AND...

Wednesday

July 22,2020

Manhattan Window View
8:30 a.m. 76 degrees with 85% humidity. Low 80s expected to be the high. It's thick out there Friends.

~*~

"THREADS"

Explores the needle arts including weaving, storytelling through quilts and textiles that speak to the creativity of the human spirit. Featuring fiber artists Terese Agnew, Randall Darwall, Faith Ringgold, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood.

(53 minutes 25 seconds)

You can watch it full screen here: 

https://www.pbs.org/video/craft-in-america-episode-viii-threads/
 ~*~

Noon

 5:30 p.m. Storm gathering

 6-7 p.m.
Zoom Meditation Session with my Zendo,
a safe place during rough times
THEN
Thunder and Lightning
A terrific Downpour welcomed by me and all that is still green here in our Northeast stone canyon. While I assembled previously prepared dishes for supper, I listened to 'Antiques Roadshow' where some old neglected things turn into surprise fortunes. Then a long telephone catch up with my yoga friend Joanne s.
(from 2005)

After Midnight I walked out on the block. There was a refreshing wind and I sat on a bench for this masked selfie.

<<<>>>

ANGER then GENTLENESS

Sunday
7.12.2020

8 a.m.

Noon

 

Face Book Post
(After reading News)

Dear Sir-Since you failed at everything else, you've decided to get back to building that wall, destroying one more beautiful place. Division and destruction are your true talents. I pity you.

https://youtu.be/k4fZ9Jqn9cw

6:30 p.m.
Sun reflected in the East

 8:45 p.m.
After zoom dharma session with Konjin Gaelyn Godwin arranged by my Zendo, her gentleness and clarity like a balm soothing me.This is not the session which was private. Perhaps you can feel her kindness in this two minute video.
(April 2020)

https://youtu.be/16Qbo3oxqoY
~*~

Manhattan window view
storm clouds rising in the West.

9:30 p.m.
The rain rained hard for less than an hour.
Still hot but tolerable. 

MONDAY

Manhattan
Overcast, Warm and Windy

 

 ~*~

 "Animal Fables from Aesop"

(Great Glean from Discards)

Adapted and illustrated by Barbara McClintock:

The fox and the Crow, The Fox and the Crane, The town Mouse and the country Mouse, The Wolf and the Crane, The Fox and the Cat, The Wolf and the Cat, The Wolf and the Lamb, The Crow and the Peacocks, The Fox and the Grapes, The Wolf and the Dog.

.
~*~

  
Self Care
Checked Myself with my Battery Run Pulse-Oximeter.

Measures pulse rate per minute and Oxygen content.

Any number under 100 is okay

Over that, pay attention.

~*~

I did various chores mindlessly throughout the afternoon.
(no cat)

https://youtu.be/UL9LnPa-3A4
~*~

6 p.m.
Storm Approaching Fast. West 23rd Street N.Y.C.

Evening at the Zendo
"Mindfulness and Intimacy"
by Ben Connely
(with Koshin Paley Ellison)

*

https://wisdomexperience.org/product/mindfulness-and-intimacy/
~*~

9 p.m.
Home in the rain, late supper,
Sleep
<<>>

MARCH SO FAR

March

2019

Calendar 

by Valerianna Claff

"The act of painting for me is ritual and prayer, an invocation to the spirit of the wild places to mend the broken threads of our belonging."

Thirteen haunting water color paintings
available at
https://www.etsy.com/shop/RavenWoodStudios?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

~*~

Friday March First
Coming back from a trip to Trader Joe,
Plumes of white smoke billow across the sky.
What from and Why?
Unknown

~*~

Saturday March Second
Light snow overnight

Drying Sage for burning

To the post office with Monthly bill payments
Noticing as I strolled with my companion cane
The View that Is

Remembering
The view that once Was

So much Loss
*
Cooking at Home, though my appetite is suppressed, I know I must eat.
><
Local news informs me of several exploded sewer covers on fire in Queens, with one setting wires overhead sparking. Everything had to be turned off while police, fire and con Edison work to extinguish the blazes and restore the neighborhood. The photographs are terrifying. I google Manhole Fires and find this has been going on all over town for years due to the erosion of salt used to melt snow. There have been deaths and injuries. Enough. I turn away from news.
*
8 p.m. 
Below me a party erupts and grows.
Heavy on the base music vibrates my wall and playful shrieks set the little Pomeranian barking hysterically.
11 p.m
I slip a note under their door:

Oppressive!
Intrusive!
Please turn the base way down.
Be kind to your neighbors.

Shortly, argumentative conversation drifts up and the music is lowered but, the base still invades, exacerbating my sinus pain. Just as I was preparing to make the 311 official noise complaint call,
they were gone.
 S-I-L-E-N-C E
I plugged in to my earbuds to Listen:
Krishna Das Satsaing

Live from Kripalu via my Face Book
*
You can Listen if you Wish
https://www.facebook.com/KrishnaDasMusic/videos/591081461363798/UzpfSTEwMDAwNDM1NjcyOTYwOToxMjUzMTg0NjA4MTcwMDg1/
*
Outside the back alley window,
a Mourning Dove Coos

https://youtu.be/u0LKPT1u1E8 
*
I've been unwell too long
 just keep pushing through

Flu late December with MD consult, exhaustion through January, Rallying and failing through February. Postponed trip to Massachusetts twice and now I wonder if I'll make it on the rescheduled 19th?
><
Current Helpers
plus steaming with herbs
 
My unmade Bed with Heating Pad.
Although we have Heat, I need more.
Ice-pack on my eyes. I succumb to sleep.

~*~

Sunday March Third
Sunny Morning

STORM
It opened with sleet at 5:30 p.m. and continued through 4 a.m. Monday morning. Schools are closed and folks are being urged to stay home, though it looks to me not to be the giant we were expecting-5 inches in the Metropolitan area. It's already melting odd my fire escape and our street was cleared throughout the night because of the police precinct.

 Meanwhile, I'm quite a bit better. Still sniveling and sneezing but no more sinus infection or ache.

SEPTEMBER

Inspiration

A dear friend is at home recuperating from a stroke. Most of her functions have returned, but her vision is still impeded. Reports from friends at her site say she is in Great Spirits. In fact she just posted a dancing self with cat painted despite the impediment and it's quite Brilliant!
(She sent this wonderful one as a gift months ago)

~*~

I love Calendars

Wildlife

 

Landscapes

 And I have another for National Parks. Though I note events, remind myself of several art projects in process and plan out my days, I'm actually only 'organized' on paper. Chance rules.

~*~

Funerals
Both were Live Streamed
John McCain with moving testimony from his daughter and I watched all five hours of the star studded Aretha Farewell.

(from a favorite blogger)
"400 pipes indoors ! A version of this was played at a memorial service in DC yesterday and will be played at a funeral in Annapolis later today. Angus wonders why the music of a poor tiny country on the outer fringes of Europe should have become near universally synonymous with solemn ritual."


https://youtu.be/Swvr_AjS73E?t=69 
~*~

Morning

Walkabout

First xerox shop, then post office to buy stamps and mail bill payments and some packages.

*

Changing the Window at Opera Thrift Shop

Chance meeting with friend Wendy Daly and we continue on to Little India together:

"Curry in a Hurry"

Indian Spices

 Storm

~*~

Sunday Morning

Long phone conversation from Canada with Wendy Golden Levitt. She's  been recovering from serious operation since March and is much better. Making plans for the future. I'm happy.
~*~

Labor Day Monday

It's not over yet.
Another four day heatwave begins.
Kids in New York go back to School.
Neighbors return above. 
And below me someone new will be moving in.
Vacationers repopulate the Island.
The beat goes on. 

~*~

Meditation Practice

*

 See A Small Sample
https://tricycle.org/magazine/zen-master-raven-stories/
Review and Price
http://www.wisdompubs.org/book/zen-master-raven/praise
~*~

WEEKEND JOURNEY

Before the Storm Breaks

Walking in my Neighborhood Saturday

Epiphany Church Garden

Stone Saints Maintain Holy Silence

Trembling Trees

Blooms Below Ground

 Opportunist

~*~

I wrote to a friend about the Gallery opening and reading Friday:

"I was in a strange place last night-both foggy and focused throughout the event-I read well and the work drew special attention after from friends and strangers who praised it. The fogginess hadn't cleared as I wandered home with friend Wendy who decided to accompany me. I was removed the whole time and when I arrived at 21st Street, lay down immediately fully dressed and fell into deep sleep. When I woke a few hours later, I realized that the drawing and the writing had been my main occupation for many weeks and that I was in mourning. Mourning for the family that is no more, the drawing that needs nothing more, and the writing that is done and also gone."
My Art and Text
 http://mscomfortzone.blogspot.com/2018/07/why-make-art.html

We are strange creatures,
we who share our lives and feelings out loud.
 ~*~

Midnight Storm

 

SUNDAY FACE BOOK FAST BEGINS.

~*~

Look over yonder, Apollo at a distance
You can hear his music if you listen to the wind (blow)
I want to be there, I want to be right there

Bear witness, I'm wailing like the wind
Come bear witness, the half-breed rides again
In these hands, I've held the broken dream
In my soul, I'm howling at the moon

Testimony, testimony
Declare yourself, I will testify
Testimony, testimony
Speak the truth, I will testify

I had a revelation like runaway horses
Took to the road with a carnival show (roll on)
Those golden days on Smokey Mountain
Playing guitar in a one man band

Bear witness, I'm howling at the moon
Come bear witness, I've danced among the ruins
In these shoes, I've walked a crooked mile
All my life I been searching for the nightbird

Testimony, testimony…

Are you ready to take the heat
Are you ready to blow the steam
Are you ready to bag the street
You got nothing to lose, but your chains

For forty days and forty nights
I come across the desert
Apollo right by my side (rave on)

Bear witness, I'm wailing like the wind
Come bear witness, the half-breed rides again
In these hands, I've held the broken dream
In my soul, I'm howling at the moon

Testimony, testimony
Declare yourself, I will testify
Testimony, testimony
Speak the truth, I will testify

"In his big and buoyant new memoir, "Testimony," Robertson, who is seventy-three, doesn't necessarily dispel the various myths, legends, and criticisms that have attached themselves to him. Instead, he tries to reframe the conclusions that fans might take from them. For the most part, he downplays his own musical accomplishments—he seems O.K. not being called a genius—and portrays his life as one of a man who was in the right places at the right times."
-Read the whole New Yorker review in Links-

https://youtu.be/U3awYDKUuwI

Morning

 Afternoon

Whether drifting through life on a boat or 

climbing toward old age leading a horse, 

each day is a journey and the journey itself is home. 

-Basho-

~*~

LINKS
New Yorker Book Review
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/robbie-robertson-offers-his-story-of-the-band