MONDAY-TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY

2.24.2020

Council at the Zendo

We pass the talking stick

Each one present speaks their mind

from the heart

 Meditation reflected on a window

 ~*~

2.25 2020

Rainy and warm

JoAnne Takes Books

At last, a gardener and Activist

My friend, JoAnn goes through five boxes

Consolidates them and takes two to be used well

in her ongoing work of beautifying Manhattan

with cooperation and a budget from the Parks Department

We had tea and laughs too.

2.26
Still Rainy and warmish

 Evening at the Zendo
Meditation
Special thoughts for 'Gokan' in recovery


Event News
An Art Opening Friday 2.27 

 Free Poetry In March

SCENES FROM a LIFE

Asters and Caladium
(behind bars)

Indian Summer
by Sarah Teasdale


Lyric night of the lingering Indian summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.

The grasshopper's horn, and far off, high in the maples
The wheel of a locust slowly grinding the silence,
Under a moon waning and warn and broken,
Tired with summer.

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember you, soon the winter will be on us,
Snow-hushed and heartless.

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction
While I gaze, oh fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.

~*~

Red Roses in the Christie Garden

(what remains is a thin strip along Houston Street, NYC)

A meeting place with Conch

(Years ago this garden was twice the size)

 ~*~

Books on a Ladder in my Home

(Berger-Fast-Simon & Gore Vidal)

~*~

Danspace Project at St. Marks Church, NY NY

("Brotherhood Dance" Orlando Zane Hunter & Ricardo Valentine)

 ~*~

Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison had a Birthday
with Chocolate Cake!

(New york Zen Center for Contemplative Care, NYC)

 ~*~
Memory of Massachusetts
(found while organizing a box of photographs)

~*~
Memory from my NYC Neighborhood
(Amber Sherbet October 1988)

~*~

Reconnected With Dylan Guy via Face Book

(Her painting of 'Water Lilies" hangs in my home)

~*~

Nancy Erisman sent this Gift from California
(Sunflower Button)

 My Florida Friend, Nayra sent Words to entertain me
(a print Book and three Audio books)

~*~
A Card I love rose up from another box I'm Sorting through
(from Melissa LatourJuly 2007)

 ~*~
Friday I visited The Museum of The City for the opening of "Gay Gotham", and although my friend didn't show up, I had time to see the whole thing on a lovely Indian Summer day

Many more Photographs in the next post...
~*~

HEAVY HEAT WAVE

August 12th
Clouds threatened rain when I returned.

I watered the garden at dusk anyway because it had been neglected for three days, and continued with that pleasant routine early evenings as the sun moved off.
 
I was still using the wounded camera holding the lens in place, hence the shadow of a finger in all the shots I wasn't able to crop.

Beastly hot and damp days.  Inside it was blessedly cool with the air conditioner at 79 degrees, and sometimes just the fan was enough.

Daily, I rose before sunup and fed the birds for the pleasure of watching them. Did a little bit of art play with water color pencils.

Days later I continued playing, and wish I hadn't
 
Also tried a flower wrap on breeze-cloth
 
Impatient, I undid it only a few days later
 
But, when soaked there was little color left.  Days melted into just being, and being without computer was a gift. Nights there was some entertaining TV from the BBC I don't get in New York.
~*~

Saturday morning I found a dead bird under the feeder, and there was a mourning dove inspecting it for food.  Maybe I should have left it and walked away, but...

I brought it inside and washed it free of mites.

What a beautiful wing.

 ~*~

I read books about Julius Eastman (Link) with an essay by R. Nemo Hill, a book about Bill Rice (Link) whose Garden theater I attended several times in the East Village.  I read the Hanuman chapter of "Bali", and perused sections of "Alchemy" by Johanne Fabricius

 
Finished "The Book Shop" by Penelope Fitzgerald whom I'd never heard of (Link), and she's wonderful.  I listened to Cuban music and to Judy Henski's album "Big Judy" (Link), plus several more discs.

 Here's a choice taste of Judy Henski

~*~

After supper I went outside to listen.  August is the desperate month when crickets, cicadas and katydids must mate and die in order to provide a future for their kind.

 ~*~

Still blooming,
the garden is also chock full of seeds to save.

*

*

*

*

*

~*~

Tuesday the 16th--Time to leave.

So it was I left notes and food, locked up,
bid farewell to the watchman...

and boarded the 3:07 back to muggy Manhattan.

~*~

LINKS
Julius Eastman
https://books.google.com/books?id=EOItCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Bill Rice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_%22Bill%22_Rice
Penelope Fitzgerald
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/late-bloom
Judy Henski
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Henske