stringy unstyled hair, it wasn't easy. I was the girl you remember from when you were in school, the one who got picked first for spelling bees and last for any competition involving sports, and then the captain wished they hadn't had to pick that last one at all. PE was my bane and I wasn't all that thrilled to be valued only for my spelling.

So there I was in the junior high literature class and the young male teacher was making some very serious comments about poetry. I made a joke which wasn't really like me, but hey, I wanted to be thought cool and everybody knows poetry isn't cool. Of course, they know no such thing. Anyway he looked over at me with all the wrath only a teacher of that time could produce and said-- Shut up! I did, of course. I doubt I told my parents as they'd have agreed with him. He succeeded in embarrassing me totally and finished my entire career of making jokes at the expense of poets. I survived the red face and decided I'd have to find other ways to fit in.

The irony was I did and do like poetry. There are poems that bring tears to my eyes-- great poems of epic tales as well of love lost or gained. I savor poems that tell of nature's beauty and the meaning of life. When I was in high school, I compiled, in a type-written booklet, all of my favorite love poetry bringing to the project all the angst only a teen-age girl can conjure up.

I am not knowledgeable about all of the modern poets. I know a few. I am not fond of poetry with words strung together with seemingly no meaning. I like poems to move me, make me think. Generally my favorite poets have been from times gone past. The emotions they write about don't go out of date.

Why write on poetry if I can't put in one of my favorite passages! It wasn't easy to decide which, but when I think of my goals for my art, when I consider the kind of person I want to be, how I see life, it's said well by four lines in William Blake's Auguries of Innocence--

"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And hold heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour."

Summer Roses

Summer roses, poignantly fragrant,
rich in jeweled hues.

From bud to the dropping of petals.
their time is fleeting,
yet months later,
in the cold of winter,
still unforgettable.

I touch carefully,
wary of their thorns,
as I brush velvety petals
against my lips.




Is that why they lead
to thoughts of you?

Gravel Road Wildflowers

blooming along roadsides
sprinkled in pastures
peeking out from behind trees

volunteers often little noticed
by most who pass...
or worse
weeds to those with sprays

now it's their moment
in the sun

it is our loss
if we don't stop to see
the proud richness of their colors
their fine design
their determination
to bloom
where they are


now is their moment
in the sun

Rainbows

What does a rainbow mean to you?
A promise?A colored bow in the sky?
Oh, there's a scientific reason why,
but rainbows are like magic to me.

A myriad of colors. A half circle of light.
Rain and sunshine.
A change that can't make up its mind.

Watch for the rainbows.
Partial ones, whole ones, doubles,
only rarely a triple.

Collect them in memory
and if really lucky in a photograph.

Once I drove through one
with colored light on all sides.
Did I imagine it?
I don't think so,
but I have tried ever since to do it again.
Who wants a pot of gold
when you can bathe in light?

Rainbows teach us about life.
They are not about forever.
We cannot call them on demand
They remind us always-- be alert.

A rainbow is about
being in the moment.
They are about beauty
and like so many things of beauty
we cannot hold onto them
except in our memory.

As with sunshine and rain,
there are just so many rainbows
in each of our lives.
Collecting them is up to us.

(photos are special moments in Oregon, Montana and New Mexico)