It is a pleasure to be a guest on the Common Thread Give-a-way. Involved are Kim Gifford ( Pugs and Pics) and Jane McMillen ( little house home arts) and Rachel Barlow (picking my battles) and then Maria Wulf , fullmoonfiberart.com. I am offering my book called The Last Bird Sings to the winner. Names will be selected from comments. They will go into a box and be picked randomly. The contest is run from Monday, June 3 rd until Wednesday the 5th. I will announce the winner on Thursday the 6th of June. I am looking forward to joining these highly talented women and cannot tell you how delighted I am to have been asked to be a guest. I hope that many of you will spend some time looking at my work and comments are always appreciated. To know that my work reaches and relates to some of you is rewarding. I have posted an excerpt from the book which is part memoir and part philosophy. I hope you will find it interesting.
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Common Thread Give-a-way
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What It Means To You
The question was asked of me, what exactly do you mean with that quote? And I said that I knew what I meant but my meaning might not make sense to another. But it was important enough to me that I wrote it with my machine because I thought it might make sense to someone else. I thought it was worth the time and effort. It would be truly their own wall quilt if it has meaning for them. I can fuzzy up their meaning by saying what it meant to me, but that would not be fair. Does that make sense to you? If it does, let me know.It is for sale for $75.00 with $15.00 for shipping and insurance.
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Begin With A ‘Maybe’
Oftentimes in my comments I will say that if I can introduce a `maybe ‘ into someone’s thinking, we can help broaden premises. Because I have lived long enough to see old ideas fail, am I open to new ideas. After due thought, I incorporate them but also realize that others are not as eager as I am. We all know we cannot force feed an entire generation nor even attempt to change long established patterns of behavior. People do what they do because to change any thing means that all things in the light of what is learned, must be examined. People know this. Humans know it. It is not the work for the fainthearted. It is the work of a human workaholic bent on cleaning up a mess of too many centuries old.
And in the process of reexamination and change, what we grant to ourselves, we must grant to Others. If freedom is ours, having freed ourselves either from a past holding us hostage or some other factor, we must grant to the Other, his. If we claim the sun to shine on our heads, we must also grant space to the Other for the sun to shine. What we have is a double edged sword. We must also grant the right not to change to the Other. If they prefer the status quo, it must be granted. But only if an Other’s space is not intruded upon. By clinging to one’s own bent, we cannot damage an Other.
When we have an entire generation bridling under a specific burden, it must be rectified. That means whatever non-violent tools required, must be used. We change things then bit by bit. We know the dangers of drugs. We know the crunch of unequal opportunities in all walks of life. So we change by education, by election, by changing laws. If we have a generation of grandparents seeing beyond their own children and grandchildren, seeing across waters and generations to come, we then have those who see life’s continuity. When we have parents and grandparents viewing their own progeny as mortgage payments requiring due payment, we will save liters of blood , not only our own but untold generations’ spilling endlessly on soil in wars not needing to be fought. We will then make a difference.
A young man told me he knew what he was supposed to think and feel. He said I will continue to try but at that moment he said he was scared. I told him he was close to the kingdom. He was. Enough times told, the frightened self will begin to change habits.
We can begin with a `maybe’ after due process of thought.
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Where Can We Go?
As the sparrow falls it is noted
and the quality of life
is diminished by one.
Long ago the feathers were counted.
The color of the downy beast
was subtly painted into the rainbow.A child is born
in the forgotten regions
of a world too busy to take note.
The borning is observed, however,
by the cosmic populace.
Its growth watched and shepherded
and when the child cries,
the heavens lament.There is no least in quality or number.
Each beating heart is calculated
to keep a world intact.
Each blink of an eyelid
reason enough for the sun
to keep itself alive.The coming together
and the going apart of each
is through a door
opening and closing
onto a portion of life, indissoluble.Now it is here,
now gone from here, now it is here.
Disappearing from this place,
it takes form in another.The sparrow sings in another tree
and his song is heard
by one who left the here
and followed.Where can we go and not be found?
(from Kiss The Moon)
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I Bring Into Sweet Focus
And I heard the young one say, and I know this true, he said, that this lady likes to work with blue cloths is because he said, that she said this is what heaven is like. And I want to know he said, how does she know? And I told him that some people just know things, not guess or because they believe, but because they know. What do you think heaven is like I asked him. What do you think? And he said that because he remembered because he was only 5 fingers old, that he knew and she was right. What he remembered was that the colors of everything was so bright, even brighter he said than the sun or even, he said, the moon in the night sky when everything else is black. Then you know, I said to him, you know. And he said then that there were lots of things he knowed, but he did not like to say because other kids said it was baby stuff. But he knowed, he said, he knowed and this lady also knowed he said. Do you like the colors she uses, I asked. And he said that this is what he remembered and they are true.If you, like the young one, like the colors I use in my wall quilts, then contact me. This one is for sale for $75.00 plus $15 for shipping including insurance. It says, and I say, `I bring into sweet focus a world my heart requires.’
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Legacy
The house is quiet
when I enter this private place,
this holy place,
to listen to my private oracle,
my comforter,
while I chase down my holy grail.This holy grail for me
is my philosophy,
that I spent a lifetime pursuing.
I was pushed and pulled
into a blackened pit
strewn with many lifetimes’ worth
of desecrated dogmas.I was expected not to question,
just accept as man had
dutifully done for centuries.
But life’s ironies consumed
an enormous part of me
as the maternal segment refused
to feed the children of my heart
an unpalatable meal.Strong arms lifted me
and the nearing century
found me
in august terms in a legacy.But I will leave some memos,
essays, words of many muses,
whose meanings are dressed
in costumes of countless lifetimes.
There will be ledgers
on how to build a life
with digestible ingredients.Done as the mother of sons
whose hearts and minds she swallowed
so they would never, ever
think that she took
the keys of the kingdomand left them bereft.
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The Boarder Ashley
We hardly
knew you Babe.
You walked in and out
of our lives daily,
leaving a dust of footprints
on our hearts.But we knew
you were ours
when first we met you.
A face like yours
was much at home
with laughing and crying.
We mostly loved loving you.It seems we were born to do that.
(Ashley graduates from college and we will miss her.)
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We Trod The Path
We trod the path, hunched
and pull our faces in.
We bend our heads.
The wind is strong
when you walk into it.But I take your hand
and we struggle
against the icy rain
pelting our faces.We’ve walked this route
in centuries past;
guarding ourselves
from saying too much.We were different then,
simple. direct and not fashionable.
We were honest
in our appraisal.We’ve become alien
to our prior selves.
And I can’t say
it improves us much.What do you think?
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Analects
Some people just have not had their boots on long enough.
Privacy is the ultimate illusion. Most people think no one knows their thoughts, except God, but only when they’re praying.
Maybe prayers are only answered depending on the conversations one has in one’s head.
Perhaps the heavens slip in a thought depending on the intensity of the conversation. Revelation!
Does the intensity of the Pilgrim inform the heavens that ‘yeah, we have a live one down here!’
And we know people who are surprised when they mouth something because they say ‘I can’t believe I said that!’
The heavens put money on the horse they think will win the trifecta. Is it you?
Work as though your life depended on it and love as if everyone’s life depended on you.
First step is to be the person you want to meet or you want in your life.
It is time for the world to note that when heaven does not speak to the individual, it is time to ask ‘why not?’
The purpose of life is to lift my brother up and then to ask how high. Research yourself and you will then know how high and for what reason.
Should your child call and wonder if he should drop Philosophy, tell him it is the only class worth taking. Except History. And the Humanities. And maybe a few others such as the Religions Of Man.
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Ballerina (from Kiss The Moon)
Dance for me little girl.
Dance your dance
and show the gods
why you dance.In the garden I see you,
toes dug into the earth,
head lifted to catch
the glint of the sun
filtering through the leaves.You nod in assent to breezes
whispering your name.
Your lips move in intonation
of the om which separates you,
momentarily.You pirouette perfectly,
swayed by forces
caressing you to homage
of all who you are.I long to kneel
before the image of you.
At one with your own music,
when your arms grace sweepingly
in the silent moment,
and you take all that is yours
and pray the gardeninto a sanctuary.
Art by Claudia Hallissey
