Shared love

I thought I'd jump the photo queue and post some pictures from yesterday, the day after our almost-blizzard (apparently we didn't have strong enough sustained winds to qualify for an actual, factual blizzard according to some arbitrary meteorological definition.

I also wanted to share a wonderful "On being" program that included an interview with the late gospel singer Joe Carter. My favorite part if the interview: ""Mr. Carter: You know, I think what we're talking about [is] human suffering and how do we survive when the worst happens? What are the mechanisms? And I think that African-Americans have shown the world, and other peoples have done it, too. Other peoples are doing it all the time, and it's the same process. It doesn't matter who the people are. It doesn't matter whether the song is an actual song of notes and music or whether it's the spirit of a people expressed in some other way, but you'll find, for example, when I sing these songs, I can sing "Motherless Child" in Siberia; they know what it means. They've been through hell. I can go to Scotland and Ireland and Wales and sing these. They understand the sentiment.

Here is the full transcript and the link to mp3 files of the songs (that they encourage you to download & share).

My favorite lyric that he sang was "When I come to the end of this road
And I lay down this old heavy load,
Let the love that I've shared speak for me."

Thank you for being in my life and for the love that you've shared with me.

10/10/10 and the Christian Taliban

Pix today from 10.Oct.2010. One of which shows the ecumenical household of at least 1 house in the neighborhood. The other two of dahlias in our garden. The bulbs of which, of course, are now safely dug up & stored (safely, we hope) for the winter.




I thought you might be interested in Frank Rich's response to the recent Christian Taliban's (my description of this yahoo who raised a stink of the Smithsonian exhibition, sight unseen, with the complicit-by-their-silence Smithsonian Board, and not-so-silent supporters in Congress) attack on the National Portrait Gallery's “Hide/Seek.” The show, whose subtitle is "Difference and Desire in American Portraiture"

For the first time since 1979 (at least according to Andy) our house was without a cat in it last night. Not to worry, Potter's not dead, she's just in the hospital for an overnight thyroid screening. Turns out she has early hyperthyroidism (no surprise given her behavior recently). So we have to decide on one of three treatment options - radioactive iodine (with concomitant having to flush her poop, avoid prolonged exposure for 2 weeks), a week-long stint @ the hopital), surgery (with it's related hospital stay), or pills for the rest of her life (which given her temperament would be difficult at best). The vet says we've caught it early & it only involves one of the 2 glands so far. And us on retirement incomes. Oi vey.

Off soon for an Alexander lesson. 27F "feels like" 16F heading all the way up to 32F so the widget warns, with nary a snowflake in sight until at least Sunday. :|

Bill Moyers @ BU

Inaugural event of the Howard Zinn memorial lecture series.
Video is here
Transcript here

Most chilling: "On . . . "thinkprogress.com" - you can find out how the multi-billionaire Koch brothers - also big oil polluters [er producers] and Tea Party supporters - are recruiting "captains of industry" to fund the right-wing infrastructure of front groups, political campaigns, think tanks and media outlets. . . Among the right-wing luminaries who showed up among Koch's ‘secretive network of Republican donors' are two Supreme Court Justices: Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. That's right: 2 of the 5 votes [in the recent Citizens United decision] to enable the final corporate takeover of government came from justices who were present as members of the plutocracy hatched their schemes for doing so."

Reminds me of the scariest photo (at least for moi) in the Ann Frank museum - that of the German Supreme Court Justices pledging allegiance to Hitler. If members of our Supreme Court are in bed with these folks, what hope have we?

Second most chilling: "The Koch brothers have contributed significantly to efforts to stop the Affordable Care Act - the health care reforms - from taking effect. Justice Clarence Thomas has obviously been doing some home schooling, because his wife Virginia claims those reforms are "unconstitutional," and has founded an organization that is fighting to repeal them. Her own husband on the Supreme Court may one day be ruling on whether she's right or not ("Play the cards fair, Reuben; I know what I dealt you.") There's more: The organization Virginia Thomas founded to kill those health care reforms -- also a goal of the Koch brothers, remember -- got its start with a gift of half a million dollars from an unnamed source, and is still being funded by donors who can't be traced."

How can Judge Thomas possibly claim impartiality if/when these cases to repeal the health care law come before him when his own wife seeks to undermine them?

On a lighter note - the final performance of the Nutcracker went fairly well - amazing what a little subdividing will do to help sort out the fingers. This AM I have to bring the car in for an oil change & hope they can fix the review mirror on the passenger side - it flaps in the wind, which makes seeing anything in it problematic at best. Then off to tootle & begin to get the Tchaikovsky (yes, again) Symph. 2 ready for rehearsals in January.

Mom memories

Do you remember the choir room with its big mirror on one wall & the robes on hangers on the opposite one? Do you remember the boot box in the front hallway? Happy birthday, Jenny!

Happy St. Nicholas Day

The traditional gift-giving day in Holland. Is it me, or does the saint look just a tech (rhymes with "fetch") gay in the Wikipedia article? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas Must be the lipstick & eyeliner.







Photos today from 5, 7, and 8.Oct.2010 including a late rose, a pumpkin picnic, pink flamingos (in Dorchester? Who'da thunk?), October sky en route to the T, a Harvard yard shot & the T sign.

Sunny but (Sunny butt? Who has a sunny butt?) 29F out now, feels like 17 so maybe I'll wait for my toddle. Heading up all the way to 36F so the weather widget warns me. No snow in sight. Shoulder not twinging quite so much. Off to tootle.

Little Poem

That money talks
I won't deny.
I heard it once,
It said, 'Goodbye.'
-- Richard Armour*

Pix today from 3.Oct.2010

Landscape of beauty

There was a wonderful interview with Krista Tippett and Irish poet and philosopher, John O'Donohue, on NPR this morning. Mr. O'Donohue died in his sleep @ age 52, which should give us pause. My favorite parts of the show: "Where you are understood, you are at home." And, quoting from German mystic, Master Eckhart:

"There is a place in the soul — there is a place in the soul that neither time, nor space, nor no created thing can touch." And [O'Donohue] really thought that was amazing, and if you cash it out what it means is, that in — that your identity is not equivalent to your biography. And that there is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there's still a sureness in you, where there's a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you. And I think the intention of prayer and spirituality and love is now and again to visit that inner kind of sanctuary.

And finally, a prayer Mr. O'Donohue wrote for his mother when his father, her husband, died, the sentiments of which prayer I wish for you:

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

The entire transcript of Ms. Tippett's interview is here.

May you always have an invisible cloak of love around you to mind your life and a path of yellow moonlight to bring you home.

Toddle 1.Oct.2010

Shots from early Oct. toddle to acupuncture. Starting flowers in the front garden chez nous. Passed the Eliot Burying Ground that was open - first time I saw that - wonder if it's open the first of every month? Last pic is of my acupuncture group treatment room - took advantage of no one else being there to grab the shot.











Heading out soon for today's hike. 43F - they say it's raining but I think that's over. Andy's less than enthusiastic about going to the Stitch House Dorchester 20% off everything sale today - and the last thing I need is to buy more yarn - so I guess we'll give it a miss. At some point we'll have to take the meat off the turkey carcass to free up room in the fridge.

My psyche certainly doesn't like not practicing - I've been on a week-long fast prescribed by my Polarity practitioner in an effort to cure my left shoulder twinging and not a night's gone by that I haven't had a nightmare about not being able to find my music before a rehearsal, being late for a rehearsal, etc., etc. Today's the last day and tomorrow I start to ease into a regular regime again in the hope of being in shape and pain-free for the Nutcracker marathon weekend 12/10-12/2010. Fingers crossed.

30 Sept. 2010 bis

Shots again from 30.Sept.2010 as I wended my way up Melville Ave., snapping photos of houses that, if memory serves (and that won't take us far) I haven't posted before, as well as a couple shots of encroaching fall.










I've been dizzy since I got up this AM and, at the risk of ending up like a neighbor who was found passed out in the street with no ID a few months back, I'm heading out for a toddle, hoping that that will help clear the head. Don't worry, I'll bring my wallet.

30 Sept. 2010

Shots today include local flora & landscape-like tree bark. The whirly one I haven't a clue how I did.




Heading out now for Thanksgiving meal shopping. Hoping the stores aren't too crowded.

Still less than a week since Snitch left us. Missing her and feeling guilty but I have to believe she would only have gotten sicker and then who was I keeping her alive for really?

In memorium: Snitch

A sad day here for us. Snitch was such a wonderful companion - almost like a dog the way she always wanted to be where her people were. No more the scratching @ the bathroom door to be let in in the morning. No more that wonderful resonant purr. No more the puss sleeping on the schmata covering my pillows, visiting me while I knit, demanding attention, attention that I'm now so happy that I most often gave, no more the 5PM on the dot reminding that she was ready for dinner. So sad picking up her food bowls for the last time. The pain so fresh and rawly felt. Struggling with "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." I find myself doing both. At the same time.