Olbermann

This morning I read Dharma Bums (linked alongside this blog) and they had this -- Keith Olbermann. I thought it was very important and wanted to put it here also. Please check it out. What Olbermann had to say was worth everyone in this nation taking the time to read or hear-- especially if they still support George Bush.

Renaissance Faire

Every couple of years, my family and I get to the Shrewsbury Renaissance Faire. I always find it an interesting experience with the mix of crafts for sale, entertainment, fortune tellers, artisans at work, and colorful costuming.

Those, who run the faire, dress and talk appropriate to the 1500s as best they know it. One booth rents costumes, but it seems each year more of the attendees come dressed up and having fun with their choices. A lot of time, money and thought goes into those costumes. When I was arriving, a wild looking bunch of Highlanders, in plaid pants and with swords were just ahead in the line.

Although I am not one who has been into Medieval times, sometime it would be fun to go in costume.-- play pretend and for a few hours be someone else. Since the usual garb for the Elizabethan wealthier classes involves rich brocades, heavy fabrics, many layers of clothing, not to mention corsets, if I do dress up, it'll likely be as a gypsy-- poorer but cooler.

The faire is currently being held on farmland, alongside a river, with timbered hills as a backdrop which makes it feel very authentic as well as picturesque. If you didn't have a field full of automobiles and an emergency vehicle parked alongside, you might almost convince yourself you had stepped back in time... almost.

While entertainment can be bagpipes, belly dancing, juggling, anything that might have been done back then, the highlight is the tournament which involves sword fighting and jousting. This year the group putting that on came from Seattle and had women as a part of the sword fighting and horsemanship skill events-- in everything but the actual jousting. Despite the fact the tournament is for entertainment, jousting is obviously an event that requires a great deal of strength, dexterity, and can be dangerous.

This faire is one sponsored by the Society for Creative Anachronism, which has information online for anyone interested. They meet regularly throughout the year, some have their weddings at their various gatherings, and from what I have read, many feel the 1500s is the time they would have most liked to live-- or perhaps the past life for which they have the most affinity. We also have such gatherings of mountain men and many of those people do feel they were born over a hundred years too late.

My grandson, who is two, left with a big smile, a dragon stick horse, a wand given to him by a strolling wizard (carved from a branch) and a peacock feather. Not sure where he got that. I left with some nice photographs, time spent with happy people, a full stomach (burrito renamed gypsy fare), and memories of a sunny afternoon enjoying the diversity of people and their interests.

Praying Mantis

This week-end, at a renaissance faire (pictures from that will come another day) I was sitting on a dusty slope covered with dry bunch grass to wait for the jousting to begin. Someone said-- a praying mantis is on your back. I have to admit, I was pleased. Really? It chose me? Wow. Let it stay there because with all these people around, it might be stepped on if it is brushed off. I handed over my camera and asked for a photo. It was in no hurry to leave.

Then they said-- it's crawling up your back and going to get in your hair. At that point I became concerned as if it got tangled in my hair, that could have caused it to lose a feeler or leg getting it out; so I asked the man to my right if he could safely remove it and put it on a small tree almost in front of us. He did so; and as it climbed up the tree, I took another picture, then lost track of it.

I believe the events in our life are like our dreams. We can dismiss them, see them as insignificant, or when something a bit unusual happens, become interested in learning more about the potential symbol.

Biologically, I knew they are a gardener's friend. Although they are named praying mantis for their front leg position, it is actually a deadly weapon. Their benefit to the gardener is their hunting ability. Aphids beware.

I had no idea they can also kill hummingbirds. When I did some research on them, I saw a photograph online, for which I am sure anyone interested can find, that showed a praying mantis with a hummingbird it had killed, and then devoured. It was a small hummingbird, but still who would have guessed that more than small insects should be wary around them.

Generally they are green when I have seen them, but they take on the color of their background which is why on this dusty slope, this one (not sure how you tell male from female but guessing it might be female) was the color in these photos. They live about a year. I did know that the female will sometimes kill the male after mating by knocking his head off before she devours him. Not always. Sometimes he's quick enough to get out of her way.

Researching the spiritual symbols, I learned in ancient Egypt it would have been greatly honored. The Greeks attributed to it supernatural powers. To some it has been seen as the guide into the underworld. It had been inspirational in creating some of the Eastern exercises to increase chi (energy). In Africa, a praying mantis is thought to bring good luck to whomever it lands on and even restore life to the dead. The Bushmen of Africa believe the praying mantis is a divine messenger and whenever one is seen, diviners try to determine the current message.

What message did I take for myself from its choosing my back over all the others around? I felt pleased that maybe it knew I would protect it-- which I did as best I could. If it had a spiritual message for me, I will be looking.

Fascinating insects. Also if anyone knows if they will eat lady bugs, who are also garden predators, please comment with the answer.

Hips Don't Lie

Awhile back, Winston from Nobody Asked wrote a blog on earworms. At the time I wasn't having a lot of problems with this phenomena although I recalled times I had; but then along came 'Hips don't Lie' by Shakira and her VMA performance on UTube, and I can't get it out of my head.

In case you aren't familiar with earworms and don't like links, earworms are when a song plays over and over again in your head. Sometimes you can get rid of it by introducing an equally powerful counter melody; but often when suffering a real earworm problem, you will quickly revert back to... oh baby when you talk like that, you make a woman go mad... uhmmm where was I?

Winston asked how his readers deal with it when this problem strikes. I am dealing with it by yielding and playing the actual song and video frequently on the computer and hoping it soon becomes too much. I tried to buy the CD, but my store was out. Could it be this is an epidemic?

Unfortunately for me the problem is spreading, and it's not enough to listen to it. It inflicted me with a need to photograph myself listening to it to see if I
could capture with camera the feeling the song was engendering. Then it led to my wanting to dance to it. Dancing to it is where I am now-- several times a day. The dancing might be good exercise if it doesn't throw my back out that is.

This is me listening to it . There will be no pictures of me dancing to it as I would not like to be responsible for injuries caused by readers falling off their computer chairs in laughter. However if you have not heard this song or seen her dancing yet, here is the UTube link... be forewarned-- this song is potentially addictive-- Hips Don't Lie

The Illusionist

If you like films to make you think, with mystical concepts, stories that unfold as you get to know the characters, and if you enjoy a movie that has you thinking about what really happened days later, I recommend you consider seeing 'The Illusionist' in the theater.

Given how far out I live, only rarely do I get to movie theaters. This is one I knew I should see as soon as I read about it. I saw it this last week-end, and it satisfied on so many levels that it's hard to know where to start explaining why it's so good. When it comes out on dvd, I will be buying it to add to my mystical film collection.

'The Illusionist' stars Edward Norton, Jessica Biel, and Paul Giamatti. The reviews I have seen have been mostly positive but it clearly is not everyone's cup of tea. For me it was a perfect film to consider supernatural questions, love, and mystery. I think calling it an adult fairy tale might be the best simple description.

Is it magic or illusion? That's one of the questions to be considered. The film doesn't answer it. Perhaps in the end, it's some of both. I would tell more about the story, but it's best to not know too much. Go expecting to be entertained but also to consider what is real, and I don't think you will be disappointed.

Trailer for The Illusionist

(Image from http://www.thehollywoodnews.com/images8/the-illusionist/ILLUSIONISTFINALposter.jpg)

Negative Negatives

In my life, with my writing, I try to stay on the positive side (while not wanting to be a Pollyanna, who is not facing reality). That is why I don't write often about GW Bush. Oh I do a rant now and then, but I am showing self-restraint that those don't happen regularly. I believe in general we are better off if we can look to the good rather than the bad, but I can't always do that.

For me, this last week-end had a lot of good things in it; but it had some negatives too. The tragic one was a reminder of how abruptly life can end. That came from Steve Irwin being killed by a stingray. I felt sad about it and am sure others felt it more than me as I have rarely seen his programs. I knew he did dangerous things but was still shocked when he was killed. He seemed like a good man, trying to do good for the world, and just a shame his life ended in such a tragedy.

Did he die to feed the insatiable need for excitement that seems to be growing across this globe? Is this becoming a gladiator world where the risks must increase to feed that excitement? Is that why it's not enough to see a stingray swimming, but we have to see someone near it, someone facing danger, to make it worth our time? I have read that, as a naturalist, when he did what seemed reckless, it was to help others see the value in preserving the natural world. It sometimes seems the world is full of those who only get interested if there is some risk (but not theirs) added to the mix. I understand he wasn't forced into what he did, but maybe we need to think where we are heading.

For me this wasn't just about a sudden death of a young person who was contributing much to the world, but it was also why he was there. Yes, I know freak accidents happen, maybe it was his time; but he was swimming that close to make the pictures exciting and we all know it.

Then there was a personal negative that comes with raising livestock. I write about the beautiful and satisfying part of living on a farm, but there are other sides. Sometimes bad things happen.

This week-end, once again, the neighbor's dog showed up to chase the sheep. He's a big dog, a full-sized boxer, and he has killed their own chickens. When he comes here, so far he has only chased the sheep. One night that was right into the creek and if we had not been here, a lamb would have drowned. Another night possibly he did it when we weren't here as one of our lambs did drown in the creek-- something we can't prove as we didn't see him chase it in that time.

This week-end, the neighbor came to get her dog fairly quickly, but this has been a year and a half of them saying the same thing-- we just can't keep him in. This week-end he had been tied again with nothing but a piece of baling twine. He's a husky dog and he worries those things until they fray. Nobody was checking and why they figured a piece of twine would do it since it hadn't umpteen times before, I don't know.

The truth is they have not cared to keep their dog up. She said--well why do your sheep run? Why didn't your fence keep him out? What does it hurt if he chases them? I saw her reaction on her stubborn face when I told her it's not a question of if her dog will kill but only when. As a child, I grew up seeing sheep ripped apart by other people's pet dogs. She stared blankly at me. She simply didn't care. I didn't bother telling her all of the nights I have lain awake listening to hear if the sheep are running. She would not have cared about that either.

I was mad; so mad that to avoid saying more, I walked off. It was obvious words were not going to get either her nor me anywhere. I don't normally act rude. I try to keep good relationships with neighbors. But my sheep are scared and I am mad at her for not caring about her dog's rogue behavior.

I am also mad that, since they don't care, from now on every time their dog chases the sheep, the sheriff is going to have to be called. A formal complaint must be made, and these neighbors will get a call from an authority as well as a fine. Our county's law is that no dog is allowed to run off its own property, and any rancher having stock chased has the legal right to shoot the offending dog. Bringing the law into this doesn't make me happy, but shooting their dog would make me more unhappy. And it's not okay to keep having the sheep chased-- eventually to their death. The whole thing left me grumbling to myself and living in negative space.

So I am trying to put a positive spin back into my life energy. I know life ends abruptly as it did for Steve Irwin. I know we can't throw away precious days on anger that does nothing to solve problems, but sometimes... sometimes there just are negatives and this week-end, along with good things, had some of those times.

Seal Rock

When the valley is hot, the air along the Oregon coast can be nearly cold with a heavy fog blanket overhead, but today on one of the last days of summer, it was pleasantly warm. The rivers on the way down were full of boats with fishermen trying for the salmon as they return. The sidewalks in old Newport were crowded with tourists and families down for the last long week-end before school starts.

Here at Seal Rock State Wayside, there were not many people-- somewhat helped along by a small parking lot. A few lovers strolled hand in hand along the edge of the water. One family had built a fire to roast hot dogs while the kids and their father (grown up kid) got a kite high in the sky.

As the fog burned off, the sunshine was almost hot and full of the cries of gulls and cormorants, the bark of the seals hunting just offshore. The waves crashed against the rocks, and the air had that wonderful smell of salt. Some say it's also full of ozone and that's why it's so relaxing to be along the ocean. It was a day to wade in the surf, sit on the warm sand and just be.

I have had many days along this coast. There were those when I was a little girl, my father holding my hand in a wind storm when I was afraid I'd blow away. Then with my own children, brushing tarry sand from little feet, watching sand castles grow along the edge of the sea. And now the world changes again and I'm growing old; but the sea and me, we are still both here-- for awhile.

Illustrating the process

My paintings for the last few years have been from imagination and dreams. Reality is only a starting point-- if that. Because this is a blog intended to encourage creativity, I thought I would show the thinking behind how I work. I am not a professional artist but rather one who uses art for her own growth as a person. The process, for me even with oil painting, is not really so different except with an oil when I get somewhere I like, I quit. With the computer I know I can save that stage as one solution and work on without risk of destroying it all.

For this one, the theme I had in mind was someone searching for direction. Going through my files, I found a personal photo from several years ago to use as a starting point. For me, a photograph provides only grounding. I am not a landscape or portrait painter and don't try to duplicate locations where I have been or what I have photographed. My goal with anything I paint is to capture emotions with the objects in the paintings only vehicles.

To start, I chose a size that would roughly duplicate the proportions in the photo, sketched in the ocean, roughed in the sky, headland, and then began making changes. I wanted a woman with long, graying hair, didn't want a bulky coat, wanted a black dress, and wanted her arms bare.

As I finished, I saw a solid gray sky added nothing to the painting. It was too big of an element to write off. I played with clouds, wind directions, added dark spots, took them out, and came to the point where a bit of blue sky along with the lighthouse, represented the hope for which the woman was looking.

Critically looking at it again, it seemed this painting was supposed to be about a woman but she had no energy-- just a blob. And how come, if there were stormy seas, there was no breeze to blow her hair a bit? If she wore a dress, I'd at least have a more interesting shape.

The advantage of doing such a work on the computer is there is no problem to change 'canvas' size. I have done that with actual stretched canvas boards by cutting them down when the original composition didn't work, but the only way to increase dimensions relative to the figure, is to scrape it away, and then shrink the figure. With the computer, there is another option. I chose a new dimension, copy pasted my original work into it and began to build sand, ocean and a black skirt.

That looked better but it now seemed the sky had lost power by not being large enough. She is looking toward it for answers, shouldn't it have more importance? I resized again, copy pasted the work onto its new space, and began building sky with more ocean and sand to keep it all in proportion.

About that time, I couldn't remember ever being at the shore without birds all around-- so a few distant birds had to be added.

One thing with computer art, any of these changes are easy to try. When this is done on canvas, purer work or not, you would be painting the same thing 5 times to get to the same eventual place. and maybe ruining much along the way with changes that didn't work. I know of painters who do paint the same subject again and again. I have never done that because of the feeling of wasting canvases, not to mention where do I store them? I don't like reworking the same canvas as it seems the energy underneath works against the new idea.

Just when I thought this piece was finished, I had another idea. I wanted to see the woman's legs and feet; so she could wade in the surf. I never go to the beach without some wading. A couple of sea birds came next. I understood then why the black dress had been important-- my subconscious had been ahead of me. The woman was to be one with the birds-- 'Woman and Gulls' was the last version.

I ended up with two poems and if I eventually paint this in oils (which is where I had been thinking this was heading), I think 'Woman and Gulls' is the one I'd choose, but the one just before it, 'Looking for Answers' seems strong with a different message. In the past I have done drawings, color notes, and worked from them. That works better when it's a portrait, landscape or still life. When it's an idea, I have been discovering the computer is a very creative place to work it out-- where the process is as important as the product.

Soul mates

We all know the stories. Two strangers see each other across a crowded-- well doesn't matter where it is-- their eyes cross.. er meet and boom, true love is born and two soul mates are united-- or reunited if you believe in reincarnation. If one of them happens to be twelve and the other in her thirties, as were that teacher and her pupil, well we understand soul mate love. Except do we? Do we truly understand what a soul mate even is, whether it exists, and what kind of relationship it might lead to. The assumption usually seems to be that it's about romance leading to marriage, but is it?

Up until more recent times, and still true in some countries, marriage was a business arrangement often contracted between families to strengthen each politically or financially. The concept of romantic love was unrelated to permanent matings. Even where a couple didn't have parents pushing them into a marriage, more often considerations were can he provide a buggy to the family, does she know how to cook, and will they be good parents? Her being curvy or him having a washboard abdomen were not factors-- unless maybe for genetic.

Some of the idea that soul mate love and marriage go together has probably come via poetry, books and movies, but the dream for it is not recent and might be deeply imbedded. Jacob worked many years to marry the sister he most wanted (not that their marriage necessarily led to happiness) Then you have David. Was he smitten with Bathsheba for soul mate reasons or was it seeing her body nude in the moonlight as she conveniently bathed where he could see it? Was that soul mate love or lust?

Since I don't have answers for such questions, I will settle for simply explaining my understanding regarding soul mates and the ultimate (or potentially most disastrous) of such connections, twin flames/twin souls. There is quite a bit online and a lot of books out there to explain various author's understandings of the concepts, but I will settle for just giving the gist of what I have read and think personally is most likely to be true. And what I think might be wrong. Anyone who has experienced something different, please feel free to write extensively about it in comments. If your story is more lengthy than comments, put it in your own blog with a link here; or email me, and if it looks juicy enough, I'd be happy to post it here as another view.

If you don't believe in reincarnation, a soul mate is simply a person you feel a deep connection with and usually from the moment you meet them. They can be someone you work with and the two of you think so much alike. It can be romantic or friendship. Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, soul mates are not primarily about romance, sex or marriage but they can be.

If you believe in reincarnation, then these soul mate groups come together again and again and most likely began with their own creation (some say there are twelve in these groups). These may be family, friends and yes, mates. The relationships and gender might shift between lifetimes.

For reincarnation thinkers, there is another group of soul mates who repeatedly come together. I don't know if from creation but they are those with similar gifts and they incarnate in groups for purposes of political or artistic work. So you have the Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Concord, Massachusetts free-thinkers, who may have incarnated as a group many times in different creative patterns-- perhaps formed a new writer group in Montana this lifetime.

Could you have Hitler and his minions who may have done the same thing for negative reasons again and again? Soul mate patterns can be looked for in history and are fascinating to consider. Are you currently in one that is either good or not so good for you in this lifetime?

When the soul mate connection is romantic and sexual it doesn't automatically last for a lifetime. I have heard people say, when it breaks up, guess he wasn't my soul mate after all. I don't believe lasting forever is an indicator. A soul mate could come in and go back out of your life after fulfilling a purpose. You might have been wrong about him/her being a soul mate, but the fact that it didn't last doesn't tell you.

There are soul mate relationships which are karmic and temporary. They are intended to make right something from the past, teach you lessons you have managed to avoid so far, maybe finish business between two people which in reincarnation you don't get to walk away from. Some of these are very negative and the lesson is learning to walk away before you kill each other. There are soul mates who are intended to have certain children to raise them up, and once it's finished, they might go their separate ways.

Finally there is the term twin flame or twin soul which not all reincarnationists believe is true. This is the Adam and Eve story. Two created out of one. Shirley MacLaine describes how that works in her book, 'The Camino.' Twin souls are two halves of the same whole and the draw between them is very strong. Are they always meant to be together sexually in each lifetime? I don't think so. If they are together is the relationship nirvana on earth? Again I don't believe so.

The same friend who told me the story of the hawks also told me that when twin souls come together who are not evenly matched for energy, instead of the most romantic, beautiful relationship you could imagine, it can be very destructive. Yes, when they are evenly matched, it'd be the best mated relationship two people could experience; but there's that 'if' and it's a big one.

If you had a soul mate relationship with someone which worked out disastrously, my advice would be to do all you can to become the person you believe you were born to be. Work on being personally stronger, and the next relationship will reflect it. This works, of course, even if you don't believe in reincarnation or soul mates.

On the one hand, what you believe about soul mates is pretty much irrelevant. You can obviously find good relationships and be happy without having them defined spiritually. But then there is that other hand where if you do believe in them and spend your life looking for that perfect soul mate romance, the belief could be destructive and cost you a lot of good relationships along the way. Not to mention your soul mate, if you do come together, isn't likely to be perfect either-- given that would take two perfect people to make happen. Ever seen that?

(The sculpture pictured here is mine, titled Soul Mates. It is fired clay, weighs about 75 lbs, is 29"L and 22" H. I did it about eight years ago and had thought I would put it on its own stand, but the living room doesn't have that kind of space; so it generally has ended up the piano-- except when it's carried outside for photographs.

I don't do sculpture currently for the very reason that Soul Mates demonstrates-- what do you do with that many little people? Unfortunately clay sculptures that look like bronzes didn't end up being in demand in galleries. The clientele wanted bronzes and I liked best working in clay-- not to mention the huge investment in doing a bronze that still might not sell.)

dance of the hawks

About five years ago, I met an interesting woman online. We lived across this continent from each other; so we never physically met, but for awhile we shared a friendship; then we lost touch. When I decided to write about the concept of soul mates, I wanted to start with the dance of the hawks which she had described to me in one of our conversations. Sometime after she and I no longer talked, I looked out across the creek and for myself watched two hawks perform the same spiralling dance. I already knew what it would look like as I had seen it in my soul.

The day she told me about the dance of the hawks and what she saw as its meaning (her words follow), I asked her permission to paint my interpretation of it. She said yes. The time was finally right. Thank you, my beautiful friend, for sharing your vision. I hope it drew to you that love for which you were searching.

"I went to the back field to smoke my pipe.
When I had just loaded it,
a hawk flew over my shoulder
swooped right down.
It was so close I felt the wind of its wings brush my cheek.
It flew up in a spruce tree that was about 20 feet in front of me.
There it joined another hawk.

And I prayed.
Creator, show me what a good relationship is for me...
that is what I was praying for...
I was so hurt and disillusioned...at the time.
Well the hawks ascended up in to the air
spiraling around each other and singing and dancing.

What that said to me was
a good relationship is one where
if they had flown too close together
their wings would have clipped each other,
and they would have crashed to the ground.
If they had flown too far apart
they would not have created the vortex
which helped them both soar.

They were singing and dancing
and each doing their own dance
and singing their own song--
together they created a vortex."

Anonymous

The pipe I painted here is my own from Pipestone, Minnesota, which is where red pipestone is found and pipes are still carved. The place has a good feeling to it because it is sacred space dedicated to peace. Since all of the tribes needed the stone, they would go there and not fight-- even if they were enemies away from there. To walk along the little creek, to see the red stone still on the walls, I could feel its good energy-- as I still do in the pipe I bought that day.

I have yet to smoke my pipe. A person should not use sacred symbols without understanding their meaning and doing it properly. In this case one of those understandings is that once you have smoked a pipe, you encase it in leather-- maybe for the same reasons I generally wrap my Tarot cards in black silk when I am not using them. I haven't yet made a case, but that time is coming.

Healing Dreams

As anyone knows who has read my blog for awhile, I am a believer in the power of dreams. If you think about how many hours we spend sleeping, isn't it to our benefit to use that time to improve our daytime hours if we can? At this point I am just learning how to use mine. I know dream work is no magic panacea, just another tool to reach within ourselves to improve our lives.

If someone wants to do such nighttime work, before falling asleep ask your subconscious, angels or spirit guides to help have dreams that will be beneficial. If you have a particular problem, asking for a dream to help you understand it can be effective. Just before you wake, lie there for a few moments and try to retrieve whatever you last saw or thought.

The ideal approach to remembering and utilizing is to write all the elements from the dream as best you recall-- whether it seemed to relate to anything or not. Sometimes what didn't seem relevant upon first waking takes on meaning with time.

Remembering dreams is like any skill. It is developed through practice. From my experience, I believe you will receive the benefit of such dreaming though whether you consciously remember the dreams or not.

Sometimes the relationships that need healing are with those who have died. Dreams can help emotionally heal, recognize mistakes, ask for forgiveness, and make a relationship into something life never let it be. Lucid dreaming allows remaking a relationship in your sleep that would never have been possible while awake.

If you are interested in learning more about lucid dreaming (taking control of your dreams) there are books on it, also quite a bit online. An example of how it can work is a simple dream of mine from quite a few years ago.

I was walking with a group of people and suddenly realized they had gone on and I had walked up a pole-- way, way up a pole. Nobody seemed to be aware I was teetering on the top of this pole. Nobody was even around. I knew I would never be able to get down. Instead of putting off the inevitable, I just let myself fall. As I hit the ground, I knew I had to be dead. Nobody could survive a fall from that height-- except I then thought this is ridiculous. Nobody can walk up a pole. I stood up and walked off.

Crossroads

Sometimes instead of a story dream or something with a lot of action to it, in the morning I wake with one word. This week it was crossroads; and it didn't immediately fit into anything I could think of for my life.

When I think what the word crossroads means, my first thought is about highways. Where I live, there are many ways to get to town, but unlike city driving, once I have passed a particular crossroads, the only way to fix it-- if I took the wrong road-- is turn around.

In the country, the wrong road not only takes me out of my way; but it if it was a dead-end, it won't get me anywhere. Some crossroads are obvious with well-marked, 4-way stop signs, but others go unmarked. It's easy to go right past those without ever knowing. Some crossroads become dangerous when they have two high speed roads intersecting with only one marked. On roads we have not previously traveled, signs are critical.

I am pretty sure the dream wasn't telling me all that about highways but instead wanted me to be aware of crossroads in my own life. For us personally crossroads can mean decisions lie ahead-- perhaps life changing ones. Does my single word mean such a change is approaching for me? Maybe or maybe it's just I'm going past too many crossroads personally without consciously considering my choices. Perhaps it was trying to make me more aware of the little ones like what I am eating, did I exercise, am I treating other people right? Am I really heading down the road I want to be? Or did I get started down one and haven't paid enough attention to the signs along the way?

The important thing with our crossroads is to make sure when we make a turn (or deliberately don't), we know what we did. If it was a mistake, we need to turn around-- unless we realize the error was serendipity and where we are now going was a better choice.

Looking for photographs of crossroads to illustrate for this was unsuccessful . Not only are most of the crossroads near me not picturesque but they also have narrow shoulders with no place to stop for picture taking which gave me an excuse to do a small llustration as part of painting my dreams. This one had the added challenge of no images that went with the dream.

So, I imagined a woman sitting on a bluff. She had beauty and love around her but she is staring at a crossroads in the distance. Is she trying to decide whether to take one of those roads? Does she wonder where they go? Or is she expecting someone to come driving back one of them?

So when you first wake up, is the last thing you get from the dream world sometimes a word?

The Wild Ones

A dream which is not interpreted is like a letter which is not read. --The Talmud

Because I am into dream work and have been trying to paint some of mine for my own artistic and healing reasons, I thought I'd share one which I have yet to interpret-- maybe never will. It came only once and maybe as long as seven years ago. I have no clue what it meant, if anything; but it was full of imagery.


The setting was a sea coast somewhere before civilization was deep or wide. The woman was of mixed ancestry. She was wild, beautiful, with long black hair and traveled with a band of rapscallions who were all misfits in various ways.

The little band loved and looked out for one another, were dirty most of the time, and had barely enough to eat. They lived free and happy for all their lack of security. Some of them might have raised her, but whatever their relationships, they stayed together to survive in world harsh to those who don't fit the mold of others. I didn't see her as their leader but rather one of the bunch where all were equals. She was their beauty.

Sometimes she would travel up the coast with a red-haired sea captain who let her ride on his boat when it took cargo between small ports.The captain asked her to marry him. She knew she didn't love him, but she liked him and he seemed to be a good man. She would be giving up her freedom to roam but security mattered, and so she said yes.

Here is where the dream turned brutal as he virtually raped her on their wedding night. She had been a virgin, and her shock was as great as her pain as it seemed he might have also beaten her. He forced her into a big box. Her friends, the misfits, found her and were trying to figure how to get her out when the dream ended.

There were no answers for me about why I had that dream. I don't know if she escaped or died there in that box. Did the captain come back to hurt the others? Was I the woman? When I have dreams like this, I am often not sure who I am. Was it a past life? That seems unlikely to me as it wouldn't fit in my regressions; so who knows. I really felt it was more allegorical given the box he put her into.

I decided to paint the time with the captain before the dream turned into a nightmare. If someday I get ideas for what that wild ones with her looked like, I will definitely do another painting as the secondary characters fascinated me more than her tragic relationship with the sea captain, who looked like a hero until he became a villain.

If anyone has an idea of the message from the dream, I'd be pleased to hear it. The images aren't ones I could find in any dream dictionary and maybe it only was a story, but when the images are so strong, I always think they are trying to tell me something. As this dream illustrates, I don't always see what. It would be nice to open this letter even if it's years late in its delivery.

Last burst of summer

Words don't really do justice to the colors of late summer. I am savoring them all as soon enough fall will be here with a different set of colors which, though I appreciate autumn's beauty, nothing is like summer for me. Yes, the equinox is a month away, but it always seems as though with Labor Day summer is over.

I've been watching the birds to see if they are beginning to gather for the migration, but so far they seem oblivious to any change coming. I am seeing less of the grosbeaks at the feeders and more of the smaller birds, not that I know that has significance.

The nights have cooled off to around 40 F which means, whatever it may look like outside, the first frost is lurking to nip the flowers and garden. Right now with the french doors open, the cooler night air is making for great sleeping-- except on the nights I lie awake thinking of the things I need to get done before fall. Roses need trimming again, the garden is getting overgrown with weeds, and if the greenhouse isn't readied soon, the plants on the deck will have to find another shelter. With grocery stores selling food year round, I don't have to make jam, can, or freeze unless I want to; but the feeling inside me still says prepare, prepare, prepare-- winter is just around the bend. Instincts go deep.

This is the first year I have planted sunflowers, and I am loving their richness. Their colors and size vary as the light seems to turn them almost transluscent. They have grown as high as ten feet which makes them the most impressive thing around, but also makes photographing them a challenge. I don't like to cut them as they last longer in the garden.

I did cut those lavender gladiolas for the dining room table, but only because I planted them to be cutflowers... but usually forget I did. The canna lilies next to them have put on a showy display most of the summer. Heat agrees with them.

A new bull calf was born last week and looks like he's going to make it despite his mother initially rejecting him. Those heifers have the baby; then look around as though what was that? It's not mine.

Thanks to some time in the barn with a headgate (metal bars that hold the cow so she cannot escape, but can lie down), she was persuaded to stand still long enough for the calf to feed and for her to realize that little critter was kind of cute. Shucks, maybe she wanted it after all.

The first day they were out with the herd, the calf ran alongside her, almost skipping he was so full of energy. At the back, where the herd was, the first thing the mother did was bring him to her own mother as though seeking her benediction. Once approval was given, I watched the other cattle come to sniff of the newcomer. From a rejected little heap, he is now a proud member of a herd. Instincts go deep.

(All pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them)

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."

Old Age Problems

Recently I have been listening to a friend whose family is engaged in arranging end of life care for their parents. It has been hard on them all, and I have empathized with the problems they face. It is then not difficult to see why last week I would dream about my in-laws' end of life (which for them came in their 90s). The events in the dream had no reality from their actual last years. I think the dream was intended to focus me on the subject.

On a practical level, concerns about how to help parents at the end of their lives are in my past as all my older ones have passed on. What I am left to think about is what I want for myself when and if that time comes.

What I am going to write about is not just old. I am old. It's the really old. Maybe the word elderly would suit best. They are the ones no longer able to get around as they once did. Inside that woman over there, the one hunched over with osteoporosis and arthritis, is still the girl she once was-- bet she was a beauty. That proud old man, walking slowly with the lean body, he knew days where he was as strong as any man, and he still has a tough look in his eyes. And where they are today, soon enough I will be.

I have read that some elderly feel they are ignored when they are out, that people don't see them anymore, that they are as though invisible. I wonder if it happens because people don't want to think they are heading down the same path. There has been a lot of emphasis in this country on face lifts and hair dye to hide aging signs. Is that being done to make younger people more comfortable with the fact we all get old?

For the fun of it, and to illustrate this blog, I aged myself to see what I might look like as an elderly woman. I pulled down jowls-- yes, I know, not all old women have them, but I wanted to age my existing face as I think it might actually do. So I drooped the skin around my eyes, whitened my hair and when I was finished, thought-- oh my. Harder yet was when I showed it to a friend and said, I think it's how I'll look somewhere in my 80s-- late 80s preferrably. He looked at it critically and said more like 70... Whoa! So soon, am I ready for that??? That's not that far away!

However, what we look like in the mirror is not the problem of aging. The real concerns are loss of strength and mental accuity. If we are lucky, we will live, love hard, and the end for us will come quickly after many good years. It isn't always that way.

What does our country do as more and more of us are old and need help? Pension plans have mostly folded, except for those in government. Many people stay in debt their whole lives. Some younger people begrudge even the small amount Social Security provides. Certain nations have thought they'd solve the problem of elder care by encouraging immigration of younger people; but from what I can tell, that only delays the problem. There will come a reckoning-- too many old and not enough working young.

In my opinion, euthanasia is not a moral option unless it is one made by an individual for themselves when facing diagnosed terminal illness. Old age fraility isn't like that. If you get to that age where you cannot remember to take your pills, where cooking a dinner might lead to burning down the house, where you may need to be reminded to take a shower, you could still have years ahead. Assisted living apartments solve the problem for some and for others they move in with family. Not everyone has family who can do that. Some hope against hope government will provide a panacea.

In older, more primitive cultures, where survival of the whole tribe was not a given, the people sometimes were forced to leave the elderly to die along the trail. I used to think that was what I would do. When I got really old, and saw my strength waning, I'd go for a walk in the woods and just keep walking until I couldn't go any farther, sit by a tree, and wait. I thought that right up until I saw vultures and crows pecking at a sheep of ours that had gotten down and we hadn't seen until the carrion eaters had. The sheep was still alive. We could put it out of its misery; but if I was out in the woods like I had imagined, who would put me out of mine? I scratched that idea and am now aiming to be chopping wood or pulling blackberries until I fall over one day. But you know the best laid plans and all that.

It's hard for any of us to know how it'll be, what we will feel, if we are among those who reach the age where independence is a problem. It isn't fun to think about, but I think it's an important part of life to plan for the end-- not dwell on it but just know what we want and make sure others know also; so we don't leave the problem for family to work out.

Up to Date?

Life comes with no guarantees for how long it will last and each of us should live as though today is the only one we have. Sure we must make plans for the future, but truly we never know at any age that there will be one.

The lesson was taught me early on. I had a cousin, Sharon, who was especially close during my growing up years. She is the blonde with long hair in the picture of all us cousins. I am the dirty blonde in the plaid dress squinting into the sun.

Sharon, as we both grew up, was the one I would take walks with when we were at family gatherings (which were pretty much every holiday) and tell each other stories, each taking a part of the action. She's the one where we once played in a Salem park and told the other kids we were the children of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. They believed us too-- maybe. She's the one we would all play Mousketeers, a popular program when we were young, and we'd swing off the tall stack of hay bales with the rope bar yelling who we each were and she'd always let me be Annette-- or was that a case of let since I was the older!

Sharon lost her beautiful mother when she was a child and that might have made us even closer. She is the one I had sleepovers with, and we'd talk into the night about boyfriends. She was my best friend through high school and then college. When I got married, she was the one I wanted for my maid of honor. But after marriage, I moved to Tucson for awhile, I came back pregnant, then there were babies. She got married. We drifted apart and rarely spoke except at family gatherings and then it wasn't the same. I couldn't go for walks with toddlers to look after. Maybe I could have and just didn't make time.

We were both busy. We didn't live close. I assumed we'd have time to get closer someday again. When I heard she had the flu and had been hospitalized, I had no idea how serious it was. It seemed almost instantly she was dead. What she had had was a staph infection that dissolved her heart. The shock was one I still feel today. She was young, strong, beautiful, a new teacher, not married long, how could she be dead? Why had I put off spending time with her? She still comes to my mind every so often.

Time runs out so quickly. I heard another of those stories from a friend last week when her niece, 25 years old, died suddenly-- again from an illness that came to her with no warning and little time to realize this was it.

The lesson from what Ronni wrote is the same one I believe in totally and often forget just as quickly-- live up to date. Don't put off anything you don't have to delay. With my children and my brother, whenever I talk to them, we say we love each other when we end the conversation. It's not out of insecurity that one of us will be dead before the next chance to talk but more out of knowing that it strengthens living to be up to date, to not put off such words for a more opportune time.

We can't live in fear of someone else dying because it would incapacitate our living. There will always be times we put off getting together with someone because we are busy. That's human life, but if we live up to date, as best we know it, we don't have to live with fear. We will know we did the best we could. That's all anybody can do.

Currently wars, terrorist attacks, diseases seem to be growing in strength, and tthen there is global climate changes. We can't live fearful of such, but we can live for today and make the most of what we do have. It's a good way to live in any time.

How do you live your life?

I like those fluffy, quick personality tests, which can be surprisingly accurate for how few questions they have on them. Although I do have to wonder (as I always do with anything)-- are any of them ever going to say something extremely negative? Do we like them because they are flattering? If one of these quick tests came back-- you are a cowardly rat, would we still go-- yeah, that's me! Maybe we would.

I think, to a point, our dark side is important for us to be aware of, but perhaps most of us are too aware of our own negatives and need to be more aware of our positives; so we can grow them stronger. What we dwell on can be where we end up.

How You Live Your Life

You are honest and direct. You tell it like it is. You tend to avoid confrontation and stay away from sticky situations. You tend to have one best friend you hang with, as opposed to many aquaintences. You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren't attainable.

How Do You Live Your Life?

Clearing the Deck

Basically my month of August has been and will be about clearing debris out of my life-- both emotional and physical. I got started by redoing where I paint. I had been working in one end of the living room but decided if I cleared out and used instead the room I call the solarium (which had mostly become a storage area), it would leave the living room more open.

As it turned out, the solarium got more of a remake than that and these pictures show what it looks like now. The computer, an old one, recently upgraded, will be handy when working from digital photos or even when using it to experiment with an idea before bringing it to canvas.

Wherever I paint, I like to have a few things to look at that inspire me (the paintings at the end of the room will be changed) and have room to step back from my own work. In the case of the solarium, bamboo blinds still have to be installed at the windows to block afternoon sun. This south facing room isn't ideal for art but you work with what you've got in life.

The door is also one way into the vegetable garden, and this much-treasured basket, which had been my mother-in-law's, is for gathering produce.

A 30 cubic yard dumpster is already about 1/3 full and part of the August plan which has been about clearing excess from around the house, the harness shed, and if the dumpster isn't full by then, the barns. Last time a dumpster came, the barns went first and the rest lost out. I do learn my lessons-- eventually.

My goal is to get rid of everything that wouldn't be taken if we left here. It's not that selling this farm is planned, but one of the advantages of moving regularly is you don't accumulate so much of what can only be called junk.

Just beyond the solarium was a deteriorating deck and fence. I've been helping remove them by dragging the cut-apart remains to the dumpster. I also managed to get a long sliver in my arm from the rotting wood. Go Rain! I do have a knack for those kinds of moments in any outdoor project . This was with leather gloves and a long sleeved shirt, but I have to get at least one sliver to know I was working.

You'd think August would be for hanging out at the beach or maybe a mountain lake, but on a farm, it rarely is. I see the clearing outside as a metaphor for what I am trying to also do inside me-- get rid of what isn't working. Outside is usually easier.

Media Morass

How do you get your news and what do you trust? The latest snafu for the news media was doctored photos from Lebanon where the photos were so poorly photo-shopped that even an amateur could see the repeated images. It is amazing that a photo journalist, trying to show the world a war in Lebanon, would believe distorting the pictures to dramatize them was acceptable. Have we entered a time where truth has no meaning? Clearly that person had lost touch with the purpose of his job. For the rest of us, if we can't trust a photograph... scratch that question. Clearly we can't. And actually never have been able to as darkroom techniques have always allowed for fudging with this or that. Only now 'anybody' can do it.

So we have photos we can't believe. Then there are the words to describe actual events. Since the Bush administration was discovered to be paying journalists and commentators to get the viewpoint out that suited them best, since they send out fact sheets written up as stories for the newspapers to use directly, what is news and what is propaganda? How do you personally decide?

It's not like one news network or another is going to have the pure facts. They all have some kind of agenda. Some say that the entire media is liberal or was before Fox came along with its right wing slant. Since the media is generally owned by those on the right and the journalists typically lean to the left, where does that leave the viewer? In a mud-dle in the middle? Actually it probably seems to be biased to both sides at this point. They showed some stories on the current war in Lebanon and Israel to Arabs and Israelis. Both sides felt it was biased-- against their side.

Is it even possible to have stories that are pure facts without an agenda being pushed? I have heard that if we were to watch CNN in Europe, the feed would be totally different than here which is why they have seen the situation so differently. Each is aimed at their target audience-- telling them what they want to hear. Is that what news is-- entertain us and make us comfortable?

Some believe the best idea now is read blogs from war torn areas like Iraq, Lebanon and Israel and there is some merit in that. At least then the people with an agenda are upfront about it. There is no pretense that it's unbiased because these are people living on the frontlines of a human disaster and writing about what they see and feel. If they are prejudiced toward what allows them to survive or their own country to continue to exist-- we can understand.

It's been a very confusing, disillusioning time which is the main reason I haven't written about the situation between Israel, Lebanon and the Hezbollah. I read about it. I feel bad for it. One time I almost put something up until a good friend and I hashed it out up one side and down the other. When we had gotten through, I thought I don't really know what is true, and I don't want to write about it. I just want it to go away. But it won't.

None of this time of terrorism and wars is going away soon-- unless we blow each other up. We have entered a very ugly time and it is impacting the entire world. It's not (in my opinion) the fault of Israel for existing or even the US for attacking Iraq. Bin Laden began his vendetta against the West before we went into Iraq. Israel only provides an enemy for them to use to concentrate their power and gain followers.

Yes, the United States has made mistakes, and only history will determine the significance of those, but whatever brought us to here, I think we could all agree, we are in a mess, and part of that mess is being unable to trust the government or news to tell us the true situation.

If we can't know what is going on, how can we wisely vote, send money, or even pray? Possibly that suits some just fine to keep citizens in the dark. Some criticize the media if they give bad news. Or they want more coverage of this or less of that. Others want to only hear things that reaffirm their bias. But if the news media has any purpose at all, it should be to tell us what is happening period-- not what it means. Analysis should be labeled analysis. We should demand we get basic, honest coverage of events-- no hype. Is that asking too much? Apparently it is.