PASSINGS

Solstice
from Pat Jones

~*~



Ram Das
Left the Planet
(photo from his return to St. John the Divine post stroke)

 This from Jack Kornfield
December 23. 2019
"I have known Ram Dass for 48 years, as master teacher and inspiration and role model, as a dear friend and benefactor who helped me begin to teach, as a companion on the path, as a truth teller and prankster, as a profound healer and whisperer of souls, as a kind of prophet for a generation. Out in public with him across the years, over and over people would come up to him and speak lovingly, tentatively, urgently, offering thanks, “Ram Dass, I just want to let you know you changed my life!” And he did…for so many of us. Yes, his book “Be Here Now” changed countless lives. Yes, his work with Seva Foundation cured 5 million people of blindness. Yes, he taught almost nonstop for 50 years, spreading wisdom and humor, wild devotion and love and a vast timeless mystical perspective across the world. His obituaries will be filled with his many other accomplishments. For me he is family and Sangha, even now still spreading his playful, tough, delicious love everywhere, connecting with our hearts. “Yum, yum,” as he would say.
He was so ready to leave the wheelchair and skinny and broken body, to go home. Home is not somewhere else.
It is here, in life and death, in the eternal dance of consciousness, weaving together form and the formless mystery from which it all comes. Ram Dass is the vastness reminding us that in the end, there is only love."
~*~ 


'Jamie'
My dear Little Brother left the Planet. I've been looking through family photos and processing feelings for weeks. Grief comes in waves. Memories are deep. Now William James Slater image sits on the main Altar at my Zendo with Ram Das and others we remember together.

~*~

Sunrise
12.24.2019

 Noted on a walk about

(In the lobby of a new hotel in the neighborhood)

Poems should be written

~*~

12.25.2019

Church bells nearby 

Back to my First Christmas

and

A Thoughtful gift

from long time Neighbors hanging on the apartment door

Just in time too. Woke with my head cold renewed in full blown attack. Fortunately, I'm at home with supper warming (home made beef stew from Sensei Chodo at our last zendo session-Steamed broccoli-lemon Loaf from my Massachusetts friend) plus plenty of doses of EmergenC and Umka homeopathic for colds on hand. There's enough heat in these rooms and most neighbors away elsewhere. Actually, after such a stressful month, I welcome the ability to laze around watching old sitcoms and sleeping.

All's well.

 

<<>>

THE LAYERS

Goodnight Dear Zendo

~*~

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abandoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

“Live in the layers,

not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

I am not done with my changes.

'The Layers' by Stanley Kunitz
~*~

THRIFTS
Cattle skull and pink pumps
on old leather cases
for resale

Reminds me of Emily the Gardener
long gone from NY, her style
for resale
 

~*~

WEATHER
Rain one day, downpour upon downpour
Lakes in every street corner
Overflowing everywhere
'
Next day Overcast

Then another
Windy and Mild


 with Pigeon

 ~*~

NEIGHBORHOOD
Iconic Bar a block away for decades
Still going though I've never been inside
Family Owned. If walls could talk...

 (https://www.mcswiggansbar.com/)
 ~*~

RESPONSE
After catching up on the World News
Wednesday and Thursday

 https://youtu.be/39xq5AATMp4

GRAMERCY ARTS CLUB

Celebrating International Archaeology Day with His Excellency Ambassador Mohamed Edrees of Egypt

Egypt and Civilization are words which belong together. Much inquiry has centered around tombs, temples, monuments. It is instructive to witness a rare culture and legacy encompassing Pharaohs, Ptolemaics, Copts, Muslims.

With creative perspective, the diversity and density of layers existing beyond time can be understood. Egypt served as melting pot, integrated into a singular heritage. Together we embark upon a voyage unlike any other: a journey extending from rocks to symbols and from people to intellectual concepts, humanity’s journey through history to a unique civilization.

 ~*~

FRIDAY
Rescued Discard

 Replenished Larder
Included Treats

Weeks End
Feel Free to Rage Against the Machine

~*~

TEDDY SAYS

Tuesday
10.1.2019
"Forgive Yourself, you're only Human."

Bears, especially the comfort-companion kind, can't lie.
They see everything for what it is;
Accumulated stress.
~*~

Wednesday
10.2.2019
Rain on the way at 5 p.m.

Waiting for the bus,
she's playing scrabble

A disheveled older woman begging
blocking the entrance to the Deli

At the Zendo
6 p.m.
 We included Bernie Sanders in our prayers
 

~*~

Thursday
10.3.2019
Posted a Package and Monthly Bill payments.
Misty Manhattan.
Sometimes a day can feel like a year and a year like an hour:

"In our consciousness of time
we are doomed to the past.
The future we may dream of
but can know it only after
it has come and gone.
The present too we know
only as the past. When
we say, "This now is
present, the heat, the breeze,
the rippling water," it is past.
Before we knew it, before
we said "now," it was gone. If the only time we live
is the present, and if the present
is immeasurably short (or
long), then by the measure
of the measurers we don't
exist at all, which seems
improbable, or we are
immortals, living always
in eternity, as from time to time
we hear, but rarely know. You see the rainbow and the new-leafed
woods bright beneath, you see
the otters playing in the river
or the swallows flying, you see
a beloved face, mortal
and alive, causing the heart
to sway in the rifts between beats
where we live without counting,
where we have forgotten time
and have forgotten ourselves,
where eternity has seized us
as its own. This breaks
open the little circles
of the humanly known and believed,
of the world no longer existing,
letting us live where we are,
as in the deepest sleep also
we are entirely present,
entirely trusting, eternal.
Is it concentration of the mind
our unresting counting
that leaves us standing
blind in our dust?,
In time we are present only
by forgetting time."

'Leavings' by Wendell Berry

.
Trinity
"Brahma (creator), Vishnu (preserver) and Shiva (destroyer) are a trinity (the Trimurti), and are aspects of the one, infinite, deity."

 ~*~

Friday
10.4.2019
Finding sky from a South East facing apartment window:
I stretch outward, camera firmly in hand, twist to the left and look up.
Morning

 Early Afternoon

 Late Afternoon

5 p.m.
Self Portrait

Song for Autumn
by Mary Oliver

In the deep fall
don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
warm caves, begin to think
of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

7 p.m.
Visit with Friends Margaritta and Trudy
Attempt to catch portrait of 'Lucy"

Not cooperating

Not having it.

Then
Trader Joe
Everything  elses eemed to have pumpkin in it.


~*~

SAGA to the END

Sunday

9.29.2019
The fifth day of this Saga

Solutions are still in Process.

Celebration
Day one of Rosh Hashana begins at sundown.
"LSHANA TOVA"
 

 6 p.m
Went with the Mother (X) to free and open for all service at The Brotherhood on 20th Street, She dressed for the occasion.

After, we had lemon cake at a little joint on Irving place. Her situation is improving by leaps and bounds too. It's a brand new year and I have learned a lot about myself. Some of it not so pretty.

  PS
The bench just ahead of us had a dedication plate:
"Everything will be all right."

Monday
9.30,2019
6 a.m.
The alarm rings, I rise and get her up. After two calls with the Son (Y) he's on his way here to accompany her to their (evicted) apartment where they have a court order for access until noon daily. They will tag and arrange stuff they want to save.

8:45 a.m.
He arrives and they are gone for now. The current new plan is: the sons Queens buddy will hire a u-haul and drive in to pick up stuff here and at their evicted apartment and whisk it to Queens refuge. Their two cats are still in sanctuary and doing well at my first floor neighbors. They are working at finding friends out there to foster until a new apartment is found and prepared. Plans are subject to change.
They will phone me.

10 a.m.
I need a nap.
 ~^~

2:15 p.m.
Slept a few hours
Here come three brave industrious Muskateers

Mom (X) and Son (Y) accompanied by the Queens friend.
I packed up Fridge items. In three trips they took everything!
2:30 p.m.
~*~

3:00 p.m.
Bathe dress and prepare apples with Honey
snacks to share at the Zendo tonight.

Met an old Friend on West 24th Street
Eva Grubler and Andrew of Dharma Mittra Yoga

6-8:30 p.m.
New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care
A new friend, Katie Mehaffie who I met at Tibet House, speaking with another member of the Zendo

The Geranium outside still flowering.

~*~ 
May all beings find refuge and rest