Shooting From The Heart

Moving

2011-10-17T07:25:00.001-07:00

It's been a little over three years since I started this blog and I think it's time for a fresh face, don't you? Given that, and after looking around a bit, I decided to start the process by moving over to WordPress. I even have a new 'name,' inspired by my latest post about Will Shakespeare and his 'Juliet': solesisterjuliet.wordpress.com. This is just the beginning (again ;0) but I think it will be fun. I am still tweaking the page over there, so bear with me, okay? I'll give alerts here about posts on the Sole Sister site for awhile, but I hope you record the new address as THE address. See you there!

In Her Shoes

2011-09-09T04:56:00.000-07:00

STILETTO, a dagger developed in southern Europe and in common use in the 16th century. It had a slender blade about six inches (15cm) long that tapered to a sharp point. Employed only as a stabbing weapon, the stiletto's blade had no cutting edge, but was three- or four-sided to give it firmness and strength. Some stilettos were sturdy enough to penetrate light armor, and some were so small and light that they could be used by a woman. The stiletto's handle was protected by a simple cross guard, or quillon. [Encyclopedia Americana, c. 1980 Americana Corporation.]

In my fashion I was thinking of the Twelve Dancing Princesses so I thought I'd rework a composition in acrylics I'd sent off last Christmas as a gift - some shoes in vibrant hues, hues with a 60s vibe. As I worked with the sketches and colors I heard over and over in my mind, "Why, then is my pump well flowered."

Why was the Creative Voice directing me to "Romeo and Juliet" as I painted fanciful shoes? Was it just that women's high heels are also called pumps? Repeatedly, in my mind, I circled around the prompt of Romeo and pumps, closer and closer until I finally hit the mark: heels, pumps, stilettos. Then: stiletto, dagger, Juliet. On the heels of that revelation came the epiphany that the stiletto, a type of dagger, was Will Shakespeare's incredibly elegant and compact icon describing much about his 'Juliet,' his 'Dark Lady.'

Previously I posited that Juliet's manner of death, stabbing herself with a dagger, was actually a dramatization of the Lucan paradox (Luke 17:33), "Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it." This woman had chosen to take her life in her own hands. She would guide her destiny.

It is worth exploring now the wider significance with which the playwright imbued the stiletto. Given the references in the play to soles and pumps I believe Will Shakespeare is telling us that his love, his 'Juliet,' his 'Dark Lady' took her financial welfare in her own hands as well and was, in some way, associated with shoemakers, or 'cordwainers' as they have been called for centuries.

My research of the Cordwainers turned up at least two facts I find most interesting and pertinent to this discussion. It is significant to note that the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers is and was located in Cheapside in London - just a ten minute or so walk from the Globe Theater.

Another fact, to which the playwright may be alluding when the Nurse indicates that whoever marries 'Juliet' will have 'the chinks,' is that Henry VI granted the guild a Royal Charter in 1439. A Royal Charter was an important and positive development for a business then, as I believe it is now. This charter likely means that the Company of Cordwainers were shoemakers to the monarchy.

It would be interesting to know the 'Dark Lady's' exact association with the cordwainers. Did she own a shop? Did she herself make shoes? Perhaps she designed them? Unfortunately, there is a very slim chance anything can be learned from the company's records because in 1666 the original hall burned down and most of the records were lost.

The longer I consider the dominant revelation that 'Juliet' took control of her own life by use of a stiletto, a stiletto Shakespeare also wants us to know is a shoe, I find myself wondering if the 'Dark Lady' felt compelled, even at a young age, to fashion for herself a pair of shoes that in some way used actual stilettos as heels. If so, why?

Why would a young girl - a girl barely a teenager and a bookworm, if I read Lady Capulet's lines aright; a girl ardently sought as a bride; a girl Romeo describes as "Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear" - feel it necessary to include stilettos in the fashion of her shoes?

I can only surmise that her beauty, financial wealth, and elevated social status (perhaps nobility) were threats to her welfare at times. Her choice of a stiletto tells me she absolutely meant to defend herself should she find herself cornered, backed against a wall. It would be a close, dangerous fight, but fight she would. Further, if she was of noble birth, her beauty would likely have been known to the court. She may often have been present at court. Those stilettos would have served as a distinctly unquestionable warning to any lotharios. You'd best watch your step when you dance with a woman wearing those shoes.

This focus on 'Juliet's' shoes fleshes out for us the relationship between herself and Romeo, the 'Dark Lady' and Will Shakespeare. When 'Juliet' muses, "What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot," perhaps the line references the son of the glover and the shoemaker? Romeo's line in Act II Scene iv, "Why, then is my pump well flowered," gives us a much more intimate look at the relationship between the playwright and the Beauty. In addition to the sexual connotation I believe it tells us that Will Shakespeare wore shoes from the 'Dark Lady's' shop. Perhaps they also were 'too rich for use' and 'too dear' to be worn on other than grand court occasions?

Beyond that, however, I believe Will Shakespeare was dramatizing for us his theme of "the marriage of true minds." I have written elsewhere that the playwright was presenting the 'Dark Lady' to us as a figure embodying love, compassion, mercy and enlightenment, someone committed to and involved with all living and suffering. When Will Shakespeare tells us he wore 'Juliet's' shoes he is is telling us that like the 'Dark Lady' he puts himself in the shoes of others and walks the path of compassion in hope of guiding others to enlightenment.

Does he not use the language of heavenly bodies of light, the Sun and the stars, to characterize Romeo and Juliet? It is not hard to imagine that he caught the double meaning of 'sun' in Spanish, el Sol, and the sole of a shoe!

The playwright characterizes this facet of their relationship upon this path in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as being "of imagination all compact." Both lovers, crazy perhaps for their imaginings, were poets, their hands composing feet into verses out of respect for and commitment to humanity.

Will Shakespeare used the trend for exaggerated heel height to characterize his 'Juliet's' elevated consciousness. I greatly appreciate their commitment to compassion as more than a 'fashion.'

Anticipation

2011-08-26T07:20:00.000-07:00

It is Friday today and it is my 52nd birthday. When I consider all that has come before, and all that is to come, I can only say that every moment, every choice was part of a Now. My fervent wish, whether on my birthday or not, is to stay in each moment and see it for its Beauty.

Now I would like to share some of my favorite quotes relating to Beauty.

First, as you would expect, there is Romeo's description of his Juliet: "Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear." ("Romeo and Juliet," William Shakespeare, I.iii. 54)

I admire also Keats's immortal lines from "Ode on a Grecian Urn": "Beauty is truth, Truth beauty/ That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know."

There is a portion of the midday Canticle in the Celtic Daily Prayer from the Northumbrian Community I find quite lovely: "Teach us, dear Lord, to number our days/ That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom./Oh, satisfy us early with Thy mercy/That we may rejoice and be glad all of our days./And let the Beauty of the Lord our God be upon us/And establish the work of our hands."

Finally, a quote from Brian Andreas at Storypeople.com : "She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short."

[[Photo: Lily in the Morning Light, Barbara Butler McCoy, August 2011.]]

Georgia and the Civil War

2011-08-19T11:51:00.000-07:00

This morning I read about the items found at an archaeological site near Savannah, a Civil War POW camp abandoned just before Gen. Sherman reached the sea. Immediately I thought of some photos I took last year at Fort Pulaski, also near Savannah. The foreboding sky in some of them attests to the storm approaching the fort that afternoon; it imparted something of what the atmosphere may have felt like for those in the fort in the early days of the fighting. The fort was quiet the afternoon of our visit, almost church-like. While I am in no way an authority on the events and battles of that conflict I can say that I have noticed that same atmosphere at nearly all of the battlefields I and my family have visited over the years.

Enjoy the photos.

[[Photos: From top: Cannon atop Fort Pulaski, Barbara Butler McCoy, August 2010; Crossing the Moat at Fort Pulaski, Barbara Butler McCoy, August 2010; Walkway on top of Fort Pulaski, Barbara Butler McCoy, August 2010.]]

Peace, Mardi

2011-08-18T15:09:00.000-07:00

Thank you for sixteen-and-a-half fun and loving years, Mardi. We will always remember your beauty and sweetness.

[[Photo: Mardi McCoy, 1995-2011]]

Thirty Years

2011-08-08T03:54:00.000-07:00

A lovely day for us today: my husband and I celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.

Many people have remarked upon this milestone, and even we have moments when the scope of this leaves us a little dazed.

If I were to say anything about the longevity of a marriage I think it would be that the fabric of married life is much like the lace of my gauntlets in the photo. A couple works the threads of their lives into a pattern. Sometimes the pattern is a mystery to them, sometimes they see it readily. Sometimes the threads snarl or break. Sometimes their skill is evident, sometimes their clumsiness. Sometimes outside forces rip into their work, sometimes they tear it themselves.

Always, the best results come to those who believe, to paraphrase St. Paul, "Love always wins."

Happy Anniversary Gerry.

[[Photo: Newly-minted Mr. and Mrs. Gerald McCoy, St. James the Less Catholic Church, Columbus, Ohio, 1981]]

Pardon Old Fathers

2011-07-30T06:35:00.000-07:00

"Pardon old fathers" - that phrase came to mind as I wrote in my journal about a recent trip to Hendersonville, NC and environs with a dear friend at the end of June.

Why "Pardon old fathers"? As you can see, I was drawn to the charm of a few barns in various locations and the photos evoked memories of childhood visits to my grandparents Butler's home in rural Algonac, MI. An iconic big red barn stood on the property, near the garage, and Grandpa Butler very kindly and patiently would let me use the barn door as a target whenever I wanted to pretend I was an Indian huntress. (Remember, this is about 1964 ...)

So, the barns at Connemara Dairy Farm on the grounds of the poet Carl Sandburg's last home, a National Historic Site

in Flat Rock, NC, and on the road to the Yummy Mud Puddle studio of Claudia Dunaway and John Richards gave me the chance to 'shoot' barns once again, with less damage.

While not technically a barn the personality of Shawn Ireland's shop, near his kilns, just made me smile. My friend purchased a gorgeous bowl as an early birthday present for me, which I use nearly every morning as my teacup.

My friend and I covered quite a few miles - even climbed to Chimney Rock and Hickory Nut Falls - in our three-day- stay in the area, and rested a spell on the grounds of the Penland School our last afternoon. I haven't been able nor do I ever hope to forget the graciousness and talent of all the artists we met, the stunning beauty of all the artwork, the delicious food at locally owned restaurants, and the breathtaking natural beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Last year I initiated an experiment wherein I sought out alternative sources for Christmas gifts for my loved ones and friends. Some of the gifts I made myself (paintings, photos, clothing I sewed myself) and some came from places like the Spruill Gallery in nearby Dunwoody. So, on this short trip I was quite happy to get a start on some of my alternative Christmas shopping for this year there in the shops and galleries.

Too, the visit has inspired me to try new methods and materials, so this

Christmas should be interesting!

Since I am posting all these photos of barns I thought the stunning anthropomorphic paper rooster who rules over The Well Bred Bakery deserved a space in this gallery!

[[Photos: Top, Water Trough at Connemara Farms Dairy, Barbara Butler McCoy, June 2011; Second, On the Way to Yummy Mud Puddle, Barbara Butler McCoy, June 2011; Third, Shawn Ireland Pottery Shop, Barbara Butler McCoy, June 2011; Bottom, Paper Rooster on the Mantel, Barbara Butler McCoy, June 2011]]

"Such Shaping Fantasies: Dali, Shakespeare, Juliet - Madmen All"

2011-05-11T10:57:00.000-07:00

"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet

Are of imagination all compact.

William Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," V. i. 4-8

Today's date marks the birthday of Salvador Dali (1904-1989), an artist with "such [a] seething brain[-s] whose images and antics many, many people have described as 'crazy.' I make no claim whatsoever to judge the state of his mental health. Upon contemplation and a beginning study of some of his work, however, I see Dali as one who may well fit the role of "lunatic" in that trio.

While I feel that Will Shakespeare wanted the public to consider his 'Juliet' to be primarily a lover and himself a poet, those identities belong to both of them. As I showed in my last post 'Juliet'/the Dark Lady and 'Romeo'/Will Shakespeare are both themselves and 'the other,' a concept Andre Breton, the acknowledged founder of Surrealism, might very well recognize as "L'un dans l'autre," the one in the other. (Yet, in May 1926 Joan Miro and Max Ernst were excommunicated by the Surrealists for working on a production of the 'bourgeois' ballet of "Romeo and Juliet.")

Of note here and now is this: given that Romeo is referred to as a madman numerous times throughout the play, these lovers and poets are also lunatics. Yes. Salvador Dali, William Shakespeare, and 'Juliet' - lunatics all.

Salvador Dali had been aligned for some years with the group calling themselves Surrealists, led by Andre Breton, who considered the surreal to be "a dialogue with the other with what is encountered by way of dreams, coincidences, correspondences, the marvelous, the uncanny; a reciprocal exchange, connecting conscious and unconscious thought) ..." (Caws, Mary Ann; "Surrealism")

We are to understand that when a chance encounter with this 'other' arouses wonder in us, we have experienced the surreal. The Surrealists held that the only bounds keeping us from an experience of this wonder, of the surreal, are those bounds "which are self-imposed by the limitations of our own imagination and its verbal and visual expression." (Caws, Mary Ann; "Surrealism")

William Shakespeare, as our poet, manages to describe quite eloquently and fantastically just such an encounter with the marvelous, as well as the limitations of expressing that experience, when he has Bottom theWeaver paraphrase the Pauline test of I Corinthians 2:9 (KJV) in the following manner: "The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was." ("A Midsummer Night's Dream," IV. i. 220-224)

What sets the lunatic, the lover, and the poet apart from, shall I say, the more bound, is that they have realized, each one, that they must transcend their self-imposed bonds to begin to have a dialogue with the wonderful, with the marvelous, let alone begin to translate this for others.

The ripple effect of the artist translating his or her dialogue with the other is seen again in the work of Akira Kurosawa, specifically his film "Dreams" (1990). Some dream sequences seem to be Kurosawa's attempt to translate his heart's report of a nuclear disaster, which blends Shakespeare's contemplation of dreams and Dali's contemplation of uncertainty in the nuclear age.

'Juliet' and Will Shakespeare found guidance for sustaining a dialogue with the other in the Lucan text (Luke 17:33) asserting that to lose your life is to keep it safe. Andre Breton, thus Surrealism, asserted the need to 'Leave everything.' He wrote in 'Les Pas perdus' ('The Lost Footsteps'), " ... Leave your hopes and fears ... Leave the substance for the shadow. Leave your easy life, leave what you are given for the future. Set off on the roads." (Caws, Mary Ann; "Surrealism")

Examine everything. Closely. If it needs shaking, shake it up. If it needs breaking, break it up. Should the probability that everything you know of your life then fall to pieces and land in fragments at your feet, turn to the marvelous, the wondrous, the magnificently dreamy. Follow "Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend/More than cool reason ever comprehends."

In my contemplation of certain pieces of Dali's late work, I see, I believe, that Salvador Dali and William Shakespeare saw much the same fantasies shaping the fragments at their feet: their loves, a feminine deity. Dali repeatedly offered up tantalizing and paradoxical images of Madonnas in his late work - "Cosmic (Exploding) Madonna," "Corpuscular Madonna," Maximum Speed of Raphael's Madonna," "Madonna of Port Ligat, first version (from the collection of Marquette University, my alma mater), and the final version of "Madonna of Port Ligat."

To my eye they appear in an uncertain state. Have they been blown apart or are thy pulling themselves together? This uncertainty could reflect Dali's fascination with Werner Heisenber's Uncertainty Principle: "It shows that a particle can't have both a precise position and precise momentum at the same time." (Siegried, Tom; "Strange Matters")

Dali felt strongly that humanity needed a vision to guide it through the nuclear age ushered in in the mid-1940s. These Madonnas are significant in my view because they are the vision he found when he slipped any bonds upon his imagination.

I now propose that 350 years before Dali's imagination and brushes and tints gave us his Madonnas, William Shakespeare gave us a constellation of images of a feminine deity, a constellation that formed after repeated encounters with the 'other,' the 'marvelous.' In the case of 'Juliet" that feminine deity is the ancient goddess Isis.

It is said Isis and Osiris were twins who fell in love in the womb and married after birth. Osiris's wicked brother Seth lures him to a beautiful wooden chest, traps him in it, and throws it into a river. Isis wanders the world in despair asking everyone if they have seen Osiris's chest, which has become incorporated into a pillar in the house of the king of Byblos. Isis gains a position in the king's household as a nurse. Every night she transforms herself into a swallow and flies about the pillar, crying. When she reveals the truth to the king she asks to be given the pillar.

"Having been given the chest, she takes it to a secluded place, opens it, and caresses the body of Osiris. By means of her great magical power and strong affection, Isis is able to revive Osiris's penis." The child Horus is conceived, but he is born prematurely and with weak lower limbs. "Throughout his infancy, when he was a weakling, Horus had been patiently nourished and protected by Isis until he was able to assume mature strength and defeat Seth, " (Kinsley, David; "The Goddesses' Mirror") who after his birth had reappeared, stolen Osiris's body, dismembered it and scattered the fragments.

I identify three significant elements of the story of Isis and Osiris in "Romeo and Juliet" : the Nurse, the grave/wedding bed imagery, and the fragments of a self imagery. The character of the Nurse, I confess, has always been a problem for me. Conventional wisdom has held her presence to be a bit of the sage and much of the clown, but that does not quite fit in my mind. Isis' identity as a nurse in the court of the king of Byblos is a step in the proper direction. In the context of this post I would have to say that I still have uncertainty about her.

I do note that in her rambling discourse of 'Juliet's' childhood she speaks of it as it relates in time to an earthquake, a shaking of the earth. 'Juliet,' this beauty, making the globe quake? Could that have been?

The Nurse also reinforces the aspect of a fragmented self, a tenet of Surrealism, as introduced by 'Juliet' in her iconic "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" musing. Three scenes after this we hear the Nurse describe Romeo: "Though his face be better than any man's, yet his leg excels all men's, and for a hand and a foot and a body, though they be not to be talked on, yet they are past compare." While Will Shakespeare intended a Pauline context for those lines, I feel he also intended to evoke the story of Osiris's dismemberment by Seth. ('Swordsmanship' with the word 'prick' indicates, however, that Romeo, unlike Osiris, has his genitals.)

The prevailing imagery evoking Isis and Osiris in "Romeo and Juliet," however, is that of the "womb of death" (V.iii.45). The imagery is present throughout the play, alluded to most famously at the close of the first act when 'Juliet' says, "If he be married, My grave is like to be my wedding bed." In the third act, after their wedding night and before Romeo departs for Mantua, 'Juliet' seem

s to see him, in her mind, as if he is in a tomb.

The most striking and explicit evocation of the Isis and Osiris story is spoken by Romeo in the fifth act as he waits in Mantua for news of 'Juliet': "If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep ..... I dreamt my lady came and found me dead/(Strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think!)/And breathed such life with kisses in my lips/That I revived and was an emperor."

The feminine reviving the fragmented self.

Many scholars over time have noted the parallels between the iconography of Horus seated on the lap of Isis and the infant Jesus seated on the lap of the Madonna. I note that just as an image of a feminine deity emerges onto the world stage in a constellation of plays from Will Shakespeare's imagination, serving a world in turmoil, I see the possibility of an image of the Madonna emerging from the fragments Salvador Dali placed so carefully on his canvases.

I cannot shake the sense that, although he had parted ways with the Surrealists years earlier, Dali could not divorce himself from the Surrealist tenet that Beauty, the wondrous, the marvelous, would indeed convulse, shake up, explode into the world. William Shakespeare envisioned it in his world. Dali envisioned it in his as well.

The fragments are there, that is certain, and we see these artists' work to guide us.

[Bibliography: Caws, Mary Ann (ed.). "Surrealism." Phaidon Publishers, Inc., Published 2010; Kinsley, David. "the Goddesses' Mirror: Visions of the Divine from East and West." Albany: SUNY Press, c. 1989; Shakespeare, William. "A Midsummer Night's Dream." New York: Washington Square Press, c. 1993; Shakespeare, William. "Romeo and Juliet." New York: Washington Square Press, c. 1992; Siegried, Tom. "Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time." New York: Berkley Books, c. 2002]

[[Photos, all Barbara Butler McCoy: Top - Statue of Anubis, Atlanta, 2009; Middle - Sign outside the Folger Shakespeare Library, 2009; Bottom - Relief of "Romeo and Juliet" on the Folger Shakespeare Library, 2009]]

To Know William Shakespeare ...

2011-04-21T07:52:00.000-07:00

The lunatic, the lover and the poet, at this point in the month of April, celebrate, honor and acknowledge the life and art of a man, William Shakespeare by name, whose impact upon Western literature and Western culture resonates more strongly year upon year. Shakespeare's art has also influenced culture in the East - witness the work of Akira Kurosawa.

In the West the phenomenon of the 'letters to Juliet' is a case in point for Shakespeare's influence. When I learned last year that a movie with that title was to be released I just shook my head. I figured the letters to Shakespeare's tragic fictional lover were meant to be only narrative devices to entice us. Not so.

I stumbled across a copy of the book of that title by Lise Friedman and Ceil Friedman and learned that letters to Juliet, all with love as their 'argument,' have been left at her tomb and mailed to the city of Verona, Italy for nearly 200 years. Veneration at a tomb reputed to be that of Juliet Capulet has, since early in the 19th century (early 1800s), attracted "an increasing number of pilgrims ... (Curiously, as the adoration of Juliet increased over time, Romeo's 'presence' was no longer required.)"

As I wrote previously, I believe Romeo to be William Shakespeare's alter ego, shall I say, so his presence is vital to an appreciation of Juliet's character and William Shakespeare himself. Some may ask why anyone cares anymore about "a pair of star-crossed lovers" who end their plight by taking their own lives. Many young women, in fact, dismiss Juliet for just that: "Kill yourself over a guy? That's just stupid."

As the centuries of veneration of and letters to Juliet attest, the story of these lovers has taken root in the world's imagination. Imagination has a vital influence upon one's heart and mind, thus whatever influences it deserves consideration and study. In this case the influence derives from the mind of William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon. Yet what can we know of the presence which considered Juliet's model and crafted this character? Nearly 450 years after his birth William Shakespeare's life is cloaked more in mystery than buttressed by material evidence. We ask, to borrow from Yeats, "Those masterful images because complete/Grew in pure mind but out of what began?"

Quite simply I believe that Shakespeare gave us clues about himself in his art, most especially in "Romeo and Juliet." To begin this study, however, I turn to Sonnet #76 because in it the reader learns that Shakespeare's love, the Dark Lady, is the ALL of his art. His verse is "barren of new pride," "far from variation," and all his "best is dressing old words new." He states that "every word doth almost tell my name." "O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,/And you and love are still my argument."

Read his work, read him.

The couplet concluding the sonnet packs in some significant information: "For as the sun is daily new and old,/So is my love still telling what is told." That pair of words 'my love' signifies two subjects - his love as a state of mind and heart; his love as the object of his love who is, herself, "telling what is told." The allusion to the sun in the couplet points our attention to Juliet, the light breaking the darkness, and indicates to me that the play is as much about Romeo's/William Shakespeare's mind as hers.

In fact what emerges is a portrait of two lovers who have become one love. Know one, understand one of the lovers, and the other is known and understood. There is an intimation of this in the dialogue of each. "Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven/Having some business, do entreat her eyes/To twinkle in their spheres till they return." (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.15-17) "Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die/ Take him and cut him out in little stars/And he will make the face of heaven so fine." (Romeo and Juliet, III.ii.22-25)

Together, wedded, they are heaven's light, sun and stars. Romeo is to Juliet a face of heaven so fine, so to speak, and Juliet is for Romeo "Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear." Heavenly love, a beautiful life - right? Love, heaven, beauty - what could go wrong? Such dear, rich beauty of body and mind - why end it in suicide?

This is the challenge of the play, I think. It is not easy to see love die - until one realizes that the death, the suicide, is symbolic. The deaths of Romeo and Juliet are tragic, yes, but beyond that they are a dramatization of verse 33 of the gospel of Luke, chapter 17: "Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it." Romeo and Juliet take their lives IN their own hands, demonstrating theatrically this teaching.

The decision to take one's own life in one's own hand, to guide one's life by one's own compass, was quite daring for someone living in the repressive society of Tudor England. There were any number of entities vying for authority over the lives of others (church, state, family, spouse, guild, censor). Every would-be authority had its preconceived notions about what should be and was willing to enforce them. Transgressors were stigmatized, exiled, or executed.

The consequences of one's actions weighed heavily upon the mind even if the transgression was known only to oneself. It could be a bed of thorns, lying awake contemplating the regrets and anxieties of things done or not done, things said or not said. These two lovers, however, looked at what they truly were, not merely at their regrets or at what others held they should be.

As I wrote previously, Shakespeare portrayed his love, Romeo's Juliet, as living at a higher level of consciousness than he lived when they met. He learned of his Self, in part, from her, and I think we see evidence of her tuition in some of Juliet's lines, which echo some verses from St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians. Compare, "Thou art thyself, though not a Montague./What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,/Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part/Belonging to a man," (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.42-45) with, "For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ." ... "If the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,' is it therefore not of the body?" (I Corinthians 12: 12, 15)

His love's singular point to William Shakespeare, as I see it, is that one aspect of one's self, one's experience, does not constitute the whole Self.

Shakespeare's allusion to this chapter of First Corinthians sheds light on the character of Juliet's Nurse and her influence in the girl's life. Verse 13 of I Cor. 12 instructs that all have "been made to drink into one Spirit." I feel strongly that it is that drinking of the one Spirit that Shakespeare intends us to understand in the Nurse's discourse (I.iii.18-53) about nursing Juliet as a babe.

As a babe Juliet, the Dark Lady, was fed upon the Spirit and grew with its nourishment into the woman who came to love William Shakespeare. Again, I Corinthians influences Will's art in offering an image of this nourishment and learning: "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able."

Juliet learned, as did Shakespeare, to examine all they had ever learned about themselves, all their 'methoughts,' to use some lines from Nick Bottom, the Weaver in "A Midsummer Night's Dream": "Methought I was -- there is no man can tell what. Methought I was and methought I had -- but man is a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had."

That reference to "a patched fool" calls to mind another teaching from the gospel of Luke, 5:36: "Then He spoke a parable to them: 'No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old.'" Romeo/Will, it seems, looked at all the 'methoughts' he'd learned to apply to himself and realized, "Tut, I have lost myself. I am not here./This is not Romeo. He's some other where." (I.i.205-6) Juliet illumined his life and mind and he understood he needed a new garment of Self, not some foolish patch job that would disintegrate.

So, in what spirit does one reconceive one's concept of Self? As Juliet and love are all his argument he constantly thinks on truth and beauty because the Dark Lady, still telling what is told, taught him according to Philippians 4:8: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there by any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

They each considered these things and forged for themselves a 'marriage of true minds.' Romeo alludes to this when he says, in effect, that Juliet's eyes are stars. She sees as he sees, he sees as she sees.

In "Romeo and Juliet" we glimpse Juliet as a babe even as we see her as a teen. Further, as I

think the Dark Lady was approximately the same age as William Shakespeare, and that she was known to the theater crowd, I sense he wrote the part of Juliet at the behest of that crowd. I also sense he wanted the crowd to see Juliet and think of this verse, Philippians 4:9: "Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me (Juliet) do: and the God of peace shall be with you."

I have come to see this play as being existential, just as "Hamlet" is. Yet, lest we feel Juliet's death was an unnecessary end consider, please, Luke 8:52-55, the story of the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, thought to be dead: "Now all wept and mourned for her; but He said, 'Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeping.' And they laughed Him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. But he put them all out, took her by the hand and called, saying, 'Little girl, arise.' Then her spirit returned, and she arose immediately. And he commanded that she be given something to eat."

[[Scripture verses: Luke 33:17 NKJV, Luke 5:36 NKJV, Luke 8:52-55 NKJV; I Corinthians 12, 12, 15 KJV, I Corinthians 12:13 KJV, I Corinthians 3:1-2 KJV, Philippians 4:8 KJV, Philippians 4:9 KJV. As I understand it, the King James Bible is the closest to the Geneva Bible, which was in use for much of Shakespeare's life.]]

[[Bibliography: Friedman, Lise. Friedman, Ceil. "Letters to Juliet." New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2006.

Yeats, William Butler. "The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats (Richard J. Finneran, ed.)." New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1996.

All references to Shakespeare's plays are to those published by the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.]]

[[Photos: Top - Homemade birthday cake for my son, April, 2011; Middle - the Sun on my courtyard wall, April, 2011; Bottom - roses in a McCoy pitcher, 2011 (all by Barbara Butler McCoy)]]

World Water Day 2011

2011-03-22T05:01:00.001-07:00

"Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time
like dew on the tip of a leaf."

Sir Rabindranath Tagore

[[Photo: Dew on a hosta leaf, May 2008,
Barbara Butler McCoy]]

Chillin' Out

2011-01-15T09:24:00.000-08:00

A bunch of flakes decided to combine their weight and drift into town with their wintery brand of chaos.

I've lived in Ohio, New York, Connecticut, and Wisconsin, among other places, so I am no stranger to winter weather. This feels pretty nice, in fact, especially since I've shaken the stomach bug that beset me in the middle of the night of the 8th, about 24 hours before the snow began to fall.

Life in this city is beginning to revive. I cannot almost hear the gears turning, looking for their rhythm.

I stepped out of my house several days after first snowfall and found these images.

[[Photos: My house, 01/12/11, Barbara Butler McCoy; Ice on the Street, 01/12/11, Barbara Butler McCoy; Sky on the Street, 01/12/11, Barbara Butler McCoy]]

On the Beach

2010-12-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving Eve, before the arrival of dear friends and the 'Super Bowl of Cooking,' I wandered out into the ferocious wind for a solitary stroll to see what I could see. With the sun slowly sinking toward twilight the landscape in the shadow of the dunes looked a bit alien to me. Some of the things tossed up by the wild surf piqued my interest. The object resembling a boat was originally, perhaps, someone's lost sneaker; my curiosity compelled me to poke at the strange twisted object - someone's black sweater gone missing! As for the trio of shells and the tire track, I simply liked the juxtaposition.

[[All photos Barbara Butler McCoy, November 24, 2010]]

'Postcards': Wishing You Were Here

2010-11-19T08:59:00.000-08:00

The days here in 'Barb-World' (as my husband calls it) have been busy - busy with a capital 'B'. The story pieces are accumulating like the leaves on the forest floor. While I cannot share what I am working on yet, I can tell you I am loving it. Time and again I remember something the director Baz Luhrmann ("Romeo + Juliet," "Strictly Ballroom") said in response to "Why Shakespeare?": "...if you are going to get up at five o'clock every morning for two years you have to have a hell of a lot of passion about something." Oh yea.

The passion I have for storytelling keeps me trying, digging, refining, heading back to the drawing board - and doing a triumphant solo dance when something comes together better than I'd dreamt. [So that explains the photo of my mp3 player and my eraser - because if you don't make some mistakes you aren't trying hard enough, eh?]

One of the really interesting aspects of 'Barb-World' is the occurrence of something called 'synesthesia.' One definition is as follows: A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color. More often than not it is either the sight of color or the rhythm of music that sets me off spinning another web of story.

The past week or so I have been contemplating the work of two excellent dancers - our own Gene Kelly (born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1912) and Jean Butler (a native of New York). I fell in love with Gene Kelly's work when I was about twelve years old and, during my husband's naval career, I thought of Kelly's dancing whenever I heard "Anchors Aweigh!" I can easily imagine the work of this dancer from Pittsburgh, a dancer with a fierce work ethic, inspiring young people with a passion for dance,like Jean Butler.

To me they are to dance what William Shakespeare is to literature - so very good at what they do that I am inspired to go beyond "good enough." Maybe it is a matter of not being easily satisfied because if it is worth doing, it is worth doing well.

So, if you'll excuse me, I will leave you with some photos of the gorgeous leaves I see as I work at my desk or in my courtyard, and I'll get on back to work.

Dia de los Muertes

2010-10-31T09:28:00.000-07:00

Poets and peacemakers

along the way

before me, behind me -

me in between.

No better than any, nor worse -

simply walking, begging

Your pardon for the curses,

Your indulgence for the slips.

In Your continuum I tread -

the lines, etched into my palm -

stepping with the pulse

echoing since dawn.

We will carry it through

round and round again,

generation upon generation,

until the dreaming is done.

Barbara Butler McCoy

[[Photo: Barbara Butler McCoy;
Bee foraging for pollen; zoo,

Columbia, SC; September 2008]]

Two candles I lit this morning after Mass, for the Ancestors and Ancestresses. Since then my thoughts have been with those who have gone before and those who are to come. This, my acknowledgement, my tribute, is how those thoughts resolved into a coherent piece. I was inspired in part by William Butler Yeats's poem "Pardon Old Fathers" (from Responsibilities, 1914), in part by a line from Prospero's epilogue in William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" ("let your indulgence set me free") and a quote I found from Thich Nhat Hanh which is as follows: "If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people."

Blessings and peace to them.

"The Creative Journey"

2010-10-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday afternoon, October 19, 2010, I had the singular pleasure of joining a few thousand people gathered on the campus of Emory University to hear the artists Richard Gere (actor) and Alice Walker (poet and Pulitzer Prize-winning author) in a conversation with His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama about "The Creative Journey: Spirituality and Creativity." What follows is my synthesis of a number of points the trio touched upon during that presentation.

One question initiated their discussion: "Do the arts have a special role in deepening compassion?"

His Holiness speculated that such a role is possible for artists in that the performing arts (he mentioned music and dance specifically) are ways "to convey some message." His Holiness observed, however, that much of the media expends itself promoting instant gratification and distraction. As I consider that observation I agree that such practices in the media foster impatience and an inability to focus beyond surface qualities. This clearly is counterproductive to a depth of compassion, spirituality or understanding of truth.

For millennia sages the world over have taught that the 'greater path follows the heart as well as the spirit.' With that in mind, and as it is clear in my posts on this blog that I choose to follow the path of the heart, I take this opportunity to respond to the discussion of the arts as a vehicle for deepening compassion.

Quite early in the discussion Mr. Gere described his view of the divergent motivations for creativity of Westerners and Tibetans - dreams and a desire for clarity, respectively. As I listened I noted that the pursuit of art in an effort to express, fulfill, or share a dream could be followed in the service of achieving clarity. Ms. Walker agreed with the need for clarity. Art can "help us to see" and, one hopes, guide us to deal with compassion for others once we gain our sight.

Mr. Gere, echoing some assessments of William Shakespeare's work, opined that the arts hold a mirror up to our lives so "we can see ourselves truer and ... deeper within the human context." Much later in the discussion he pointed out that humanity is deeply interconnected, thus, "We are responsible for our world."

As I see it, if one accepts that each of us is responsible for our world the question is, "What, then, are an artist's responsibilities for which he or she will be held accountable?" Mr. Gere stated succinctly, "Creativity is essentially storytelling." I agree, and allowing that the responsibility

of art is to tell the human story the question becomes, "What stories will artists choose to tell, and why?"

For my part the range of human experience - the beauty and majesty, the horror and despair - appear infinite,

thus providing infinite stories to reflect upon all aspects of the truth of humanity and bring clarity to all of them. I offer the opinion, my own, that creative acts of artists can be acts of compassion. A definition of compassion is "sympathetic feeling"; "sympathy" is understood to be the capacity for entering into and sharing the feelings or interests of another.

A creative act can highlight and examine some portion of the human experience and, in the process, make sense of it for some or call it to the attention of others. Helping others to see more clearly does indeed engender compassion. "Until you see people," Ms. Walker asserted, "It is very difficult to have compassion for them."

Mr. Gere noted that, "Every situation is a possibility for transcendence," pointing out the "extraordinary levels of grace" writers in the Soviet Union evinced in their work despite the oppression they endured. His Holiness agreed with this, calling the "flowering of compassion" blooming from that oppression "a paradox."

In my mind, as I review my notes of the discussion I find myself thinking that the Creative Journey sounds much like Joseph Campbell's description of the hero's journey: a journey into terra incognita to return with a boon for oneself and the society. Here I point to another paradox of human experience: beauty and light may be terra incognita for some while darkness and horror are alien to others. To deny some part of the human story will leave some portion of humanity yearning.

In light of that I must share one of His Holiness' more emphatic points. He stated firmly that when you are about to embark upon something you must really examine whether or not this is for you. If you do not do this, and if you set out unprepared, you will leave behind you a trail of unfinished business.

At that point I recalled a statement by Mr. Gere, at another point

in the discussion, that His Holiness is someone who has to continually work to be who he is. I understand this to be an integral part of the Creative Journey as well - a constant assessment of consciousness and cultivation of clarity. To neglect this invites imbalance and pulls the artist from the creative and compassionate path. While His Holiness alluded to the wisdom of mental conditioning as a part of the process of cultivating clarity, he did allow that the ego plays an important role as well. He asserted that self-confidence, a "sense of a strong self," is important because, "If we don't have a sense of who I am or what I can do it wouldn't be much."

For two hours on Tuesday the evolving stories, the lives, of His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama, Richard Gere, Alice Walker, and thousands of others converged on a southern academic campus. Whatever art springs from that experience is yet to be seen, but it will be central to humanity.

Around the corner ...

2010-09-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

Autumn, my favorite season, is around the corner. So says my calendar. Summer's haze, heat, and humidity fade slowly here in Georgia, but the seasons maintain their cycle. Moon after moon, in all its phases, and sun after sun dance with our little blue planet. Spheres of silver and gold strung on a chain of days bring brightness to our ways.

I look back now over the summer even as I look forward to the approaching holidays, and I see some lovely gems of memory worth mention. One gem is named 'Savannah,' that lovely harbor city on Georgia's coast. My husband and I visited it late in August for the second time, just before my birthday. (We learned a few days ago that a couple of our favorite spots, the Olde Pink House Restaurant and the Moon River Brewing Company, are considered haunted. Go figure.) The history in Savannah is palpable and I especially appreciate the creative influence that the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) infuses into the mix. Between forays in that city and a visit to Tybee Island, I was able to get some lovely photos and do a bit of Christmas shopping so I felt quite productive.

Productivity reigned when we returned home. I spent a few afternoons standing at the stove stirring pots of fruits for preserves and pie filling (cherry) and jam (spiced peach) so I have some of summer's special delights stored up for the windy winter to come. Yum.

It really isn't so bad standing over the stove if one has a good book to read. Or if you are joyously anticipating a homemade cherry pie! I do love cherries. In the winter I love to spread the cherry pie filling on pancakes or waffles. Double yum.

In amongst all that preserving and jamming I managed to rearrange my living room, sew up some lovely drapery panels, install the curtain rods and hang my handiwork.

Here are a few photos. Enjoy.

[Photos: (from top) Storefront on Savannah's riverfront, Savannah, GA; Barbara Butler McCoy, 2010; Boats moored for the night on Lazaretto Creek, east of Savannah, GA; Barbara Butler McCoy, 2010; homemade cherry pie, Barbara Butler McCoy, 2010; homemade spiced peach jam, Barbara Butler McCoy, 2010.]

Faraway Nearby: Updated

2010-09-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

Often, in the midst of researching and studying material for one thing, I find a gem which casts a new light on a previous piece. Such is the case with my stated understanding of Ms. Georgia O'Keeffe's "Faraway Nearby."

About one-quarter of the way through my copy of Martin Buber's "I and Thou" I discovered something quite illuminating about the language of "primitive" peoples, "whose life is built up within a narrow circle of acts highly charged with presentness." These "primitives" use "words in the form of sentences" which "mostly indicate the wholeness of a relation."

The key words to consider in this are "presentness" and "wholeness of a relation." Consider that these words indicate that "primitives" were present in the environment, believing that they and their environment were interconnected. Be they inhabitants of mountainous regions, tidal plains, valleys, forests, wherever they were they were there. They knew the life of the land was their life as well. Further, I interpret this "presentness" to mean that they were mindful in whatever activities they undertook. They were focused. They would be overwhelmed, I think, by the current culture of cell phones, 3-G devices, and multi-tasking computers.

It occurs to me that to a great degree these notions of "presentness" and "wholeness of relation" are practices evident in the lives of artists. Ms. O'Keeffe is a case in point. Whether in the wild places of New Mexico, the urban landscape of New York, or her boundless vision of poppies and pelvises, Ms. O'Keeffe was mindful of her surroundings.

Ms. O'Keeffe mastered her language of color and brushstrokes upon canvas, vividly illustrating these concepts of "presentness" and "wholeness of relation." Her paintings speak to us of her understanding of herself as one with her environs.

Regarding words as language, Martin Buber informs us that while "We say 'far away'; the Zulu has for that a word which means, in our sentence form, 'There where someone cries out: 'O mother, I am lost.'"

Perhaps there in her 'wild places' Ms. O'Keeffe considered herself both lost and found?

[Bibliography: Buber, Martin. "I and Thou." Scribner Classics: New York, 1958, 2000 (p. 31)]

[Photo: Artwork in MARTA station, Decatur, GA; Barbara Butler McCoy, September 2010.]

Body of Works

2010-09-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

Over breakfast this morning I ran across something in the NYT Sunday Style section that raised an eyebrow. In the Cultural Studies section, page eleven, Ms. Schuessler alluded to a statistic that only half of all American adults "report reading even one work of fiction, drama or poetry a year." Really? That prompted me to review my reading habits over this past year, which raised my other eyebrow. Though the list is not comprehensive and excludes the dramas and non-fiction I've been reading, the list tallies up to 22 works of fiction. This past weekend, at the Decatur Book Festival, I had the chance to spend nearly an hour listening to the author whose body of work comprises 41 percent of that list, Ms. Diana Gabaldon.

A dear friend of twenty-plus years, to whom I introduced Ms. Gabaldon's "Outlander" series nearly twenty years ago, came to town with her husband from North Carolina to attend Ms. Gabaldon's talk about "All Things Outlander." The weather was stunning, just gorgeous and we rode MARTA along with a crowd of high-spirited LSU fans (who outnumbered the UNC fans on our portion of the train). She and I were feeling a little bit giddy, too, I must admit, to the bemusement of our husbands. We waited in line, chatted about this and that, and were lucky enough to get good seats. Someone squealed when Ms. Gabaldon entered the sanctuary of Decatur Presbyterian Church and the lightheartedness of that greeting reigned throughout the author's appearance.

Ms. Gabaldon was a joy to watch - gracious, witty, erudite, polished, confident, engaging. My friend's husband, who'd slipped into the talk with my husband without our knowledge, described her as "very charming" and he has since begun reading her first novel, "Outlander."
I - we - had such a wonderful time Saturday afternoon. It is obvious that Ms. Gabaldon enjoys her work very much and gives it all the professional attention it deserves. It is also obvious that there is mutual admiration between her and her fans.

For myself I must borrow some lines from Will Shakespeare's Sonnet 136:
Among a number one is reckon'd none;
Then in the number let me pass untold,
Though in thy store's account I one must be.

[In case anyone is curious, my fiction list over the past year includes 7 works by Candice Proctor, 9 by Diana Gabaldon, 2 by Guy Gavriel Kay, and one each by Linda Buckley Archer, Earl Emerson, Boris Akunin, Kathy Reichs, and Mingmei Yip. ]

[[Photos: top - the author Diana Gabaldon speaking at Decatur Presbyterian Church, Sept. 4, 2010, by Barbara Butler McCoy; relief detail in the Five Points MARTA Station, 2010, Barbara Butler McCoy]]]

"In Your Home": Bonnie, Floyd, Isabel, Katrina

2010-08-29T09:12:00.000-07:00

Bonnie, Floyd, Isabel, Katrina - hurricanes all.

I remember vividly taping X's over the windows of our officer's quarters on the Navy base then waiting out Bonnie in 1986. We sat listening to the howling and screaming wind, watching debris fly past the windows, staying as calm as possible so our four-year-old and infant sons would not panic. We emerged from Bonnie unscathed, Floyd and Isabel, too, most thankfully.

My heart clenched instinctively five years ago when Katrina hit our Gulf coast. I had no frame of reference, however, for the devastation of the flooding after the hurricane. The only word I can imagine that could begin to touch the horror of the flooding is 'nightmare.' I can type the sentences that speak of people wandering a devastated landscape without food, clothing, or shelter; of people wandering a landscape once familiar, become alien and literally toxic; of people wandering a landscape that would erupt in flames. I can type the sentences, but I cannot lay claim to the experience.

For all that I do not have personal, firsthand experience of Katrina I do feel that another's pain does affect me and mine. Thus, I am grateful for exhibits such as "Katrina: 5 Years of Reflection" at the Spruill Gallery in Dunwood, GA. (August 13 - September 11; free admission; open Wednesday through Saturday, 11am - 5pm) In introductory remarks provided about the exhibit Hope Cohn wrote that artistic works have the effect of "reinforcing the importance of community, compassion and humanity." As it happens, a number of artists from New Orleans relocated to the Atlanta community in the wake of Katrina and their work, along with that of Atlanta artist Elyse Defoor, comprise the exhibit.

In the remarks provided with her body of work, "X.U.ME," Ms. Defoor wrote that she had been "overwhelmed by the endless landscape of loss and devastation." She had returned to New Orleans in the Spring of 2006 and again in the Spring of 2010 - just ten days after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf. It is evident that the X's painted on the buildings by rescue workers became the organizing principle for "X.U.ME." She explains that before a team of rescue workers searched a building they painted the first stroke of an 'X', upper left to lower right, on the outside of the building so that it would be visible from the street. If the 'X' was not completed other teams and volunteers would know to go in search of the missing team. The quadrants of a complete 'X' contained the team's initials (left), the date (top), the number of hazards present (right), and the number of corpses found (bottom).

Debra Howell was a photographer with one of the companies conducting surveys of damaged structures for historic and architectural significance. These photographs documented "every former home and business one by one, often tracking down a house blocks away from its foundation." Ms. Howell's work was included in "Katrina Exposed: A Photographic Record" at the New Orleans Museum of Art in May 2006. She found that for this exhibit "Katrina: 5 Years of Reflection" the images did not resonate for her in the same way, " ... the BP oil spill had changed the way I now read images of flooded houses and flood lines in a disturbing and horribly deja vu kind of way, but one that had to be documented."

Ms. Howell collaborated with New Orleans artist Jan Gilbert in the work "Waterwords, A Katrina Pictionary." It is a series of photos with text that is a variant on the "Fortune Cookie" game. 'Waterwords' "plays on the linguistic phenomenon in which a word's importance in a culture is reflected in the number of variations of it that exist in the cultural lexicon." The example which summed it up for me was "water symbology n: the study or interpretation of water stains in your home."

Storm debris, some from the site of her devastated home, was incorporated in Lori Gordon's mixed media assemblages Shaman I, Shaman II, Shaman III, Shaman IV. These Shamans address the issues of rebirth and renewal. Krista Jurisich worked in mixed media as well to create her "New Orleans Immortelle Series." "'Immortelle' refers to historical French icons created to revere the deceased." Ms. Jurisich states that the series "also pays tribute to current consequence of deep water," and one of the pieces includes what I interpreted to be depth markings. Ms. Jurisich also wrote that "witnessing and living in a disaster unfolding has been beyond my life experience."

Photography by Brian Nolan and Neil Alexander is also presented in the exhibit. Mr. Nolan's series is titled "Residual Images" and is comprised of photographic images culled from notebooks containing his life's work in photography. These notebooks had sat in his New Orleans home, in the flood waters, for a month. "Occasionally out of the depths of the damage something recognizable will appear," Mr. Nolan states, yet he acknowledges, "I cannot determine why some were spared while others were washed clean of the film emulsion." He also states, "Being on the inside of the disaster is something I was not prepared for. It humbled me while at the same time gave me an incredible sense of hope." In the end he wrote, "Out of something incredibly tragic and destructive I have found something beautiful. What more can I ask for?"

At the time of the hurricane Neil Alexander was a local architectural photographer in New Orleans. He did not evacuate, thus his photos offer a first person record of the city post-Katrina. I especially noted a diptych entitled "Party World" showing, on the right, brilliant pink tents resembling houses. They evoked, for me, John Mellencamp's song "Pink Houses" from his "Uh Huh" CD.

This was my first visit to the Spruill Gallery of what I hope will be many. Initially, when I saw the 'X' spray-painted on the Gallery's exterior I feared it was graffiti. When I saw the sign advertising the exhibit I understood, as I remembered images of buildings so marked after the hurricane. While a community can and must move on from devastation eventually, the human community can and must acknowledge a tragic event, a tragic loss.

A series of photos with a flood line superimposed over them, a collaboration among Ms. Howell, Ms. Gilbert, Ms. Jurisich, and Michele White, is accompanied by the following legend:

"Unless I remind myself to look, I don't see the black flood lines anymore and it may be that we have to keep such marks visible and in tension with our daily lives in order to connect our histories to our possible futures and try to fix things."

[Author's note: All text in quotation marks is taken from text on plaques accompanying the works on exhibit. Please visit the exhibit to witness the full text.]

[[Photo: Spruill Gallery exterior, the author, 2010]]

Views from the Lighthouse

2010-07-22T04:37:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Pete McGregor's photo, I went back through my photo library and found these shots taken from the lighthouse on St. Simons Island, along the coast of Georgia. There are a number of these brilliant white lighthouses along the East Coast and I have to say that they are my favorites, over the brick and the black and white, but I cannot say why. They just are.

The 'Faraway Nearby'

2010-07-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

My long-standing admiration for Ms. Georgia O'Keeffe and her work has been noted here before now. As my study of her life and work has progressed I've felt more and more in her a kindred spirit. Superficially, a glance shows only the differences between us: she painted, I write; she preferred the desert, I prefer wooded areas; she enjoyed a career spanning about six decades, my career is nascent. Beyond that surface treatment, however, I find reassurance in the discovery that we've been in some of the same locations: Wisconsin; Lake George, NY; Williamsburg and Charlottesville, VA; Columbia, SC.

The heart of this kinship, I find, is the trait of an independent spirit. The doctor's assessment of me at two weeks of age applies to her as well: a mind of her own and not afraid to use it.

Looking over some photos from a day-trip during the Independence Day Holiday I see evidence of this kinship blossoming in my own artistic pursuits. Indeed, it appears it may be developing into a pattern. In 2009 I shot "Equine Pelvis With Sky", my take on "Pelvis With Distance." This year I shot my own view from the 'Faraway Nearby.'

I may live in the Big City, but I live a pretty simple life. So, I put on my Simple Shoes*, plopped a hat on my head and headed to Amicalola Falls State Park ** where my husband and I hiked up past the falls on up to the lodge for lunch. Sitting there by a wall of windows I was enchanted by the blue of the Blue Ridge and the carefree flight of several hawks, one of whom I was fortunate to capture in this shot.

Only later did I realize, "That's the 'Faraway Nearby'!" There it was, an interpretation of a mountain view - forested and sans the antlered skull - that evoked that same paradox of vastness and immediacy, elusiveness and intimacy. Those mountains feel they could never be reached, however far I might stretch myself. Then, suddenly I realize I was right there, right there in the midst of them.

I've shared merely the bones of my experience climbing that trail, looking out at the range from above the falls. It will serve, I hope, as an image found in the spirit of independence.

[Photos: Falls at Amicalola Falls State Park, Dawsonville, GA; view from restaurant in lodge at Amicalola Falls State Park; 5 July 2010]

*Seriously, they're literally Simple Shoes

** Amicalola Falls, Cherokee for 'Tumbling Waters,' is the highest waterfall east of the Mississippi. It is located in northern Georgia at the southern end of the Appalachian range. You can enter the Appalachian Trail here.

Notre Dame

2010-07-02T04:47:00.000-07:00

[This post is dedicated to Phoebe Prince and her family. Ms. Prince took her life earlier this year after months of cruel harassment and torture from fellow students at the high school she attended in Massachusetts. She and her family had moved to the States from Ireland in 2009.]

For months now I've been haunted by this image. Some days past I realized I had written a poem that could fit with that image to a degree so I have posted it here. The story of how that poem came to be written is an intriguing one.

It was a quiet Saturday morning in September 2004 and I lay suspended between sleeping and waking when I heard a voice, as if in a dream, say, "The wizards are gathering on an uneven plain." I came suddenly awake, wondering what had just happened. Why were wizards being brought to my attention? I'd been reading Harry Potter, sure, but why was I to pay attention to wizards? While I fumbled sleepily with my sweatshirt and slippers I considered alternative meanings for 'wizards.' My husband looked more than a bit puzzled when I stumbled into the kitchen, where he sat surfing the web on the laptop, and asked, "Aren't the bigwigs in the KKK called Grand Wizards or something?"

His response was swift and silent. He turned to me after a search of the internet and before I'd finished making the coffee to tell me he'd found a book, "Notre Dame vs. The Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan." What? No way. To my great surprise I discovered that the book did indeed exist and had just been published the previous month. Fully aware that it would take months for the library to get a copy, if it even ordered one, I ordered a copy and by the next weekend had finished reading it. I was stunned.

"Notre Dame vs. The Klan" was written by Notre Dame alumnus Todd Tucker and chronicles a weekend in South Bend, IN which has been at best a footnote in American history. Tucker painstakingly lays out for the reader the history and the aftermath of the incidents and the two primary protagonists, David Curtis Stephenson and Fr. Matthew Walsh. In essence the story is all about D. C. Stephenson's greedy grab for power over the Ku Klux Klan. The University of Notre Dame was, in his mind, an easy and highly visible target in the Klan's drive against "the alien element." Humiliate the Irish, the Catholics, feed that victory to his loyal followers and that would seal his quest.

Stephenson had risen to wealth from poverty. Born in Houston, Texas in 1891 David Curtis Stephenson's early education, like that of Fr. Matthew Walsh, president of Notre Dame in 1924, was in Catholic schools. Like Matthew Walsh he was a promising student. Unlike Matthew Walsh Stephenson's promising mind was belittled by his father, a sharecropper. When D. C. was ten years old his father moved the family to Maysville, Oklahoma, a town without a school and the boy's education was derailed, to his father's delight. In 1907, however, D. C. graduated from the eighth grade of a school built by the town to serve the increased population spurred by the new railroad.

The railroad also brought a farmer with a love of politics, John Cooper, to town. "In 1910, Cooper bought a controlling interest in the town's only newspaper the Maysville News. He gave Arizona Stephenson, D. C. Stephenson's older brother, a job running the typesetting equipment at the paper. Eager to help his brother escape their father and their depressing home outside of town, Arizona talked Cooper into hiring D. C. ...... When he wasn't working, Stephenson relished Cooper's wild political rants and his animated predictions of a Socialist revolution. 'The Socialists stand for the common man, the working man,' he told Stephenson. 'If you vote for a Democrat or a Republican, you're just a sucker for the rich man.' Talking to Cooper, it seemed to Stephenson that the Socialist Party was the place to be for any ambitious young man.'"

At Cooper's behest, the Oklahoma Socialists hired D. C. Stephenson as an organizer for the 1914 gubernatorial campaign. He was smart. He'd worked for a newspaper for years. He had grown up in poverty. He was good looking - a definite asset in drawing a crowd. "Stephenson learned an age-old political truth during that campaign: make people feel like they belong, and they'll go along with whatever you say."

The gubernatorial campaign did not result in success for the Oklahoma Socialists and D. C. drifted around the state from newspaper job to newspaper job and into a marriage, which he abandoned when his wife was pregnant with their child. He fled to Iowa and it was there, as he worked for a printer, that he joined the Army when the United States entered World War I. As an officer, a recruiter, he never left America.

Postwar, D. C. returned to the Midwest and lived on the road in his capacity as salesman of typesetting equipment. He eventually moved to Evansville, Indiana with his second wife - his first wife had tracked him down and filed for divorce in 1917 - a star salesman of newspaper equipment and stock for a local coal brokerage firm. It was in Evansville, in 1920, that the Klan signed him to recruit members, promising him four dollars of every ten dollar membership he delivered. Within six months of his recruitment, "he had sold five thousand memberships, netting twenty thousand dollars at a time when the average American man made twelve hundred dollars in a year. The Ku Klux Klan was making him rich."

He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in the spring of 1922, but "the Klan leadership in Atlanta promoted him to King Kleagle of the state." He and his wife Violet moved to Indianapolis. The move accelerated D. C.'s "descent into debauchery." At one point neighbors called in the police during an incident of domestic violence.

With the Indiana Klan in his pocket, Stephenson allied himself with "Hiram Evans, a pudgy, nearsighted Exalted Cyclops from Dallas" with plans to oust the current Imperial Wizard during the Thanksgiving holiday of 1922. He cared little for Evans but even less for the current I. W. "In reward for his loyalty during the coup, Evans gave Stephenson responsibility for twenty-three northern states. He also promised to promote Stephenson to Grand Dragon if his stellar performance continued."

With so much power handed to him it wasn't long before Stephenson decided to act upon his dislike of and dissatisfaction with Evans. He envisioned that under his guidance the Indiana Klan would become the dominant faction and sweep the national organization along with it. Rallies, speeches, and editions of The Fiery Cross proclaimed the virtues of the Ku Klux Klan as the only bulwark against the "alien element," which was always thoroughly demonized.

"While Stephenson's recruiting machine continued to roll smoothly across the Midwest, his personal life was getting out of control. Women threw themselves at him, but he found himself most attracted to those who were not impressed with his money or power. When he was able to draw these women into his life, he was often abusive toward them, attacking them in strange and horrible ways. He would hit them or claw them or, even worse, sometimes bite them savagely all over their bodies. His men became skilled at talking women into walking away without calling the police after Stephenson had assaulted them."

For a little over a year before the fateful altercations in May, 1924, the Klan ratcheted up its inflammatory rhetoric. The Klan estimated that 425,000 Hoosier men were Klansmen, support which ensured that Klan members on the Republican slate of candidates for statewide office were winners in the primary. Stephenson saw his strategy to take over the Indiana state Republican Party bear fruit in the primaries. Soon the state would be run by his people and he would have carte blanche to do as he pleased without consequence other than amassing further riches and power.

Through all of this Fr. Matthew Walsh kept a weather eye on the Klan's activities and pursued a level-headed administration of the University of Notre Dame. Sadly, despite his best efforts he could not prevent the altercations between his students and the Kluxers, some of whom had been deputized by South Bend law enforcement.

In reading about and analyzing Tucker's book I knew that many people could and would find D. C. Stephenson's goals abhorrent, but that did not answer my question about why I was directed to this historical incident. I have no ties either to the University of Notre Dame or to the city of South Bend. I have only known three people who are alumni of the university and I haven't been in touch with any of them for nearly thirty years. Why me?

Slowly I came to realize that I was meant to see this as a writer, as an artist. I was being asked to train that artistic eye which looks beyond mere factual representation to the deeper truth of human experience. What struck me then as a writer was the reality that, although the students of Notre Dame fought valiantly they did not bring down the Klan in Indiana. A woman did.

In March 1925 D. C. Stephenson abducted a woman he'd begun seeing, Madge Oberholtzer. He and his men bundled her, rendered nearly unconscious and therefore harmless by the alcohol they'd forced her to consume, onto a train. During the ride which ended just before crossing the state line into Illinois Stephenson abused and raped her. The next day, deciding she would be better off dead, Ms. Oberholtzer pretended she needed cosmetics and was permitted to go to a drugstore with a bodyguard. She bought and ingested a disinfectant, mercury bichloride, instead. She had poisoned herself, vomiting blood almost immediately.

Madge Oberholtzer was eventually dumped unceremoniously in bed in her parents' home. Broken, destroyed in body and spirit she clung to life for weeks - long enough to give a "detailed, witnessed, signed and notarized statement" to an attorney. Stephenson was arrested on kidnapping charges on April 2, 1925. During the ensuing uproar Stephenson's first wife appeared in town with their daughter, demanding child support. Madge Oberholtzer died at home on April 14 and the charge against Stephenson was changed to second-degree murder.

In the end neither his political connections nor a trial in a venue with strong Klan affiliation helped D. C. Stephenson. His "debauchery" was antithetical to Klansmen and he was convicted of the charge on November 14, 1925. In the aftermath of his conviction the political careers of the governor and secretary of state D. C. Stephenson and the Klan had championed were ruined. "The chairman of the Indiana Republican Party went to prison. a judge in Muncie was impeached. The entire Indianapolis City Council resigned."

As I contemplated a poem based on this story I remembered an incident from 1920 recounted in the second volume of R. F. Foster's biography of William Butler Yeats (p. 181): "On 26 October the news of MacSwiney's death came to Gort. Ten days later Ellen Quinn was shot dead outside her front door in Kiltartan, from a military lorry passing by, a baby in her arms. This horror struck deeply home. The murdered woman was the young wife of Malachi Quinn, one of a well-known Gort farming family, who rented Ballinamantane from the estate; the killing was utterly random. After a huge funeral and angry demonstrations, an official 'inquiry' applied some unconvincing whitewash." Within weeks Michael Collins had orchestrated a response, portrayed in the movie "Michael Collins."

It wasn't much of a stretch of imagination to think it possible that Irish in America in the 1920s were painfully aware of the horrors in their ancestral homeland. Perhaps that pain washed through their consciousness as they watched events unfold in the Midwest? Although firearms were barely a factor in the riots in South Bend I felt I had to find a way to reference Ellen Quinn's death in some manner. Thus, she became the woman in the poem.

Tucker attributes this assessment of the Indiana countryside during a fly-over to D. C. Stephenson: "The impossibly flat Indiana plain unfolded beneath him like one of the battlefield maps he had studied as a child."

It seems to me, however, the message of all of this is simply that this plain is watched over by Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin, the Blessed Mother, the Queen of Heaven and only a fool would dare to think it flat, even.

[Bibliography:

Tucker, Todd. "Notre Dame vs. The Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan." Chicago: Loyola Press, 2004 (pps. 17, 19, 91, 92, 94, 110, 210)

Foster, R. F. "W. B. Yeats: A Life II. The Arch-Poet." Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003]

Chicken, a Giant

2010-06-04T07:56:00.000-07:00

I have been enjoying the blog postings of an admirably inventive and energetic young man here in Atlanta, and I thought of this post in particular when I spied this chicken in Marietta. Think of the eggs! The 'Big Tow' sign was a happy accident.

Will: "I Am"

2010-04-21T04:24:00.000-07:00

There is a line in the movie "Amelie" to the effect that the world is not always kind to dreamers. The worst unkindness the world can visit upon anyone, dreamer or not, is to assert that that someone is not who they say they are. William Shakespeare, a dreamer par excellence whose birth we celebrate today, has been the target of naysayers for centuries now. In tribute to his enduring masterpieces I wish to add my voice to those who assert unequivocally that William Shakespeare and only William Shakespeare wrote as William Shakespeare.

It is something of a cottage industry, this anti-Stratfordianism, and it is centered around several arguments I consider flimsy and pointless at best, arrogant and ignorant at worst.

Their arguments include the proposition that it is 'outrageous' to consider that a glover's son from the shire with no degree from Oxford or Cambridge could have written these plays and poetry. Some point

out as well Will Shakespeare's lack of expertise in fields such as law and music, fields he wrote about throughout his career. Others assert that he portrayed court life so thoroughly that he could not have written the plays because he was not a courtier. Thus, the work must have been written by a noble who chose 'William Shakespeare' as his pseudonym. Still others adhere to the theory that the work was written by several nobles. Some believe the work was written by a woman.

As for myself, while I do have questions about his work I have never questioned his authorship of that work. As regards the question of Will Shakespeare's education, no documents have yet been found to affirm formal education for the Bard. We do know there was a grammar school in operation in Stratford-upon-Avon during his childhood years and I suspect that the curriculum was much more rigorous than we could imagine. An adult with as lively a mind as his must have surely been a precocious child. His father was a town councilman of sorts and so I find it easier to imagine he sent his son to school to discipline his mind than that he did not.

To those who say a woman wrote the plays I say, 'No.' I am a woman. I champion women, but from my continuing study of the Renaissance and the quality of life for women then I do not feel that a woman had a chance in hell of either producing or presenting the body of work attributed to William Shakespeare. Yes, Elizabeth I was a titan, a trailblazer, but it would be hundreds of years before women gained any sort of power in the 'play-acting' business. After all, only this year did a woman receive the Academy Award for Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow, "The Hurt Locker"). Eighty-two years of Academy Awards preceded her award. We should not forget, also, that during Shakespeare's time the playhouses were considered dens of iniquity and were the constant target of attempted closures.

I consider the other anti-Stratfordian arguments from the point of view of a writer. From what I have read of court life at the time being a courtier sounds as though it was a full-time job in and of itself. Writing is a lot of work. It takes patience. It takes practice. It pops up in your life in a million different ways and almost always when you least expect it. It does not adhere to any sort of schedule whether one is a noble or not. Some nobles did indeed write; Sir Francis Bacon was famous for his essays, but discursive writing is much different than dramatic or poetic writing as most would agree.

While some nobles did indeed write and present some highly stylized dramatic productions I do not believe any one noble or any group of nobles working in concert could have produced the 36 plays attribute to William Shakespeare. That number indicates that he wrote more than one play per year over the course of his career. One of the aims of court life, it seems to me, was to keep the nobles separate, keep them focused on the monarch and their own best interests. How, then, could such a life foster the group dynamic necessary for a cadre of nobles to write thirty-six plays?

The case against the author(-s) being of the nobility becomes even stronger, in my opinion, when one remembers that William Shakespeare was a part owner of the acting company. In his capacity as partial owner and house playwright I feel it is reasonable to consider that William Shakespeare's career was very likely like that of a playwright and artistic director in today's theatre. The acting company was under the auspices of a noble, and as such it was in the company's best interest to make a profit for said noble. Significantly, William Shakespeare's theatre was profitable, and profitable at a time when players were considered vagrants. We must not forget that Shakespeare's theatre was not the only theatre in town, either. He had competition. The profile he would have had to maintain and the work he had to shoulder to ensure that success rules out any chance that some noble, in favor and dancing attendance at court, was the 'real' author. Any noble out of favor with the court would have been insane or suicidal to take such a risk.

The objections raised around the specialized knowledge depicted in the plays (e.g. music and law) are quite weak. We know little enough about his life to assert one way or the other about his knowledge, or lack thereof, regarding such topics. Further, any responsible writer with a modicum of talent and self-respect knows enough to seek out experts when necessary. For someone of Will Shakespeare's standing I suspect it would be quite easy to obtain expert input whenever necessary.

These arguments aside, I maintain that the sheer talent evidenced in this body of work argues plaintively for a sole author. The poetry and plays form an intricate and intimate web of story which tells me that the author lived story, lived his art. He chose the life and he lived it. The writing life was his answer to Juliet's question, "Wherefore art thou?" His art was his way of being himself. He knew the work inside out, upside down, every which way. Writing was not a sometime pastime for him. It was life.

Not all writers have the kind of talent it takes to write original stories, stories like "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Tempest," "King Lear," "Othello," "Much Ado About Nothing," " Hamlet," "The Merchant of Venice," "The Winter's Tale," and the list continues. Here I paraphrase the praise Lewis Mumford lavished upon 20th century painter Georgia O'Keeffe in 1936 when I say that in "conception and execution" not only is William Shakespeare's body of work evidence "of consummate craftsmanship, but it likewise possesses that mysterious force, that hold upon the hidden soul, which distinguishes important communication from the casual reports of the eye" and ear.

There is no question in my mind at all that William Shakespeare was a willing conduit for the creative force which accesses knowledge and tuition beyond that available to our senses. He was a willing, talented, and inspiring conduit. We have evidence that at least one contemporary playwright considered Will Shakespeare a professional threat and felt inspired to jealousy by his work. Jealousy does not spring from watching another fail.

My final argument for Will Shakespeare as the author of Will Shakespeare's plays and poetry is his eminent work, "Hamlet," the 'existential' play, the play about 'being.' This play's the thing wherein he addressed the attacks upon his authorship of the plays, "the slings and arrows" aimed at his "outrageous fortune," his unprecedented success. How better to assert his right to his own work than by couching it in the play wherein he lays bare his grief over the death of his only son, Hamnet?

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her? What would he do

Had he the motive and the cue for passion

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,

Make mad the guilty and appall the free,

Confound the ignorant and amaze indeed

The very faculties of eyes and ears.

"Hamlet," II.ii.586-593, Folger Shakespeare Library ed.

No other man anywhere, ever, can claim Hamnet as his son but William Shakespeare. Nor can any other person anywhere in time lay claim to the poetry and drama of William Shakespeare. This is his primal scream, "I Am!" Any number of men may have wanted to rule the Globe, but only William Shakespeare, the glover's son from Stratford has that distinction.

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls.

Who steals my purse steals trash. 'Tis something, nothing;

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands.

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him

And makes me poor indeed.

"Othello," III.iii.182-190, Folger Shakespeare Library ed.

[Photos (all Barbara Butler McCoy): Top: from the Martin Luther King museum, Atlanta, GA; 2009; Middle: a fool pictured on a toy store window, St. Simons Island, GA; 2009; Bottom: banner outside the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.; 2009]

Constancy

2010-04-13T11:16:00.000-07:00

Oh, it feels good to be here. Rarely during these past weeks and months have I had the time for my art or for this. There just wasn't time. That has been tough because Art is the means I choose to be myself. Fortunately I have the life and works of Georgia O'Keeffe to serve as wonderful examples of maintaining an artful life whatever the circumstances.

She chose every day to practice art, to live art. It takes a lot of fortitude to outlast such pressures. You really have to want to live it, to practice it, to withstand that. One of my favorite anecdotes from Ms. O'Keeffe's life involves her stint as "supervisor of drawing and penmanship" in 1913. "She was responsible for the art education of hundreds of pupils in Amarillo's half-dozen schools." She was a proponent of the teachings of Arthur Wesley Dow and "fiercely opposed the old-fashioned teaching technique of 'copying,' and she told her pupils not to buy an expensive drawing book ... that had been recommended by the educators. In the spring of 1913, however, the Texas legislature passed a law requiring the use of textbooks chosen by the state commission ... A tense, lengthy struggle between Georgia and the state of Texas ensued - but when the school year ended, the books had not been bought."

Why art? Why does the practice of art make such a difference? See, it is not just art - not 'just' a painting, not 'just' a photograph, not 'just' a sculpture, not 'just' a song, not 'just' a poem. It is art from the heart.

Ms. O'Keeffe saw this so clearly and communicated it with her work entitled "My Heart," stones rendered in pastels. She had a visual reminder before her in New Mexico of constancy amid change, the Pedernal, birthplace of the Navajos' 'Changing Woman.' The heart Ms. O'Keeffe saw, like the Pedernal, is the constant in human life amidst whatever change occurs. The heart is the constant. Years before her pastel rendering of her heart Alfred Stieglitz, her husband, had shown her work with that of other women artists to declare to the world his assertion that "women could reveal a new and uniquely feminine perspective on modern experience." I feel Stieglitz was only partially correct in that assertion.

Rather than revealing a new perspective on modern experience alone, anyone practicing, anyone living, an artful life can reveal through their work a new and unique perspective on Human experience. How? How?

The practice of art is the practice of mindfulness. It is the practice of being here now. It is the practice of connecting to the Everlasting through the heart and channeling the tuition received there to the mind to inform the art. There are no short cuts here - no painting by the numbers, no storytelling by special software, no drawing by textbook copying. The only way to art is through the heart. The beauty of it is, to me, that just as Ms. O'Keeffe's heart could have been part of that Pedernal, her art, anyone's art, offers a perspective on the human experience.

The vision and knowledge of human experience that comes when heart and mind are tuned to the Everlasting in the here and now is vision and knowledge that sees above and beyond, beyond what is available to the senses, beyond the petty contrivances that may clutter our days.

This is brilliantly articulated in a review in The New Yorker of a 1930s show of her work, this portion of which will be my closing note:

Not only is it a piece of consummate craftsmanship, but it

likewise possesses that mysterious force, that hold upon the hidden soul, which distinguishes important communication from the casual reports of the eye ...

[Photos: Top: Weeping cherry, the author, 2010; Middle: detail from pastel by author's son, Dan, 1999; Bottom: detail from scratchboard piece by author's son, Sean, 2002]

[Bibliography: Lisle, Laurie. "Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe." New York: Washington Square Press, 1980, 1986]

Through a Glass Darkly

2009-12-10T14:01:00.000-08:00

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"

"The Second Coming"

William Butler Yeats, 1920

Passing homes in the darkness of early, early morning or of evening I see windows decorated with lights, beacons of welcome and hope for humanity in a weary world.

The image of people as light in the world has been with me for some time, most especially since my post for "Dia de Los Muertes" (please see previous post). That post, in turn, prompted reflections upon and contemplation of Be-ing one's Self, no strings attached, of gaining and holding that "privilege of a lifetime ... being who you are."

His Holiness the Dalai Lama asserts that "our primary concern is seeking happiness and avoiding suffering" as we meet what Bruno Bettelheim describes as "psychological challenges of gaining a feeling of selfhood and of self-worth and a sense of moral obligation." Bettelheim maintains, and I concur, that such is necessary if we "hope to live not just from moment to moment, but in true consciousness of our existence."

Eastern traditions teach of paths to en-light-enment, to a rising toward pristine awareness. One important element of these teachings is that of examination of the person's mental processes, including their motivations. As previously noted our primary motivation in life is seeking happiness and avoiding suffering and "the chief influence for the foundation of motivations comes from the mind."

An examination of one's own mind to bring one's consciousness further toward en-light-enment is no quick or easy task. "Mental phenomena ... do not evidently have a location in space, nor do they lend themselves to quantitative measurement." How may we study our mental processes as forces of motivation affecting the quality of our Light, our lives? How do we do this, we who are everyday people with relationships and jobs and goals and worries? We are few of us monks or yogis or poets or quantum physicists. How do we do this?

Years ago I was presented with an image of light and life that has guided me through many of life's psychological challenges. Not long ago I realized I had received another image of light and life as a guide in everyday life. I sat in the World Peace Cafe one evening quietly waiting for my sandwich to be delivered to my table while my husband surfed the Web on his iTouch. From our table by the window I looked out into darkness and saw the grouping of over-sized Chinese lanterns hanging in the cafe projected onto the street scene outside the cafe.

I know those lanterns out on the street were illusions, some trick of optics, the light waves (or are they particles?), the properties of the window glass and who knows what else. I have now come to see that scene as a vivid lesson in the way illusion can and does influence us as we walk through our earthly life.

Indians, according to Joseph Campbell, teach that illusion (maya) holds 'A Veiling Power that hides or conceals the "real," the inward essential character of things; so that, as we read in a sacred Sanskrit text: "Though it is hidden in all things, the Self shines not forth."'

Someone tries to hide himself down inside himself.

Audioslave

Although the white light of Truth has been veiled from consciousness, our minds must engage in their creative function and evolve phenomena. So our creative function, our Projecting Power, projects "illusionary impressions and ideas, together with associated desires and aversions --- as might happen, for example if at night one should mistake a rope for a snake and experience fright."

Now we come to the beautiful part, the part wherein it is possible to reach the Truth through the obscurity and illusion of these phenomena. For, "when viewed a certain way, the phenomena themselves may reveal what normally they veil ..." This demonstrates the "Revealing Power of maya, which it is the function of art and scripture, ritual and meditation, to make known." For the moment I suggest that we simply take some time for ourselves to contemplate whatever illusions present themselves as guiding forces in our lives.

Our "impressions and ideas, together with associated desires and aversions" have been formed by and large upon falsehood. We owe it to ourselves to look at these things. Many times a change of perspective eliminates the projected illusion and frees us to consider its source -- which is what we need to do. (As an example, when I shot the accompanying photo I could not see the reflection outside from another window, only that nearest the lamp.)

Here I turn, not surprisingly, to William Shakespeare - his "Hamlet" to be precise. The prince has just informed his one-time friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that Denmark is a prison. They disagree. They "think not so." Hamlet then informs them that "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

Think about it.

We can see the Truth of our Selves, just as we can see the light of a candle or a lantern "through a glass darkly."

Love after Love

Derek Walcott

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

[A bibliography for this post includes:

Bettelheim, Bruno. "The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales." New York: Vintage, 1989

Osbon, Diane K (ed.). "Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion." New York: Harper Collins, 1991

Shakespeare, William. "Hamlet." New York: Washington Square Press, 1992

Varela, Francisco J., Ph.D (ed.). "Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying: An Exploration of Consciousness with The Dalai Lama." Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1997

Walcott, Derek. "Derek Walcott: Collected Poems 1948-1984." New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986]

Dia de Los Muertes

2009-10-31T05:36:00.000-07:00

"And in the end the Love you take is equal to the Love you make."
The Beatles

Many years ago in the midst of one of my little family's moves I surfaced from a dream in that time between sleeping and waking, asking, "What was that?" As all four of us were sharing the same hotel room I looked around to see if anyone had been roused by my question. Everyone but me was sound asleep, so I snuggled back into the covers and held the dream close.

The dream was a comfort to me. Even as I was excited about moving to Williamsburg, VA, a city I thoroughly enjoyed, I was quite aware that I was moving on from special people and special memories and I was not certain how I felt about that. In the dream I seemed to see the continent of North America as if from orbit. Marking the area of Virginia wherein I lived I saw, well, what I would call a pearl of light, and from that pearl strands of light radiated out to other parts of the country wherein beloved family and friends lived. (I think one strand stretched to Scotland, too.)

"Take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night."
"Romeo and Juliet," William Shakespeare, III.ii.24-26

As I contemplated this 'map of light' a voice in the dream said, very kindly, "This is what we see when you move away from the people you love."

In the years since that dream I have developed a picture in my mind in which each earthbound soul holds the light of his or her life as a candle, that tiny flame flickering and braving the weather of our years. We'll wear whatever masks and costumes of our choice as we hold our lives, our souls, and explore the heart-mysteries of who we are here - perhaps we will even manage to carve out a little lantern for ourselves to pierce the darkness.

When we leave this earth, when we walk on into the light, perhaps we set those lanterns on Heaven's floor and the light we have always been pierces that floor, carving out the stars for those still finding their way to the light.

So, on this Dia de Los Muertes (Day of the Dead) let all honor be to those whose lives light ours with Love, who in their mercy pierce the darkness and assault us with Love - most gently and beyond the limits of reason.

MCMLIX

2009-08-26T02:52:00.000-07:00

So. Today I, a storyteller, celebrate my 50th birthday. I am actually very happy about this and it seems like a good day to share some of the stories, the dialogue, that I have relied upon over this half-century to answer what makes me, me.

The primary story is one I know only because my parents shared it with me, as it happened when I was only two weeks old - two weeks old and still weighing in at less than six pounds!

I made my entrance into the world three weeks early at only five pounds, nine ounces and measuring eighteen inches in length. Not much had changed by my second week, but the doctor dismissed quite confidently any worries during my check-up, as he watched me kick and hit back at him reflexively: "She may be tiny, but she's a dandy. She has a mind of her own and she's not afraid to use it."

I took that story to heart more and more through the years. Even now I do not understand how the doctor saw

so much in me at just two weeks, nor do I understand why those remarks resonated with me from a very young age. Maybe I recognized that such a remark from a respected person was a remark worth keeping, worth treasuring?

As I write this I consider another remark I heard too many times to count over the course of my life, and I realize that it offers an interesting counterpoint to that basic theme of an independent mind. The remark has usually been, "You wear your heart on your sleeve." For a period of time, I confess, I caught undertones in those voices that made me think I might be a fool to wear my heart thus.

Not anymore. Not for a long, long time. Somehow, somewhere along the line I decided I was not doing myself or anyone else any favors by keeping my heart out of sight.

Somehow I heard my independent mind decrying the demotion of my heart and I stitched it back onto my sleeve. Maybe it was after a fresh reading of St. Exupery's "The Little Prince," the part that tells us, "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

I guess you could say that

I decided to give my mind its eyes.

So. Here I

am celebrating - yes,

celebrating, a milestone birthday, but celebrating especially the gifts of ageless heart

and mind - gifts I would give to everyone if I could.

Photos: Me, at 2; Me, at 3; Me, at 6 in my new school uniform; Me, at 21, with my best friend, Renee; Me, at 30-something goofing around at a museum in Richmond, VA.

'Foul Rag and Bone Shop'

2009-08-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

For the last week I have been contemplating the startling fact that I had found an actual place - a place I had never seen nor known existed - which I had 'made up' and written down in my notes and in the blog. I cannot say it enough: I just made up a place and gave it a name. I never suspected that a place loosely fitting that description existed.

The more I considered this the more I understood that I had experienced 'creative visualization' at its fullest. My introduction to the concept came in the form of a book I read decades ago. The exact title escapes me but it was roughly "The House that Gilda Drew" and was a title I acquired through the Scholastic Books program. (Oh, how I looked forward to those flyers and the chance to buy books!)

These days I would recognize Gilda and her family as likely being homeless as they constantly moved as her father searched for employment. Through all the travels, all the schools, Gilda dreamed of a certain house she wanted to live in one day. She drew it time and time again. Then, one day she saw the house itself. Sadly, I do not remember how it came to happen, but in the end Gilda and her family did indeed move into the house of Gilda's dream. That story has always remained in my mind.

I wonder now if that story was in the back of my mind when my fourth grade teacher, Sr. Mary Henry, a Dominican, took one look at the tree I had drawn in crayon on art paper and informed me that it was not a tree, that 'There are no trees like that.' I said nothing, but in my mind I retorted, "Just because you haven't seen a tree like that doesn't mean there isn't one.' Years later, to satisfy myself, I looked through a book and saw that my tree could have been a very mature weeping cherry!

The discouragement was replaced by my resolve to be a writer as under that same nun's tutelage I quite happily discovered that those sentences and paragraphs and all that other grammar stuff were the nuts and bolts of the stories I devoured.

Not long ago I discovered some quotes attributed to Ms. Georgia O'Keeffe in my notes. They had been posted on one or another of those websites offering fine art posters for sale. This quote leapt out at me: 'It belongs to me. God told me if I painted it enough I could have it.' I read between the lines of that quote and came to understand that Ms. O'Keeffe very likely believed in the principle that life would imitate art provided she practiced her art, lived her art.

I pulled Hunter Drohojowska-Philp's biography of Ms. O'Keeffe ("Full Bloom," W. W. Norton & Co., 2004) from my shelf and paged through it for one of the stories I remembered from Ms. O'Keeffe's school days which, ironically, involved a Dominican nun passing judgment on one of her drawings (p. 27) Ms. O'Keeffe chose to respond differently to the nun's stinging judgment of her drawing efforts than I did to Sr. Mary Henry's. In fact, at some point she 'decided that the only thing I could do that was nobody else's business was to paint.'

Independently of one another both Ms. O'Keeffe and I chose art as the means of being our Selves despite the judgment of an early teacher. The most inspiring aspect of Ms. O'Keeffe's life and work was that she practiced her art on her terms, however shaky she may have felt at times.

Ms. Drohojowska-Philp relates one instance of self-consciousness at a time just prior to Alfred Stieglitz's introduction to her work, when few established artists were understanding that work. 'After staying up all night working, she felt the results to be "effeminate" but she was unsure of the implications. "It is essentially a woman's feeling - satisfies me in a way," she admitted. "There are things we want to say - but saying them is pretty nervy." Once again, she was thinking that it was all "a fool's game" when she learned of Stieglitz's approval.' ("Full Bloom," pps 106-7)

Nearly thirty years after Alfred Stieglitz first glimpsed the work of this extraordinary woman she produced another piece I consider to be self-conscious, a pastel on paper entitled "My Heart" (1944). She was then 57 years of age and had bought a home in New Mexico only four years previously, a home with stunning views of her beloved pedernal.

Ms. Drohojowska-Philp wrote, 'The Navajo believe that the Pedernal is the birthplace of their "Changing Woman," who represents earth and time.' (p. 368) In full view of that Pedernal, that mountain, Ms. O'Keeffe imagined and presented to us an image of her heart. 'O'Keeffe named this drawing of two stones after her heart because she thought they "looked hard."' Hard as pieces of the 'Changing Woman,' perhaps?

For myself, when I consider that heart image she offers I am struck by a parallel between her work and that of the poet William Butler Yeats in the closing years of his life, specifically the poem "The Circus Animals' Desertion" (1938-39). I quote here the final stanza of the poem:

Those masterful images because complex

Grew in pure mind but out of what began?

A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,

Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can

Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut

Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone

I must lie down where all the ladders start

In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

Many are familiar with the paintings of skulls and pelvises Ms. O'Keeffe executed. (My favorite is "Pelvis with Distance.") There are paintings featuring ladders in Ms. O'Keeffe's oeuvre as well. Her studio must surely have contained stained rags and a collection of skeletons to qualify it as not just any studio but a "foul rag and bone shop of the heart." She painted her heart out, and in the end it was hers, always had been. I suspect she cherished the irony, as I do, that the nun's judgment had been passed in a schoolroom at Sacred Heart Academy.

These remarks from the commentary about the 2008 exhibit "Georgia O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle," (HIGH Museum, Atlanta, GA), which included work by Pamela Colman Smith, Katherine Nash Rhoades, Georgia Engelhard, Gertrude Kasebier, Anne Brigman and Alfred Stieglitz point to the enduring significance of "charms the brush laid on with tints in sweeps and flourishes" : 'her work and that of the others "laid the groundwork for the idea that women artists possessed a powerful creativity equal to that of men and their stunning images convinced Stieglitz ... that women could reveal a new and uniquely feminine perspective on modern experience."'

For Ms. O'Keeffe the perspective from her foul rag and bone shop of the Pedernal, the Changing Woman, gave her her heart and gave the world a beautiful vision of life lived artfully.

Top Photo: "Crossing to the Everlasting," Barbara Butler McCoy, oil on canvas, 12"x24," 2007, after "Sky Above Clouds," Georgia O'Keeffe and the author's photograph

Bottom Photo: "A Bowl of Cherries," the author, 2009

Jellin'

2009-07-22T14:12:00.000-07:00

Just goin' with the flow today, which has meant redoubling my efforts to finish unpacking and organizing my atelier (love that word). Somehow I am never prepared for the memories I encounter buried amid stacks of papers and books. Photos, cards, notes, books - they set memories flooding down my brainstem and through my limbs. Remember the Ringo Starr song, "Every time I see your face I'm reminded of the places we used to go'? Or the Four Tops, 'It's the same old song, but with a different meaning since you've been gone'? My eyes get misty or I shudder to think 'Did I actually write/fall for/ think that?' I find myself thinking these memories can be much like jellyfish - beautiful there in the dark, but requiring careful navigation.

Now, as I navigate among these memories I realize that what makes them so beautiful is the light in the sea of hope, the sea of dreams, where they float. I'll take that.

[Photo: Jellyfish at the Tennessee

Aquarium, Chattanooga, July 2009]

'rooted and reaching'

2009-06-21T10:18:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning fully aware that today is the summer solstice, so 'You Are My Sunshine' popped to mind, as well as, 'Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York.' Right now, in this newest home in this hot and sunny southern state, I am inordinately content to be surrounded by trees.

It is something of a heart-mystery for me, my love of trees. It has been with me since childhood when I learned to climb the chestnut tree on my grandfather's farm in Michigan. Is it the viewpoint or the shelter the branches and leaves provide that calls to me? As I find it, the key lies in that 'rooted and reaching' verse I used as the title. Perhaps it reminds me of the ancient and timeless stories of the 'world tree' prevalent in so many cultures. How ironic, then, that we have the legend of a man, bigger than life, who chops down the trees.

Here in this sampling of my photos of trees I hope to present, well, my way of looking at trees.

Petals Unfurled

2009-05-25T09:02:00.000-07:00

The flora in my neighborhood leave me tongue-tied, so I hope these pictures provide the essay my paralyzed wit cannot!
[From the top: Hydrangea; bumblebee among some white blooms; magnolia grandiflora; cascading white azaleas; potted impatiens]

2D or not 2D?

2009-04-21T11:59:00.000-07:00

It is my great joy to write this piece to honor the 445th anniversary of William Shakespeare's birth, 23 April, 1564.

Curiously, although I read "Julius Caesar" and "Macbeth" in high school (I was one of the three witches), I cannot say I truly discovered the wonder of Shakespeare's art until about eight years ago. For most who harbor aspirations of the writing life the 'canon' of Shakespeare's work - indeed, the man himself! - looms so frighteningly large that one is unquestionably intimidated and too, too many of us skirt round him altogether. He is a colossus in the tide of literature, yet his 'thees' and 'thous' and scrambled syntax trip our tongues and make us giggle in discomfort.

Hearing one of his plays or sonnets is quite confusing to the uninitiated ear. We suspect the players have extraordinary talent to make sense of and 'con' all those lines! Modern film productions of the plays do not always help, either. I do wish there were many DVDs available with subtitles to make this work more approachable although I do wonder what it says about us that people listened to these plays hundreds of years ago so eagerly that Will Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was commercially profitable?

As well, I wonder at the perspicacity of both Rafe Esquith and his youngsters, fifth graders at a public school in Los Angeles for many of whom English is a second language, who learn and perform one of the Bard's plays every year to international acclaim. Yes, they have tackled "Hamlet" and "Macbeth."

So, what broke through this wall of intimidation for me and prompted me to approach these works? Actually, the question should be "Who broke through ...?" A player, one Robert Lindsay, who has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and in various international productions (Captain Pellew in A&E's 'Hornblower' series for one.)

At my son's urging I checked out a VHS copy of a 1982 BBC/TimeLife production of "Much Ado About Nothing" starring Robert Lindsay, happily, as Benedick. Almost immediately, in the first scene, Mr. Lindsay's delivery of a single line tore down all my trepidation about approaching this literary canon. As his buddy Claudio questions him about his opinion of the young Hero, Benedick asks, "Would you buy her that you enquire after her?"

The abhorrence evident on his face and in his tone could have been attributed to a number of conditions surrounding sixteenth century courtship and marriage, but I saw it as revulsion at the very idea that a woman was considered chattel, tangible property to be bought and sold. The hint this gave of the mind behind the plays stopped me in my tracks. And so it began.

I am but an amateur, but even so I agree wholeheartedly with Robert Graves who said, "The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good..." Once, on a plane, a woman and I discussed literature and I shared my belief that William Shakespeare's work has endured because it deserves to endure. What is that cliche? He is "a proven performer." He always delivers. My experience enforces my opinion that a bad production of a Shakespeare play is still much better than many films today.

The essence of the power of William Shakespeare's work for me is summed up in a quote from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke: "The universe is wide. In us it is deep." My experience with these plays and sonnets (remember, I am a novice) is that at some point in every exposure to them I feel that something in the depths of myself has been touched, has been given breath, has risen. A portion of another William's work, William Butler Yeats' "The Circus Animals' Desertion," applies here I believe: "Heart-mysteries there ..."

Some mystery deeply hidden rises to life. Some mystery of life unfolds as yet others remain enfolded.

Perhaps this is the sort of experience that led the noted scholar Harold Bloom to assert that William Shakespeare is responsible, in drama, for the "invention of the human." These heroes, heroines, villains, and clowns are not cookie-cutter, paper-doll, masked characters. They are everything you are and everything I am at our highest and our lowest, our most comical and most tragic.

Though only Juliet speaks the question, " ... wherefore art thou ...", Will Shakespeare's art asks us time and time again, "Who are you? Why are you you?" Juliet knows the answer does not lie in those surface characteristics of name and physique. How two-dimensional! What is the mystery of you?

I think Juliet speaks this immensely important question because Shakespeare's model for her was the woman he loved, a woman shrouded in mystery whose presence in his life, it seems to me, constantly affirmed his courage to explore, if you will, 'Wherefore art thou Will?' This woman, this 'Dark Lady', he believed to be the embodiment of fairness, kindness, and truth - truth being beauty as Keats wrote.

Juliet asks her question from the height of her balcony. Court poets of the era often placed women above, out of reach, but Shakespeare, I believe, was sending a different message for does he not find a way for Romeo to climb to that same height? Does not Juliet later provide a rope ladder for her love? William Shakespeare depicted his love on the plane whereon he believed she lived, a higher plane of consciousness, and in Sonnet 105 he adjures us, "Let not my love be called idolatry." This is no idle show. No, indeed.

William Shakespeare chose time and time again, for more than half his mortal life, to be guided by his love, his Muse, whom he praises in Sonnet 105, lines 5 and 6: "Kind is my love today, tomorrow kind/Still constant in a wondrous excellence." His answer to this kindness, excellence, and constancy is in the remaining lines of that quatrain: "Therefore my verse, to constancy confin'd/One thing expressing, leaves out difference." Near the end of this sonnet he proclaims the "wondrous scope" this constancy affords.

In devotion to his Muse he dared to reach for a heightened consciousness. He dared to leap into those "Heart-mysteries there." Given the intrigue and turmoil of court life and the Reformation I do wonder if, perhaps, his creativity was his saving grace?

Recently as I read his Sonnet 137 which begins, "Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes," I began to realize that this sonnet is the Bard's assessment of his own reaction to characters modelled upon his love! If I may be so bold, I think he is telling us, "In things right/write-written true my heart and eyes have err'd/And to this false plague are they now transferr'd."

It helps me to know that performances of his writing made even Will himself stop and remember that the beauty up on the stage was a stage beauty, a painted boy if you will, because I am always knocked off my feet at some point by his work. With his players, his illusions and allusions, his dialogue, he gave us humanity and love.

So, since I am already on the ground, I think I will bow to the wisdom of William Butler Yeats:
"...Now that my ladder's gone
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart."

Top photo: Bas relief honoring William Shakespeare, the Candler Building, Atlanta, GA
Middle photo: Bud of a William Shakespeare 2000 rose from David Austen roses
Bottom photo: Shakespeare's 'globe' and books, gifts from my son

DVDs I recommend, for starters: "Slings and Arrows," Seasons 1-3; Al Pacino's "Looking for Richard," and his performance as Shylock in Michael Radford's production of "The Merchant of Venice," and, yes, Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet" because I suspect it captures the intensity of 16th century London even as it's set in 20th-21st century California.

chiaroscuro

2009-04-01T13:54:00.001-07:00

chiaroscuro [It., fro. chiaro clear, light + oscuro obscure, dark] 1: pictorial representation in terms of light and shade without regard to color 2: the arrangement or treatment of light and dark parts as a pictorial work of art

There I was, juggling rhymes and images for an existential sort of poem, smiling at the thought of those shoes with those words, when I decided to travel on downtown with my camera just for fun. I looked at the shoes inspiring the poem and said, to quote Kirsty MacColl, "Not in these shoes. I doubt you'd survive." So I laced up my Dr. Martens, packed the camera in my backpack, and headed for the train station.

My plan was simple and flexible: head back to the Calder Building then take the train to midtown, stop in at Utrecht's Art Supplies and walk on to the High Museum of Art, photographing whatever caught my eye along the way. From the moment I emerged from Peachtree Station and saw the Candler Building so close I had a feeling the day would be memorable. See, I am still rather new in town and it's only now that I have more time to devote to wandering and discovering the lay of the land.

On a hunch, in search of better light, I walked around the Candler where to my joyous surprise I discovered a bas relief honoring William Shakespeare. I figured that was likely to be the high point of the day and that was fine with me, but I saw through the viewfinder the bright white Flatiron Building and just beyond it, off to the left, a sign topping another building: Muse's. It appeared the Muse was inviting me to play so I, in my play shoes, quickly and happily obliged.

As I sought additional vantage points for shots of the Muse's building I happened across a game of chess in Woodruff Park, a game like one in "Alice in Wonderland." Walking away from the game back toward Muse's I realized the Flatiron was silhouetted against the brilliant black Equitable building. "Ah, so, the Muse seems to be showing me some sights in black-and-white," I thought, but I had no idea why nor what more to expect.

I trecked on and outside of Utrecht's I saw this whimsical white bicycle chained to a tree, a reminder to me of Michael Hoffman's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," wherein the hapless lovers Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, ride bicycles into the woods and Puck leads them astray.

By far the most arresting scene on my path, however, was the sight of a monumental figure of Anubis poised as if striding toward the High Museum himself. He looked to have been carved from the night, and my thoughts turned to Juliet's praise of Romeo (III.ii.23-27):
Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

Standing there on the chaotic city street I thought, too, of the revival of "West Side Story" scheduled for this year in New York.

My mind, a meandering river, turned ack to Anubis who had collected the fragments of the body of Osiris, binding and preparing them for burial, all as a prologue to Isis seeking her beloved Osiris in the Netherworld and conceiving her son, Horus, with him. This legend is particularly poignant, I think, because another legend has it that Isis was the foster-mother of Anubis. The love of this foster-son for Isis is as potent an image as those images of Isis suckling Horus, images of an ancient Egyptian madonna.

"Romeo and Juliet," a madonna, city streets - my thoughts swirled and lead me to remember a song, "Maria, Maria," a collaboration between Carlos Santana and Wyclef Jean.

Back home I marvelled at the fun I'd had following the Muse, but I wondered for quite some time, "Why me? Why black-and-white?" Imagine how I laughed when I finally realized that in yielding to the Muse's whisper, "Come on. Show me. Let me see what you would do," and drafting a poem featuring black-and-white shoes, the Muse decided to show me - in black-and-white- just what she would do!

Redux

2009-03-22T04:07:00.000-07:00

The other day I took the train down to Peachtree Station and, camera in hand, I wandered a bit. Since I first saw the Candler Building in January I'd been meaning to come back and take more pictures of it, but beyond that I thought I'd simply walk around and see what I could see. I wondered if the back of the Candler had relief work similar to that carved into the surface on the front. My hunch was correct and I stumbled across a happy surprise or two, one of which will be the topic of a future post.

When I stepped across the street for a better vantage point I saw some posters affixed to a boarded-up section of a small building. I stopped in my tracks when I read those posters. As I write this I remember a quote about synchronicity being a tap on the shoulder from the universe. This distinctly felt like such a tap.

So today, World Water Day, I offer this link and this one to point a spotlight on one battle in the 'water wars' .

Perhaps 100 yards away from the display of posters, in Woodruff Park, I happened across a game of chess. Now, this game was notable in that the pieces, the knights and bishops, the kings and queens, were rather large. A ring of men stood around the 'board' studying the possible moves. I took some photos of this tableau and wandered back to the Candler to see what I might have missed.

I snapped away happily when I happened to see what at first appeared to me to be an abstract, and rather large, chess knight made of brass. The irony of those World Water Day posters so close to the Fire Department Connection for the Candler, a juxtaposition that was surely intentional, made me chuckle. So, too, the connection's resemblance to a chess knight given the timeless geopolitical struggles to tap and maintain adequate water supplies.

Can You See Her?

2009-03-10T04:50:00.000-07:00

"Well-behaved women rarely make history."

That quote, one of my favorites, has been winding in and out of my thoughts quite often lately as I pondered my wish to address Womens History Month in this blog.

It's no secret by now that I love rivers, and I have come home from recent forays to the Chattahoochee to download some photos of the river that have stirred my soul. Neither is it a secret for those of you familiar with my "dreamseyeheard" blog that I love myth, but it was only with the notification of World Water Day (March 22, 2009) in an email from Ecologic that I saw a way to weave together all of these loves.

In "A Brief History of the Druids," (pps. 134-5), Peter Berresford Ellis writes, "A fascinating myth in respect of the supernatural quality of wells is told in the story of The Dagda and his consort Boann." The Dagda is the Father of the Gods and Boann is referred to elsewhere in the book as a goddess. Ellis continues, "In other versions of this story, The Dagda is replaced by Nechtan, who seems to be an early water god, for the name implies to 'wash' in sacred water, to be 'clean' , 'pure' or 'white' ... The Dagda or Nechtan had a well which was called the Well of Segais (also called Conlai's Well). Nine hazel trees of wisdom grew over the well and hazel nuts, described as rich crimson in colour, dropped into the well causing bubbles of mystic inspiration. Only The Dagda/Nechtan and his three cup-bearers were allowed to go to the well to draw water. But his young wife Boann disobeyed the taboo (geis). The waters rose up, pursued and drowned her. Their course formed the river named after her - the Boann or Boyne. "A similar tale is told of Sionan, daughter of the ocean god Lir's son Lodan. She went to the Well of Knowledge even though it was forbidden. The water rose from the well and chased her westward forming the great river which was named after her, Sionan (Shannon)."

I respond to these myths differently than Mr. Ellis. The truth in these myths shows me they are meant to impart more than exotic tales of wells with supernatural qualities. These wells were the places from which Knowledge and Wisdom, symbolized by the hazel trees and nuts, were drawn. Until Boann and Sionan broke with tradition, broke taboos, the authorities specified who could draw from these wells and under what conditions. These goddesses did not settle for that.

It is tempting to compare these myths with that of Eve sampling the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, but I feel the similarity is poignant because the consequences for everyone are radically different. Rather than expelling us from an idyllic garden, the Boyne and the Shannon have surely nourished untold flower gardens, herb gardens, and vegetable gardens through the ages.

Some are likely to quibble about the discouraging behavior of breaking taboos and traditions. Oh, really? Well, surely they can see that the myths say nothing at all about the 'supernatural' water subsiding back down into the wells!

I tend to think the goddesses and the waters likely rose up to correct an injustice. Ellis (p. 128-9) wrote, "The great rivers of northern Europe tend to still bear Celtic names, many associated with goddess figures ... the Danube ... takes its name from the goddess Danu. Here, we are in the land in which the Celts are recognized to have originated; the headwaters of the Danube, the Rhine and the Rhone. And here we find that the Upper Danube, with its tributaries and sub-tributaries is a region full of Celtic names, as is the valley of the upper Rhine and also the Rhone. The Seine takes its name from the Celtic goddess Sequana. In England the Severn takes its name from Sabrann ..."

Further, Ellis quotes John Arnott MacCulloch: "The mother-river was that which watered a whole region, just as in the Hindu sacred books the waters are mothers, sources of fertility ... the Celts regarded rivers as bestowers of life, health, and plenty, and offered them rich gifts and sacrifices." These rivers and their attendant myths were etched into the consciousness of the people just as the rivers had etched themselves into the landscape, into the physical geography. Life, health, and plenty dammed in wells and restricted to certain people performing certain rituals at certain times? No. The gestures Boann and Sionan made affirmed life. The traditions and taboos were gestures that restricted life.

Perhaps now, sadly, too many of us have become so familiar with water that we have become blind to that transcendent force in water. We desperately need to open our eyes to the truth about our rivers and that is why I am quite happy, given those Irish myths related at the beginning, at the synchronicity that World Water Day falls in this month celebrating the contributions and achievements of women in history.

So, what can this woman or any woman, well-behaved or not, or any man, do on an everyday basis to contribute to the restoration of water's transcendent force? First, I think, is to recall two inversely proportional bits of science. On the one hand the human body is mostly water; infants are composed of more water (90+%) than the elderly (70+%), but both percentages are very high. However, the percentage of all the water on the planet that is fresh, e.g. rivers, is only 2.5%. Two-and-one-half percent of the water on the planet is all that we can use to nourish ourselves, our watery selves, physically!

I would like to suggest that you take time to visit a river near you. Go. Visit. Take a picture so it will last longer. Visit, too, sites like Ecologic, waterkeeper.org, or rivernetwork.org, for information about rivers in your area and updates on the progress in reclaiming our rivers. The rivernetwork site is also affiliated with iGive so a percentage of your shopping done through that site benefits the rivernetwork.

One area in which every household, no matter its size, makes an impact upon rivers is that of household cleansers - laundry and dishwashing detergents, general cleaning products. Two sorts of chemicals, surfactants and phosphates, pose particular threats to the life of rivers. Surfactants clog the gills of fish and block their ability to extract oxygen from the water. Phosphates promote algae growth which, when imbalanced, blocks the sun and leeches oxygen away from other marine life. "The Green Home" column of the New York Times (02.26.09 HOME section) has a list of appropriate cleansers, but I have been most happy with products from the Method and good old baking soda!

I also highly recommend the use of a personal water bottle. Think of it as a 'signature' item if you want. As you can see mine is a SIGG. I love the blue and I really appreciate that the spout lets little, if any, water leak out all over the place should I happen to tip it. Of course, a personal water bottle reduces the number of plastic ones used, but it helps further to recycle whatever plastic bottles we do use. When recycled materials are used in manufacturing there is significantly less air and water pollution generated and significantly less water and energy used.

Eat less beef. Nearly 2,000 gallons of fresh water are used to produce one pound of beef. I know cheeseburgers are paradisiacal, but I admit I have become quite fond of turkey burgers with a bit of spinach and feta mixed in for a nice flavor. I have even had success - yes, success - feeding turkey chili on occasion to my meat-and-potatoes husband! While you're cooking up that meal that used less water, give yourself a pat on the back for that energy- and water- efficient washing machine and for the lovely landscaping you've done with plants native to your climate.

In the end, very simply, I write this because I do not want to lose our rivers. I do not want photos like these of the Chattahoochee to become anachronisms. While I do not even begin to class my painting (shown at top) with the work of Claude Monet, I do not want it or Monet's 'Water Lilies' to become anachronisms.

My heart would surely break if Stratford-upon-Avon became an anachronism.

'Stratford -upon- What is the Avon?'

A bibliography for this post:
Ellis, Peter Berresford. "A Brief History of the Druids". New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002

Van Straten, Michael. "Organic Living". London: Frances Lincoln Limited, 2001

Top Image: 'Ophelia', oil on canvas, 2006, Barbara Butler McCoy
River Photos: The Chattahoochee River near Island Ford, Jan. 2009, Barbara Butler McCoy

Soft and Quiet

2009-03-01T10:08:00.000-08:00

White-out! Fat, fluffy snow is settling over the capital of the Peach State with such luscious abandon, giving me a much longed-for taste of winter. I could take pictures from the back of my home and get the sort of scenes I saw as a child in the Midwest, but I love the contrast of southern, tropical fauna blanketed in snow.

[Snow covering the palm tree and a branch of the dogwood in my front courtyard, as well as the wonderful magnolia across the street. 03.01.09]

Whispering Wind

2009-02-01T16:45:00.000-08:00

You never know what you will find when you just go along for the ride. When I head out with no particular agenda or destination in mind, simply focused on taking things as I find them, the 'sight-seeing' is usually unforgettable. This tree and this bird were two of the unforgettable moments captured during a recent stroll along a portion of the Chattahoochee River.

The day was gray and chilly, rather gothic, so naturally the gnarly tree was an interesting piece. The mistletoe knotted up in its barren branches whispered of Druid rites and 'big medicine'. (The Cherokee were driven from Georgia in the 19th century, "Trail of Tears".) The bird was reluctant to be seen as long as my husband was near, but once he moved along the trail the bird sat for me, not in any way that I could capture any identifying marks, but still, it sat.

I was enchanted by these images and considering how best to show them when I heard these Led Zeppelin lyrics: "There's a tree by the brook/With a songbird who sings/Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven." ('Stairway to Heaven')

Don't I know it! For any of us there is no shortage of critical nay-sayers in our lives. Be they parent, lover, friend, boss, colleague, child, whomever, they seem to think that they must save you from yourself. They remind you of all the 'shouldn'ts', 'can'ts', 'don'ts', that come so easily to the tongue until finally, sadly, you take up the refrain inside yourself. Then they pat themselves on the back for an intervention well executed and anarchy averted.

They sit around your table and declaim the way things ought to be while their eyes "fix you in a formulated phrase/And when (you are) formulated, sprawling on a pin,/When (you are) pinned and wriggling on the wall" you might protest, but only for a moment because they hit right back with the assertion that "you don't know what you're talking about". You are naive. The world doesn't work that way. It's a jungle.

Personally, I am out on a limb with that songbird.

Those formulations are mis-given and sometimes the truth "lies on the whisperin' wind". If you listen very hard you may catch the whisper of truth from a Voice who sees beyond, beneath, before, behind and above this world and those formulations. You may catch the whisper of the Voice of a Botticelli Madonna, I sometimes imagine, so gentle and sweet yet strong and irreproachable. If you listen very hard you may catch the whisper of the Voice urging, "Come on. Show me. Let me see what you would do."

I hope you do.

Honest

2009-01-23T09:35:00.000-08:00

I am an avid journaler, have been for a number of years after reading Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way". Before I started writing in journals I would sometimes sit writing installments in a long letter to my best friend and I noticed that every time I let myself loose in the stream of my thoughts answers and inspiration for use elsewhere would present themselves. So, when I read about 'morning pages' in "The Artist's Way" I figured such a journal would be the way to capture all those gems on a daily basis.

My best friend still receives letters from me, and I from her - her husband says he really admires the way we persist with our epistles in these days of email - but my journal has become an ocean of consciousness, no mere stream! These notebooks, I often think to myself, would be a psychiatrist's wet dream. When the trickle of inspiration became a river I decided I had better find a way to set up a catalog or index so that nothing would fall through the cracks. There is nearly always lag time between the moment inspiration strikes and the moment I formally begin a project, with periods of illumination of details sandwiched between those moments.

To catch all these moments of inspiration and illumination I have begun to cull through the pages and note entries on my desk calendar. This exercise is usually how I occupy myself on road trips to Virginia with my husband or in other oddments of time.

Yesterday I came across an entry which illustrated dramatically the service art provides in my life as I pursue my creativity. The entry is dated September 7, 2008, only one week after I had launched my first blog, with the first post inspired in part by William Butler Yeats' poem "The Circus Animals' Desertion". Here is an excerpt from that entry:
" ... I hate it when I get testy ... As I wrote that ... I realized that perhaps the way to counter this feeling is to just keep returning to that warehouse in Melissa's dream.
"I must admit that the landscape of that dream is where I feel comfortable. You know, it feels honest. Is that strange? I don't mean it to be, but there, there among the discarded things, the broken things, "the sweepings of a street", for me in this time it is one of the few places that feel honest to me!"

Even now, over four months later, when I consider those words I know I hit the mark. There is no pretense in an abandoned place, a forgotten place, filled with abandoned, forgotten things and people if such places are occupied at all. There is no pretense about piles of refuse and decaying structures. Stripped of pretense and lacking artifice such places hold for me "heart mysteries there".

Now here I must note a paradox: I arrived at these heart mysteries in this forgotten place stripped of artifice - through artifice. With ingenuity, inventiveness, I found sanctuary.

Artifice practiced as creativity leads to what is honest, and what is honest is all we need to change the world.

Exploration

2009-01-20T14:51:00.000-08:00

There is me in my own little world - my newest home, my husband and family, my creative life - and there is me in the wider world, in this case the city of Atlanta. During every stage of my life I have enjoyed access to major metropolitan centers: Columbus, OH; Washington, DC; Milwaukee, WI; Orlando, FL; Norfolk, VA; Seattle, WA; Raleigh, NC. There is something so energizing and affirming about venturing out of my nest, out of my comfort zone, and wandering around among others to enjoy the stimuli of a city. There are discoveries out there, and treasures, and memories and they add zest and joy and laughter to my comfortable nest when I return.

On Sunday I explored a tiny section of Atlanta with a little point-and-shoot Canon, just to see what I could see. What diversity! Outside Hartsfield-Jackson Airport I encountered a massive sculpture of a penguin who looked to have been assembled from quite a jumble of scrap metal. He seemed also to have left some of his baggage on the sidewalk. Maybe, being made of discarded signs and license plates, the penguin decided that bag was too, too heavy!

In Centennial Olympic Park, against the backdrop of a building emblazoned with the sign EQUITABLE I saw the flags of Sweden, Great Britain, and our fair United States fluttering in the January chill. An equitable display indeed, I thought. Further along the city streets I found beautiful relief carvings decorating the entryway to the Candler Building (built by Asa Candler, founder of the Coca-Cola empire and a former mayor of the city) which is over one-hundred years old. It is quite beautiful and I plan to return and take the tour to learn more. Not far from the Candler I found the Flatiron Building, another spot to which I will return. This Flatiron Building predates the more famous structure in New York city by five years.

One of the last gems I happened across in my trek was this stunning steel sculpture outside the SunTrust building on Peachtree St. near the Hyatt Regency. I love the fluid, protean effect achieved with steel.

This feels like a lovely beginning to my sojourn here in the capital city of the Peach State. I am eager to head out again with a more sophisticated camera, in different light, and find more gems to share with you. Enjoy!

Beauty Everywhere and Always

2009-01-11T08:01:00.000-08:00

Out in the wilds of the mall yesterday - kiosks, food courts and escalators, oh my! - I happened upon a question which I think I had been seeking for some time. Some photos of the Savannah River near Augusta have been tugging at my mind practically begging to be posted on the blog, but I wanted context. I wanted some reason to talk about my love of rivers. I suppose I could have just said simply, "I love rivers," but so what? Why should anyone care that one of my favorite forms of meditation when I lived in Virginia (and before I had a digital camera) was to pull off of the Colonial Parkway and nestle in among exposed roots of trees lining the bank of the James?

This was also before I had thought about trying to draw, so I would sit with a book or my journal and just BE with the river. To sit there, alone, felt like a massage for my mind and for my heart. Nature always does this for me, but a river does it best. So yesterday when I stood in a stationery shop and chanced upon the question, "How will you bring beauty to the world today?", I knew I'd found the context by which to bring a river to you.

Rivers, beautiful, beautiful rivers - beautiful beyond description - etch canyons out of massive rocks; carry mountains to the sea; roar over falls and toss up rainbows; sustain crocodiles and cranes. Long before their energy was harnessed to power anything, let alone our computers and microwaves, rivers were enshrined in myths as the guiding force in the psyche of many cultures. The power of rivers to smooth out the rough places in the psyche, to bring serenity, much as they polish branches and stones is a power to be lauded indeed.

I submit, however, that the power of the river to be celebrated as supreme is its power to be Beauty everywhere and always. Beauty and life for one and all, salmon and Siddhartha alike. Always.

[The top photo was taken from a bridge linking the Riverbanks Zoo (Columbia, S.C.) along the Saluda River with its gardens. I would give this shot the title 'A Series of Tubes'. The second photo is from a walk along the Augusta Canal.]

Wings for a New Year

2009-01-01T11:37:00.000-08:00

The year is a mere twelve hours old and I sit here in a stream of sunshine from the french doors wondering lazily what might be ahead for me in 2009. Oh, I can read the papers, watch the news, check the internet to see what predictions there are for the world-at-large. As for myself I take things day by day, which is why I say I am only wondering lazily about the year newly born.

As a confession let me say that I worked for years to teach myself to live my life day by day, to take things in the moment. I cannot recall what motivated me to "be here now" as the saying has been written, but the longer I persisted at bringing my mind back to the business at hand the more my life began to feel rooted and fruitful.

When I pay attention to discern what the moment asks of me I notice that very often this 'Dreaming Universe' (as "Melissa" has dubbed it) showers me with all sorts of lovely surprises - dewdrops on roses, a bubble to follow down the street, stunningly sweet words from one stranger, a brilliant smile from another, lovely encounters with animals.

One breathtaking aspect in attending to the moment, for me, is the realization that every day I am called to attend to my dreams. Yes, sometimes the dreams are the kind that come to me in my sleep, but always, always, they are the dreams of my heart.

I follow them down city streets like I followed that bubble down the sidewalk (see my post "small things" dated October 25, 2008). I follow them on the highway; I follow them on the train. I follow them at the beach; I follow them in the woods. In this following I have begun to experience the wisdom of which Rainer Maria Rilke spoke: "The universe is wide, but in us it is deep." This following has brought me to the perimeter of a landscape filled with the promise of hope and healing.

In this following I have learned to let myself soar on the wings of dreams. So with apologies to William Shakespeare, whose work I adore, I will "take up arms" ("Hamlet") bearing wings and take flight to survey this land my dreaming has configured.

"When my heart finds Christmas"

2008-12-22T12:27:00.000-08:00

When my heart registers that Christmastime is in fact approaching I feel inside such release. Ah! At last, the time to spoil the ones I love the way I want and they cannot chide me or avoid me. All the items I have hidden away for months are wrapped and beribboned and presented with a grin.

It is such a treat for me to find something that suits a friend or family member - and surprises them as a bonus! I simply want them to see that I have paid attention to them and thought about them all year, whether we were together or not. I simply want them to see that they make my days sparkle whether it is January, June or December. This year, having begun to blog, I also hold in my heart people around the world - Canada, France, Belgium - and around the country.

This feeling recognizes no borders.

It is a sweet, sweet thought to know so many hearts will focus on the light of love in the world during this season. The miracle is ours. Let's take it and spread it - every day.

Blessings of peace and joy to all of you.

To Dream

2008-11-22T17:36:00.000-08:00

"To die, to sleep - no more - and by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep - to sleep - perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.
"Hamlet Prince of Denmark", Act III Sc. i
William Shakespeare

Must give us pause.

Pause I have done often of late as a confluence of events have brought to mind and heart memories of dear ones who have shuffled off their mortal coil. First, the celebration of Dia de los Muertes when, among other observances, I set a place for them at my table. So many meals I shared with them: delicious food and drink and wit whose taste is a loving feast for my mind and heart. Thanksgiving Day is nearly upon us and I cannot help but think of them with a bit of sorrow, but moreso with a great feeling of gratitude that they lived, that they chose to be and that we were blessed to be together. I have also been unpacking belongings in my new home, discovering anew the gifts and memories they bestowed.

Some passed on after long lives with all the attendant achievements and respect 'of so long life', yet it was still a natural shock to have them go. Many of these dear ones were taken so suddenly, so unexpectedly about ten or eleven years ago that I still reel, especially at times like these. In the early days after their passings I found it hard to 'bear the whips and scorns of time' taking them before any of us felt they should go.

Slowly, slowly, in bits and pieces Prince Hamlet's existential soliloquy seeped into my thoughts: 'To die, to sleep - to sleep - perchance to dream'. "They did not have to die to dream," I began to argue in my mind. "Nobody has to die - to sleep - to dream!" I don't know whether it was my inherent insistence upon using my own mind or the heartfelt encouragement of all those dear ones who have gone before me, but that argument took root in my heart and sent up its shoots. I listened.

I listen still. I follow that assertion: ""Nobody has to die - to sleep - to dream." That hidden root has blossomed into a surety that following one's dreams is the route to take To Be.

"Be yourself, it's all that you can do." (Chris Cornell)

Ancestral Spirits

2008-11-02T12:00:00.000-08:00

When I saw the icons for Bloglandia, Dia de los Muertes, I knew I had to add my little something. As a little girl I remember climbing the stairs in my grandparents' farmhouse, against my grandmother's wishes, and just sitting in the attic among the memories . The windows were that old imperfect glass with bubbles and ripples, and I loved sitting there among the dust-bunnies, wondering about the people who came before me. Since I became a mother I would look at my sons and think about the memories their lives would make for someone someday. I am heartened, and humbled, when I think of the people who link me to the past and to the future, the ancestral spirits and the children. Slainte.

small things

2008-10-25T05:49:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking lately of small things - not petty, mean things, but things of no great matter. These things are not burdened by, nor do they burden anyone with, a great weight. They are light and quick, soft and swift. Catch them if you can.

This contemplation of small things arose after I saw a stunning photo of an Easter lily. Personally I prefer day lilies, but this close-up shot made me wish my world could fit in the bowl of that blossom. In my own forays into photography I have experienced the quiet thrill of capturing a hummingbird perched on the stem of a hosta's bloom, and tracking a busy, pollen-laden bumblebee from bloom to bloom.

Perhaps the sweetest 'little' surprise and pleasure in my world was a moment I could only enjoy, not capture (yet) in any photograph. It will remain ephemeral. On our way to a restaurant in Madison after a busy day in Atlanta my husband spied an errant bubble floating past us down the sidewalk. A toy store on one corner of the street has a bubble-making machine mounted outside and one of those iridescent spheres became our guide for a few yards.

I watched it float and bob along on the air currents I could not feel. I held my breath when it approached some potential hazard. I wanted it to float for as long as possible. It did, and evaporated in a blink without meeting any obstacles along its path.

More and more I will look for the small things, the light things to show me the way - the whisper in the crowded room, the moonlight sparkling on the dew before dawn, the bumblebee wallowing in a blossom, the little girl wearing ruby slippers to the grocery store.

Is this what Blake meant by seeing the world in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour? Maybe so. All I know is that when I contemplate these little bits of life I feel, inside, connected to the world.

This is no small matter.

'Scuse me while I touch the sky

2008-10-12T16:23:00.000-07:00

This isn't the usual sort of post I thought I'd want to write, but I don't think the photos would make as much sense without this. Oh, they look fine on their own, but before I move on from Augusta I want to share why my heart wanted to shoot these particular signs.

I don't talk about it much, if at all, but at the beginning and for a very long time life for me here in Augusta was not pretty. It was pretty painful. Moving is nothing new to me, but my experience here was unprecedented. Despite all the times (12) I had moved and thrived Augusta has been the place that shut itself off from me for a long while, as if it did not want me to feel at home here. Somehow, somehow, even the familiar things like Target and Lowe's and Barnes and Noble felt alien and closed to me.

I mean, come on! Those places are familiarity personified. Except they weren't.

Time after time I felt that even though I was trying my best to pay attention and watch what I was doing, I still managed to find that one imperceptible metaphorical crack in the sidewalk and trip over it to fall smack on my butt.

More than once I wondered why I should even presume to want to make a home here. The place was rather intent on reminding me I was 'alien'. Sometimes a tiny part of me would question if this was a not so subtle nudge from the universe, perhaps, to put aside those 'alien' ways.

After a number of 'trips' when I'd lie sprawling on the sidewalk, the wind knocked out of me, I finally got the idea that maybe the universe was acting like that boy in middle school who used to bean me over the head with his spelling book. My parents told me it was because he liked me, to which I said, 'Yeah, right.' I thought I might revisit this concept in light of my circumstances so I picked myself up from the sidewalk and went off to think.

If this was not a nudge from the universe to change my ways, what was it? If this was like the tactics of a middle-schooler with a slight crush, why take action in a place that felt so alien?

Here's the thing about being a stranger in a strange land: I always have myself. I came to see my time here as a license to really just dig in and get to know myself. This was my chance to really look at myself as Barbara in relationship to Barbara, no one else - not my spouse, my children, family, friends, co-workers. Barbara. Just Barbara.

So, I guess I must say that after the stumbling and the tumbling, the pain and the tears in the middle of so many nights, I made it to the heart of the matter.

It feels so good to make that 'victory leap' and touch a piece of the sky. Now, as I finish this post, I find myself thinking that maybe the universe was just letting me know it was glad it finally found someone to play with here. Maybe it was just glad to get someone's attention.

Possibilities

2008-10-07T13:39:00.000-07:00

Before the month is out I will be moving on to the big city, Atlanta to be precise, starting another phase of life. An ending is implied with all beginnings, I think, so this seems like a good moment to take stock and share a few images of Augusta that I will treasure. Oddly enough many of the images for this post are of vacant buildings, but I look at them and wonder what stories were lived within them and what stories might still come to life within their walls.

This vacant restaurant looks so much like an Irish pub to me. The day I shot these pictures wasamazingly bright and hot and imagining the taste of a cool pint of Guinness in its shady interior was rather mouthwatering!

I'll post some other shots of Augusta soon. Enjoy!

BLUES

2008-09-28T14:01:00.000-07:00

After I saw the brilliant sky in Brian C.'s post on Sept. 25 I went in search of blues.

For one thing I found a DVD of Carlos Santana playing blues live at Montreux in 2004, a pleasant find I am still savoring. It is rather interesting I think that a girl like me, born and raised in the midwest, could be so stirred by music identified with the southern delta.

I remembered these photos taken nearly three years ago along the Augusta canal with a little Canon PowerShot A510. One of the shots provided the model for a somewhat abstract painting, but all of them nourish my affection for BLUE.

They also nourish my affection for water. Since I left home in Central Ohio I have lived in places where I could visit the water at whim - Lake Michigan, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Puget Sound, the James and the Savannah Rivers.

So often, when I lived in Williamsburg, VA, I would pack up my books and notes and a sack lunch, head for the Colonial Parkway, and sit by the James River to 'work.' Something about the H2O just makes the creativity flow, you know - like it did for Churchill in the bath and for many of us creative types in the shower!

That's the best part - when the Creative strikes out of the blue and the ideas flow like a sweet, slow river.