EVERY DAY'S A NEW DAY

 Constitutional
After Midnight this perfect bouquet
Gleaned from the garbage near Lexington Hotel

At a low point for the week when mail arrived with a lovely gold leaf missive and sweet note from Patricia Wallace Jones

Also, this interesting memoir from Nancy Erisman  The author, "using mostly short entries organized fro A to Z, captures the moments, observations and emotions that comprise (her) contemporary life."

Then, this beauty from Jude Hill!

I relaxed.
How could I remain locked into darkness when such friends are looking out for me? Caring is the natural cure for many little ailments.

Saturday
Tonight I will be watching (for the third or fourth time) a film that is so well crafted and compelling it bears repetition-"Remains of the Day"

 https://youtu.be/L1aCp1Z1gAo

 7PM
I have compartmentalized my brain in order to bear up under the onslaught of Local, National and International important political news. Yes, I do pay attention, then I switch channels for sanity and regularly do a walking meditation, calling it a constitutional. Double meaning intentional. This is the least important fact learned today.

However
Here's ten images of it and ten interesting facts about its history:
http://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2015/03/ten-images-of-bowling-green-and-ten-facts-about-its-marvelous-history.html
~*~

Sunday
7 PM Heat and humidity escalating with a hot week forecast. I spent the afternoon and part of this evening on 6th Street between Avenue D and 1st Avenue, observing locations, chatting with people I know, as well as strangers.

Curious about the Name
This is one famous building
Habitat for Humanity helped tenants rehabilitate it.
http://thevillager.com/2013/10/17/jimmy-and-roslyn-carter-mark-30th-anniversary-of-e-6th-st-habitat-rehab-project/
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Community Center


 http://www.sixthstreetcenter.org/
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Just for the Signage

Smaller 6BC Botanical Garden

 ~*~

 Avenue B and 6th Steet Garden
Drawing


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Cloudy Skies behind an apple laden tree

 ~*~

Tompkins Square


Vendors selling wares.

The annual Charlie Parker concert going strong.
 I have two drawings of his from when He was at Washington Square
He's been at it for Decades

 Colorful Clothes

~*~

 Rest Stop
Catholic Church 414 East 14th Street

Home
8PM
download photographs and scare up some supper.

Here Monday

AIDS MEMORIAL

ST. JOHN the DIVINE

Amsterdam Avenue at 109th Street
NYC

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May 13th 2018
12:30-2PM

 
Dedication
AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT

 
My friend, Michael

A most moving presentation

Got home at 6PM because we ate of the generous foods, drank a toast, talked with others who lost friends and loved ones to aids, saw the quilts but no good photographs sorry to say.
We also visited the chapels that encircle the main altar. 
~*~

Keith Haring Chapel

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My flash didn't catch the true colors,
Better photo Here:
http://art-nerd.com/newyork/harings-altar-piece/
~*~

From here on, I have no notes. I simply shot a few views that interested me. There is so much beauty, so many art works and architectural detail you could be there for days and not be able to absorb all of it.

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 ~*~

We walked in the Gardens
fresh from rain

The residents Garden

Only one peacock on view, soaked because he chose to stay out.
There are two, the second one is white.

Last shot.

Links
Historical Overview
pre-1980 through 2017
https://www.avert.org/professionals/history-hiv-aids/overview
~*~
Personal Note
I was in Fire Island in the seventies before the epidemic was fully understood. I lost many friends from the dance community over the ensuing years and I was a volunteer at the gorgeous garden on top of Gay Mens Health old building where too many memorials overwhelmed everyone.

HERE--THEN GONE

“Love is the goal, life is the journey.” 
-Osho-

Remember, find ways to share with others...perhaps even convert memory to story as Mira Bartok did
HERE
(Just finished listening on audio books!  Although I might have edited a bit, I was thoroughly engaged and moved by this memoir)

“We are all different expressions of one reality."
-Osho-

Many days dissolve from image to image...from seeing  this man crossing the street, permanently bent low, possibly from scoliosis of the spine....
 
...to this woman passing, also bent while reading a text message...

...through a thousand messages from all directions imprinting themselves on my mind...

...to this begonia on my window sill which lifts my spirit...

...to the tree I had a hand in planting decades ago
flowering profusely in the street below... 

“Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously.”
-Osho-

Then on to relish late blooms in the church garden...

...and to inhale the intoxicating scent of phlox...

...be brightened by the splashes of color from
purple cone flower and golden coreopsis...

...on to art from Nepal at a friends apartment
where we followed prompts, and wrote for two hours.

This is a marvelous sculpture by her daughter

“Creativity is the greatest rebellion."
-Osho-

Here's a woman skipping rope at the church late one evening!

“Explanation is not needed – only exclamation, a wondering heart, awakened, surprised, feeling the mystery of life each moment. Then, and only then, you know what truth is. And truth liberates”
-Osho-

A brilliantly blue sky day followed.

These are artifacts kept in cabinets at the Masonic hall on West 23rd Street...

where we gather to meditate once a month...

not on these historic things displayed in the lobby...

...but to sit together in silence a while, let go of the world, and listen to 'Readings from the Masters'
(thanks to Joan Suval, and Ananda Ashram)

“I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes.  It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process.  It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher.  And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty. That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.”
-Osho-

Compassion
The Ultimate Flowering of Love

http://youtu.be/Mpfoh47L8iw
 
I was given this rose.

  
“Be realistic: Plan for a miracle”
-Osho-