Ysabel de la Rosa

Signs and Wonders: Contributors Invited

2012-01-07T13:14:00.000-06:00

Do you have a story, essay, poem, photograph or other kind of image of a sign or wonder that has appeared in your life, after the departure of a loved one?

If you do and you'd like to share it with others, visit Getting Along with Grief for details.

New Batch of Images on Flickr

2012-01-02T12:47:00.001-06:00

Ysabel de la Rosa's photostream on Flickr.

Started the New Year by uploading some new images to Flickr. Bison, tigers and lions, oh my, with some tranquil flora and architectural scenes mixed in. Onlookers welcome.

A Good New Year to All

2011-12-31T18:47:00.003-06:00

Ysabel de la Rosa

May blessings true and tender

And joys that bring delight

Be yours this day and render

Your New Year fair and bright.

Christmas Greetings

2011-12-23T00:09:00.000-06:00

Angel in Seamless Robe by Ysabel de la Rosa

Flash Sale! 24 hours only! No, 5 hours, now 2 ....

2011-12-15T18:11:00.002-06:00

Kutaytanir, iStock Photo

Who decided it makes sense to send me up to three different "sale" offers per company per day? Who decided "flash sales" are a welcome opportunity? My next five hours are all booked up, honey, so here's a "flash" for you marketers out there. Normal, busy working folk cannot take time off just to meet your sales deadlines.

How about a sale opportunity that lasts a week? That would give me time to visit your site or store during my non-working hours, think about what I want to buy and whether or not the sale price is beneficial for me. That sounds soooo 1970s (or 60s or 50s), doesn't it? So, unsuccessfully slow. It also sounds human.

It would be humane, even enjoyable, to have time to think about a purchase. The more of my time these marketers rob with their deadline deal emails, post cards and other notices, the less time I'm likely to spend shopping with them, online or otherwise.

There's another bit of "fall-out" that occurs from these marketing tactics when I am notified of a sale opportunity I really want to follow up on, but can't. A great "deal" came my way recently with a two-day deadline. Ah, if it had only been three. I had some time today to take advantage of this 50-percent-off opportunity, but not yesterday or the day before. Not only did I miss out on the deal, I feel a sense of disappointment that I now associate with that vendor.

Last weekend, I was visiting with a friend who spent part of her childhood in Mexico and still returns there for Christmas holidays. Her family is large enough that buying presents for everyone is just not practical economically, so they don't! They--are you ready for this?--they SPEND TIME TOGETHER. That is their gift to each other. What a way to "do" Christmas!

My mother, father, and sister are no longer here to spend Christmas with those of our family who remain. I would gladly give up any and all gifts to have some Time with them now. There could be no gift I would value more. So, I don't want to be scroogy, but I do think we need to think about what a "gift" truly is. When a gift becomes a burden or a pressure to the giver, then something has gone wrong. Then it really is no longer "blessed to give." This bombardment of sale messages, for me, really eats at that blessed feeling, taking me instead to the deadline fever ward of the hospital in my mind.

If, in these last days before the 25th, you are losing some of the joy of giving and are not feeling like you are in a blessed space (which is where Advent can and should take us), then give yourself some T-I-M-E. You can't shop for it. You can't get it at a discount. You can only either waste it, use it productively, or create a small miracle and G-I-V-E yourself and others some of this precious, precious "medium." Here's wishing all of us a joyful Christmas Time.

BasittArt, iStock Photo

In the Spirit of Christmas

2011-12-06T09:00:00.003-06:00

I've designed some Christmas ornaments, using images of artworks, stained glass windows, vintage post cards, and other objets that are meaningful to me. My goal is to create ornaments that represent the quiet joy of Advent that too easily gets lost in this busy 21st-century world. A majority of the ornaments are visible in the flash panel above. However, there are more at my Zazzle store, which you can see by clicking here.

If you're missing someone these holidays, have a look at

2011-12-04T21:55:00.000-06:00

a beautiful essay by Noreen Braman on my other blog, Getting Along with Grief. I keep calling her words to mind as I hear beautiful Christmas music that I used to sing and listen to with loved ones no longer present.

Will Christmas ever feel quite right again without them? Of course, it will not. Which is why Noreen's essay about parting words is helping me find comfort.

If you or someone you know will be celebrating the holidays without those who used to celebrate those holidays by their side, Noreen's essay just might be the cup of comfort that they need.

A Wild Black Friday

2011-11-29T23:25:00.001-06:00

Spent part of "black Friday" in the wild with friends and family. The prairie dogs were quite conversational, and I had an eye-to-eye moment with a bison. Seeing the great dark shapes of these hooved creatures against the prairie grasses and old, old mountains produces a soothing sensation within me. The pairing / visual juxtaposition seems at once incongruous and ideal.

There were many other people out exploring the wildlife refuge last Friday. Proof that our society has not gone completely to the bags yet, and we can still decide to define shopping and not let shopping define us.

There's a reason why they call it Black

2011-11-17T22:26:00.002-06:00

Photo by Richard Sennott*, Star Tribune

It can be a very enjoyable outing to go shopping with friends or family the day after Thanksgiving. Can be. Used to be. While I know that some people truly enjoy camping out on a sidewalk to get into a big-box store before the rest of their fellow shoppers, I also think that this kind of "enjoyment" is a little like enjoying illegal drugs. It is remarkable--and frightening--what we Americans will tolerate having thrown at us in the way of messages that push, push, push us to buy, buy, buy. A man or woman selling drugs to children could not outdo these ads.

Have you seen the latest Target ad? I bet you have, but if not, you can see it here. The You Tube title even calls the ad "Crazy Target Lady."

Target is a great store. I shop there a lot. This is not a great ad. And it is a worse message. But, Target will be far from alone in this kind of messaging. You've probably also seen the news item about the Target employee who began a petition to fight back against these increasing retail hours. Here is the Minneapolis Star Tribune article about it. And it is a reminder that all us shopping folk forget about those poor working folk whose holidays are decimated while others go on shopping "sprees."

I remember hearing about lemmings at a young age. Science has now proven that they do not all go over a cliff together, just because they see each other doing it. However, when I was young, we were told this was true. I'm delighted to hear it is not true of the lemmings, but very disturbed to see the society I live in turning into a chapter of the lemming mythology.

I do not see Black Friday as an opportunity for saving money by spending it. I do see it as a day taken away from our rest time and from our families. I see it as a day that comes after we give thanks for our blessings and then go tearing out of our houses to buy more "blessings." I see it as a time when retailers, stock holders, advertisers, and others hope that we--you and I and our children--will indeed act like the lemmings of story time, hope that we can all be herded into a fast-running mass, so wound up, so single-minded about getting in store doors that we will forget all else...perhaps even that sharp drop-off up ahead.

__________________________________________________

*Richard Sennot Bio

A graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, Richard Sennott has published photographs in Newsweek, the New York Times, Life magazine, and the Washington Post. The recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the McKnight Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board, Sennott also received a Humanitarian Award from the Minnesota Associated Press in 1990. As a documentary photographer, he has traveled to El Salvador, Bosnia, Israel, and Iraq. He also has given lectures at Carlton College and the College of Saint Thomas. See his wonderful photos and learn more about his work here.

Following My Own Very Good Advice

2011-11-15T20:23:00.001-06:00

Do you remember this line from Alice in Wonderland?
"I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it."

Well, for once I am following my own very good advice about listening to more good music instead of more bad news. Today and yesterday, I have been listening to Lucille Chung's piano transcriptions of Saint-Saëns' music, and it's making my time in the car pretty happy indeed. It's also giving me a new and deeper appreciation of Camille Saint-Saëns, who, like his music was complex, multifaceted, a brilliant human mixture of harmony and dissonance.

Have you given yourself some very good advice lately?
Are you following it? Try it, it just might make you happy.

Lucille Chung: One good reason why God invented the piano

2011-11-13T21:46:00.002-06:00

Julie Albers, Alessio Bax, and Lucille Chung. Three young human beings that make me feel soaringly optimistic about the human race and its future. I was in the audience last night when Lucille Chung played the Concerto pour Piano Nº 2 OP.22 in G Minor by Camille Saint-Saëns. What a gift!

I heard Martha Barnette talking about the difference between mastery and artistry on this week's A Way with Words on public radio. A distinction that immediately set me thinking. Mastery is required, but artistry...artistry is the work of the soul, of the entire human being. It is, in my world, what happens when dance is applied to mastery.

Lucille Chung does not simply "play" the piano. She dances it. Every inch of her frame goes into each note. Even if you could not hear the music, you would remain entranced by her performance and its sheer physical beauty--the grace with which her hands rise into the air after a chord, the architectural slant of her body as she leans into a passage, and the beauty of her wrists, each a miniature gymnast.

If you want a break from what Les Brown calls Constant Negative News (the initials fit CNN, but the term can apply to just about any medium at the moment), from soul-draining political battles, from fear over the world economy, then buy Lucille's CDs, and DO IT NOW. You will be transported into what matters, will travel into that other world we lose track of, but need to make part of our daily lives: the world of creation, expression, artistry, mastery, and celebration.

Lucille Chung is a master. An artist. A conduit for beauty and grace. She is able to render the most complex of musical passages into something I can only call--pure joy. Or, as she says on her latest tweet, "I had a blast performing Saint-Saëns Nº 2." And I had a blast, too, Mme. Lucille Chung, I had a blast, too. Thanks, grazie, gracias, merci y mucho más.

To learn more about this multilingual, articulate, and fun virtuoso, click here.

Take a Bilingual Ride on the Red River / Un viaje poético por el Río rojo

2011-11-04T23:59:00.006-05:00

In this case, I am referring to Red River Review, an outstanding online poetry journal, which began "way back" in 1999. Current editor is Michelle Hartman, and Bob McRanie serves as Web master. This electronic journal is simply and elegantly organized, and the poetry it publishes represents a fantastic variety of voices that bring real life to poetry and bring poetry to real life.

Photo by Ysabel de la Rosa

In the introduction to this month's issue, Michelle writes:

Dylan Thomas defined poetry this way: "Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing." What happened to poems about sunsets, heart break, or golden leaves spiraling frivolously to the ground? I hear at workshops that these topics are dead, and all that can be said about them has been said. Has it? Isn’t that what poetry is all about, taking something that we observe every day and holding it up to a new light, using new tools of perception and language to show the world it’s not your mother's kind of leaf?

As Michelle also points out in her introduction, this issue even includes a poem about bill collection. While the subject may be one we would all rather run from, Madonna Wilt's poem transforms the emotions that accompany this part of real life into real art--and a beautiful piece of writing.

This month's Red River Review also includes five of my bilingual poems:

Art Lesson / Lección de arte

Family Tree / Árbol de familia

Feeling There While Being Here / En el estado de no estar

Stilled / Calmada

There Are Times When / Hay veces cuando

Bilingual readers will notice that these poems aren't standard translations of each other. A poem may “come” to me first in either language. Whether the versión original is in English or Spanish, working on bilingual poetry is, for me, a dance—sometimes a very difficult one—where there can be much retracing of steps and no small amount of starting over in the effort to make each poem an artistic whole in its own language, yet maintain its vital relationship to its sister poem.

by Ysabel de la Rosa

Speaking of sisters, I'd like to thank some of my "bilingual poetry sisters." First and foremost, thanks to Carmen Castaños, friend, mentor, hermana del alma, and grand master of merengue; to Catherine Andrako for her aesthetic, moral and emotional support; to Araceli Galiano, literary cheerleader, writer, and artist; and to Patricia Melgar, one of the most talented and skilled bilingual translators and editors anywhere in the world. And thanks to Alicia Pérez que tiene un corazón más grande que ella misma.

*************************************************

En este caso, me refiero a la excelente revista literaria Red River Review. Empezó a publicarse en el año 1999. Su redactora es la poeta Michelle Hartman y Bob McRanie es el Web master. La revista está organizada de manera sencilla y directa y la poesía que publica representa una maravillosa variedad de voces que introducen la vida real en la poesía y que introducen la poesía en la vida real.

En la introducción de la edición de noviembre, Michelle escribe:

Dylan Thomas describió la poesía así: "La poesía es lo que me hace reír, llorar o bostezar, lo que hace centellear a mis uñas, lo que me hace querer hacer algo o no querer hacer nada".

¿Qué pasó a los poemas sobre las puestas del sol, el sufrimiento del corazón, o unas hojas doradas bajándose en espiral al suelo? Me dicen en las conferencias que estos temos están muertos, que todo lo que se puede decir al respecto ya se ha dicho. ¿De verdad? ¿No es verdad que de esto se trata la poesía? ¿Tomar algo que observamos cada día, mirarlo por una nueva luz, utilizar las herramientas de la percepción y del idioma para demostrar al resto del mundo que esta hoja no es la hoja de nadie más, sino que esta hoja es única e irrepetible?

¡Tiene razón! Este número del Red River Review incluye un poema sobre un tema demasiado común, lo de las deudas y cómo pagarlas. Aunque el tema no es agradable, el poema escrito por Madonna Wilt transforma las emociones que acompañan esta situación de tal manera que hasta este tema quotidiano se convierte en un ejemplo de escritura realmente bella.

Este número de Red River Review también incluye cinco poemas míos.

Art Lesson / Lección de arte

Family Tree / Árbol de familia

Feeling There While Being Here / En el estado de no estar

Stilled / Calmada

There Are Times When / Hay veces cuando

Lectores bilingües observarán que estos poemas no son traducciones estándares, el uno al otro. Puede que un poema me "llegue" en inglés o castellano. Sin embargo, tarde o temprano, los poemas se convierten en gemelos (fraternos, no maternos) y para mí, el trabajar con las dos versiones resulta ser una especie de baile--a veces un baile muy difícil de aprender--uno en que tengo que "desandar el andado" y empezar de nuevo muchísimas veces en un esfuerzo para crear de cada poema una unidad artística sin perder su relación vital con su "poema gemelo".

Hablando de parientes poéticos, quisiera dar las gracias a unas hermanas poéticas mías. A Carmen Castaños, amiga, confidante, mentora, hermana del alma, y maestra del merengue; a Catherine Andrako por su apoyo estético, moral y emocional; a Araceli Galiano, amiga, artista, escritora y animadora; a Patricia Melgar, una de las traductoras y redactoras bilingües más expertas y perspicaces en todo el mundo. Y, finalmente, a Alicia Pérez, que tiene un corazón más grande que ella misma.

Happy Halloween, Harvest, and Newness

2011-10-31T20:07:00.002-05:00

Photo by Ysabel de la Rosa

Even as I see flashing orange orbs in neighbors' yards, greet the tiny pirate walking down my street, and hear a little girl scream when greeted by a gory mask behind a trick-or-treat door--all fun--I am more inclined to lean toward the ancient tradition of Samhain. You can read a lot about it from many sources, but, put very simply, the Celtic festival celebrated the harvest and formed a kind of new year celebration for those who participated in it.

What I like about this tradition (and like about the Jewish new year, as well) is the earth connection to harvest time. In the northern hemisphere, this is a time of fruition, of gathering, of light becoming gentler and temperatures becoming cooler--not yet bitter. Somehow, taking harvest time as a time to begin a new year's cycle has much more appeal for me than our dead-of-winter January 1st date. This time of year feels to me more natural, celebratory, and sensibly organic.

Soon, we move from this time into Thanksgiving, another celebration that can remind us of all that is "begotten, not made." And for those many begotten blessings, it's always a good time to be glad and grateful, call the day whatever you like.

Poll Dancing

2011-10-21T00:43:00.002-05:00

Photo by JulNichols of iStock Photo

You probably heard the same news I did: 46% of Americans now support legalizing marijuana, according to a recent Gallup Poll.

Hooey! Gallup interviewed 500 Americans.

It's stated clearly on their Website:

Survey Methods

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Oct. 7-10, 2010, with a random sample of 1,025 adults, aged 18 and older, living in the continental U.S., selected using random-digit-dial sampling.

Each question reported here was asked of a half-sample of approximately 500 national adults.

How, why do both the media and Gallup's own publicity apparatus DARE to tell us that 46 percent of Americans think anything? 46 percent of the 500 people they talked to are in favor of legalizing marijuana. Yes, that is the highest percentage of people for pro-legalization ever. But the actual number of people is 230 Americans. Yes, they choose those survey-ees from a random sample, and take into consideration age and other demographic information, but it is still just 230 people!

As the political season heats up, we will see news report after news report tell us what polls tell us. Look up the polls, look up the numbers, and learn the truth. Research is great. When done well, surveys can be helpful, informative, and accurate indicators of trends. Still, this should give no media and no organization the right to speak for an entire country after talking to a few hundred people.

To be honest, this should be reported as: "In Gallup's latest poll on whether or not Americans favor legalizing marijuana, 46 percent of those polled said that they are in favor." They could be even more transparent and add: "500 people were surveyed."

I have yet to be one of those Americans that Gallup or anyone else "polls." I also have yet to be an American that decides what or how to think because of any poll taken anywhere. I think, and hope, that I'm alone in this.

The Euro, Café, and Personal History

2011-10-14T23:10:00.008-05:00

Photo by Fotosipsak of iStock Photo

While living in Spain, I learned volumes about history by talking to individuals whose stories will never appear in a history book or program.

I'll never forget hearing a friend tell me what it was like to survive the poverty of the posguerra (the years immediately after the civil war) in southeastern Spain. "A neighbor of ours slaughtered a hog," she told me, "and shared it with my family. I hadn't eaten in a week, though, and after eating the meal we made from the hog, I threw it all up, and was soon hungry again."

I happened to be in Spain during another transition, though not a violent one. It was an economic transition, the coming of the euro. I remember vividly the public service announcements on how to calculate the value of pesetas to euros. In fact, Doña Letizia herself presented many of those PSAs in her pre-princesa days.

I dreaded the change. A conversion formula of 1,68 pesetas per Euro was not something I could figure in my head. In spite of the contrasting rims, the denominations on the euro coins were harder for me to differentiate from each other than the former Spanish coins had been. It was too easy to drop the wrong amount in a machine or give erroneous change to someone. Yet, these problems were mere discomforts compared to the major problem the Euro stealthily brought to Spain's economy.

Photo by Kenni Caraballo, of iStock Photo

With the change to the euro, countless businesses and corporations raised prices. Pre-euro a delicious, rejuvenating cup of Spanish coffee cost 50 pesetas. Suddenly, it cost 1 euro; technically 1,68 pesetas. Soon, it was 1,5 euros in many places, and friends in Spain tell me now you can pay more than that for coffee.

Take that little coffee price maneuver and transfer it to: food, utilities, housing, transportation .... and remember that--¡surprise!--salaries did not share this rounding-up move that accompanied the euros Spaniards now had to spend. Salaries stayed static.

I can't speak to what happened in other European countries, but I'd have no trouble believing that rounding up of prices and expenses happened in other euro zone countries, as well.

When I hear reports about the euro zone, cynicism rises within me. Yes, people in their respective countries voted to join the euro zone, but these votes were based on information regarding increased future prosperity and security. The opposite is what took place. My cynicism also remembers NAFTA. Much of the information regarding NAFTA was like the information regarding the euro: much more projection and conjecture than proven, dependable information. Watch one half-hour of news from Mexico and ask yourself what in the world did NAFTA do? For that matter, watch the US economic news, and ask the same question.

I pay close attention to economic news (I'm a big fan of Nightly Business Report, Marketplace, and The Economist) and try my best to understand the "big stuff," the financial trends, bank bailouts, exports / imports, trade deficits and surpluses, but I didn't need to know any of that to know that the euro was going to be a big problem for lots of people, such a big problem that it now affects economies far outside the euro zone. All I needed was to buy a cup of coffee that, from one day to the next, had jumped 30 percent in price.

Strangely, the euro now looks to be as difficult to digest for many Europeans as that plate of pork was for my friend in those terrible conditions many years ago.

Festival Both Meaningful and Fun

2011-10-12T17:33:00.002-05:00

The Houston Poetry Festival was a great event. This festival is the brain-child of Robert Clark. He and the steering committee did a great job of organizing the event. The only organizational difficulty was presented by Mother Nature. Some areas of Houston received as much as 7 inches of rain last Sunday, the last day of the Festival. So, it took some very determined and hardy souls to make it downtown to the Willow Street Pump Station for the reading.

I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the works of my fellow poets, although I had to leave early in order not to drive back in both a rainstorm and darkness. These poets included: Adamarie Fuller, Lillian Susan Thomas, and Maria Illich. If they have Websites, I have not been able to find them to link to them, but I encourage you to dig around and try to find works by these women. Also reading that afternoon were: Bradley Earl Hoge, Christopher Carmona, Angélique Fuller, and Garrett Middaugh.

The Festival produces an anthology each year with one poem by each of the participating poets. The anthology included the poem below that I wrote in 2010. This poem has also been published in Red River Review.

ON LEARNING MY SISTER HAS CANCER

The winter sun

illuminates the dead grass

paints the elm’s branches

onto the cottage wall

tumors discovered

Bird song—somewhere—

rises into the morning air.

Are the feathered ones as

glad as I am to see the snow

has gone?

not just colon

also

liver

We used to look out

our father’s study window

at the birds who came to

the ancient linden tree:

oriole, tanager, jay

anemia, the tumor bleeds,

and, in the lab, the blood speaks

for the lesioned liver

There were no grackles there,

no shiny trick birds with

iridescent feathers whose

sound rasped against the ear,

but they roost here now, close,

in my own yard

we have promised

each other

prayer, hope, a

shared battle

There was Light then, working

its way through linden leaves,

window panes and onto

young faces looking out.

There is Light now. Even the

grackles know this and

croak their praise.

*******

Houston Poetry Festival This Weekend

2011-10-06T20:51:00.002-05:00

The 26th Annual Houston Poetry Festival will take place this weekend.

Here's the scoop: Houston Poetry Fest Schedule, Oct 7-Oct 9.

Place: The Historic Willow Street Pump Station on 811 North San Jacinto.

Lots of people work on this event sponsored by the University of Houston, and it promises to be a fun and fascinating time. I am the guest poet on Sunday, October 9, and I'll read at 2 p.m.

Back in the Saddle, Writing About Friends ....

2011-10-06T00:36:00.000-05:00

Dos amigos. Foto por Ysabel de la Rosa

Had to wander away from this here blog fer a bit. :-) But I've returned .... First news item: You're invited to contribute to my blog Getting Along with Grief. Through November 15, the blog's theme will be Friends, and The Importance Of.

Honor a friend who has passed away by sending a poem, memory, or image of that person as a tribute to him or her. We will also include pieces about friends who have helped us journey through a time of loss. See blog for details.

****

Están invitados a contribuir memorias, ensayos, poemas, y/o imágenes en el blog Getting Along with Grief, sobre el tema de los amigos y la importancia que tienen en nuestras vidas. Destacaremos a aquellos amigos que ya han dejado esta vida y a aquellos que nos han acompañado en nuestro camino después de la pérdida de un ser querido. Vean el blog para más información.

A Cat, a Dog, and Shakespeare: The Perfect Sunday Afternoon

2011-09-18T17:35:00.003-05:00

One reason I keep paying a cable bill is to be able to watch Turner Classic Movies. I had just finished a batch of Sunday chores and was resting a moment on the couch, wedged between Chatterly the cat and Gypsy the dog (an Australian Kelpie), and saw that TCM was about to air Julius Caesar, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, and produced in 1953.

I read Julius Caesar for the first time when I was in sixth grade. It was a great time to read it, because it seemed fresh and real to me, even though some of the centuries-old English was challenging.

James Mason as Brutus

The movie made me wish that Joseph Mankiewicz had directed more of Shakespeare's works for cinema. The balance the movie strikes is oh, so totally just right. It does not go so far into cinematic territory that we lose the work's theatricality, but travels far enough by camera that it provides a sense of seamless reality only a movie can create. The casting was brilliant. James Mason was at his best as Brutus, and he carries the film on his shoulders, which is in no way a criticism of any of the other actors--simply praise for Mason. His character needs to shoulder the play--and Mason made that happen.

More impressive still is the sheer, vibrant, living, breathing English that Shakespeare gave us. I had the great fortune of meeting poet William Stafford and taking various classes from him. One of the first things he told us is that language is for swimming. When we speak, think, or write, we are swimming in language. We are two separate entities, the language and our selves, yet we are not apart.

There were moments in this movie when I had goose bumps, listening to that lively language flow from the screen into my living room; moments when sixth grade came back to me in full color--the small paper back of Julius Caesar, the classroom I carried the book into, and phrases... phrases as fresh today as they were to me so many years ago:

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant die but once."

"But for my own part, it was Greek to me."

"He reads much; He is a great observer, and he looks Quite through the deeds of men."

"This was the most unkindest cut of all."

"If you have tears, prepare to shed them now."

"The eye sees not itself but by reflection."

"When love begins to sicken and decay, It useth an enforced ceremony.

There are no tricks in plain and simple faith."

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune."

Deborah Kerr as Portia

The lines of Portia, wife of Brutus, though few, are remarkable. Among them: "Dwell I but in the suburbs Of your good pleasure? If it be no more, Portia is Brutus's harlot, not his wife."

Whatever is spoken, though, is said artfully and organically. Here is poetry that swims and takes us with it. Often, after watching a movie, I feel a vague dissatisfaction, a sense I've been diverted, distracted, informed, or entertained, but not fulfilled. That was not the case today. My ears, mind and heart were washed in the glory of a gifted language, and I felt revived. The cat purred. The dog wagged her tail. They must have liked it, too.

Friday Fun

2011-09-16T11:55:00.005-05:00

Ysa's Quiz Quollage, from Webify

I almost never do anything like this ... but that little tease copy on Firefox finally "got" me. I went to Webify, took the quiz, and the wizard tucked away in virtual land created this collage based on my answers. I don't begin to understand it (which is part of its charm).

I used to travel to Chicago a lot on business and go to Europa Books there. They have a magnificent selection of books and periodicals in German, French, Italian, and Spanish. I took a colleague there with me one day. She stayed in the store just a few minutes. When I was done browsing, I found her outside, standing on the sidewalk, smoking a cigarette. And she said, "I don't understand anything that's in there!" And I said, "I know. Isn't it wonderful?"

So, this is one of those things I don't understand, but it's a little wonder-ful.

A message from the Wildfire Relief Fund

2011-09-07T20:35:00.003-05:00

This is the note I received after making my donation (See post below). Note the updated statistics:

Since January of this year, 3.5 million acres in Texas has been destroyed by wildfires, which includes 2,897 structures and more than 700 homes. Whole towns are being consumed. Not only is land destroyed, but lives are lost—both those of firefighters and Texans.

Volunteer firefighters contribute the majority of the work in battling these wildfires. Grossly underfunded, these brave men and women often work without protective gear and 86 percent use personal funds to meet the day-to-day equipment and supply needs of their fire departments.

Your donation will directly benefit Texas volunteer firefighters by providing equipment, food, water, and fuel.

Wildfire Relief, How to Help

2011-09-07T18:25:00.002-05:00

What a summer in Texas. 3.5 million acres burned, at last count, with fires still burning in central and north Texas. In millions of those acres, the men and women who fight the fires are VOLUNTEERS. Repeatedly this summer, they have risked their lives to keep these fires from doing even greater damage. Volunteer firefighters have no funding from any government. We, the people, are their only source of funds. Given the record-breaking heat, drought and increase in wildfires to be fought, those funds are now dangerously low.

Lack of funding means that volunteer firefighters have to fight fires with less-than-optimal equipment, making a life-threatening situation even more deadly. When you're not next door to one of these fires, it's easy not to worry. We have so much trust and faith in our firefighters, both employed and volunteer. I think of them as a staple of my community and my country, a continual resource. I walked out of my house one day and smelled nothing but smoke in the air from a rural fire in our area, and worry never crossed my mind... after all, the firefighters were on the job.

But this job takes a lot of equipment and material resources, as well as human commitment and energy. I've experienced a wake-up call and now realize that this is one community resource that needs us as much as it protects us.

I learned just today of the Texas Wildfire Relief Fund. I invite you to join me in making a donation, large or small. It's a fitting way to honor all first-responders and to remember those who rushed to help on 9/11. Just click here to donate securely online.

If you're not in or from Texas, see if there is a Wildfire Relief Fund in your state. Southern California and Georgia have Wildfire Relief Funds. Search for your state and "wildfire relief" on Google.

This year, more than 6.1 million acres of US land have burned (Source: The Weather Channel), a record-breaking statistic. It's more important than ever to help those who have, against great odds, kept that number from being even greater and more devastating.

All photos from the Texas Wildfire Relief Website

Summer Day / Día de verano

2011-09-03T00:30:00.004-05:00

Summer Day / Día de verano, a photo by Ysabel de la Rosa on Flickr.

In celebration of the end of summer, or at least of hearing the news that this Saturday should be the last of our 98 100+ days (For those of you in Celsius Land, our temperature has been at 42 for way too long.), I've been reviewing images from summer and uploading some to my Flickr stream. This photo reminds me that summer can be beautiful.

If you meet the Buddha on the road, he will likely be a cat.

2011-08-28T15:37:00.004-05:00

Since learning about yoga at age 14, I've engaged in various bouts of trying to achieve stillness of body and mind. The positions and exercises that even a basic and simple yoga practice provide have been a great help to me. This was especially true after being in a major automobile accident and surviving various musculo-skeletal injuries. Still (how to avoid this pun?), after many years, I had yet to achieve stillness. For a while, I tried Tibetan breathing techniques. I also use (and draw great comfort from) the time-honored "Jesus prayer" used by pilgrims for thousands of years (Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me). I could slow down, I could calm down... but utter stillness eluded me.

Then the cat came into my life. He is not the first cat ever, but the first cat in more than 25 years to come into my life. Bear with me a moment while I tell you about the very first cat.

I was four, and my cousins gave me a beautiful Siamese kitten. While discussing what to call the cat, my parents said to each other: "We'd like to give him an oriental name." I overheard them and shouted, "Me, too! Me, too!" And thus, the cat was named: Mitu / Meetoo. Meetoo was gregarious and bright. He could open the back door from the inside on his own and could knock gently on the door when he wanted back in the house. He was my company, my fascination, my adventure, and my love. One day on one of his adventures, Meetoo met with a car and broke his leg. My parents raced him to the vet, who put his leg in a cast, but it was not long before my dear cat left me for cat heaven.

I could not be comforted. I refused to cry, but I also refused to talk. And, being born with a large dose of stubbornness, I was able to keep my silence for a long enough time that my parents became alarmed. Knowing I loved to draw, my mother got out a set of finger paints and arranged them on the kitchen table. I started painting and used only one color: black. My mother held her silence until I was finished and then asked, "What is this picture?" "It''s a cave," I answered. "I should have put Meetoo in a cave, so he would be safe." My mother then described to me just how depressing life in a cave would be for a cat, and I became part of the family conversation once again, my silence broken at last.

Last spring, I felt "moved by the spirit" to adopt a cat. I was hesitant. I'd been a dog owner and lover now for many years. Cats had become foreign to me. I heeded the call, though, and came home from the humane society with a very chatty tabby. So chatty, in fact, I named him Chatterly (note the lack of a second e, so as not to be confused with another more famous "Chatterley" of literature). It took a while for him to "adopt me back," but he has indeed done that. We communicate now, though it's challenging to discern the infinitesimal differences between one meow and another to determine the specificity of his request, remark, complaint, or discovery. It was courageous of him to adopt me. One of his ribs had been broken badly at some point in his life, and the staff at the human society told me that being "dropped off" had been even more traumatic for him than is "the norm."

We've settled in together, and several times a day now, he teaches me stillness. He slips into stillness like the hand of a driver into a tight racing glove. He--just--does. There is no preparation or ceremony.

When he looks out the window, he does so from stillness and inside stillness. When he becomes a perfectly round ball of fur as he naps, he embodies stillness and holds it--there--in his being. There are moments when he stretches a paw towards me and makes the smallest sound to say, "I'm coming over to your space." Those moments are best when I am already lying down and he lies next to me, utterly, perfectly still.

I have yet to achieve my cat's perfect-balance stillness, but its presence is instructive, enlightening. To see stillness demonstrated so perfectly in my home every day keeps my mind tuned to that desire I have to find and to know the still-point of balance, myself--physically, mentally, spiritually. When the student is ready, the teacher does appear.

Reading One's Way

2011-08-21T19:48:00.002-05:00

Please click on over to my other blog, Getting Along with Grief, to learn about Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, and how traveling through a year of books can inform, delight, help and heal. While Jan Hoffman's article tells the story of how author, attorney, wife and mom Nina Sankovitch found solace from loss by reading a book a day for a year, the article is testimony to just how much books can and still do provide for us everyday. It motivated me to start thinking of books again as companions and see television and its commercials for the life-interrupting force it too often is.
Hasta pronto ....

What the Gods Have Not Taken from Us

2011-08-14T22:36:00.003-05:00

Illustration by Diane and Leo Dillon*

In one of my favorite books by C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces, the author writes: "Weakness and work are two things the gods have not taken from us." I have recalled that sentence in my mind countless times in the 40 years since I read that novel, especially on nights when, already tired beyond description, I faced additional office work or housework. This summer, however, there has been a variation on that sentence coming to my mind: "Weakness, work and weather are three things the gods have not taken from us."

I live in one of this summer's drought-stricken states, Texas. Texans have long suffered hot summers and done so with no small degree of toughness and pride. This summer for me, however, has been like no other in my lifetime. This summer's drought and high temperatures have made the weather a source of death and destruction. Trees that have graced these plains for three generations or more have died. Ranchers had to sell entire herds of cattle, because there was no way to water or feed them. This leaves them with very uncertain futures, because starting another herd from scratch is overwhelming in every way, including economically. The wheat crop is a disaster, gone and done. Cotton did some better, but not well enough not to punish its producers.

Where once there was water

Tanks (man-made ponds for livestock) are dry to the dirt, cracked and pock-marked. The lakes that supply our water are dipping to new lows. Wildlife are hurting. A few weeks ago, I found a baby Mississippi Kite in my front yard. An extraordinary creature, letting the water from the sprinkler in my front yard cool its grey and white feathers. Still so young that when it opened its large wings, it would fall over. Fortunately, there is a wild bird rescue operation in my community. One of their volunteers came to collect the bird, and I now know it will be fed and cared for until it can soar on its own. The volunteer told me that last year, they rescued some 34 Kites, but this year by mid-summer they had already rescued well over 100. She believes that the Kite that arrived Lord-knows-how in my yard was pushed from the nest either by a dominant sibling or by parents who simply could no longer feed it.

The young Kite

The summer has taught me that we, too, are vulnerable, perhaps even as vulnerable as the Kite who looked steadily at me with its deep, black eyes as I sat on the ground next to it a while. And, after hearing news reports about Glacier Park in Colombia losing glacier territory, and myriad other reports about climate change, I want to say this: Let's stop arguing over what's happening and just work to fix it. Let's act as though climate change were real and fast upon us, and then everyone wins. I'd love to work on the problem and then find out we don't have one....much more so than not act now and find out later that the problem is insolvable.

But back to C.S. Lewis's novel and the gods that appear in it. Just when I had reached a level of distress over our weather, four days after I drove down a highway where a parched brown forest now borders the shoulders of the road, a cool wind arrived. The temperature dropped from 108 to 89 degrees Fahrenheit. And then: and then the unthinkable. It rained. The first drop of rain in three months. I went outside and stood in it, as I had promised myself I would do if the rain would just visit us once again. This was no rain I wanted to be protected from. This was God-given rain I wanted to embrace. A reminder that, indeed, the gods have not taken weather from us, that just as the weather the gods give us can threaten and destroy, it can also soothe and restore.

*The illustration by Diane and Leo Dillon was used for the cover of the Time Life edition of Till We Have Faces. The caption links to an article about these award-winning illustrators.

Touch, Feel, Use and Enjoy

2011-08-02T21:29:00.004-05:00

Iris and Rose by Arline Rubin

Yes, you can do all this ... with paper! We are a special bunch, paper addicts. We know that when we touch a well-made paper that we hold the essence of tree and land in our hand. We know that a clean, white paper surface will never strain our eyes. We know that paper is still an envoy par excellence for thoughts, wishes, drawings, paintings, and that this simple two-dimensional creation can tailor a gift in just the right dress. So, my fellow paper addicts, please read on to learn about a place worthy of pilgrimage for the likes of us.

While Texas sizzled under the sun (No idle metaphor. You can literally smell the baked earth when you walk outside), I had the luck to be strolling Selby Avenue in the Cathedral Hill neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota. At Number 366, you'll find Paper Patisserie, a treasure of a shop, owned by Eileen Shapiro. What follows is a selection of what you will find at Paper Patisserie.

Crane stationery. Always a good choice. Letterpress cards. Talk about touchable paper! The letterpress cards include selections from Saturn Press in Maine. While Paper Patisserie has a really good selection of cards for all occasions, its selection of sympathy cards really stands out. (I bought about 10 of these while I was there.) Sheets of wrapping paper lovely and unusual enough to frame. Claire Fontaine notebooks and journals! These journals contain some of the most velvety white paper for writing and drawing you can find anywhere ....actually they are hard to find just anywhere. Sold widely in Europe, this line of notebooks and journals is not easy to find stateside. Handmade cards with pressed flowers. I bet you are thinking "old-lady cards" (which I like, by the way), but no...these pressed-flower cards by Arline Rubin make great contemporary art. Art cards by Minnesota artist Barbara Evan. Origami Originals, cards by Linda Oette that feature 3-D handmade kimonos. Labels that look just like European ephemera, but don't cost anywhere near as much. Hand-milled soap wrapped in, what else?, beautiful papers. No, I'm not done yet. All this and chocolate! The exquisite, individually wrapped bon-bon kind, that is, well, so very bon!

Across the street: A church for people "who
want to make sense of things." See sign, lower left.

The selection of belles choses to be found here is thoughtful, interesting, and, yes, I am using this word correctly, unique. And don't bother looking for my link to Paper Patisserie, because the store does not have a Web site. ¡A Dios, gracias!

If I could provide a link to this store, it would feel like cheating: cheating paper lovers out of pushing open the old wooden door in this red brick, 19th-century building and walking into a space that quietly embraces and invites you to look, see, touch. It would cheat you out of ambiance---that indefinable yet nearly palpable feeling of being in a place like no other, in this case, a place where paper waits for you and whatever you have to say, write, draw, wrap. That eternal silent partner, cómplice to artists, writers, thinkers, lovers... still here, still waiting for you.

So, make a note, fellow travelers and amants du papier, if you are anywhere near the Twin Cities area, find your way to Paper Patisserie (parking is free). 366 Selby Avenue, Suite 100. (651) 227-1398

Making Me Think

2011-07-24T18:48:00.002-05:00

Subway sandwich store, Sao Paolo, by YDLR

I'm almost ready to go back to the delightful days I spent in Minnesota and share with you the sights and insights of those days. My brain is being willful, though, and won't quite let me go there at the moment.

The famine half a world away still has my thoughts pinned down. The thoughts are ones that take some of my self-created comfort away, even as they bring me a welcome kind of awakening. I sent a donation to Unicef, and I feel very good about that. As I watched Rozanne Chorlton, Unicef representative in Somalia, I felt quite humbled. She has the face of the perfect mother or grandmother, benevolent and radiant. She stood among the masses of people, a tangerine colored scarf covering her head, and a bulletproof vest on her torso, telling the media how important it was to keep trying to reach even beyond the thousands of desperate people swarming around her in a refugee outpost.

I was humbled by the grief on the face of the father who had walked for four days to get food for his son and did not yet know if the food would be enough and in time enough to save his son's life.

These news reports are forcing me (I say forcing, because I don't really want to follow this line of self-questioning) to look at my 21st-century, industrialized-nation relationship to food. A relationship heavily influenced (and distorted) by advertising and accessibility. How easy it is for me to forget the wise words of naturalist Aldo Leopold, who wrote: "Heat does not come from the furnace, and breakfast does not come from the grocery store."

I wonder if I can become more "sober" about my own relationship with food. How insane is it that at 6 p.m. I can see a newscast about thousands of starving, dying children, then go to a supermarket 10 minutes from my house and walk down an entire aisle of nothing but "chips" or make a decision for dessert between Reese's Peanut Butter Cups or Justin's Organic Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups? This is a kind of juxtaposition that can only be described as schizophrenic.

So, my questions to myself are: When I walk down those aisles of plenty, can I remember the children, not only in Somalia, but in my own country, who suffer from lack of food, who, in fact, may be dying from lack of sustenance? Can I see and feel the blessing of the fresh fruit, vegetables, and safe meat that I can choose from, without resorting to thinking about what kind of food I am in the "mood" to eat? Can I keep my head clear when the idiocy of the Pepperidge Farm commercial airs, the one that proclaims that "Chocolate is good for the soul."? On days when I am "in the mood for" something other than what is already in my cupboard, can I muster the discipline to eat what I already have without going out for that one thing I don't already have?

I make a small monthly donation to my local food bank and contribute to food drives, but that does not make my own food life "clean" or my food conscience "clear." The fact that I donate to causes to help with hunger does not qualify me to ever meet a famine victim and be able to hold my head high in their suffering presence. Perhaps that is why the news reports humble me so. I don't like to admit it, but my sheer luck in life has led me to be casual and cavalier about food, to forget my dependence on a host of factors and people, to see food exactly as Aldo Leopold advised me not to, thinking of my local supermarket as an ongoing fountain of comestibles (whose price increases are also ongoing).

Well, I have asked the questions now. Only time will tell how well I am able to live the answers.

Famine officially declared, News from Unicef

2011-07-22T12:55:00.000-05:00

The U.N. has declared famine in parts of southern Somalia. This is the worst starvation seen in Africa in 20 years. Thousands of children have died. More than two million children are desperate for food – many have just days to live.

Children 3 or 4 years old with bodies the size of 9 month old babies, wrinkled skin, sunken eyes. Unspeakable suffering borne by the most innocent and vulnerable among us.

Children in Africa need your help RIGHT NOW.Please STOP... take out your card... and donate to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. You will save lives. Your gift will immediately be rushed to support UNICEF's relief efforts in the Horn of Africa.

As dire the news – know that this is not a lost cause.

UNICEF is in the midst of a massive mobilization. Late last week, UNICEF airlifted 5 metric tons of therapeutic food and emergency supplies to the region. More flights are leaving imminently. Hundreds of additional tons of food, clean water and medical supplies are on their way.

It doesn't matter where they are... Huge numbers of women and children are fleeing violence in Somalia. They travel under the scorching sun by foot, only to collapse and die on the side of dirt roads. UNICEF is doubling the capacity of mobile feeding centers to find, feed and treat these children.

Miracle food for just a few dollars... For the child staring death in the face, UNICEF is distributing therapeutic foods like PlumpyNut™. This is a fortified nut paste that with even just one feeding can pull a child back from the brink. Already, UNICEF has shipped more than 10,000 cartons of PlumpyNut™ to Mogadishu. Just $10 can feed a child for 10 days.

This isn't just about being hungry... Severely malnourished children are highly susceptible to disease. And a thirsty child doesn't care if water is contaminated – she'll drink it. Already, UNICEF is providing 1.2 million people with clean water, and more water is being delivered – enough to reach 60,000 additional families.

Please donate – as generously as you can – and help fund this massive mobilization to save children from suffering and death.

A final thought... read this not just as an email. Read this and see it for it what it is: a cry for help from the world's most vulnerable children. Please don't turn away, don't ignore their plea for help.

We do not know the child we will save together. But we respond anyway, out of love, out of compassion and out of a belief that we have an obligation to help these children. Together, we can rescue them and give them hope for a better tomorrow.

With my deepest thanks,

Caryl M. Stern
President & CEO
U.S. Fund for UNICEF

We can help the children of Somalia.

2011-07-22T01:01:00.003-05:00

We can help this child by donating any amount to Unicef.

I have to take a moment to post yet another "plug" for Unicef. As you may know, Somalia is now experiencing true famine. In tonight's news, there among the families on the brink of starvation were workers from Unicef. This organization is constant, trustworthy and efficient. I can't see news like this and not do something, and I know that whatever money I send to Unicef will be well-used. Please visit Unicef now and consider making a donation to help with the famine in Somalia. Even a donation of $5.00 can make a real difference.

************************************************************

Press release

Situation in Horn of Africa set to get worse for millions of children

NAIROBI, Kenya, 17 July 2011 – UNICEF has called for immediate expansion of assistance across the Horn of Africa’s drought-affected communities, to address the dire needs of more than two million children, of whom half a million are at imminent risk of dying. With no improvement in overall food security conditions expected before early 2012, the already severe nutrition situation will likely worsen.

“What we are seeing is almost a perfect storm – conflict in Somalia, rising fuel and food prices, and drought. Now we are going another four to five months before there will be a harvest and we all have a huge job ahead,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake at the end of a four-day mission to Kenya. “In many of the poorest communities people are either too poor or too weak to be able to walk for help.” Across the region, nearly 11 million people are at risk.

During a field mission to the arid region of Turkana in northern Kenya, Lake saw

Lake heard from women who have to walk from dawn to midday in search for water in dry river beds. He heard how children were surviving, if lucky, on one meal a day, comprised often only of palm nuts, and lactating mothers were not able to produce enough milk to feed their newborns. In Somalia, hundreds of thousands of children and their families were already on the move to seek assistance either within camps for internally displaced people or flowing across the border into neighboring countries.

Lake pledged UNICEF’s continued support, stressing that the international children’s agency would continue working closely with partners to scale up an emergency response in the region, which has been underfunded for many years. He called on the international community and private donors alike to step up funding for UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR and other partners, and to focus new effort on finding solutions that address the deep-seated poverty and vulnerability in the region.

Across drought-affected areas in the Horn of Africa, UNICEF is working with partners to treat acute malnutrition through therapeutic feeding programmes; provide medicines and vaccinations to prevent disease; gain access to clean water through the repair of pumping stations, dig boreholes, chlorinate water sources and truck in water; support education through temporary learning spaces and the use of School-in-a-Box kits; and scale up of protection measures to ensure children are safe from violence, abuse and exploitation. UNICEF has appealed for US$ 31 million to cover the costs of most urgent scale up of operations.

About UNICEF
UNICEF is on the ground in more than 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. For more information about UNICEF and its work visit: www.unicef.org

Green in Its Glory

2011-07-19T08:05:00.000-05:00

Back in Texas. And, even as I remember the cool breezes of the Land of Lakes, I learn that Minnesotans, too, are now under heat attack, with a heat index of 115 degrees. I'll tell you about the Cheeky Monkey, the Paper Patisserie, and the Last Chance Art Gallery in upcoming posts, but for now, let's just gaze on some glorious green from the North Country. Enjoy!

Summer by Any Other State

2011-07-08T13:11:00.000-05:00

Willard of iStock Photo

I could almost write, "Summer by any other name ..." because having traveled to Minnesota from Texas, what I see is so different from the summer I am accustomed to that I feel it needs another name. Most of my life, I have associated summer with shades of brown, with things baked crisp and dry, with having to be careful about time spent outdoors. We learned in childhood about salt pills, sunstroke, heat exhaustion. Today, just outside of Minneapolis, as I write this post, I look out on a sea of green from an upstairs window. Marsh grass, cattails, young thin trees, tall, mature trees, each contributing its own tone of green to a satisfying visual symphony. As the light shifts through the daytime hours and into twilight, the greens shift their shades, as well, keeping time and staying in harmony with the hour.

It has been a long time since I have "felt" summer as a time of fruition rather than a time of perdition--of loss, absence, and the pressure of triple-digit temperatures. (It will be 109 today in my part of the Lone Star State.) Aside from the physical respite that this foray into green is giving me, it serves as a metaphor and a reminder.

Mine is not the only summer in the world. I need not to limit my vision or my experience unnecessarily. I need to step out of my familiar world from time to time. By doing so for this week in summer, I have been blessed, and reminded of the wonders of this earth, its boundless variety. I plan to gaze on green every chance I have for the next few days, drink it in with my eyes, and do my best to remember its existence when I return to the drought-ridden plains of home. I think I need to keep a green-green corner always in my heart and mind.

PS: My camera card is already too old to fit the new laptop I am working on while traveling, so I cannot upload my green on green photos, but the one by Willard above is a beauty!

A Prayer for My Country

2011-07-04T21:56:00.004-05:00

"Andrews Sisters" perform for WW2 Veterans

There were no fireworks in my part of the world, due to extreme heat and fire danger. I watched a Capitol Fourth on PBS and was taken by the joy and happiness I saw in the thousands of Americans gathered near the Capitol and the various monuments to celebrate the birth of our nation. Such sheer happiness on so many faces. And I thought, if only the news had more of these happy faces, this great gathering of people all celebrating the gift that a good nation can be. And this prayer is what came to my mind:

______________________________________________

May we always sing "God Bless America," and always remember to ask that God bless every other nation in the world, as well.

May we feel honored to pay taxes--our tithes--to help a good nation become better, to strengthen its schools and nurture its children.

May we take the time to understand our history, its rights and its wrongs, so that we may help steer our country into the best future possible.

May we understand that we did not create the natural abundance that is the land beneath the United States of America, that it is ours to care for and to protect, that once destroyed, it cannot be remade.

May we as a country lead by the good examples of our citizens, not by conflict
or by strife.

May we never forget that our freedoms were purchased at great price, that we should remain humble at the memory of those who died for our bright future.

May we honor the men and women who serve in our armed forces. May we remember that we are never safe without them and be genuinely
grateful for them.

May we love our country enough to recognize when it veers from human rights and core values. May we be strong enough to work to right the wrongs
we see at home.

May we love our country with our hearts, minds, and souls;
see it clearly; serve it truly.

Truly, a prized photo

2011-06-27T19:45:00.002-05:00

Patience and the Bird by Ysabel de la Rosa

I came upon this bird while walking around an area lake on a hot summer day. It was beautifully posed and poised, and every bit as still as the hot, breezeless air that surrounded us. It /he / she patiently allowed me to photograph it. I was there, close to the bird, for about 15 minutes. It was, yes, one of those moments of communion; a surprise, a treasure, a coincidence of time and space that makes one glad to be alive.

I have never entered a photography contest before, but this year I entered our local nature center's annual photography exhibit, and this image won second place. The prize belongs to the bird, I know that in my heart, and I am only too glad to accept it on his/her behalf. (I think it looks like a he, don't you?)

I find that animals have mastered stillness in a way I have yet to learn. Their stillness is never static, but dynamic in the way that achieving balance is a dynamic process. They appear both self-contained and fully prepared---to move at a moment's notice, to run, to fly. I have yet to take a really good photo of a bird in motion, but I am most happy with this one of a bird-in-stillness.

Random Thoughts on Friday

2011-06-24T10:36:00.001-05:00

When the temperature is 111 degrees F, having a hose with running water in my hands makes me feel both fortunate and powerful. I'm not watering the entire yard, but it's a blessing to keep the New Dawn rose and the scarlet dahlias alive in the face of such extreme heat.

Note to commentators, financial and otherwise: Twitter is not going away. It's a good service and does not take the time that Facebook does. Very practical, great for busy business folks, too. Stop making yourselves look silly by talking about its future demise.

I like Cameron Díaz, but in honor of the many good teachers I know, I am not going to see her latest movie, "Bad Teacher." Something about that movie coming out when thousands of really good teachers are unemployed just takes all the humor away for me. I will take to heart, however, this quote from her bio: "Your regrets aren't what you did, but what you didn't do. So I take every opportunity."

National Resources Defense Council, a fantastic environmental support organization, has a board member that will match memberships and membership renewals up to $250,000. Join now for just $15, and the organization will realize $30.

Next week: greater blog coherence planned.

Too busy to blog! And yet....

2011-06-20T00:22:00.002-05:00

I hate it when this happens. When work projects log jam and you just have to push absolutely everything else aside. On the other hand, I am so grateful to be working! It's hard to believe what is happening in the USA right now. The fact that thousands upon thousands of teachers are being let go from their jobs is about as ill a wind as could ever blow.

Teaching is a sacred profession. No family, no culture, no community, and no nation can ever thrive without teachers. They are simply not dispensable. That they are being "dispensed" in such huge numbers in Texas is distressing.

It leads me to a thought I have had many times. A huge proportion of the American economy has been built on unnecessary consumption. I am still amazed by something I see pretty consistently on HGTV. A couple looks for just the right home, and the woman usually tells the husband that she cannot share a closet with him (And some of those closets are big enough to be an apartment in some countries) because there would not be enough room. The one that really gets me is "My shoes won't fit in here."

That's just one example, but a quick trip around almost any department or discount store in our country is an exercise in looking at and being exposed to the overabundance of the unnecessary. And, here is the catch: we have been the world's consuming machine for all kinds of things that aren't necessary, from luxury cars to "Euro" kitchens, from thousand-dollar Spanish shoes to bad, abstract art, from machine-made toys to plastic bracelets.

And now, now the world's economy is becoming one...and we Americans, at the mercy of many large corporations who have shifted jobs from our shores .... we can't buy this unnecessary stuff any more.

And more and more and more, we see our necessaries becoming cut out from under us: firefighters, police personnel, teachers....

Isn't there, can't there be some way to let go of the unnecessary things in our lives and hold on to the necessary, the essential, the people that make our lives safe and knowledgeable?

Good Looks at Good Books

2011-06-05T23:21:00.003-05:00

I've learned about some really good books lately, in part, from following the blog Reading for Sanity. Oh, what a cool blog! I subscribe to it by email, and it's like getting a piece of my favorite raspberry flavored hard candy when the new posts land in my in-box. One book that especially got my attention is So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can do to Protect Their Kids by Diane E. Levin, Ph.D. and Jeanne Kilbourne, Ed.D

Here is the jacket copy for So Sexy So Soon:
Summary: Thong panties, padded bras, and risque Halloween costumes for young girls. T-shirts that boast "Chick Magnet" for toddler boys. Sexy content on almost every television channel, as well as in books, movies, video games, and even cartoons. Hot young female pop stars wearing provocative clothing and dancing suggestively while singing songs with sexual and sometimes violent lyrics. These products are marketed aggressively to our children; these stars are held up for our young daughter to emulate--and for our sons to see as objects of desire.

Popular culture and technology inundate our children with an onslaught of mixed messages at earlier ages than ever before. Corporations capitalize on this disturbing trend, and without the emotional sophistication to understand what they are doing and seeing, kids are getting into increasing trouble emotionally and socially; some may even engage in precocious sexual behavior. Parents are left shaking their heads wondering: How did this happen? What can we do?

So Sexy So Soon is an invaluable and practical guide for parents who are fed up, confused, and even scared by what their kids--or their kids' friends--do and say. Diane E. Levin, Ph.D., and Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D., internationally recognized experts on early childhood development and the impact of the media on children and teens, understand that saying no to commercial culture -- TV, movies, toys, Internet access, and video games -- isn't a realistic or viable option for most families. Instead, they offer parents essential, age-appropriate strategies to counter the assault.

Filled with savvy suggestions, helpful sample dialogues, and poignant true stories from families dealing with these issues, So Sexy So Soon provides parents with the information, skills, and confidence they need to discuss sensitive topics openly and effectively so their kids can just be kids.

*******************************************************************

The book review brought back memories for me. My siblings and I were raised with clear boundaries. No high heels until high school, no dating until age 15. It sounds strict now, perhaps, but it was liberating. It kept my true childhood safe. We now live in an environment so overly sexualized, though, that it's hard to know when or where or how to set limits. What good do those limits do when your child walks out your front door? Or watches television? Or listens to the wrong kind of over-sexualized, violent music?

If you're a parent, an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent, or an older cousin ..... reading this book might be the best thing you could do to keep someone else's childhood safe, sacred, and memorable.

I am not a niche ....

2011-06-02T00:14:00.001-05:00

I'm in the process of developing other blogs that have themes and directions, but not this one. I know that blogs are good for business, branding, publicity, politics, and much more. But I like to
remember that Blog comes from
Web Log--a log--a record of a journey.

My journey is a winding one, a spiral, I hope, one that moves upward to higher reaches. In the meantime, I want to know that spiral road by discovering it,
not by goal-spotting it.

Why am I writing this? I just read great advice on what to do with one's blog, and I don't plan to follow it. I just love being surprised, delighted, and stumped by life too much to tailor this blog. So, this is just a note to let you know that neither you nor I will ever know ahead of time what will appear here on this white screen. All the more reason to write,
and all the more reason to read, in my opinion.

So, if you like the great garage sale, car boot sale or oriental flea market of the mind, stay tuned. Because you just never know what will appear .... here.... and soon ...

May Flowers

2011-05-26T22:37:00.001-05:00

If you click, you will find ....

2011-05-20T20:18:00.000-05:00

Just a note: beautiful new essay by Chicago writer Lee Nelson now online at my other blog Getting Along with Grief. And new poems, one by UK /Australian writer Joe Massingham, and one by Shirley Smothers.

A Special Grace Note About Artful Children

2011-05-17T23:03:00.003-05:00

I was watching the news late one night, and what I saw and heard changed me. No, it was not a report on wars, national debt, natural disasters, or famous politicians or celebrities. It was an interview with a 14-year-old young lady, named Emily, who is a patient in Cook Children's Hospital in Fort Worth. In 2006, Emily was diagnosed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. The key symptom of the disease is pain--pain that often does not respond to pain relief medication, as is the case in Emily's situation.

In the interview you can see here, Emily describes what it is like to take just five steps. And then the pain is too much and she has to lie or sit down again. On a scale of 1 to 10, she says her "low" score is a 7, with her pain level often reaching a 9, not just when she walks, but all the time. Her voice is calm. She is poised and talks with the interviewer with ease--as she draws. Emily participates in Cook Children's From the heART Program.

From the heART is a creative Artist in Residence Program, which began in early 2006, and was established to give patients the freedom to explore who they are and how they feel through creative expression. Shannon Jones is the program's director.

Emily also shares, on camera, that making art is a healing distraction for her. It takes her mind away from the pain for a while at least.

Chris Hawes

As I watched the rest of this excellent story by Chris Hawes of WFAA TV, I was struck by the tremendous healing power of art, and of its capacity to create joy even in the midst of illness. In fact, take a look at the vibrant, fun, and beautiful art works by some of these patients at Cook Children's Hospital at the From the heArt Store. What stands out is the joy.

Emily pictures herself walking with a cane, smiling and under a rainbow. I can't fully describe how this young woman's words, attitude, and courage continue to come to mind long after the news story aired. In some recent bad moments, I have thought of her: poised, smiling, and in irremediable pain. She helps me remember something I discovered years ago, reading the Yoga Sutras, which include this saying: "All is painful to the discriminating."

I have learned through experience, through the grace of God and the kindness and wisdom of others that it is also possible for one to find joy always, even in the midst of pain. It is possible for "All to be joyful to the discriminating."

Congrats to Chris Hawes on a beautifully done news report. Blessings to Emily and all the children at Cook's, who are dealing with one of life's great thieves: illness.

I hope you will take a moment to watch the video and that it will remind you to find, as these children fighting great odds have found--joy--joy in all circumstances.

P.S. I bought Emily's Happy pin and Jovani's Cat Drawing Mouse Pad--very high quality, fast shipping, and I love them both. The store will ship outside the U.S.

An Artful Mother's Day

2011-05-08T19:15:00.112-05:00

Dylan Fulford "A is for Art"

I can't think of anything better to post on Mother's Day than mothers' children's creative work. In my last post, I included an image of Cheyann Hayes' painting. A mixture of figurative and abstract themes, it really set my imagination going. But her painting was not alone at the high school art exhibit in Graham, Texas. I have been privileged to visit many a museum in more than one country, and I can honestly tell you that I spent as much time at this exhibit at the Old Post Office Museum and Art Center in Graham as I did at any expo at a museum. More than 140 students had work in this show.

The Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte said that the most important element of art is "the presence of the spirit" within the work itself. That spirit was truly present in these young people's work. Kudos to their teacher, Kathy Lambden, at Graham High School.

It gave me great joy to see this art--it is resounding proof that we have not all turned into texting and emailing robots, that our youth have much creativity and talent to take into the future, and reaffirms that the eternal connections between hand, eye, mind, and heart are still quite alive. Now, I share some of these wonderful works with this blog's visitors, with deep appreciation for these students, their parents, and their teacher. And if the students will indulge me, I couldn't help but give some titles to some of their pictures .... Enjoy!

Amy Jiménez

This is a classic site in early spring in Texas, as birds fly through to other
destinations and take a respite in our yet bare trees. The shades of gold and yellow really make this painting "pop."

Daniel Galicia "Portrait of Serenity"

This was the first picture that really drew me in to the exhibit. I spent a lot of time looking at it. Daniel's limited color palette takes advantage of blue's "vocabulary," contributing to the peaceful feeling of the work, while the diagonals of the composition give the work a kind of dynamic energy--a balance, a kind of poise.

Leia Renicks "Eiffel Tower"

Speaking of dynamic, this drawing of la Tour Eiffel in Paris made me feel that I was right there, looking up into the structure. I have always admired anyone who can handle three-dimensional perspective this skilfully.

Jennifer Moore
I think of this painting as "The Happiest Tree"

This painting can really set an art historian's mind going. It brings to mind Jugendstil, when Art Nouveau was wielding its influence in Vienna, as well as the work of Gustav Klimt and another well-known and more contemporary Austrian artist, Hundertwasser. Great graphic quality and wonderful progression of color.

Addie York
"Fashionable Cow"

Who can look at this delightful cow and now smile? Her bright yellow tag is like a uni-earring. And if you have been close to a cow, you do know that they have the world's best eyelashes. The Fauves would be proud of this one!

Blaine Calame

Also at home on the ranch, of course, are our dogs. Aside from being a good portrait, Blaine's use of black and white here simply couldn't be stronger. I especially like what I call the grace-note eyebrow on the right-hand side of the drawing.

Mallie Springer

Staying in the black-and-white range for a moment, here is Rosie's Diner. As the drawing above makes a great statement in black and white, this drawing does so in many shades of grey. It has a mood, an ambiance--both melancholy and inviting. And a touch of mystery.

Marley Pearce
"Window, Window on the Wall"

Here's another space we can't quite see into, but can look upon. One of the most technically accomplished paintings on canvas at the exhibit--a photo does not quite do it justice.

Allie Davis
"7:30 and Heading Left"

Also demonstrating really good technique, I like the fact that the painting leaves me wondering: Is the tower truly leaning or is this the artist's choice to paint it this way? Love the clock.

Colton Edwards
"The Tree Beyond"

Keaton Skidmore
"Texas Twlight"

Cheyann Hayes
"A Portrait of Pines"

These three pictures of trees speak to the great variety of media and concepts at the high school art exhibit. Colton Edwards's work is graphic design at its best, and yet more proof just how powerful a good black and white composition can be. Keaton Skidmore's tree in a Texas sunset stirs so many memories for me of travels down country Texas roads at twilight. This style veers in a folk-art direction, with beautiful (and accurate) use of color, with the fresh honesty that good folk art usually has. And Cheyann Hayes's portrait of pines gets my admiration, because trees are much harder to draw than you think! These pines look so real--they have personalities.

Speaking of personality! This painting by Sheridan Ryan (sorry, my caption feature just went haywire!) makes me think of my favorite actress, Audrey Hepburn, of course. The way Sheridan breaks the smooth graphic quality with the sparkling earrings and hair ornament strikes just the right balance. And don't you want to know what is just beyond the

edge of the picture?

The inscrutable wisdom of the snow leopard bids us to fasten our gaze--not only on his eyes--but on all things worthy to gaze upon. This is a large art work by Krisha Hamm. This striking work ends this sampling of art for this entry.

Thank you, students, for making the world a more beautiful and interesting place. Thank you, Kathy Lambden, for your leadership and dedication in teaching. Thank you, Old Post Office Museum in Graham, for sharing space with your young native sons and daughters. And thank you to Marlene Edwards, executive director of the museum, who gave me some hometown insight into the museum and the art exhibit.

P.S.: Not all the photos turned out well enough to do justice to the art. I also was impressed by the work of these students, as well: Krystal Robinson, Kamryn Riddle, Blake Loker, Allie Hawkins, Paige Gates, Briana Simantal, and Daisy Morales.

And, Mamas--don't let your children grow up without art!

Fragility and Strength

2011-05-05T23:39:00.029-05:00

Nature has made lots of news lately. Wind, flood, and fire. I live in the part of the country effected by fires. Hundreds of homes and buildings burned. Thousands of people watched both the horizon and the weather reports to see if the fires were headed their way, if they needed to run, wondering what to grab, what to leave for the flames to destroy.

I happened to drive in the direction of one of the largest fires a few weeks ago and had to cut my day trip short due to road closures caused by the fires. I got as far as Graham, Texas, and walked into their local art museum, established in a former post office.

All the art on display was by high school students. It was good, inventive, exploratory, and often meaningful. And there was a remarkable variety of techniques and media on display. I was captivated by the painting below by Cheyann Hayes. A few days later, I received an email from Graham resident Sue Gilmore that expressed the experience of so many people in this vibrant small town. There was devastation, and there was hope. There was newfound respect and appreciation for the people on whom our lives depend--and a time of reawakening our sense of vulnerability and our need for each other as a community. There was Cheyann's bright "voice" of youth in a vibrant painting, and Sue's mature, poetic voice reflecting on the outer fire that burns and the inner fire that sustains. It's a perfect pair.

Painting by Cheyann Hayes

"We are humbly thankful for the rain we received. Humbly thankful for the many firefighters who came from all over America to save our towns. They were our first line of defense when it looked like the fire would continue to consume homes, wildlife, cattle, etc. Some of our own fought on the front lines against the fire. Some of our own watched the towering flames just across the river from their homes, praying it would not jump. Spectacular walls of fire such as I'd never seen before or would have believed, reached for the heavens. Then the rains came, and we danced and we praised and cried.

We are well.

We will give the firefighters a send-off back to their homes,

with newfound respect."

Sue Gilmore

Si realmente quieres entender el "Cinco de mayo", pues...

2011-05-05T00:54:00.003-05:00

The Storm that Swept Mexico is a wonderful documentary: informative, elegant, and deep. It includes interviews with men who fought with Emiliano Zapata, Zapata's grandson, author Elena Poniatowska, and many extremely well-informed scholars on Mexican history. For those of us who live in the United States, understanding Mexico is an important task. Learning its history is key to that understanding. You can see the trailer for the documentary here.

Seeing and hearing the interviews with the Zapatista veterans was an amazing experience. The light that still burns in those men's eyes is hard to forget, once seen--and perhaps, as hard to understand. It is not all fire, that light. It is also liquid, a mobile mixture of chispa and sadness, of hope once lived in extremis and hope destroyed in extremis. The documentary also includes interviews with people present at the 1968 college demonstration in Mexico City, where Mexican federal police killed 300 people. This is live history, beautifully and faithfully told. Don't miss it.

The two-hour program has already aired on some PBS stations and will air on others on or around May 15th. In the meantime, on this Cinco de mayo, visit your local jamaica, eat some great Mexican food and drink some suave Mexican cerveza--and remember that this country is our next-door neighbor ... para siempre.

What do we do with the news?

2011-05-02T22:08:00.005-05:00

Will and Kate have married. Osama bin Laden has been killed. The U.S. DOW dropped. The Endeavor's next space flight is postponed. FEMA is setting up "pods" for tornado victims in Alabama. My grocery store rearranged everything. All news. All part of my time and space. But not anything I can do something with or about. What can one do with the news?

First, limit intake. News is a substance, like milk and alcohol. Too much of anything is a bad thing.

Second, ask what you can learn from it. That may be the only "doing" we have in relation to the news. I learned a lot from the latest royal wedding. Unlike the media hoopla surrounding it, the ceremony itself was sacred, serene, and beautiful. The Bishop of London preached a sermon that could be read at any wedding. The couple's choice of scripture and prayer was exquisite. And, I learned that England needs to have laws about hats.

I learned that bin Laden used a woman as a human shield during the attack. If this is true--and it's hard to verify everything online--it's a sickening truth. Martyrdom? Whatever the religion, martyrdom is not defined by this kind of inhumanity or cowardice.

I learned that people still do not understand the complexity of what breeds terrorism--nor do they understand that bin Laden in no way acted alone on 9/11, nor has his death resolved anything of substance. I'm not saying he did not deserve justice or death, either one, only that his demise solves nothing, prevents nothing, and diminishes no one's grief.

I learned, once again, that I can pray for anyone and everyone I hear about on the news, including the victims of tornadoes, tsunamis, and other misfortunes. I would like to send monetary donations to all of them, but that is not possible. Prayer, though, of that I have endless supplies.

I complained to my grocery store. I learned that my problems with their rearranging didn't matter to them. What my grocery store has yet to learn is that I've bought less because I don't remember where everything is, and I often go home without something I intended to buy, which lessens their profits.

Still, I feel this need to do. Maybe that is partly why there are so many blogs online that comment on the "news," this insistent need to do something about it, with it, for it, against it. And in commenting, in finding an outlet, we feel that we have done something with the news. But we haven't.

Photo by Ysabel de la Rosa

I come back to the phrase by Zen Master Sunryu Suzuki:
"Shine one corner of the world."

I have a corner. You have a corner. If everyone were to shine their one corner, what a world this could be--and so full of good news. News that would make us
happy to be, rather than restless to do.

And a river runs through it ...

2011-05-01T01:14:00.000-05:00

In my part of the world, it's just past midnight and now May 1. But the day is not yet done in California, so I feel completely legal entering one more post for National Poetry Month. The new issue of Red River Review has just gone online, and I encourage you to pay this resurrected online literary magazine a visit. Red River Review started publishing exclusively online in 1999--the pioneer days of online literary journals--and has always been dedicated to poetry. From 1999 to 2007, it published 34 issues.

The journal went on a prolonged "vacation" from 2007 to 2010, when poet Michelle Hartmann stepped in as editor. Have you ever met a true poet who is a genuine extrovert? You have, if you've met Michelle. I'll never forget a "gaggle" of us poets taking a group photo after a reading. We were all competing to be on the back row--until Michelle stepped in and told us to stop being ninnies and line up and take our pictures. And she was genuinely nice about telling us.

Michelle has done a marvelous job with Red River Review's second life. The May 2011 issue has 55 poems included. The Review will soon introduce "feature poets" and give the reader a more in-depth look at their work. Born in North Texas, the Review now publishes work from around the world. Hartmann writes:

"This issue is a trip around the world, from the streets of Alexander Motyl’s New York to a walk "By the Wichita River" by Ysabel de la Rosa, and then to a walk in the Australian rain in "no one notices he weeps" by Ian C. Smith. This is how poets speak to each other. These messages sent by journal or post evoke an answering picture in words that has to make its own journey into the world."

My poem "By the Wichita River Between Seasons" is number 46 in the May issue's line-up, and it is in great company. So, let Red River Review carry you forward from this latest national poetry month into the year ahead, with its bounty of word, thought, and verse.

Click on Over

2011-04-26T00:34:00.001-05:00

You are invited to "click on over" to my other blog, Getting Along with Grief, to read the new poem I just posted by Steven Glazebrook. I enjoy it more with every read. His musical words remind me that we can indeed move from darkness into light. Not that it is easy--but it is possible. And that possibility is in and of itself a kind of miracle.

A Blessed Easter / Felices Pascuas

2011-04-24T18:54:00.002-05:00

Third Annual Poetry Poster is Here

2011-04-12T21:34:00.007-05:00

As before, I have created a poetry poster to celebrate National Poetry Month (April in the U.S.). This one was especially fun and meaningful to make. The photo is of 2 works in progress by painter Scottie Parsons. Scottie left us this year in January, but her spirit remains with us--just as the sculpture of the pony you see here, named Spirito. Scottie donated Spirito to a charity auction, where it was the high-prize winner of the night. Scottie had two "slogans," which stay with me. They are: "Beauty lives." and "My paintings are my conversations with God."

This year, given the abstract nature of my poem "Art Lesson," I turned to translator and editor Patricia Melgar in Argentina for editorial direction on the Spanish poster. Her translation is extraordinary and captures all the subtleties of the English while enabling the message to florecer en castellano. On both versions, I counted on the skillful assistance of Jeff O'Dell for pre-press production.

If you would like to receive a poster, in English, Spanish, or both, please email me, and be sure to include your mailing address. I will ship the poster to you, anywhere in the world. Last year, posters went to many states in the U.S., and to Spain, Italy, Scotland, Mexico and Argentina.

Last year, I ran out of English posters. I printed more this year, but the sooner you send in your request, the better. I will begin mailing on April 19. You can send your address via a comment on this Blog. The comments come to me first, so your address will NOT be published. Or, contact me via my Website . And wait for your mail box to be filled with color and poetry!

*************************************************************

Como en años pasados, he creado un cartelito de poesía para celebrar el Mes Nacional de la Poesía (abril en EEUU). Este año, crear el cartelito ha sido un proceso muy especial. La foto en el cartel es de dos obras de la artista Scottie Parsons. Desafortunadamente, Scottie nos abandonó en enero, vencida por un cáncer agresivo, pero antes de partir de esta tierra, nos dejó unos mensajes muy importantes, los dos lemas de su vida: 1) "La belleza vive." y 2) "Mis pinturas son mis conversaciones con Dios". En estos pensamientos y en sus obras visuales, el espírito de Scottie nos hace compañía. La escultura del caballito se llama "Spirito" y fue donado a una subasta caritativa.

Dado el índole abstracto del poema "Art Lesson" (Lección de arte), recurrí a la traductora y redactora bilingüe Patricia Melgar, en Argentina. Con su enorme talento, hizo posible que el poema florezca en castellano, sin "cortar" la sutileza del mensaje. Y el diseñador Jeff O'Dell me ayudó con todos los detalles de preparación para imprimir el cartel.

Si le gustaría recibir un cartel, en inglés, español, o los dos idiomas, favor de contactarse conmigo via correo-electrónico. Puede visitar mi sitio Web y enviarme mensaje o enviarme un comentario en este Blog. Recuerde: hay que enviarme su dirección completa. El año pasado algunas personas me pidieron el cartel, pero se olvidaron incluir sus señas. Se le mando un cartel en cualquier rincón de mundo--gratis--todo en celebración de la poesía. Empezaré los envíos el día 19 de abril. Y, después, ¡espere que lleguen el color y la poesía en su buzón de correo!

The Painter's Voice

2011-04-06T23:57:00.006-05:00

Author and Photographer Elizabeth Disney writes about
a book of poetry to read and treasure.
******************

Triangles of Light, The Edward Hopper Poems

by James Hoggard

Published by Wings Press. US $16

I’ve always loved the work of Edward Hopper: those architectural spaces that speak so eloquently yet silently. And if people are present in the image, they do not inhabit the space. The human figure only emphasizes the surrounding emptiness – between them, or within themselves, and the stark surroundings. A dialogue of silence.

Yet I had never had the opportunity to see Hopper “live” until this year when an exhibition of American painting came to my town, Madrid. (Fundación Mapfre, Made in USA, Arte Americano de la Philips Collection). Then, in the bookshop I came across an exquisite gathering of poems by various authors dedicated to Hopper’s images, The Poetry of Solitude, A Tribute to Edward Hopper, collected by eminent Hopper scholar Gail Levin. On impulse (I’m a chronic sharer of things I love), I copied one of the poems and sent it to Ysabel.

A few weeks later a package arrived in my mail box. From Ysabel. I collected it on my way to the bank, and asked the teller for some scissors to open the well-sealed envelope. And there was revealed the jewel within: Triangles of Light, The Edward Hopper Poems, by Texas poet, academic and translator, James Hoggard.

Hoggard goes one step further than describing the paintings. He gives them voice: Hopper’s own – blunt, down to earth, no romanticism or frills; stark, remorseless, just as the paintings themselves are. Just there. Involved. Detached.

I’m not that man

working at the desk

- he’s a guy I invented…

Office at Night

I shy from the word “loneliness” in thinking about Hopper, as everyone uses it, and it harks back to the romantic image of the melancholy poet. (Well, perhaps he was that, too, although unintentionally? ) In Hoggard’s words, from his Preface: (Hopper’s) empty street and sometimes peopleless rooms do not seem lonely; rather, they seem uncluttered, happily devoid of foolishly chatty people.”

In this case there is a certain similarity with Chinese painting where a minute human figure emphasizes the immensity of the landscape. But with Hopper, it’s buildings, constructions: America.

Painting them, I paint

us all – I paint us

Into symmetry,

The speech I know.

Sunlight in a Cafeteria

Yale University, Bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark, B.A. 1903 1961.18.31

Why Hopper? Why Hoggard?

The author in his preface describes an early fascination with Hopper, from age ten, born from the fortunate encounter with an exceptional art teacher (Thank you, Mrs. Ruth Dickson) who showed her young pupils slides of European and American painting. The sort of thing that kids take for granted as “normal”, when it absolutely is not – as one realizes long afterwards. Young Hoggard experimented in crayon with Hopper forms and textures. Then came the words, and a poem entitled “Based on a Painting that Edward Hopper Never Did.”

Then, oh – the magic of intuition, synchronicity, coincidence, plugging into the collective unconscious. Whatever one chooses to call it, it is the veritable magic of a connection that one had dreamed of, invented, perhaps – only to discover that it exists, in the real, palpable world. In this case, of a Hopper painting: I knew my scheme now: Hopper was telling the poems, and standing in for an audience, I followed his observations.(Preface)

But whatever the genre or procedence, all painting is embedded in a tradition. And Hopper’s language is the universal one of geometry. It is not just the immense freeways, concrete slabs, dissections of light and shade. In other words, “triangles of light” – the most stable of the geometric shapes, the five Platonic solids, that the ancient Greeks revered as the building blocks of the universe.

Consciously or unconsciously, Hopper is a Pythagorean, and a “renaissance” painter - his counterpoint of spaces reflects the “Golden Mean” proportion (popularized, for better or worse, by Dan Brown), which permeates the paintings of Piero della Francesco, Leonardo, Dürer – all of whom were also mathematicians. Geometry as the basis of all things.

Windows are planes to organize paint My Roof

Look at Sun in an Empty Room. Hoggard speaks for the painter:

No, hell no, I was not

Meditating on death

Or notions of emptiness

I meant what I presented:

unadorned slabs of light

On two unaddled walls.

But Hopper’s geometry as Hoggard points out, springs not from the cultural tradition of gothic cathedrals or the figure of the mother-goddess, Virgin Mary – both of which are absent in the new world of American industrialism, where the machine was the new god of a new age. “One thought of the culture one had been born into, a culture that longed for tradition while defying it.” (Preface) Into this tradition people fit, not as merging into the landscape, but alienated from and by it, and from each other:

They’ll stay talkless here,

There’s little to say.

Cape Cod Evening

As the poet himself tells us, the painting says it all.

Thank you, Edward Hopper.

Thank you, James Hoggard.

ues18.31 Oil on canvas, 40 3/16 x 60 1/8 in. (102.1 x 152.7 cm)
Bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark, B.A. 1903
1961.18.31

Begin Poetry Month with a Pilgrimage

2011-04-03T21:26:00.005-05:00

"Flaming Dahlia" by Cole Thompson

I've blogged before about Pilgrimage literary magazine.
Its full title is Pilgrimage: Story . Spirit . Witness . Place.
It seeks to be and do the following:

~a small magazine living the big questions

~a community-in-print serving an eclectic fellowship of readers, writers, artists, naturalists, contemplatives, activists, seekers, adventurers, and other kindred spirits

~a place to tell the stories that matter

~an invitation to inward and outward exploration

~and an appreciation of the way home

In the issues I've read, I can confirm that the magazine does an admirable job of living up to its goals. It is also a very aesthetic "package"... nicely designed, making the most of good black and white photography and featuring a wide selection of voices.

You can subscribe for $22/ year for three issues. Pilgrimage also makes a wonderful gift--for a friend, for a fellow writer or artist, for a college student leaving home, for a young writer wanting to learn more about contemporary literature... and would make a great "text" for sessions of creative writing classes at high school or above.

Pilgrimage's editor is María Melendez. Melendez, contributing editor for Latino Poetry Review and acquiring editor for Momotombo Press, taught creative writing and American literature at Utah State University and Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, IN. Her work in community outreach and education includes five years as a poet-teacher in K-12 classrooms with California Poets in the Schools, and three years as writer-in-residence at the UC Davis Arboretum, where she taught environmental writing workshops. Her poetry collection How Long She'll Last in This World (University of Arizona Press, 2006), received Honorable Mention at the 2007 International Latino Book Awards and was named a finalist for the 2007 PEN Center USA Literary Awards. Her book Flexible Bones was published in 2010.

You had a taste of Pilgrimage's visual richness in the above photo by Cole Thompson. Now, for a taste of some of its poetry. The following poem is from Pilgrimage's Anthology: Telling it Real.

Once You Have Known Darkness

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

It's true, your shadow

will follow you,

but only to regions

where there is light.

You are forever linked

to these two worlds:

one that shapes you,

one that takes your shape.

see more of Rosemerry's work at her Website.

Bumper Sticker Philosophy

2011-03-29T22:12:00.001-05:00

"Take my advice.
I'm not using it."

"Sigue mi consejo.
No lo hago yo."

OMG OMG

2011-03-27T23:30:00.001-05:00

Que no me lo puedo creer: Pole dancing for Jesus. "The Pole Dancing for Jesus class requires that you present your church program from that day to get access to stripper poles, music and fitness instruction." You can read the rest of the article here. When a local church-going lady told me about this article, I rolled my eyes, and I almost--almost--laughed. The pole dancing class doesn't bother me. The idea that it's "for Jesus" is so absurd that it makes an Ionesco play look like a children's book. Oh, writer of Leviticus, are you not spinning in your ancient grave? Wouldn't it be great if Flannery O'Connor were still among us?

News and My New Blog: Not in that Order

2011-03-25T23:25:00.000-05:00

I have started a new blog: Getting Along with Grief.

Click here to read something about its purpose and rationale. It seems to me that grief is in the air these days: lost homes, tumbling economies, soldiers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, or suffering injuries that are significant losses, citizens with more heart than weaponry dying to help their countries achieve governance in line with human rights--not to mention that guarantee we are given at birth. None of us stays on this earth forever. When one of our loved ones leaves before we do, however, we have to keep going, keep living, and create meaning. And to do that, we have to learn to get along with grief, honestly and compassionately. Beginning in late May, I will announce monthly themes for content and contributions. See guidelines on the blog.

NEWS: UPCOMING
April is National Poetry Month in the United States, and I will soon be printing my third annual Poetry Poster! I'll post the new design on the blog as soon as it is ready. As many of you know, I will mail one free to you at your request. So far, my little posters have traveled across the US and to Italy, Spain, Scotland, Argentina, and Mexico. I hope I'll get to add a country or two to the mailing list this year.

Also during National Poetry Month, I will be posting highlights on really great literary magazines that give voice to poets and poetry with style, vigor and integrity ....

So, prepárate for some showers of poetry this April, and stay tuned .....

The News

2011-03-17T21:56:00.000-05:00

The news hurts to hear, doesn't it? Like the tsunami in Japan, it rushes in at us, towers over us. And, in many cases, it hurts twice. There is the news, and the causes behind the news.

The nuclear plant in Japan was designed to be shut down more than a decade ago. The rest of the world has left Gaddafi to his own devices, to clamp down on Libya year-by-year, and to spiral into the twisted, angled universe of mental illness.

Why did Tokyo Electric continue using the outdated nuclear plant? Was it playing the odds in order to save money?

How is it that the United States invaded Iraq, causing some of the same kinds of destruction Gaddafi's forces have inflicted on his own people--and that was allowed? How is it that the U.S. and its allies sit by, while we continue to hear the most gut-wrenching stories about Libyans and immigrants who simply want to peacefully survive? Who are these mercenaries that kill simply for money? Why has no Arab government made a clear statement on this or made an effort to negotiate with Gaddafi? Maybe they have, privately.

Maybe they haven't, knowing that one does not negotiate with a megalomaniac. One appeases him, obeys him, adores him for what one may still be able to get from him ...but one does not negotiate. Don't get me wrong: it would be terrible for the U.S. to "attack" Libya--as wrong as it was to invade Iraq. Yet--how can the world watch this, get all this news, and watch the "rebels" go to their deaths? There is something that feels inherently wrong

Why wouldn't the King of Bahrain want a constitutional monarchy instead of the battles he now has on his hands? What would have been so wrong with providing equality between Sunni and Shiite Muslims? What would have been lost?

Couldn't leaders understand that seeing to the basic comfort, health, and economic equality of the people they "rule" is good for their own power, could even help them keep it? Fear is not the only way to hold power over others. Perhaps, though, fear is an inherent part of holding power--especially unbalanced, dictatorial power. It's not courage that sends the planes over the heads of Libyan families; it's fear. It wasn't courage that kept an outdated nuclear plant running; it was most likely fear of losing money.

I think of power in three ways: power to serve, power to manage, power to control. The power to serve is sacred. The power to manage is useful and necessary. The power to control ultimately becomes the power to break--and be broken.

I watch the news, acutely aware of my human impotence, and hope fervently that the power of many prayers said round the world will float above the disaster and destruction that have so radically altered the lives of people in lands that are not my own on this planet we all share.

Spring Forwards

2011-03-12T21:00:00.000-06:00

I take comfort in knowing that spring will move forward at its own pace,despite our human fiddling with the clock and that badly named daylight "savings" time. A flower looks back at me in the early twilight before the clocks will be cocked forward one hour and reassures me, reinforcing what I already know. We can play with clocks all we want, but Time--hay más tiempo que vida--Time is greater than we are in a way that simply is not to be explained. May spring spring forward in all our lives--gradually, and at the right time.

Brain + Heart = Mind

2011-03-02T22:32:00.006-06:00

The brain is a hot topic these days, and we have amazing access to learning about our own "grey matter." Many books grant us this access, and some noteworthy ones include: Daniel Amen's Making a Good Brain Great; Antonio Damasio's Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain(en castellano, El error de Descartes); and Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain.

Charlie Rose hosted an amazing series of programs on the brain, some of which you can see online. There is much more available, but these examples can certainly get a brain enthusiast started on the path to

deep and accurate knowledge.

There is another really good book, though, whose title does not directly let you in on the fact that it reveals one of the most important secrets to our brains. The Instinct to Heal (en castellano: Curación emocional) by Dr. David Servan-Schreiber contains information on our brains that, if heeded, can herald a new world in personal and social growth. That information on the brain points straight to the heart. On page 39 of the 2004 hardback edition of The Instinct to Heal, I found a diagram that made me feel like this: Someone cracked open an egg, and a new dawn streamed out of that crack and surrounded me with light.

Look carefully and follow the lines, you will see that we have "wires" that go straight to our brains from our hearts and vice versa. Dr. Servan-Schreiber writes:

"...the heart does more than simply react to the influence of the central nervous system: It also sends out nerve fibers back to the base of the skull where they modulate brain activity.

........

Besides releasing hormones, regulating blood pressure, and influencing the body's magnetic field, the 'small brain' in the heart can thus act on the emotional brain via direct nerve connections."

Through the ages, humankind has wondered, What and where is the Mind? The neuro-scientists can laugh at me if they like, but I believe that Dr. Servan-Schreiber's book provides the best answer to that question. The mind is brain-and-heart in concert. The mind "lives" somewhere along that nerve-fiber pathway and lives in a dynamic state--no more to be pinned down than the wind itself, and no less real. More than ever, I now believe that the saying, "It's all in your mind," should serve as incentive for exploration and not an excuse for dismissal from health care professionals.

Dr Servan-Schreiber's work has helped me come to this conclusion: The heart and brain make music together, the mind displays their harmony or their discord, as the case may be. While we cannot physically pinpoint where the mind occurs or determine the exact nature of its "structure," it is what each of us truly owns. The mind is, indeed, a sacred territory--one that should not be manipulated or invaded, not by false advertising, not by greedy banking firms, and not by psychotic despots.

So, let us mind our hearts and feel our minds, using both to seek and find the truth, using both to find the courage life asks of us. Courage, mon coeur. Courage, mon esprit. Courage pour tout.

Courage, mon coeur

2011-02-25T20:53:00.006-06:00

I was talking to a bright nine-year-old lad a few weeks ago, who was lamenting the loss of his favorite pillow.

"What did you like about it?" I asked him. "It had the word courage written across it," he replied.

"Did you know that the root of the word courage comes from the word for heart in other languages?" I inquired.

I could see his remarkable green eyes reveal the workings of his mind as he took in what I told him, could see the light of thought dawn within them. He simply said, "No, I never knew that."

I gave him a pillow I had and told him that on this pillow, the word courage was written on the inside, rather than the outside, of the pillow. He thanked me, tossed the pillow up in the air, and ran into the next room.

Courage, mon coeur. I am deeply humbled by the human struggles in Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and other countries, and by the sheer courage of these people, most of whose names we will never know. A young man interviewed today on NPR commented that during the Egyptian protests, he watched one of his friends be shot dead, and yet, he returned to Tahrir Square. Another man on today's news risked his life to try to get into Tripoli to see his daughter. And, on a smaller, safer scale, I applaud the efforts of people in Wisconsin and their courage. Unions there have already agreed to pay-cuts and paying their own health care, which will create significant savings. Taking away a union's bargaining rights does not create immediate savings. It does take a basic right away from hardworking people who help make our country good where it can be called good, teachers being among those hardworking folks. There is no more important profession than teaching, and this country has a long history of not respecting (or fairly compensating) the caring, educated people who prepare our children for their futures.

What strength is in my own heart? Enough strength to die as an anonymous protester to help free a country from 30 years of dictatorial, abusive powers? I don't know, can't know, unless and until that moment comes.
I do know that the seat of my strength and inspiration is indeed inside that organic symbol, the heart. I have learned from watching our fellow brothers and sisters in other countries, that if one cannot feel injustice, one cannot correct it. We must mind the heart, my pun intended here, and beware the "dream of reason" that Goya alerted us to: "El sueño de razón produce monstruos". Así es, especially when we do not pair our thinking with our feeling, when we mistake will power as solely a mental device, and forget the lesson that linguistic history teaches us: Courage comes from the heart.

Next post: research on connections between our brains and our hearts, based on medical research.

How to Truly Lie

2011-02-23T23:44:00.000-06:00

If you stretch out on your bed or your couch, you LIE down.

If you put something on your bed or your couch you LAY it down.

There: is that so hard to keep straight?

Lately, I've heard even respected journalists make the mistake of saying "lay" when they mean "lie."

So, at least on this blog, I am laying down this grammatical law for all to see.

And now, I shall go into the adjacent room and lie upon my couch.

I could also lay my self down upon my couch, but in this instance,

I prefer to be true to lying.

Booked on Sugar

2011-02-15T22:50:00.012-06:00

Sometimes the television remote control finds the channel for Destiny. I believe I was indeed destined to see Marc Aronson's and Marina Buddhos's presentation to students at the Brooklyn Public Library based on their recent book, Sugar Changed the World. Their program certainly changed my world. While written for a youth audience, this is a book that adults will enjoy, and naturally, a great book for parents to share with their children.

I often wonder at the parallels between drug addiction and food addiction in our culture. I know I'm not alone in this. You can't miss the similarities: "Betcha can't eat just one. Crave the crunch. Do you dream in chocolate? Hershey chocolate is bliss." And, as noted in my earlier posts on Super Bowl ads, when you see a man "snorting" Dorito crumbs .... well, I rest my case.

I've also thought about how quickly we "judge" people with substance abuse problems while the US clearly suffers from food abuse. If I can't turn down an extra helping of dessert, what right do I have to judge someone who can't turn down an extra helping of something illegal and dangerous to mind, body, and soul? Don't get me wrong: I'm not equating hard drugs or alcohol with food. I'm not saying that the person who eats two Snickers bars a day needs the help that a heroin addict does. I am saying that addiction is oh so very subtle--and useful. It's most useful when you are one who can profit from someone else's addiction.

Aronson and Buddhos shared a wealth of information on the history of sugar--for the details, go to their elegant Web site and/or buy the book! To give you a taste, though (pun intended), I'll share a few items that I learned from their presentation on CSpan.

Sugar began its life as a spice--not a sweetener as such, but as a sweet taste. To enjoy that taste, one had to chew on sugar cane, or develop formulas to extract sugar from cane (and later from beets). It wasn't long before humankind also learned that sugar provides (a kind of) energy, a lift when you're tired. Why did our country and England (among others) import so much more sugar beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries? Industrialization. Human industrialization--humans, including children, working 10+ hours a day in factories. To keep going, they drank a lot of tea or coffee with sugar. Sugar was cheap, thanks mostly to slave labor. The people who cut cane, carried it, and worked in the sugar mills made life in a factory look wonderful. The sugar mill functioned 24 hours a day. A sword was kept close by in case one of the workers got an arm caught in the cane-crushing machinery. Rather than stop the machinery, the "foreman" would slice off the worker's arm.

In 1700, where sugar consumption could be measured, it was 4 pounds per year per person. By 1800, 14 pounds. By 1900, 90 pounds. And by 2010, 150 pounds per person per year.
This book is a magnificent wake-up call. Have we not been slaves to sugar? It's so darn easy to become one! There's a place for it in our diet, sure, but as Marina Buddhos points out, it stopped being a spice--an extra, a flourish--and became a staple-- a staple that has no nutritional value.

Don't be hooked on sugar--get booked on sugar with this thoughtful, accessible (and yet scholarly) book: Sugar Changed the World. It's up to us to write the story of how it will or won't change our world in the years to come.

2011-02-14T20:23:00.005-06:00

"The shade of my tree
is for passersby,
its fruit for the one
for whom I wait."
-Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies

Feliz día del amor y de la amistad.

Super Bowl Ads: Votes So Far

2011-02-08T21:48:00.008-06:00

The results so far: CareerBuilder's mini car wreck made it to the Top 10. One woman knocking out another with a PepsiMax can rated 87% positive, while man-hit-in-private-parts with Pepsi Max can and ferocious pug crushing man under door to get a Dorito rated 83% positive. Roseanne bashed by a log on behalf of Snickers rated 84% positive.

Good news: some of the truly best commercials were voted into the Top 10--even in the Top 5. More good news: Go Daddy spots' highest rating was a mere 42% positive. The addicted Dorito sniffer rated only a 60%. And, a mere 30% of voters so far have said aye for Kim Kardashian's butt-firming shoes (Skechers). Unfortunate: The Hyundai commercials, some of which were really good, ranked low with voters, while 90% of voters sympathized with Audi's prisoners of luxury.

Of course, this is only a contest--a like-fest, an opinion-banquet. I've seen many an award-winning ad yield nada for a business. The question remains: will these spots result in sales? I think that some of the low-ranked but solid spots will indeed do just that. Maybe some research in a few months will give us those answers. In the meantime, if you want to let big advertisers know that hitting and hurting people is not brilliantly funny, you can still cast your vote as long as Fox Sports keeps the videos and the voting live on its Web site.

DId You See What I Saw?

2011-02-07T18:03:00.017-06:00

(Note: I can't get the links to appear consistently with Google's new editor. If it's brief and boldfaced, you can click on it and "go" somewhere interesting!)

It's been at least 20 years since I've watched a Super Bowl Game, and Super Bowl 45 was definitely worth watching--a classic game between good teams.What I saw between plays, however, was anything but good. The best word to describe the Super Bowl commercials is: horrifying. (Volkswagen's little Darth Vader spot and BMW's commercial about Spartanburg were clear exceptions.)

In ads for Pepsi Max people get smashed in the head with a full can, and a man is hit in the testicles and other body parts by cans someone catapults from a can-throwing machine at a party. Insurance company Safe Auto shows a man being kicked, hit, and assaulted--again with more shots targeted at his genitals. Career Builder's commercial introduces us to a man in a car pulling into a parking lot. His car is bashed in on one side by driving monkeys, and before he can open the passenger door, another set of driving monkeys bashes in the other side. Would watching a school teacher drive her red Camaro off a building and into her school's parking lot inspire you to buy that car for your son or daughter? Perhaps the worst is the Snickers commercial, set at a logging camp, where a swinging log rams Roseanne Barr in her thoracic region and drives her to the ground. Had that occurred in "real" life, she'd be disabled or dead.

The Doritos commercials are deranged. A red-haired man teases a pug with a Dorito, the pug jumps at a glass door, unhinges it, and crushes the man beneath the door. Man's girlfriend sits on couch, and man's best friend snuggles with the bright red Doritos bag. Even more à la derange, however, was the finger-sucking, pants-sniffing Doritos commercial. It inescapably looked like they were trying to promote Doritos as a substitute for cocaine.

Of course, there was sexual content, too. Sign up for Social Living, and perhaps you, too, can turn into a transvestite / transgendered and happier person. Or have a stare at the GoDaddy girls--you can see more online, because they can't put the full-fleshed commercial on television. If that doesn't do it for you, there's Kim Kardashian's perfect behind to gaze upon in a commercial for butt-firming shoes.

You can see all the commercials, and even vote for or against them at Fox Sports. You can also vote on some of the commercials in just seconds at the CBS Website. I hope you will do this. We need to send a message to these companies and their advertising agencies. According to The Hollywood Reporter: "TV viewers love watching comedian Roseanne get knocked silly by a giant log." If you think this makes for bad advertising, for adults and especially for children and teens, then you need to let advertisers know that one TiVo survey does not consenus make.

We've had quite a debate about civility after the shooting in Tucson that killed six innocent people and forever altered the life of Gabrielle Giffords. Then, for entertainment and persuasion, we see people assaulted with drink cans, a woman kick a man in the "nuts," a woman rammed with a tree, and a man sucking Dorito powder up his nose. There is nothing civil about any of this. These commercial messages don't meet and often violate William Menninger's Seven Criteria of Emotional Maturity, often seen as the foundation for determining what, exactly, constitutes mental health.

I've worked in the advertising and marketing world for more than 25 years. You can be creative and engender significant sales without resorting to perversion. You can indeed get people's attention with fun, clean, and healthy creative. The Volkswagen commercial is the best example of this from this year's Super Bowl crop. At least, it appears to me that "no humans were injured" in its filming. Also, check out Clean-Cut Media's thoughtful blog.

You can also lose business from violent, sexist commercials. I was never a big Doritos customer, but I certainly won't buy any until those ads change. And I will talk to friends and family about not buying any. I 've been a GoDaddy customer for years, but last night, watching their commercial, I thought, "It's more of the same old sexist approach." It will take time for me to shift my business from GoDaddy, but I'm looking at how best to do that today. I'm not going to check out Social Living--ever, and I will not consider an Audi purchase as long as they run commercials targeted at those "poor prisoners of luxury."

PLEASE VOTE HERE. Let advertisers know it's a crime to spend up to $3 million per 30 seconds for these idiotic dramas in an economy where hundreds of thousands are unemployed, uninsured, and have to go to charity food banks to feed their families. And praise the ones who did a good job. They need to hear from us, too.

In the meantime, watch what you eat, watch how you drive, and above all, watch what you watch!

The Cruelty Inside the Beauty

2011-02-03T19:49:00.008-06:00

I remember watching my first bullfights on Spanish television. Joselito, to be exact. Watching, I saw the unmistakable beauty in that orchestrated dance between hombre y toro. I also witnessed its cruelty. The cover of this month's Juxtapoz magazine brought those memories back. Escif, also known as "Valencia's greatest street artist," really did put 1000 words into this image.

One of my wandering days in Madrid led me to Ventas, the city's bull ring / plaza. It was empty, and the entrance was open. I walked in, and into a thick wall of smell. It was beyond the smells of animals, feces, sweat, or blood, yet it combined these into one unmistakable death-scent. While there may be great aesthetic value in the bullfight, it is still murder. The bull will be killed; perhaps the matador, as well--there is always that risk. But the bull will be killed and dragged from the ring, its blood smearing and soaking the sand.

Now, travel from Madrid's Plaza de Toros to the Great Pyramid or any one of Egypt's awe-inspiring edifices. Tourists flock to them by the millions. They represent great achievement, deep history, and in many cases, unique beauty. There is a case for them as scientific and astronmical achievements, as well. But they also represent power and oppression. They represent men masquerading as divine gods. They represent forced labor. They, like many of the ancient sites we revere all over the world, are a testament to cruelty. A cruelty that created order and certainty, no doubt. While there can be great benefit in order and certainty, there can also be great danger in the pair. World War II taught us where an unbending desire for order and certainty can and did lead: to the concentration camps.

I'm all for beautiful architecture, spaces, and rituals, but can they truly be beautiful if they envelop, encourage, or are built on cruelty?

I watch the anti-goverment protesters in Tahrir (Liberation) Square on television, people who live in the shadow of the pyramids--literally and figuratively. Who live afraid of plainclothes police, who are worn out by poverty--poverty where the sick cannot be healed, the broken cannot be fixed, and the lost item cannot be replaced. There is not only nothing extra--there is also never enough. It takes energy to protest...from where do they draw this energy? From deep inside, from the human soul, which can be a great source of beauty--in both its humanity and its divinity. The hands that built Chartres Cathedral were scarred and calloused, but no less beautiful than its soaring windows.

I devoured Egyptian history in school, enjoyed every minute of it--and loved the art. If I'd learned about these rulers, with my teachers using the word "dictators" rather than "pharoahs," would I have been as taken in by the glory of the art their ages produced? Yes, I think so. Who can avert their eyes from the perfected bust of Queen Nefertiti or the glowing sarcophagus of King Tutankhamun? Not I! But even as I gaze, I need to remind myself that "not all that glitters is gold," and that true beauty is without cruelty. There are other beauties, yes, but the true one does not embrace what is cruel to life in human or other form.

John Keats wrote that there is truth in beauty. Rather than take that as a caveat, we need to use the statement to look deeply into what is beautiful, to be sure that we see the truth behind or within beauty--a truth which may not be beautiful at all. Yet, as Keats also wrote, truth is beauty. Truth is also the only certainty and order that ever has been and ever will be.

The Stillness of Winter

2011-02-02T00:34:00.017-06:00

So, this is winter. First a good, solid layer of ice, followed by waves of snow, followed by temperatures in the sub-zeroes. I don't like it. Not a bit. I like looking at it for about half an hour, and then I want the snow to--presto!--melt! Even the Buddha in my back yard looks put off and put out, underneath his new bib. Stillness sounds lovely when it is optional. But when forced upon me by dangerous roads and fierce weather, it just makes me irritable. Such impotence is mine.

As long as I fight it, that is.

If I would just give in to it, submit, surrender, use this quiet, no-traffic-noise time

to Sit and Meditate. These are the moments when the Teaching hits the tarmac, and

one goes No-Where.

Stillness, in my case, is not delivered, but must be won. I have to fight my way through some kind of cosmic plastic bag, through the internal tantrum that spins up like a sand devil when I don't get to choose my environment. And so, one more time, I learn why "begin" and "again" so often come together in one sentence. I hear them and think, not for the first time (and, I'm sure, not for the last),

"Perhaps I can. Begin. Again."

Balancing Steps

2011-01-21T22:00:00.004-06:00

This is one of my all-time favorite cartoons. For those of us who are as visual as we are verbal and as verbal as we are visual, it really hits the mark. I have been feeling out of balance the past few months. I thought--briefly--that I might feel unbalanced because, according to the latest news, I'm a Libra, not a Scorpio (What's next? A special natal-chart shredder), but I've come too far as one sign to turn into another!

Picking up a rainbow-hued sketchbook made in India that I was given at Christmas, I returned to the wordless world of shape, line, and color. It's a nice size, about 5 x 7 inches. Before picking up the sketchbook, however, I eyed two large canvases in a storage room--eyed them with longing. But, I am still in the throes of my household organizing. Painting makes a stupendous mess if one's space isn't ready for it. And, I return to Pamela Kristan's advice yet again for some comfort in the midst of my uneven progress.

I am closer than ever to achieving functional happiness, but I'm not there yet. Life intervened in my organizing plans with work and deadlines, fatigue, friends, weather... My kitchen cabinet interiors are works of art, and if you can get across the storm-strewn floor to open them, you'll like what you see. Fortunately, Kristan addresses this bumpy part of the process in The Spirit of Getting Organized in passages on how to use time in the organization process. Her insights remind me: I am not on HGTV. This will not be done in 30 minutes. It is not an event. It is a way of life. And small is never negligible.

So, moving toward balance, I make small drawings until the time and space are right for large canvases, I straighten the sock drawer and sort the mail until I can find the spot of time I need to finish moving furniture or take items to donate to our local homeless shelter. Small steps are still that--steps. And they faithfully serve direction one at a time, just as long steps do.

Nice News for the New Year

2011-01-11T13:19:00.002-06:00

It's been a bad week for news, hasn't it? News that has raised issues that pierce the mind, makes us stop and re-examine everything. Yet, Jon Stewart's words broadcast on The Daily Show last night can also make us stop, think, and re-examine. He advised his viewers to be aware of the great "anonymous goodness" that exists in our nation and in the world.

That anonymous goodness saved lives last Saturday when a solitary, mentally ill man became an author of destruction. And, it saves lives every day. So, here's the nice news for the new year, brought about my lots of anonymous goodness.
Unicef beat its goal of raising $2 million by December 31st, 2010. It raised $3 million. I'm one of those anonymous souls who sent them a small donation, which was doubled by a grantor. I'm part of that $3 million! I feel rich! I haven't been able to find a resource to know if the International Rescue Committee met its year-end goal, but I'm hoping they did.

Zen Master Sunryu Suzuki said, "Shine one corner of the world." We each have a corner we can shine, and if we all set to shining a corner of this world, our world can be transformed by anonymous goodness every day. Stay informed, yes--but don't let one set of information lead you to despair. Look also for the news that leads to a moment of joy. It's still there. It's still here. Let's turn Pogo's phrase on its head: "We have met the good guy, and he is us."

Post Post-Datum

2011-01-07T12:00:00.000-06:00

PS: I believe it was Pamela Kristan's book, The Spirit of Getting Organized, that paved the way for my moment of enlightenment in the realm of functional happiness. Although I read it two years ago, it had key concepts that stayed with me, including: how one's surroundings reflect one's values, how "shedding" is creative, and looking at one's natural patterns before imposing organization from the outside in. If you're looking for a path to organization that is organic--natural, fluid--yet structured and flexible enough to make your own, then click on the cover in the post below to make her book your own. I've just ordered her book on time management. Space, time, love--that is what we have!

Sartori and Functional Happiness

2011-01-07T00:33:00.001-06:00

"First, you will understand, then you will understand, and then you will understand again."

A spiritual teacher gave those words to me many years ago. They are as true for me now as they were then.

After reading the latest posts on many of the blogs I follow, I noticed that I was not alone in going into the new year with an agenda of clearing and re-organizing my spaces--both home and office / studio. It must be instinctual, to begin a new cycle of time by achieving greater clarity in our physical surroundings. Which, of course, are never only physical.

I read once that the Japanese language has just one word for both "house" and "person." Unfortunately, the article didn't say what that word is! The concept stayed with me, though, and over the years, I have come to understand it and then understand it again. I've hired organizers to help me clarify my spaces, and I 've read more than one great book on the subject. Two of my favorites are Peter Walsh's It's All Too Much and Pamela Kristan's The Spirit of Getting Organized. Kristan also offers good advice on "sustainable time management." I trust that writers, editors, photographers, designers, or artists of any kind will agree that organizing is harder for us. Organizing, especially for people who create and produce things for a living, cannot be a static, done-one-time affair.

I've certainly gone into organization battle many times. Long a reader of Zen philosophy, I remain aware that "it is the emptiness of the cup which makes it useful," and have known that sartori (enlightenment) can strike like lightning, even as it cannot be bidden to arrive. My lucha has made things better, but I never experienced the sartori moment that might help me reach a state of being the Japanese language describes as "functional happiness."

In the flick of a moment, my adult son channeled the sartori I needed straight into my right ear during a phone conversation on New Year's Day. Still struggling with books and papers, family records, and on and on, I asked him: "Do you think I should add some more shelves to my office (a small room already containing 40 shelves)?" He replied: "If you add more shelves, you're just going to look at the stuff on them and say to yourself, 'Oh, God, I have more shit.'" Pardon the "french (sic)," but it took the four-letter word for the Zen master's rod to strike and awaken my mind.

The next day, somehow, I had a whole new eye for reorganizing with purpose. I set about to edit my space as I would edit a short story or a poem. How could I make it better, clearer, more engaging, more useful? I began by culling books--again--but this time, it felt as though I had dislodged something central. One book decision led to another, and these led to other decisions in other areas. Chief among those decisions was that usage is far more important than storage. I'm organizing things to be used--not stored. For example: the books are no longer alphabetical in order, or organized by size, but by how they relate to my writing and art projects. They are now connected to my life in a physical way that represents how they are connected to my intellectual and creative life. I know, I know, it sounds obvious. Perhaps because it is. But it is also glorious--sartori is not to be explained.

For once, I feel headed toward true functional happiness. I plan to carry that concept with me into this new year, enjoying the ephiphany of it on this day after Ephiphany. And I wish you and yours great functional happiness in 2011.

How long ago was this?

2011-01-04T22:35:00.000-06:00

The year was 1983. This avant-garde article appeared in a magazine where I worked as editor. I laughed out loud when I found this page tucked away among books on a shelf during my most recent household re-organization extravaganza. Le plus çe change...

Great Causes to Adopt Before Year-End

2010-12-29T15:25:00.003-06:00

Thanks to U.S. tax law, which allows one to deduct contributions to charity from tax totals, the vast majority of charities receive their largest total donations the last two to three days of the calendar year. Like me, you are probably receiving numerous year-end e-mails from charitable service organizations, asking you for donations. I receive so many of these emails, in fact, that I feel overwhelmed and powerless, because I cannot POSSIBLY donate to all these groups. However, that feeling is a useless one, so I turn it around by thinking about what I can do, rather than what I can't, and by deciding not to criticize myself for making "small" donations. After all, what would someone rather have...none of $50 or all of $5?

Many of us can make small donations, and by small, I mean even single-digit small. Take Unicef as an example. It has a matching funds program through December 31. If I donate $8, my $8 becomes $16. Maybe you're reading this and thinking, "Hey, I can spare $5 for Unicef, and my $5 becomes $10." Between the two of us, then, we've just provided $26. That's enough to provide significant help to a child in need.

So, here are some ideas for thoroughly dependable organizations who need financial donations that we can all send our $5 and $10 to and make a real difference for someone else. You can donate to any of these groups easily online. Just click on the names of the organizations below to go straight to their Web sites.

Unicef Funds matched through December 31. This charity is near and dear to my heart, one I have contributed to off and on since childhood. Unicef has done great work in helping children in Middle Eastern countries stay in school and have helped keep schooling open for girls in countries where opportunities for girls are nearly non-existent. If you want something in return for your donation, visit the Unicef shop.

IRC. the International Rescue Committee. This group, as did Unicef, did a great deal of work to help Pakistani flood victims and Haitian earthquake victims this past year. IRC also has a matching funds program through December 31. Pictured at left: a father and son who were separated for nine months after the earthquake, and IRC was able to reunite them. The child's mother perished in the earthquake.

PBS. Many Public Broadcasting Stations have matching fund programs through year-end. Check with your local television station. Remember that this is truly public broadcasting--that means us. PBS is not a government-funded entity.

Defenders of Wildlife and/or National Resources Defense Council. These two organizations work tirelessly on behalf of our natural world and achieve real, measurable success. Defenders of Wildlife has been in operation since 1947. NRDC tiene un sitio Web en español, La onda verde. If you can't spare a dime, read the NRDC's green guides.

We can also use the charity incentive for cleaning out garages and closets to donate useful items to shelters for homeless people and victims of domestic abuse. You can even turn this into a game or a kind of treasure hunt with you children, seeing how many things you can "discover" that would be helpful to give to someone else. To donate to a charity that helps the homeless, check out National Coalition for the Homeless.

So, when you see that next e-mail that you are sure to receive in these next few days, give it some thought. Don't misjudge yourself if all you can give is a very small amount of money. There's this undeniable force in the world called addition. All those small donations add up to a lot of help for others in need.

The Art of Adoption

2010-12-27T14:26:00.005-06:00

Happy family in unplanned photo.

My biological family never quite took the shape I planned for it to have. The plan: I would have two children. My brother and sister would each have at least one. There would be cousins at Christmas gatherings into the foreseeable future, just as there were at our Christmas gatherings of old. I would be happily married forever to husband Nº 1. My parents would live to a ripe, old age, enjoying all those grandchildren and their grandchildren's children, perhaps. You know where this is going, don't you?

My one child had no cousins. My parents' lives were shortened by unbeatable illnesses. Husband 1 and I, predictably, did not have a lasting marriage. This year's Christmas gathering was one I could never have imagined in my youth. My sister was absent, taken from us earlier this year. In my living room sat my brother, brother-in-law, and a close friend of mine. My son and his wife had flown to another state to be with a terminally-ill relative. A string of tiny colored lights "bloomed" on a hibiscus plant. And there we were, this odd bunch, never gathered in this way before.

In many (if not most) lives, there have always been our expectations on one side and reality on another. Surely that's how it was for Joseph, confronted with a pregnant fiancé in an age where, by law, he could have sent her away or had her stoned. His expectations and his reality...well, there was no line where the two could meet. Joseph accepted the new reality, which led him to adopt a very special son. Whether you believe in the historical reality of a virgin birth or not, I certainly believe that Joseph's act of adoption was equally as sacred as Mary's conception. What's more, Joseph set an example that we can follow.

Too often we look at adoption as a second-best way of life. What a mistake that is.

A special prima who adopted me.

Adoption is an art form and a sacred approach to life. I can be a child of God only by adoption. And my biological family was never meant to be my only experience of family in this lifetime...how impoverished my life would be had that been the case. Watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy this week, I was struck once again by the importance of friendship. Very few of the characters who forge the fellowship that will save mankind are biologically related. They are related by friendship, however, the kind of friendship that makes them brothers. Frodo could never have a better brother than his friend Sam.

The adopted "tiger," Mac Dougal

As for becoming a better person--a topic many of us turn to as a new year is upon us--I think I can achieve this only by adoption. If I "make" a resolution to be a better person or change my behavior in some way, I think I will do better to adopt that resolution instead. What I adopt, I care for, as a parent does an adopted child, as a helping friend does for a friend in need. What I adopt, I am unlikely to abandon, because of the responsibility and commitment that comes with adopting--a cause, a friend, a person in need, a child, an older adult without family, or a pet. Adoption implies both conscious choice and commitment. If I see my new year's resolutions as holy, I am likely to feel a whole new sense of commitment to keeping them.

Not that I find this idea particularly comforting. Adopting means reaching outside myself, my expectations, my regular world. Adopting a resolution carries a different kind of responsibility with it from making a list of resolutions that I know will likely end up as wishes rather than actions. This year, more than any other before it, I know that to keep the resolutions I want to adopt will take courage and strength--a courage and strength I often don't find within. Fortunately, those are available for adoption, too.