I listed my blessings: all those
I love who hold me here.
I looked up at the thick
interlacing of branches above my head
and saw, high up, the bright blue
of air I might breathe, air I could swim to.
—Gregory Orr, “Under Pressure,” in City of Salt
Poem: I Hear It Deep In The Hearts Core. Art: Helena Almedia (mennyfox55)
Lake Superior at Marquette, Michigan.
Susan Kanigan with her iPhone 6 @ 4:36 PM on July 18, 2015.
Related “Blue” Posts
A new place.
Awakened eye
Seeing freshly.
What does that do to
The old blood moving through
Its channels?
~ Naomi Shihab Nye, Fresh from You & Yours
Notes: Poem: Thank you Whiskey River. Gif: bakabt from Sound! Euphonium
Heat lightning: at the horizon,
July in heavy boots paces the hot floor of the darkness.
A bulb in a wobbly lamp jiggles.
Or is that you, my friend,
approaching across the firefly hills,
swinging a sloshing pail of moonlight?
~ Ted Kooser, July. The Wheeling Year: A Poet’s Field Book
Photo: Blue Moon by Masahiro Hiroiki taken on July 31, 2015 in Nanbu-Cho, Tottori, Japan.
Kazuaki Tanahashi
Miracles of Each Moment, 2014
Kabuki Tanahashi @ brushmind.net – Zen Circles. He was born and trained in Japan and active in the United States since 1977, has had solo exhibitions of his calligraphic paintings internationally. He has taught East Asian calligraphy at eight international conferences of calligraphy and lettering arts. Also a peace and environmental worker for decades, he is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science. See more of his Zen Circles here.
Source: Precious Things
Source: mennyfox55 (climber up a shadow line towards the summit of Whitehorse Mountain near the western edge of the North Cascades in Washington state)
“Every year, humpback whales come to Kingdom of Tonga during July to September. The mothers raise their babies and when they are enough strong they go far away to the cold water. During whale watching activity, you can live some incredible experiences by interaction with this fabulous mammal. This young calf played with me during 30 minutes under the control of his mother, a great memory. Photo by Marc Henauer.”
Don’t miss the other 9 pictures in The Telegraph: In pictures: The 2015 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest
Thursday morning.
First train arrives at Grand Central at 5:55 am.
I twist ear buds in.
Turn volume up.
And set the playlist.
Noise cancelling headphones block the outside.
David Gray fills the inside.
Magic.
Commuters stage left, and right, and front, and back.
A teeming shoal of barracuda jockeying for position for the exits.
While I was watching you did a slow dance.
We edge forward through the tunnel.
Down the stairs.
And a hard left up the corridor for the Madison exit.
Life in slow motion somehow it don’t feel real.
Up escalator.
I lean into left lane. Speed lane.
She’s up and in front.
A Barracuda presses from behind, and three behind him. [Read more…]
I have no idea how he knows when I need him.
We can go weeks without speaking,
and then, when my blue moods threaten to turn black,
he will show up and tell me my moods are:
azure,
indigo,
cerulean,
cobalt,
periwinkle–
and suddenly the blue will not seem so dark,
more like the color of a noon-bright sky.
He brings the sun.
— David Levithan, The Realm of Possibility
Notes:
The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life: a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence. […] But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.
~ David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb it leaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don’t spin it out too long long breath he breath long life, soaring high, high resplendent, aflame, crowned, high in the effulgence symbolistic, high, of the ethereal bosom, high, of the high vast irradiation everywhere all soaring all around about the all, the endlessnessnessness…”
– James Joyce, Ulysses
Notes:
Of life are woven woes
the days dissolve to live a bit
a lot!
dissolve.
—Anne-Marie Alonzo, from “Lead Blues,” Voices in the Desert: The Anthology of Arabic-Canadian Women Writers
Anne-Marie Alonzo is a Quebec poet, translator, literary critic and editor who made a major contribution to the culture of Canada despite her severe physical disabilities. Alonzo was born in Alexandria Egypt in 1951 and came to Quebec with her family in 1963. In 1966 she was the victim of a car accident which left her quadriplegic and confined to a wheelchair. She earned a B.A. in 1976, an M.A. in 1978 and a Ph.D. in French studies in 1989 from the Université de Montréal.
Notes:
The photographer is marco andres argüello. He was born and raised in McAllen, Texas and is currently living in Miami Beach, Florida. Be sure to check out his amazing web site here. My favorite collections are Greek Isles, Island and Ultraviolet.
Soure: eikadan
It’s 27° F. I’m fast stepping to catch the 6:16 am train to Grand Central. My soles are snapping the rock salt crystals. The eyes are scanning the sidewalk on the look out for black ice. It’s March. It’s damn cold. I shiver. It’s over. It’s over soon.
I review my notes for my 8:30 am presentation. And then shift to the morning papers. I scan my calendar. I complete the Morning rituals. I’m done early.
The gear box is misfiring. Where’s the pre-game anxiety? Where’s the morning email missives? Where’s the pullin’ Locomotive?
The noise-canceling earphones and the music player are dialed up. I’ve encased Myself inside Myself. Myself and Bob Seger, Against the Wind.
My phone vibrates signaling a text from Rachel — she’s two trains behind me. Hi Daddy! I send her a link in reply: FDA Panel Backs Kythera Double-Chin Treatment. Thanks Dad. Another genetic beauty mark that you’ve passed down to me. I chuckle. She’s mine. Not yet 7 am and she’s counterpunching. That’s My Girl.
The train enters a long, slow curve into Manhattan. Rachel is leaning into the curve, behind but with me — her electronic Hi Daddy, Oliver’s soft wind, like a belt of silk, wraps the house.
We’re in the tunnels. The normal pulse escalation zone. I’m watching the Commuters scrambling to gather their bags to prepare for ejection. I’m watching. Sitting. At Peace, Calm and Centered – with Seger crooning in the background. Damn de-stabilizing. Mad-Man turned Zen.
I let the masses pour out of the train and clear. I follow behind the herd.
I exit out onto 42nd Street and Vanderbilt, and she catches me catch her eye.
I’m OFF. Again. FAIL! Commuters Creed: Avoid eye contact. [Read more…]
WE LIVE, M. and I, about ten feet from the water. When there is a storm and the wind pushes toward us from the southeast we live about a foot from the water. It sings all day long and all night as well, never the same music. Wind, temperature, where the tide is, how the moon is tugging or shoving—each of these makes a difference. The tide going out sounds harsher than the voice of its rising, what seems like a disinclination to leave growls in it, with the sound of dark, thick-stringed instruments. Coming in, it is more playful. Every day my early morning walk along the water grants me a second waking. My feet are nimble, now my ears wake, and give thanks for the ocean’s song. This enormity, this cauldron of changing greens and blues, is the great palace of the earth. Everything is in it—monsters, devils, jewels, swimming angels, soft-eyed mammals that unhesitatingly exchange looks with us as we stand on the shore; also, sunk with some ship or during off-loading, artifacts of past decades or centuries; also the outpourings of fire under water, the lava trails; and kelp fields, coral shelves, and so many other secrets—the remembered and faithfully repeated recitations of the whales, the language of dolphins—and the multitude itself, the numbers and the kinds of shark, seal, worm, vegetations, and fish: cod, haddock, swordfish, hake, also the lavender sculpin, the chisel-mouth, the goldeye, the puffer, the tripletail, the stargazing minnow. How can we not know that, already, we live in paradise?
~ Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings
Credits: Photograph – Ridiculously Photogenic Chewbacca
This world –
absolutely pure
As is.
Behind the fear,
Vulnerability.
Behind that,
Sadness,
then compassion
And behind that the vast sky.
~ Rick Fields
Notes:
Lately, when people ask me what I’m doing, the most honest reply (manifest in my daily writing, prayer, meditation, contemplation & conversations) would be to say I am following my thread. It’s a reference to this small, spectacular poem by William Stafford that is taped to my bathroom mirror. Whatever our “thread” is – a question, an invitation, an awareness of what matters most – it always takes us home to ourselves, to our belonging in this world, to the Infinite Love that holds & keeps us. These days, I become aware that I can hold & follow my thread in a variety of places – washing dishes or buying groceries; in solitude or with others; in the city or the forest. Mostly, I admit, the key for me to following my thread is to slow down. Rushing makes me lose awareness of the thread I hold. As the work week begins, let’s consider together: How do I hold the thread that guides me?
~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer
The Way It Is
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
~ William Stafford
Notes:
We all come into existence as a single cell, smaller than a speck of dust. Much smaller. Divide. Multiply. Add and subtract. Matter changes hands, atoms flow in and out, molecules pivot, proteins stitch together, mitochondria send out their oxidative dictates; we begin as a microscopic electrical swarm. The lungs the brain the heart. Forty weeks later, six trillion cells get crushed in the vise of our mother’s birth canal and we howl. Then the world starts in on us.
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See
Credits: Photograph:on montague via Katy Elliot. Quote Source: Precious Things
Matt Story studied art from an early age and demonstrated a unique skill for hyper-realism. “I was lauded for ‘photo-realistic’ technique, but I was never after that, really, after what a camera impartially sees, because there’s so much more there, captured only by the human filter of memory. We all posses these invisible imprints, through experience and living, but often its only artists who can play it back for us, to remind us. The paint surface needs to be a mirror for the viewer, reflecting back not his or her superficial self, but a deep shared humanness. This is the essence of looking at a piece that’s totally unfamiliar to you and yet, being awed with a sense of recognition. Your reactions, those memories and feelings are uniquely yours but you’re suddenly filled with a sense that, you share them, at least with the artist, but probably even with everyone else. That of course is art at its best: the artist, sometimes doesn’t even know what he’s doing because he’s a conduit of his or her own collective awareness.” (Find Story’s full bio here: MattStory.com)
I’ve always loved looking at clouds. Nothing in nature rivals their variety and drama; nothing matches their sublime, ephemeral beauty. If a glorious sunset of Altocumulus clouds were to spread across the heavens only once in a generation, it would surely be amongst the principal legends of our time. Yet most people barely seem to notice the clouds, or see them simply as impediments to the “perfect” summer’s day, an excuse to feel “under the weather.”
~ Gavin Pretor-Pinney, The Cloudspotter’s Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds
Live & Learn 