TRAUMA, TRIAGE and TREATMENT

Trauma
"The entire country is traumatized by the events of these past years."
Zen Monk Friend

Since 17 people were killed on February 14th at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students are on the march Nationwide. They will change their world. They have mobilized and they won't forget.

Meanwhile, I am too angry to weep-–angry at this pitiful, anti-everything, lying, posturing, ten steps back to the dark ages, fifteen tweets for personal interests, destructive, uncaring. unintelligent administration. This massacre is yet another expression of contempt made manifest. The shooter–a multiply abandoned child, gone mad and mean and there were more than enough signs ignored. The victims–just kids, fortunate to be attending one of the best schools in the area and on the verge of adulthood, the teachers–unusually caring and qualified, the parents and community–forever scarred. It’s not the guns, nor is it mental health alone that’s at fault here--it’s both of course, but more to the point I think, it's systemic decay--a system destroying itself, overwhelmed by the rot left from decades of unresolved problems, quick fixes and ineffective cover ups returned from the depths and flowing free. That's a longer, too-complex-for-me-just-now story.

Read/Listen to Dee Mallons Story

https://deemallon.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/florida-every-ash-wednesday-from-now-til-death
~*~

Triage
"The initial evaluation of a person who is injured critically from multiple trauma is a challenging task, and every minute can make the difference between life and death."

"And the line between sad and mad
is razor sharp.
And the line between life and death
a sleek blade.
And the line at the in-between
a thin silk thread."
Ms

Having recognized that my anger is the mask of my grief, I let myself feel the tears just behind my eyes and deep in my chest. My headache disappears. I allow myself to sleep as much as I seem to need, to be distracted by entertainments, films, music for relief. I look toward others expressions of anger, grief and joy to comfort and nourish me through blogs I follow. I stay detached when reading Facebook or regular news reports. I do not engage in arguments or succumb to the temptation of contentious discourse.

I visited with friend Wendy. We talked about the terribly sad news of our world, then posed in the mirror for this shot I called "The Sad Sisters who Sing Sad Songs" (it made us laugh). We are Baba Yagas two sisters living in the big bad City!
"Although she is mostly portrayed as a terrifying old crone, Baba Yaga can also play the role of a helper and wise woman. The Earth Mother, like all forces of nature, though often wild and untamed, can also be kind. In her guise as wise hag, she sometimes gives advice and magical gifts to heroes and the pure of heart. The hero or heroine of the story often enters the crone's domain searching for wisdom, knowledge and truth. She is all-knowing, all seeing and all-revealing to those who would dare to ask. She is said to be a guardian spirit of the fountain of the Waters of Life and of Death. Baba Yaga is the Arch-Crone, the Goddess of Wisdom and Death, the Bone Mother. Wild and unnameable, she is a nature spirit bringing wisdom and death of ego, and through death, rebirth."
http://www.oldrussia.net/baba.html
~*~

Treatment

More Meditation
Conscious Nourishment
Random Acts of Kindness
Joyous Creativity
Effective Actions Only
Kindness
Kindness
Kindness 
~*~

Overview Facts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States

AFTERNOON JOY

(Still playing catch-up) 

Saturday September 9th
Farmers Market at Union Square
The Hare Krishnas

Wendy and I chanted along for a while,

I played cartels and she shook something rhythmic,

then on to the Honey Man...

the Honey Man can...

Yes, the Honey Man can and it tastes so good.

Here's the Wheat Grass Guy with Wendy

Like old friends. I used to grow a tray of it when I had cats.

We each got a single shot of power juice...

"Kapow!'

Sweet young man with his Unicorn

Old friends from Su Polo ecology events

We had a nice enough chat,

considering it was about the sorry state of our poor world.

I've bought from Ryder organic for decades but had run out of spendable

so, just stopped to greet and catch a photo.

Sun down

Wendy Daly

Irving Farm on Irving Place near Gramercy Park

Stopped for coffee on the way home

~*~

A WANING MOON

Friday September Eighth

The waning moon...

A rippling path.

Wendy contemplates...

...then shoots the moon.

Men Fishing
There were five or six and it was immediately obvious, no strangers to one another. There was music and a festive atmosphere - this one caught a beauty,  but while exhibiting, urging others to photograph, he left it hanging hooked, live, gills struggling for air, it's glittering eye still seeing. No doubt it took time to get all the photos they wanted before the actual kill. and in between...suffering, though much debate about that is still waged. I felt a strong wish to intervene, release it from the moment, but only shot this one quickly, turned away from the spectacle, thoughts drifting through my brain about all the issues involved in humans eating animal flesh, as I have over my decades of being both carnivore and herbivore......Later that night I considered it again. "Suffice to say that both the scientific and the philosophical arguments on either side of the animal-suffering issue are involved, abstruse, technical, often informed by self-interest or ideology, and in the end so totally inconclusive that as a practical matter, in the kitchen or restaurant, it all still seems to come down to individual conscience, going with (no pun) your gut."
(see the full Link please)

We didn't speak of it but went on, away from the river up 20th Street and into Stuyvesant Town passing manicured garden...

...to the fountain

where Wendy took some shots and when I went to take one of her, did a "star turn" leaving me with this interesting gestural blur backed by a lamp-light 'star'.

~*~

LINKS
Slate Article
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/green_room/2009/05/frying_nemo.html

Stuyvesant Town History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuyvesant_Town%E2%80%93Peter_Cooper_Village

THE FOURTH FRIENDS

July Fourth

2017

The sky looking East

Sundown looking West

Peter Cooper Village

New York City

Wendy Daly, our generous Hostess, met us at the Guard-Gate entrance on First Avenue

with Ron Sherbet

 My neighbors for four + decades

Wendy had invited just a few folks for a small gathering to view the fireworks and share some food at her apartment after. We began on the lawn.

Apparently, everyone originally invited, invited several others...

...ultimately totaling thirty something people.  Needless to say, we all made it up to the roof and a few visited the apartment for the food and beverage offerings, which, by the way were simply delicious.  Most had distance to travel and departed right after the show.

~*~

My fifteen photographs of the Fireworks

http://mscomfortzone.blogspot.com/2017/07/firework-abstracts.html

 

SOUND

Opening night of the newest installation

The World Is Sound

June 16, 2017 – January 8, 2018

Learn to listen with your whole body.

Visitors will explore how sound and our sense of hearing shape our daily lives, our traditions, our history, and all of existence. The World Is Sound employs sound in new ways to animate and intensify the experience of art in the Rubin’s collection. Organized cyclically—from creation to death to rebirth—the exhibition explores different dimensions of sound and listening and its many functions in Tibetan Buddhism.

Sounds are carried through Earths atmosphere as particle

(Film loop plays perpetually)

Ritual Instruments

Leg Bone Horn 

Skin Drum

Meditation Wall

Featuring work by more than 20 artists, The World Is Sound juxtaposes new site-specific commissions and works by prominent contemporary sound artists with historical objects from the museum’s collection of Tibetan Buddhist art to encourage reflection on how we listen and to challenge entrenched ways of thinking.

.

 Wendy Daly Touching Sound

The Museum space itself has become an instrument of transformation. The centerpiece of the exhibition is Le Corps Sonore (Sound Body), an immersive, site-specific installation composed for the Rubin Museum’s iconic spiral staircase by the pioneering electronic sound artists Éliane Radigue, Laetitia Sonami, and Bob Bielecki. Ambient drone sounds inspired by Buddhist philosophy are “tuned” to the building, and will ascend and descend as visitors wind their way up the staircase. The subtlety and ephemerality of the sounds prepare the listener for understanding a core tenet of Buddhist philosophy, where music is a metaphor for change and impermanence. As with the entire exhibition, Le Corps Sonore invites visitors to slow down and consider their bodily engagement with sound, space, and their individual perceptions.
~*~

Sound Bench

 Mantras associated with specific Deities

(listen on headphones)

The exhibition features works by contemporary artists including C. Spencer Yeh, Christine Sun Kim, Ernst Karel, Hildegard Westerkamp, John Giorno, Jules Gimbrone, MSHR, Nate Wooley, Pauline Oliveros, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, and Samita Sinha, and also includes Tibetan Buddhist ritual music from several monasteries in Nepal and India, the voices of Rubin visitors recorded in the OM Lab (software and 3D sound design by Terence Caulkins of Arup). Daniel Neumann is Lead Acoustic Designer for the exhibition.

~*~

I took few photographs, sometimes blurry because of my haste due to shyness when photographing which is not allowed.
 ~*~

On another floor this struck me

Celebration of Old Age

Kathmandu Nepal

PS

I Must return to spend time with this show
Fifth Floor

 The end for now.
*

AFTER the GOOD NEWS, more NEWS and ADDENDUM

"All animals eventually grow old and die. It's an inevitable fact of life - except when it isn't. Some animals, like tortoises and lobsters, never grow old, and learning their secrets could let humans live as long as they want."

"For most animals, there are three basic ways they can die: disease, injury, or old age, which is also called senescence. But a select few species are seemingly immune from aging itself, a phenomenon known as negligible senescence. The gradual accumulation of cellular damage and degradation that will eventually kill other animals (including us) slows to a virtual standstill, prolonging the life - and, in fact, the youth - of any animal lucky enough to be negligibly senescent."
(see the Link for this article)

I was at the clinic early Friday morning to check out the results of various tests with a fine young Doctor who was thorough, intelligent and willing to spend time explaining every detail. The details were somewhat daunting.  We are most concerned over very high blood pressure that she feels needs medication. It could be chronic hypertension (stroke or heart attack danger). I came home with ten pages of material to review and an Rx waiting for me at my druggist that I'm not yet sure I'll take till I've read and understood everything.  Another blood test was taken for more specific check of potassium levels with a follow up for results to be reviewed May 5th. And X-rays show the knees are definitely problematic-the probable cause of leg instability and there's been significant deterioration. A course of eight physical therapy sessions has been prescribed.  My sweet friend Michael ('Archangel') accompanied me bless his golden heart, and afterwards we stopped by a favorite eatery on 14th Street.

~*~

EARTH DAY TODAY

"It was first observed in 1970, but its roots go back to the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's landmark book exposing the effects of pesticides and other chemical pollution on the environment. Troubled by the lack of attention pollution was receiving on the national stage, Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson began going on speaking tours, trying to educate people and politicians about environmental issues, and while the public was concerned, the politicians didn't pay much attention. During the late 1960s, Senator Nelson had the idea to harness the energy and methods of the student protests against the Vietnam War to organize a grassroots conservation movement. At a press conference in 1969, he announced plans for a nationwide demonstration, to take place the following spring. It was a gamble that paid off, and the public's response was enthusiastic. Gladwin Hill wrote in The New York Times, "Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation's campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam." Twenty million people nationwide participated in the first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970, and the government finally took notice, forming the Environmental Protection Agency and passing the Clean Air, the Clean Water, and the Endangered Species Acts. According to the Earth Day Network, Earth Day is celebrated by a billion people, making it the world's largest secular holiday."
(Source NPR The Writers Almanac)

I'm heading out to Fifth Avenue with Wendy Daly to see what we can see. The city bikes are free and the Avenue is closed to traffic with events from the Battery to Harlem.
 ~*~
Addendum
Wendy  brought gifts of rice pastas, but had to go home after a short visit sgarubg tea at my place but I walked anyhow--crossing 23rd Street East to 7th Avenue, I ran smack into the end of the Sikh Day Celebrations. Yellow school buses lined the street, and colorfully garbed Sikhs crowded the sidewalk for many blocks. I took no pictures of them out of respect. There was an unrelated Hoop Troupe at Madison square...

...just finishing their routine

 for Earth Day

and then a lovely visit with my friend Joanne up at Dharma Mittra's yoga studio where she works.

 Grey with billowing shades of grey clouds occupied the skies all day and it rained lightly now and then.

LINKS

Turtles
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5618046/the-mystery-of-why-turtles-never-grow-old---and-how-we-can-learn-from-it

Sikhism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhism