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Forever Is Happening Now. . .

By on August 2, 2018 in Observations, Poetry

The miracle of life is that though we all hold different perspectives on everything,  each of us, beast or human,  we seem to hold an anchoring desire which is survival.  And that desire somehow is enough to keep us afloat for however long. 

When we fail, we all fail and go down the tube together.  And pick ourselves up and begin again.

The differing perspective is matched every once in awhile by another in part or whole and when it happens is met with a startled ‘we know each other don’t we’?  thought. 

The heavens do not look kindly on such alliances because little work would get done when relief comes with much fun.   Which is why isolation is often the state of the differing souls and loneliness the condition. 

Once recognized as a chosen state,  life becomes a dedicated ceremony.  And the celebration often at the end becomes the enlightenment knowing the party just begins. 

 

Forever is Happening Now. . . 

Was it a thousand years ago
or just yesterday when you stood
at my front door as a guest for dinner?

My eyes caught your
brown wing tipped shoes that
I recognized from another time.

I followed the path to your face
and there was an electric moment of recognition.
I wanted to say I know you, don’t I?

Followed of course would be to say
good to see you again, yet knowing
we were new to each other.

It was another time in a place
of no name now but it was a time
locked in forever.  I knew then as I do now

that time is a happening for this place
with the Earth names we’ve memorized for ourselves.
But it is a happening still

as all things are all the time.  We do not escape
who we are.  A quantum leap into the present
is our stance for this moment

but forever it is all happening now.

 

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How Long Before All Worlds Will Be Safe . . . ?

By on July 11, 2018 in Uncategorized

Sometimes I run previous posts to acquaint my new readers with earlier work to show where it is I come from.  This is one of those times I need to remember for me.   A gift given and life was renewed and I am grateful.  There is always hope with a writer that words written will somehow be what is needed by a someone at the moment.  The following was for me today.

May I ask you a question?   He was sitting at the window and looking out as if he could will the sun to come out so he could play outdoors.   Why you ask?   Because I want you to know that if you don’t want to answer,  you can say no to me.   But you always answer my question and never say no,  he said.   I woun’t say no to you,  he said.   I maybe not know the answer but I woun’t say no.   I tried to frame my question simply.

I wonder, I said, if you can remember what it was like before you came here to live.   I waited.   He continued looking at me and I thought past me and then asked,  which time before?   I drew breath and then said the one you remember best.   And he smiled at me and said the one where we were together before?   Where was that I asked.   He said, you know,  you know.   That’s why I choosed you this time.   We were bestest friends and I knowed how much you could help because we were bestest friends.

Where was that I asked again.   He said in that cold place where we had to hold hands so our fingers could be warm.   Who was there with us I asked and he searched my face.   He was reading me I thought and then wondered why.  He said it was a hard time and this time would be better.   Why was it a hard time I asked and he said because our bodies were broked and sick.   This time he said we are not broke so we can go outside and play.   We were too old and broked last time and the cold hurt when we breathhhhddd.   How do you remember that I asked and why do you remember.

Because here I can breathhhedddd and it don’ hurt.   My throat burn in that place when things ‘ploded  ’cause they fighted all the time.  You ‘member he said, you ‘member.   And he became silent and his eyes clouded.   And he said,  we say to each other,  never  ‘gain,   never  ‘gain.  I pulled him to me and hugged him and said never again.   We will try to stay where it doesn’t hurt to breathe.   And I wished I could promise there would always be a place where it didn’t hurt to breathe,  but I could not make that promise.   For this time only,  I could hug him and keep him where the air did not burn his throat.  But how long before all places would be safe?

Until life in all forms vowed not to inflict such terror in worlds where to draw breath just to live would hurt,  we would continue to work.  That is a promise.

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Say This I Can Do. . .and hold in your hand. . . .

By on July 9, 2018 in Uncategorized

 

I want to show you the final results of the blue material I made on post previously.  This I completed and wanted you to see what you can do just for fun.  It is a creative endeavor and limited only by the boundaries you set.  And I hope they will be few.

The next two are embroidered with the sewing machine either zigzag or straight needle.  Or if you are at ease with free motion,  give it a try with something you can draw on material.  You limit only yourself.  Try all things, houses, barns, trees or figures in one color and then bind them onto flannel for a child’s nap time blanket.  There may be no nap.                               .

The next example are five inch squares with a central inch white strip going diagonally .  Or a wider strip.  Glue it down with a glue stick so it won’t shift.  But first cut your five inch squares from an old soft sheet or new flannel sheets to mount pieces of fabric too small or unshapely for much else.  I prefer these strips to piecing because I think piecing requires larger pieces with much waste.  I prefer to use smaller pieces with strips having little waste.  You can place the squares to suit your fancy with straight lines or parallel ones or whichever pleases.  You are limited only by yourself.

The last one are the inch squares you feel you must use .  Take web bonding and using an inch ruler and make an inch grid covering the sheet.  Lay the rows as you choose and with the wrong side of fabric on the grid press to bond.  When cool peel away from backing and on wrong side crease and stitch along the length and width 1/8 inch.  You will end up with perfectly matched squares.  Wonderful way to use scraps and I honor the genius who thought this up.

 

 

These are things you can do with materials on hand or friends eager to lessen their stash.  Old sweats can be cut up as batting to give stability.  Try your hand at drawing on materials with simple pieces.  Use coloring books as source materials.  Attach things with glue sticks before stitching.  Do not be shy with your talents.  Do and you will be shown how.  Have fun with making something substantial you can hold in your hand.  There is satisfaction in saying to yourself,  this I can do.  And do it again.

.

 

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A Peace of Mind. . . .

By on July 5, 2018 in Observations

It is not the mystery of  life which stunts man and does not beguile  him to further thought.  It is the work involved.

*****

It is not easy for Wendy to become Tinkerbell in one fell swoop.  Not without destroying Peter Pan in that fell swoop.

*****

Statistics are meant to sell beer and not to legislate the human spirit.

*****

What seems like a tragedy in the absurd and obscure indeed is a well thought out and prescribed drama.

*****

It is the lighted candle that sparks the heavens.

*****

Live and become that dream where you make a difference in a world that makes no difference.

*****

Bless the good day and blow the winds of fear as far from the ends of the Earth.  The alternative is more of the same in a place where progress is not so swift.

*****

Wait not for death.  Be vigilant only of life in all its forms, in its entirety.  Embrace it all.

*****

One cannot break a will which heralds its own functioning and its own existence.

*****

When nothing is taken from our leisure  to add to our proportion,  it is debauchery and decadence.  We have license to steal from ourselves the only thing we have at the moment and that is time.

*****

The hardest commandment to fulfil is the one to love one’s neighbor because it presumes one’s love for oneself.

*****

It is sometimes necessary to be abrupt or we lose our 30 second audience.  We know the perilous times.

*****

You have carved a piece out of the night sky and you stand alone on the jetty in the universal sea.  Who will you ask to dance on the ceiling?  I would be honored if you ask me.

 

artwork by Claudia Hallissey

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To Feed My Spirit. . . .

By on June 26, 2018 in Uncategorized

Lately I find myself not equal to the day’s events.   And considering how close the century mark hovers,  it is not unusual.  But I cannot remember with this body how I rose to the occasions when events played havoc with my heart.  So I take myself to the work table and create something from scratch.  Normally it is to the kitchen but no thing seems palatable.  So I am going to create from bits ready for trash, something still usable to feed my spirit.

Place a silicone sheet  or a large piece of parchment on the ironing surface.   Put a light 8×10 inch fusible web piece on it and  then take scraps of fabric of a chosen color and cover the web.  Place the colored pieces in whatever design you choose and  then with a hot iron over another piece of silicone or parchment, press.  Once fused the top sheet of silicone will lift off and the piece of now fusible colored bits will lift off the bottom silicone in one piece.

I free motion quilt over the fused fabric to make certain it holds together if not used right away. I don’t want movement in the fabric drawer loosening pieces of it.   I use the fabric for wall quilts or small things.  They make good mug mats or quilt squares.

I am still of the mind set that hands should not be idle.  And every day is an adjustment as aging or illness takes what once were skills and of no thought.  Even the threading of a needle becomes a major task when eyesight is not sharp or fingers become numb.

My knowledge has been such that whatever is fed into the mind is what will determine what world we inherit or how we are used when we transit.  Everything teaches and it is up to me to feed that addiction I have for learning.  These are what rust and moth do not destroy.  These are the only gifts we take with us.

So today I share this with you.  If the pieces are too small to handle with comfort, iron them onto fusible web and create a larger piece that gives rise to a something that has a wonderful outcome.  You are limited only by boundaries you erect.

 

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Around The Bend. . .

By on May 25, 2018 in Observations, Poetry

 

Today I sit in the midst of my birthday of 87 years.  It is quiet.  In rereading journals where I was told if you want a good book to read,  write it,  I am finding truth. Rarely do I remember if it was cereal for breakfast and therefore rereading the saga I wonder what comes next .

The Teacher asked in a September 2013 entry . . .you saw an event and caught it in flight and reacted and saw the lesson in the event.  Tell us how you do that. . .

Because I felt sorry for myself that day this was the answer. . . .(My spontaneity as a child was shanghaied because I was born seeing the thought and it was then engulfed in the larger picture with its application within life and lives and results following.

The consequences then run through but the spontaneity is gone and the moment lost.  The result, the lesson, the appreciation is deeper and the entire action is molded into a lesson and humanity benefits, instead of just the impulse of the person.

You have in me no game player therefore someone they say who spoils the fun and doesn’t know how to play.   Not invited to go along because I spoil the fun.)

Within the brackets above was from the entry.  I add, I think life is beautiful as is and needs no embellishment; the storyteller really needs the exaggeration. Games are often played to show superiority, king of the mountain syndrome.

Compensation is at play giving me ‘language sparring’ for diversion.  Great fun and like the poem following,  a surprise and a lark.  The response to Around The Bend was great so I run it again.  Aww shucks.   It seems I’ve run out of cola.

Around The Bend. . .

I was told you have stretched
your boundaries
as far as you can and the rest
will require another world.

You work too hard at this, he said.
Break the pattern because
you do not need more information
to underscore what you already know.

What good to understand worm holes,
and black holes and white holes
and time warps.
You work with them every night
when you flutter in and out
of worlds and know your way around
the bends of light.
You don’t need anything more.

You need a good stiff drink
of more than cola.
Love, take a bender.
You need rye, straight.

I say,  around the bend
there will be a hand,
someone to pull me up. . . .

around the bend will be a someone
to pull me up. . . .I know.

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A Mother’s Dictum—Eternity Is A Long Time. . . .

By on May 12, 2018 in Observations, Poetry

Not often do I go back in time to relive something so intensely fierce that it can undo my mental health.  Yet I was driven to remember when I found our ten month son missing.  We were living in Tokyo at the time; my husband in the military.

Our lodging was in an apartment near the University with a landlady who was a mistress of a Japanese businessman.  It was a new apartment, sparse though close to the base, in a Japanese neighborhood.

We were on good terms with the landlady whom we called Oksan.  She loved our baby son and yearning to have a child of her own, sat and rocked the carriage in the secluded garden while he slept.  She asked to babysit for short periods.  I was uneasy with her yearning for a child but relented.

I went to the commissary one day and when I returned Oksan was gone with our son in his carriage.  She had not said she was going anywhere only that she would sit.  I put away the groceries and waited.

I soon became frantic and went looking for them.  I ran like a crazy lady from stall to stall on our street asking everyone if they saw them.  They could see I was panicky but why, no one understood.

The students on break at the University understood somewhat though they did not understand the panic.  I called my husband at the base and because he was an officer, could come home and brought a man who spoke Japanese.  Not understood was my fear.  This was after all Oksan and why the panic?

The fact that my baby was gone, in a foreign place, with a someone who wanted him to be hers, did not register.  Overreaction they thought.

Sometime later she did return of course.  Our son was asleep in his carriage and she had gone visiting.  Fortunately, soon after we returned to the U.S. so I did not face the issue again.   What brought this memory forward?

One of this week’s immigration policies would be to separate the child from the parent at the border.  I am horrified at the thought of the panic in the child and the fear ridden parent seeing the young children taken.

My heart will stop if I linger with this now.

I cannot believe such insensitivity would exist in anyone’s belief system.  I cannot fathom a government policy stating this.

I was just 20 years old when this episode happened.  For 9 months this child grew beneath my heart and 10 months in my arms.  The intensity of my fear and panic I can taste again.  I would only say don’t mess with me guys.  Eternity is a long time.

Beneath My Heart. . .

How could I not love them?
They grew beneath my heart,
waiting for my heart to beat
so that their’s would continue beating.

Did you not think
I would not know that?
And they would be reason enough
for me to keep breathing?

You did not know me. . .
Like a bear
I would fight for my cubs.
I made them. . . .

They wear my name
and one day they
will remember. . .

who taught them about love.

 

painting by a local
Japanese artist 1953

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To Savor The Minute. . . .

By on May 3, 2018 in Observations, Poetry

Sometimes it is necessary to be reminded to unglue ourselves from what is inundating the Ethers, to look upon each other as the most important for the moment.  Take this as a gentle reminder.  All we have is this moment. 

 

To Savor The Minute. . . .

Could we take the time
to savor this minute?
Hold it close?

There will be more minutes,
but none more special
than this one.

It tells me that you
treasure our friendship
to show our true feelings

that connect us,
one to the other.
I will remember the marks

on my life you put there
when you took time to rescue
the self I thought I lost.

Today I am whole.  Forever drawn
as a heart beating steadily as if
with an inserted pacemaker

but  with gratitude transcending its beat.

 

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When The Plough Seems Too Heavy. . . . .

By on April 30, 2018 in Observations, Paradigm

 

Gleanings . . .

If you do not intend to look back, remember to lift the plough.  And sometimes the plough seems too heavy to lift but we push on anyway to find it is a joy and a privilege.

*****

Always state the condition of the heart in preference to appearance.  You will then see with eyes destined for immortality while you walk.

*****

Sometimes doing nothing at all helps a someone to mature faster than times which are hard on the heart.  Or doing nothing at all ruins a person more quickly by hardening the heart than times which are hard on the pocket book.

*****

Listen carefully to my heartbeat for you will hear your own.

*****

The greatest gift is that of the thinking mind.

*****

With the shrug of the shoulders, no work is ever completed.  It is with the footwork involved that we see what the work has meant.

*****

Do not expect what cannot be delivered.

*****

When you lament where is the end and in what universe is it all and then to conclude it is all universally good is not valid.  For then when you see where it is you are, the last chapter would be writ.  There is no last chapter.  Life is everlasting.

*****

With aging the blanks in memory are embarrassing and the pressures of the fast moving society makes them appear more frequently.  It has always been thus.

*****

Everything becomes a moral decision if one holds the long view.  Yet the long view is the only one and demands it lest there be no tomorrow for those whose propensity is for instant gratification.

*****

To suffer is to be aware of the damage you do to the ones you care about.

 

photo by
Kathy Rybacki Qualiana

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The Old Country. . .

By on April 16, 2018 in Lesson, Observations, Poetry

 

 

Home of One’s Soul. . .

The Teachers Speak. . . Every so often, out of one’s domain, there is an isolation that swamps one. It is difficult to shake, and yet there it is, evidence that this is not home. There is a portion or many portions appealing to one, yet basically, the at home feeling begins to leave.   This is when one digs in and brings to light all those things that brighten the soul. Dig into your handiwork, give yourself some leeway but stay with the program, stay with the route. You will find that the isolation will fade somewhat and again you will regain your sense of belonging. But do not distress yourself about it.   It is a pure longing for the home of one’s soul. It will come about in its own good time and the journey will have been worth the while. And what is gained along the way will add simply more weight to the gems in your pockets. (scribed November of ’94)

Across the Mind’s Eye. . .

Laying like whipped icing
on the wedding cake,
the drifts of snow across the mind’s eye
left a clear path to the heart’s memory
of the other winters when love
closed the doors of the world
and cherished me.

What were the winters like
when the snow stood high
and like lover’s swords sliced a path

and found where I was?

poem written Nov , 2011

 

Deep within are memories brought forth for a reason indecipherable.  Simply as the poem says, across the mind’s eye.  Yet sweeping the body, finds the knees weak and my heart laboring.  One wonders then from where comes the love, the cherishing.  It is deep within but the source cannot be brought to mind. Still the feeling is unmistakable. And the knowledge stays that somewhere that world is intact.  And a matter of time only, time as it is known where I am, folds unto itself and puts me back into the ‘old country.’

One then does not argue with this because it is not belief, but knowledge.  And it was yesterday though a lifetime has been lived since.  Puzzle?  No, because we learn that linear time belongs to Earth but confirming that all time is simultaneous.  (April, 2018)

photo by Joe Hallissey sr.

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