Easy, Now, Grasshopper!
It’s Tao Tuesday! As always, I will refer you back to the original page, Tao te Ching Daily, and her series, Tao Tuesday. There, you will find rich discussion and articles from every chapter of the Tao, spanning I think a couple of years. I’m just starting over here, and relishing the discipline of looking at these brief words and finding the wisdom and beauty … Continue reading Easy, Now, Grasshopper!
On Motherhood, Physics and Relativity
Today, while doing chores, I listened to a book on tape from the library called, “How the Universe got its Spots.” (This is a link to the Amazon book, because I couldn’t link to the book on tape for some reason.) The gifted young cosmologist Janna Levin sets out to determine the size of the universe, along the way providing an intimate look at the … Continue reading On Motherhood, Physics and Relativity
Grey in the Greyness of Dawn
“Slowly, almost hesitatingly, the train moved on as if it wanted to spare its passengers the dreadful realization as long as possible: Auschwitz!”With the progressive dawn, the outlines of an immense camp became visible: long stretches of several rows of barbed wire fences; watch towers; searchlights; and long columns of ragged human figures, grey in the greyness of dawn, trekking along the straight desolate roads, … Continue reading Grey in the Greyness of Dawn
Darkness within Darkness
Reflections on The Tao te Ching – Chapter 1: The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet … Continue reading Darkness within Darkness
Primitive Brain – Fight or Flight – and Homework
Because Ben and I are both artists, and experience a large range of emotions, we’ve had to learn about anger and how to handle it, manage it, subdue it, understand it and live with it. We each have a tendency to fly off the handle and we’ve had to study the Primitive Brain otherwise known as the Fight or Flight part of the brain that … Continue reading Primitive Brain – Fight or Flight – and Homework
The Fruitcake that Brought me to Tears
The first day I worked in the Bakery Candy Kitchen at Harry & David, we were making the Traditional Fruitcakes. I wondered who on earth was still eating these things. We made thousands, in an assembly line, and it moved fast. I could barely keep up. I felt like Lucille Ball on the chocolate line, only there is no snitching of anything EVER on the Harry … Continue reading The Fruitcake that Brought me to Tears
Iron Man Build Slideshow
This was put together originally by Ben and me as a Powerpoint Presentation for his Elementary School Talent Show during the last week of his Fifth Grade Year. I was to voice the narrative, and then the last screen said, “All this has led up to…” and then “Cue the Music,” which started the IRON MAN song by Black Sabbath – and then he walked out … Continue reading Iron Man Build Slideshow
The Vanishing Point where Stillness Bellows
First there was a quiet that was deafening. My heart was washed of all the years of torment and bitterness, in an afternoon. Just gone. Daily anger, frustration, strife, vexation. Poof. And what remained echoed in its shiny cleanness. For a couple of days, that roared in my head, or maybe hummed. My thoughts sticking up like little rabbits in a field, curious, investigating, … Continue reading The Vanishing Point where Stillness Bellows
Roaring Quiet of an Open Space
How incredibly odd. My mind is still. I have been in constant conflict for so long, I don’t know what to do with a settled, contentedness. I will learn. For so long, there was always at the back of my mind a battle raging. There was so much love, and yet so much disappointment and angst. I grew up in the church, but my … Continue reading Roaring Quiet of an Open Space
Maybe I was Never a Heathen After All
“You know how sometimes you have a fight with me in your head, and I don’t know anything about it,” my husband asked me this morning. “What if that’s what you have going with ‘The Church’ – what if you are mad at them, but they aren’t even in it, and they’re not mad at you at all?” Yesterday, I wrote a passionate poem and shared it … Continue reading Maybe I was Never a Heathen After All
When School Gets it Right
“I hate School,” is not the first thing out of my kids mouths when I pick them up anymore. “Guess what I did in Specials today,” is what comes tumbling out in an excited jumble and fight to see who gets to talk first. Specials is the ingenious program started this school year that brings art and creative play and physical education back into our school. … Continue reading When School Gets it Right
Filling Small Pages with Enormous Words of Love
These are the tiny books Bean has made for me in the last week. The Best Mom book is 22 pages with my name written on every page, and as you can see, just larger than a quarter. The other book with stars and moon and hearts on the outside is blank inside and he wants me to fill each page with a Poem. Eh-hem. … Continue reading Filling Small Pages with Enormous Words of Love
Endless View from Rocking Chairs
What a completely blissful day. These are the new rockers we picked up at a garage sale this weekend, and this is the view looking out onto our back field in Southern Oregon. It goes on and on and we end up with stunning sunsets all summer long. I sat out here and read the first chapter of The Conscious Parent for a new reading … Continue reading Endless View from Rocking Chairs
Plotting my Areas of Growth
It is easy for me to think I’m learning a lot by bouncing around from web article to web article. And, I actually do have pretty good taste in reading, I think. I’m reading some of the #longreads and the well-thought-out literary reviews. I’m doing some fine reading. But every now and then, I have to decide what areas of my brain I want … Continue reading Plotting my Areas of Growth
Magic Dragons and Refusing to Grow Up
Today, Bean and I had some errands to run, and I chose the Pandora Station “Peter, Paul and Mommy” for our musical background. We sang along to Feed the Birds, from Mary Poppins, and some Simon & Garfunkel, a little John Denver, songs from The Sound of Music and we sang Puff the Magic Dragon (twice) and I cried. I have always cried every time … Continue reading Magic Dragons and Refusing to Grow Up
She Thought Perhaps Azalea
#blacklivesmatter Continue reading She Thought Perhaps Azalea
Stillness Shrinks Us to Our Own Size
There are three kinds of silence. the first is physical, the silence of the outer world. This quiet world is a precondition for the second silence which is spiritual, the silence of the mind. Which mind, purged of distractions, prepares one for the third silence, the silence of mystical meditation. “When thought stops, words halt, and we move through light toward absolute silence.” “Without … Continue reading Stillness Shrinks Us to Our Own Size
Like Gold or Emerald or Purple Repeating to Itself
No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Like gold or emerald or purple repeating to itself, “No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished.” ~ Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (A.D. 121-180), Meditations And yet, it is such a joy to be found, to have someone say out loud what we ourselves … Continue reading Like Gold or Emerald or Purple Repeating to Itself
Let the Whole Thing Flower
Katagiri Roshi says, “Our goal is to have kind consideration for all sentient beings every moment forever.” This does not mean put a good poem on paper and then spit at our lives, curse our cars, and cut off someone on the freeway. It means carry the poem away from the desk and into the kitchen. That is how we will survive as writers, … Continue reading Let the Whole Thing Flower
“But The Kettle’s on the Boil and We’re so Easily Called Away”
We’re so sorry Uncle Albert But we haven’t done a bloody thing all day We’re so sorry Uncle Albert But the kettle’s on the boil and we’re so easily called away This song popped into my head when the boys arrived home from school, and I realized that I hadn’t done much today, but read blogs, and look at things on the internet. I’m wanting … Continue reading “But The Kettle’s on the Boil and We’re so Easily Called Away”
Thousand Hands Dance
Unbelievable precision. This is mesmerizing. We watched this on Thursday for Theater and Dance night. Continue reading Thousand Hands Dance
Exploring Russia
It was time for Wonders of the World Wednesday, and I called the boys from my room. They came rushing in to see what we would look at together tonight. I told them to hop up on my bed, and the three of us, on our stomachs, with feet up in the air behind us, stared at the computer screen of my laptop, heads … Continue reading Exploring Russia
The Sustenance of the Psyche
My father told me when I was young that “Thoughts untangle themselves when they cross our lips or pencil tips.” We develop as humans when we discuss ideas with others, or when we wrestle them out on paper. When we are in dialogue – either with others or internally – we learn and grow and broaden our minds and infuse our spirit with the sparks of … Continue reading The Sustenance of the Psyche
EAT ART Series Might Tempt our Kids to Consider Art School
Last night for Monday – Murals, we started out with this series of murals from the article Fun New Murals by ROA Utilize Tunisia’s Domed Architecture, then checked out 30 Wonderful Examples of Large Scale Street Art Murals! The boys were blown away by the talent displayed in these murals. They couldn’t get over the enormous vastness of these paintings. We would count the … Continue reading EAT ART Series Might Tempt our Kids to Consider Art School
Another Going Nowhere, Just for Show
Somehow, the other day, having lunch with Bean, the idea of Tevya singing If I were a Rich Man, from “Fiddler on the Roof,” popped into my head. Bean was telling me about a dream he had with lots of staircases going in every direction. Some of them didn’t even actually Go Anywhere, he was saying. I am a product of my childhood, watching … Continue reading Another Going Nowhere, Just for Show