Feast. Honor. Rebirth. Renewel.
April 24, 2011
April 17, 2011
Getting It All Down
I've happily had my nose buried in the book The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I almost got rid of this book unread 3 times. It was in a box in the back of my car ready to donate. The other day I had about 25 minutes of sitting in the car so grabbed the book out of the box and sat to read. Wow, I was immediately drawn in and lost in the pages. I love how the characters are scholarly and spend lots of time in libraries and traveling around Europe. The book concerns Dracula's involvement in their lives in an deeply historic but realistic way.
At my local library there was a class offered about writing your biography in an hour. Well, with facebook, twitter, blogs, videos, digital cameras, and every call and transaction tracked, the trail this generation will leave will be huge. The scholars of the future will be glutted with vast amounts of info, virtual and else wise for everyone. No more tracking down a musty volume in a quiet library for bits and pieces of information, searching for clues to unravel the mysteries of the individual. No small glimpses of a face in an old photograph, eyes peering out of a dim past. It will all be kaboom in loud color and reams and reams of words and images. Our leavings for posterity will be unlike any other in history. The ability to live lightly and remain ephemeral are very slim. Hardcopy, harddrive, hardware.
I wish I had taken that class. Thinking about it now, it seems almost impossible to write of your life in an hour. I imagine the emotions or snapshots of childhood memory, little bundles of events that stand out, stitched quickly into a narrative that may reveal much.
April 15, 2011
April 09, 2011
Feathered

"Birds do not cling for long. Earth is but half way for them, midway between the ancient waters of their genesis and the heavenly winds of a brief lifetime. They are messengers between here and there, binding humus and heaven, at home in both places. I need the sight of their flight. Birds penetrate the sky's depth, drawing invisible patterns, articulating the emptiness. They fly my eyes into winds and clouds and the crowns of the high cottonwoods. I scan the patterns they weave, chasing them into invisibility."
Meinrad Craighead
from "The Litany of the Great River"
March 27, 2011
The Sound of Sunshine
While browsing Amazon I came across this so checked out the video on YouTube. It is a really simple upbeat song that so speaks to me today. I Need some sunshine, any way I can get it. I dedicate this to all who would like some S*U*n*S*H*i*N*e and a dancing tune!
March 15, 2011
Like A Season
In spring, the land is littered,
as if winter had been, perhaps,
only the wash of a large wave,
now receded, now leaving
only our autumnal remains.
A walk past the brackish waters
at the edges of the river,
itself, a passion of movement.
A gull-shriek, high,
the peace punctured,
and I begin to wonder -
is even inland a harbor
under a great swell of ocean,
and is love, like a season,
only as long as a wave?
~ Lillian Baker Kennedy
Together
In this fateful hour, I call upon all heaven with its power
And the sun with its brightness
And the snow with its whiteness
And the fire with all the strength it hath
And the lightning with its rapid wrath
And the winds with their swiftness along the path
And the sea with its deepness
And the rocks with their steepness
And the earth with its starkness.
All these I place,
By Heaven's almighty help and grace,
Between myself and the powers of darkness.
traditional Welsh
And the sun with its brightness
And the snow with its whiteness
And the fire with all the strength it hath
And the lightning with its rapid wrath
And the winds with their swiftness along the path
And the sea with its deepness
And the rocks with their steepness
And the earth with its starkness.
All these I place,
By Heaven's almighty help and grace,
Between myself and the powers of darkness.
traditional Welsh
March 13, 2011
My Childhood Friend

Watching CNN like god and waiting for Anderson Cooper to tell me no radiation will blow across the Pacific and mutate us here on the coast. I am not ready.
My tears are flowing for the folks in the land of the Rising Sun.
Send $$ to Red Cross if you can.
March 11, 2011
Ripple
We are all okay here. The tsunami warning sirens started at 5:30 am. We were safe at our house so we did not go to higher ground. We are a quarter block from the beach but near the longest and steepest beach access stairs. So we are up about 50 feet from beach.
I stayed up all night watching the news and am praying for Japan. I lived there for 3 years and love it very much.
Life here on the Oregon coast just got a little more interesting. I know if the earthquake is on our side of the Pacific we would have only 10-15 minutes warning. I never really forget that. The boys and I were ready within a few moments of first siren to hightail it out the door and up the nearest hill on foot. Some of our neighbors took off in their cars and returned later this morning. The waves are still not normal, but no damage in my part of town. Information still coming in from all sources.
I stayed up all night watching the news and am praying for Japan. I lived there for 3 years and love it very much.
Life here on the Oregon coast just got a little more interesting. I know if the earthquake is on our side of the Pacific we would have only 10-15 minutes warning. I never really forget that. The boys and I were ready within a few moments of first siren to hightail it out the door and up the nearest hill on foot. Some of our neighbors took off in their cars and returned later this morning. The waves are still not normal, but no damage in my part of town. Information still coming in from all sources.
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I almost posted this photo with the title 'ripple' yesterday before the earthquake hit. |
March 10, 2011
Fly Away
That is my mental state right now - fly away, as in gone.
Too many things to worry about and I don't really feel like worrying any more.
It gets old.
But if I don't worry then no one else will and then the worrisome things will get in the unguarded cracks. It feels like that.
Yesterday let alot in thru the cracks. Snafu's came rolling in like the crazy typhoon winds and howling rain we are having right this minute. (And yes, drips are dripping in thru the roof too. The 60 mph south wind drives the rain under the shingles.)
Just one thing after another went wrong (people, meetings, cars, computer, money and more) and I was laughing it off all day and sort of looking at it in a detached way. Being very witty and glib. But now it is after midnight and I am tired and reality looks alittle different this time of day.
So if I had a glass of wine I could toast to the unforseeables I am unprepared for, because they undoubtedly will come any ole time.
I was a girl scout and the motto is be prepared. but are we ever really? Maybe it is my optimism. Optimism can be like a fancy hat, if you accidentally sit on it it gets crushed. My hat got sat on. I feel crushed.
I am a survivor though. By morning I will face the new day smiling. And my fancy hat may be a bit askew, but I'm gonna wear it anyway...
Too many things to worry about and I don't really feel like worrying any more.
It gets old.
But if I don't worry then no one else will and then the worrisome things will get in the unguarded cracks. It feels like that.
Yesterday let alot in thru the cracks. Snafu's came rolling in like the crazy typhoon winds and howling rain we are having right this minute. (And yes, drips are dripping in thru the roof too. The 60 mph south wind drives the rain under the shingles.)
Just one thing after another went wrong (people, meetings, cars, computer, money and more) and I was laughing it off all day and sort of looking at it in a detached way. Being very witty and glib. But now it is after midnight and I am tired and reality looks alittle different this time of day.
So if I had a glass of wine I could toast to the unforseeables I am unprepared for, because they undoubtedly will come any ole time.
I was a girl scout and the motto is be prepared. but are we ever really? Maybe it is my optimism. Optimism can be like a fancy hat, if you accidentally sit on it it gets crushed. My hat got sat on. I feel crushed.
I am a survivor though. By morning I will face the new day smiling. And my fancy hat may be a bit askew, but I'm gonna wear it anyway...
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