Yes…. an image …..repetition… a song.
is a good thing… if you have a message to share..
Tag: spirituality
Tear: Sharing my experience, opinion my subconscious perspective.
A Matter of Life and Death (1946) Conductor 71, professor Snape in Harry Potter 7, and President Obama recently came together for me via a tear. A film, a book and a real life happening. It could be life imitating art or art imitating life. All three made an impression of me within the last couple months.
It was a tear in a film that was captured by a character from a woman in love. He put the tear on his rose and inspired a lawyer in heaven to win a case for a man in love.
It was in a book where a dying man gave a tear to someone to show his love for another. To save and share a memory.
It was a real life tear that the President shed today, a tear for lost children due to a terrible act of violence.
All three came together for me today. It is a synchronicity experience in a symbolic tear and a real tear that to me represents a subjective feeling part of my human soul and conscience.
To cry for love, grief, joy or saddens inspired by the art of a writer or real life person is a worthy experience. I was touched by a film, book and the act of a real person and I feel that for me it is wonderful that I can have art imitate life, or life imitate art in my own inward experience.
In one of my first college English classes I was taught that the objective and the subjective can cross over as in a metaphor yet more often as a simile.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate”
Sonnet 18 Shakespeare
It may be existential and philosophical to be inspired by a book or a film, and real life tear expressed freely and sincerely shared with the world.
Why a tear comes to mean something to me is amazing. Why it clicked together in my mind and caught the attention of my heart who can say. Yet I know poets and writers ponder on many things… and I am sure I am not the first to wonder about a tear romantically, lovingly, or sadly. Be it form a book, a film or real life experience.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/unpopular/
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Prepare my own paints
“I have a different idea of elegance. I don’t dress like a fop, it’s true, but my moral grooming is impeccable. I never appear in public with a soiled conscience, a tarnished honor, threadbare scruples, or an insult that I haven’t washed away. I’m always immaculately clean, adorned with independence and frankness. I may not cut a stylish figure, but I hold my soul erect. I wear my deeds as ribbons, my wit is sharper than the finest mustache, and when I walk among men, I make truths ring like spurs.”
― Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac
Years ago, when I read Cyrano de Bergerac, I have attended to his words with passion. It makes it hard for me to dress. But I dress in a comfortable honest fashion. Since I was a child, I have always loved boots, hats, and jackets.
Always containing and holding the passion of my soul within them. Until I read Rostand’s book, I never knew that there was someone else that saw fashion as I do. Words too are a type of clothing for me with the same regards as “I hold my soul erect.”
The creative process as well. Ideas and passions are “deeds as ribbons.” I tend to make a mockery of what is cool or fashionably beautiful. “Threadbare scruples, or an insult that I haven’t washed away.”
Green or black tennis shoes, straight leg pants and t-shirts and my Jester outfits hanging in my closet are my “different idea of elegance.” Inside me are goals that do not aspire to the latest fashions but instead inspire to the sensations of my mind, heart, and soul.
I have been thinking about William Blake a lot lately. If I could address the inspiration of his “thought body” and “creative soul,” I would dress like him because this is what pulls me. The perfection of his creative dress. I ponder on this and think about how it might be possible to dress to that place of his soul? To be covered by such a sensational creative sense of fashion?
“Blake was not just the author. He also illustrated it, engraved the entire text and the pictures by hand on copper plates, printed it, and hand-colored every copy so that no two were alike. He had even developed the process by which his books were produced and had prepared his own paints.” *
Sad to say here I do dress like a “Fop.”
Yet I am trying to better myself. You see Blake and Bergerac inspire me to make my “truths ring like spurs.” Did I get that right…??
*Enjoying “The Book of Thel” by William Blake Ed Friedlander, M.D. http://www.pathguy.com/thel.htm
old song that still seems fresh and new??? How can this be??
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Conductor 71
“I fell in love because of your mistake”
A Matter between Life and Death is an excellent film from 1946. One I recommend for the holidays. This film has some strange and lovelorn characters, my favorite being Conductor 71. He is an angel or appointed heavenly being / worker who makes an error, or does he? His character is whimsical and deliciously androgynous.
“One is starved for Technicolor up there…what a night for love.”
I think Johnny Depp stole from this character in his impersonation of Willy Wonka.
The soundtrack is provocative. This film crosses the line, holding a relationship between life and death; space and time. Moments of surrealism and logical deduction pull this film onward. There are elements that address the blending of culture and intelligence; via history, politics and the game of chess. One book is exchanged between the dead and the living.
My Best Games of Chess 1908 – 1937, Alexander Alekhine
A Matter between Life and Death answers the question, “…what sort of people are American Citizens.?”
“A bunch of men getting their wings for dying in WWII.”
Marius Goring as Conductor 71
Pretty remarkable! The beautiful pink rose that blooms throughout this story is love. How the simple tear of a loving woman moves heaven when placed on his rose. The master of L’AMOUR an irresistible French cupid named Conductor 71.
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Ophiuchus’s Song
“those born between November 30 and December 17 fall under the sign of Ophiuchus.”
~ Dr. Jacqueline Mitton, from the prestigious Royal Astronomical Society
“Every Time A Bell Rings An Angel Gets its Wings”
I woke up with a treat this morning. I set the cell phone alarm for 7:30 AM. Time to get youngest son up for school. This morning I found someone rumbling at the front door. I was surprised to find that it was oldest son. He had some Jack’s breakfast burritos. He got me a coffee and a grilled breakfast sandwich because I am on a low cholesterol diet.
Mine is a rebellious campaign against free radicals and hydrogenated oils. Scum of the earth I declare!!
Today was my Dad’s birthday. A Sagittarius to some Ophiuchus to others. As I stood in my computer room, having a window facing the west, I heard the front doorbell ring. I walked to the door and called out,
“Hello, who’s there?”
No one answered. I looked out the window and there was no one there. I opened the door, and no one was there. No packages on the ground or UPS truck racing away at a 100 miles per hour. Not a laughing child playing ding-dong-ditch.
It was cold outside with only the sound of a few crows barking with the dogs.
I am thinking about my Dad in the best way possible today. All those special little things he did just for me are good to think about. He was a great storyteller. When I grew up and out of the house my dad told me that late at night, he would get up hearing a sound outside his bedroom widow of someone calling his name. He thought it was me asking him to get up and out of bed to open the front door and let me in. In my wild teenager years, I would often not come home until 3 AM.
Dad created the best fires in the family hearth. My parent’s original fireplace opened on two sides. On a day like today when the chilly air makes your face cold: my best memories are of coming into the house after a hard day of playing. The warmth of the fire and the smell of my mother’s kitchen are comforting thoughts today as I think of my Dad’s love on his once happy birthday.
Ophiuchus’s Song
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiuchus
I am not a big Foreigner fan… at all… but this song has haunted me since it first came out…1984…. Ophiuchus in mythological stories is the serpent healer.
An ancient and archaic image of wisdom and knowledge. Associated with Hermes Transmigrates.
A time of great healing is possible. A time of Orbs in the sky and saviors being born. The shadow shows its face and the ancient battle of light and darkness continues outside of us and within us.
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Leaping times of resistance and change …
In the Creative Process:
“Make your obstructions or limitations productive by stimulating greater intensity of thought and a deeper sense of spiritual freedom”
~ The William Blake Tarot Cards
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SOYAL and Just Take Five….
SOYAL
Bah Humbug mix – a Xmas gift to you from Radio Clash!
Atheists, Winter Solstice celebrations, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans, Nova Romans, Wiccans, Neo-pagans, Zoroastrians…
As a religious studies major the more, I study religions and their particular cultures the more I realize that the further back one goes in time to study these religions it all comes down to an image of a circle and a cross.
It is the path of the sun. Individual visions, stories around the campfire, musical bards, fairy tales and dogma all bring forth races and cultures around a simple image of the sun rising and falling at certain times of the year.
I wonder if Joshua Feuerstein realizes how much of jerk he is. I was watching the original Rain Maker last night, a film with the mighty Burt Lancaster. He plays the dreamer known as Bill Starbuck. A name he created as a traveling rainmaker. It really caught my attention because of the controversy about some red cups not having a certain holiday greeting. With all the media play-up we are all being razzle dazzled by social media, Starbuck’s mermaid image / logo has her legs (fins) spread.
An ancient image of Goddess / Baubo.
San Pedro de Galligans, Gerona, Spain. twelfth century CE. (Duty, 1981, fig 7.)
Her hole her cup.
Yet the cup we drink from is covered over. A holy cup of coffee . This year I am going to humbug Christmas and focus on Aboriginal groups…
“…dedicated to giving aid and direction to the sun which is ready to and give strength to budding life. It is called SOYAL…”
~ Religious Tolerance.org Ontario Consultants on religious Tolerance
http://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/native-american-culture/soyal-solstice-ceremony.htm
Rainmaker
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049653/
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Seldom Forgotten
“1940 is the year when we approach the meridian of the first star in Aquarius. It is the premonitory earthquake of the New Age.” We see how Jung considered earthly occurrences in a cosmic context, with an eye toward the approach of the Age of Aquarius, which was supposed to come after the Age of Pisces in the global calendar.
This fact, differently interpreted by the various esoteric groups, was frequently connected with an “age of enlightenment” and great steps forward in spiritual progress.
But it is not seldom forgotten that spiritual maturity carries the price of great suffering and severe trials. As Jung was certainly clearly aware of this aspect…” Pg. 333-334, The Second World War,
– Jung: A biography.
New Age, Age of Aquarius and “age of enlightenment” always put a little fear in me. At this time of the year the dead whisper their stories through dreams, books and biographies.
This Sunday I pulled my random book. I started reading randomly. The above quote from Carl Jung’s biography pulled at me. Directly pulling at reflections and meditations of the day.
After an early meditation outside near the bomb shelter; small rough golden and dark green leaves falling from the Cyprus tree onto my head, then down to my lap.
Looking up I saw a small song bird right above me on a branch chirping and giving itself a cleaning. I was focused on it. The coolness in the air calmed me as I looked up away further to see another bird flying. A white bird; a seagull or maybe an owl. It was flying South West.
A large bright bird highlighted by the rising sun. In my wonder I then looked down to see that the little song bird had left a white bird poop on my lap.
“Nasty little bird…I think I get the hint!!”
I got up and walked towards the house. Both female cats disturbed by my movement, as they had found a temporary warm home near my legs and feet.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/1984/
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Arthurian Knight
The word wonder as a verb or noun has a good feeling associated to it.
The adventure while taking walks in the fog brings to my mind smells of the earth. A wonder of this is one wonder I crave.
Walks down wild hills and up hills as a youth, pepper trees and mighty eucalypts trees embraced me as a wonder-joy of being alive.
A winter day with a cold face as a door opens to the heat of a fireplace. The smell of cooking and the wonder of a satisfying meal waiting for me.
I wonder upon the faces of my parents as they took care of me; a childlike wonder of trust and love given.
Holding baby kittens a few days old. The warmth, cuteness, and perfection of “Cat.” Countless days did I wonder and see a kitten, cat or tom give a perfect yoga bath to their body. A joy that fills many years of happy meditative wonder.
The wonder, the greatest, is the wonder of a stream or waterfall. This magic fills me with desires beyond the word… wonder.
In conclusion I hear the wonder of an Arthurian Knight (at least in my mind), Neil Diamond, singing a Beatles song!!
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Kamakiri
“It is advisable to look from the tide pool to the stars and then back to the tide pool again.”John Steinbeck ~ The Log from the Sea of Cortez,
Kamakiri praying mantis (Japanese)
While cleaning the pool,
brushing the autumn leaves away,
I looked down to see Kamakiri !
Silently floating.
Away to the stars goes this pearl !
So current a message,
symbolic and ritualistic,
of a little green body
acknowledging this season.
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A Day of Courage
Feeling as powerful as an active volcano of accomplishment.
Women gathered on the hill. Standing on the grass and dirt. They were silent in the breeze. Waiting. Dressing in gold, red and brown flowing dresses. A cotton scarf placed around her head. Thin material with sequins and graceful threads wrapped around a mummy enfolded.
“Into the tomb I must now go?
The fear of such a place she thought,
“Will they put me there. Alone there I will be. What, will they forget me too?”
A whisper in her ear spoke,
“No you will not go there. You have suffered enough.”
She was free .
Buddha in our front yard
Courage
silent courage
following through
alone
what is greater than this ?
courage is an effort
friend
notice the silent courage of others
it is beyond words
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Generation songs…
“Without the awareness of the archetypal in the behavior which gives meaning to the madness, there is nothing left but the secular nomina of psychiatry and comparative sociology”
~James Hillman
If one is caught in the ‘worlds woe’ and madness remember the above quote. And try to find out what it means. For me Stella by Starlight is a wonderful representation of something beholding to my soul. An awareness of the numinous of the archetypal. It brings down my blood pressure and turns up the mystery of creative juices. Lifting me to a safe place of love, romance, and goodness.
My parents’ generation was so romantic. I learned to dance while watching my parents dance to this type of music. My dad told me when he first felt something special for my mom at a college dance. She put her face close to his. He felt the warmth of her face upon his.
Stella by Starlight is one of those songs that soothes one with the romance for life and its mystery, by Jackie Gleason & His Orchestra !
“Stella by Starlight” is a jazz standard written by Victor Young and featured in The Uninvited, a 1944 film released by Paramount Pictures.
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ritualistic gesture
As a ritualistic gesture eating ones power animal, or totem, is practiced globally around the world. I won’t even go down the pew aisle of what the body and blood of Christ is all about. It is an act that empowers us. At church, in the amazon jungle or …wherever the unconscious and the conscious dance that voodoo dance.
Over the years I have done this dance with the Praying Mantis. In a dream I had, there was a bowl of sweet and sour praying mantis soup. Ingesting my totem is ingesting into my conscious mind …my unconscious. I bet that makes you feel like you’re upside down under water. Praying Mantis teaches me about life, death and rebirth. She teaches me about love and the continuity of life. She shows me that family and friends are not as dependable as the sun in the sky or the pattern of the cosmos. Standing tall and silent is a power gesture of her power and I make it my power. Praying Mantis is a beautiful nature colored creature. This art piece is my expression through art of my dream. I used things around the house and the computer to create the piece; cardboard, acrylic, watercolor / photo shop, printer via the computer. Four golden buttons from my mothers collection; items that I touch and use every day. Embracing around the piece is a dark green handmade Paper Mache’ frame made from recycled paper. I like to compose and then compress a lot of information into my essays and art that brings forth an archetype, myth or a thread for the possibility of communication between our mysterious collective unconscious.
http://hudleyflipside.org/my-art-story/
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ridiculously real
Stock Market Now…”carnage and pain”…”something is very wrong”…”It spiked up…then dived back down”…”Chaos”…” Manic mood to the market… 1960-1970s…Nixon…social rebellion…”- Taken from on going quotes on the news.
Chaos is not the worst of things to happen. Out of chaos comes change and is a noticeable pattern in the scheme of things.
Imagine looking up and seeing the money Gods fighting their greedy wars. Now I contrast this with my Morning Glories; wishing for the Pleiades to return in the nightly sky.
This stability is so much a part of their life and it is so ridiculously real. Time to wish and dream.
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Child in the Dark.
Questioning change and our contemporary world… I feel is a healthy thing to do. It may not be part of the Status quo to see through the eyes of my two friends here, but it is wonderfully real and takes me to many a dark midnight, lit by their friendly fires of wisdom.
Unknown to one another Goethe and Blake meet in anathematizing Newton.
~ Great Writings of Goethe, Stephen Spender
Night Thoughts;
You I pity, twice unhappy stars, Being lovely, blessed with bright effulgence, Gladly shedding light for ships in danger, Yet by gods and mortals unrewarded: Love you cannot, never yet knew love! But incessantly eternal hours Move your ranks through vast celestial spaces. O, what distant journeys you’ve completed Since, reposing in my loved one’s arms, You and midnight wholly I forgot.
~ Goethe, Translated By Michael Hamburger.
I take two pills as symbolic of something more…and yes, I take them whenever the two pills present their medicine to me. I have gobbled them down like a feverish child in the dark. Wondering why they are there and why they have inspired me so. In fact, I was just deep in thought wondering why I love them so. Holding nothing of my usual shyness or mistrust against them ever. But how can two symbolic pills be them?
One is William Blake, and one is Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe. One English and one German. They fill me from the inside out making; sense out of life, light out of darkness and hope out of failure.
I am not an expert on either one. I have many books about them. I reflect on their work, and I often only need one very small pill, of either of them, to awaken my healing to something better than the mundane life I often live.
To anticipate answers in a creative spark. Their art and words open onto me as if a wonderful knowing of a strange land forgotten. They know imagination and all the powers there of.
This is the medicine in their pills to me. Their comprehensive approach to life is put forth in their creations. I will continue to take them as my extramundane pills.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/red-pill-blue-pill/
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Dance of the Salamander
My totem
This little creature has the power to sustain fire! Symbolically it is standing tall within the fires of life!
As a totem symbol, that runs throughout many cultures, it is a remarkable one!
Alchemically it is the power of fiery reactions and used with cool water to make steam!
I captured this image over the rooftop of our neighbor’s home across the street. It came so close ! I call this the Woolsey fire Monster! In the center of the fire light I caught this terrible image. Yes we endured a terrifying time ! Trucks were packed up and cats were ready … we were lucky!
The Woolsey Fire was a wildfire that burned in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties of the U.S. state of California. The fire ignited on November 8, 2018.
— in West Hills.
Also known to be by Catherine Blake is this small watercolour, known as: Head “taken from something she saw in the Fire.” 9.7cm x 12.0 cm. It is also from the estate of Geoffrey Keynes, and kept at Fitzwilliam, Cambridge (not on display)
Catherine Blake (née Boucher; 25 April 1762 – 18 October 1831) was the wife of the poet, painter and engraver William Blake, and a vital presence and assistant throughout his life.
Title/s Head ‘taken from something she saw in the fire’ Maker/s : Blake, Catherine (draughtsman) [ULAN info: British painter, 1762-1831] Category: drawing Name : drawing School/Style : British Technique Description : watercolour on paper Dimensions height: 97 mm width: 120 mm Material/s watercolour (medium) paper (support) Accession Number PD.158-1985 (Paintings, Drawings and Prints) (Reference Number: 8853; Input Date: 2000-06-29 / Last Edit: 2010-06-07)
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Elderberry wine
Once while working as a Home Health Aide on the East coast, I did a nice thing for a wise old lady. She had grace, experience, and savvy. Her home was a grand home that had been in her family for generations.
In my mind she seemed like Scarlett O’Hara. Now in a wheelchair most of the time she told me stores that I will not share here.
She survived her family and had none to tend to her needs. Her memories were as clear and vivid as her mind, well her past memories not her present ones as much. One story I will highlight is how her father made Elderberry wine. They kept the home-made wine in their basement.
Her home had a spiral staircase, beautiful chandeliers, and ghosts. I focused on the living room and kitchen because this was all the house that was in-use. We were both alone in Rochester New York.
I decided to visit her on Christmas Eve… yes, I visited the wise old lady. I loved her story so much that I gave her a small gift of Elderberry wine. We shared a shot of the wine and that was all!
I hope I never forget her smile. I put the wine up in a closet far from her knowing reach.
The Visiting Nurses Association told me another aide found the wine and accused me of being an alcoholic. In my defense they did not appreciate the truth I told them. I guess I stepped over my bounds, yet I know this wise old lady and her ghostly dad… had a good ole’ family time that Christmas Eve. I sure did.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/nice-is-as-nice-does/
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Ideology that idealizes motherhood
June 7 2015
A new bookcase was moved into our living, entertainment, dining room. At times I look up to gaze at an old friendly book. Some from my university days and some from mom or a colorful rock & roll one. Today a shadow of mantis took my focus towards a book entitled; She Who Is; The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. A book from a course taught by a Catholic mother / professor from the east coast making a change on the west coast. Supervised by a fascist nun who looked the other way claiming not to know of such a course, yet whispering to a Priest, head of the department, that it was in fact a humanities course. Confusing? It was to me too. Gay young nuns and intellectual theologians hiding under the holiness of a patriarchal religious university confused me very much; yet this course was fantastic. I am experienced with dysfunctional family dynamics. Anyway, this is the book that came forth today… a very interesting and-insightful one to boot. Taken and opened randomly to a paragraph and then typed down here for a display post.
“There is yet more to the situation. Physically is constitutive of human persons. As spirit-in-the-world, women are embodied differently from men; the physical difference is not extrinsic to self-identity or relationship with others. The range of experiences associated with a personal embodiment capable of physically bearing, delivering and nourishing new life shapes women’s subjectivity in unique ways. Moreover, actually giving life and rearing children are formative experiences which affect not only individual women but the whole fabric of society. This is a realm belonging to more than half the human race that has seldom been articulated by those whose experience it actually is, until now. Feminist theory is thus working two sides of the barricade a once. It critiques patriarchal ideology that idealizes motherhood as a universal norm but that simultaneously relegates the role of mother to the private order. At the same time it seeks to honor the distinctiveness of women’s embodiment and creativity, including the powerful experience of being mothers. It seeks to see with new eyes the worth of what has been trivialized and devalued in patriarchal judgment on female experience, and to avoid the trap of holding make experience to be the norm.” ~ Mother-Sophia Pg. 177 Elizabeth A. Johnson (1941)
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Random Pick day is Sunday !
Here at the office of The Seminary Of Praying Mantis are many many books. Mantis does more than, with silence and insightful grace, sit on a flower or leaf. Often Mantis is found engaged in a book. As this is a seminary of sorts, and today is under the wonderful magic of a waxing gibbous moon; this day comes forth the ritual of random pick from a book day. Ordained by mantis and so forth etc… with a front leg, that is sharp with spines, grasps open a book… randomly of course !
Faust (Part One)
Mephistopheles says to Faust:
That’s very nice.
There’s only one thing I find wrong;
Time is short, art is long.
You could do with a little artistic advice.
Confederate with one of the poets
And let him flog his imagination
To heap all virtues on your head,
A head with such a reputation:
Lion’s bravery,
Stags’ velocity,
Fire of Italy,
Northern tenacity,
Let him find out the secret art
Of combining craft with a noble heart
And of being in love like a young man,
Hotly, but working to a plan.
Such a person-I’d like to meet him;
“Mr. Microcosm” is how I’d greet him.
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Kachina Art
I created these images 1991 and was totally engulfed in the world of Hopi and Native American Kachinas.
Greeting-cards. 6 by 6 inches.
