whistling rose

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Brown Palace Hotel

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This is a glass ceiling in the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, Colorado.
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parallel universe

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Cedar Falls trail

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until they are named

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Do you have a magical door?
A door that invites exploration in unknown lands?
Where there might be demons...
or angels..
and you won't know which they are until you encounter them?

They await.
They don't know which to be
until they encounter you.
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always wondering

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We live in interesting times. The public dialogue regarding torture is compelling. One justification is that torture of suspected terrorists has kept us safe. Safe? Safe from attack? Even if it were so, and that is quite doubtful, it would not keep us safe from falling off the moral high road. Do those who proclaim Christianity understand that?

The older I get, the more I read and understand, and often not understand, the more I wonder just what we are as human beings, and if we are anything more than just a swarm of one kind or another. Would that be so bad if that were the case? Isn't it a bit arrogant to think that our collective lives are the bright point in the universe?
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welcome home

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My friend is home from the hospital. Thank God, thank the Goddess, thank the stars, the sun, the dandelions; my friend survived and is home. Yes, I was worried. We have shared our lives over coffee for many many years. We have been ears for each other, listening to each other's stories of pride and pain. We put our problems out on the table, dissect them, then put them back together again, and return home with our hearts newly strengthened. Welcome home, Jo, my beloved friend.
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orange and friends

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theme and variation

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Is it possible to read Tolkien's "Ring Trilogy" too many times? Or watch the movie? Nope. Not in this house. But tonight was better than that. The original Star Wars was also on television, so I watched the bomb drop into the death star, and I watched the ring drop into the fire. Two evil dominions crippled or destroyed. If only it were that simple.
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dancing colors

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both cataracts are out
the patch is off
and the colors I thought were true
weren't

will that happen again
when we shed our bodies
and perceive the world
we thought was real?

that's the thing
we don't know
we wish, and hope, and believe
and yearn
but we don't actually know

maybe when that time comes
we'll know nothing at all
or maybe we'll become the colors
that we yearn to observe
dancing colors
spreading throughout the universe
not remembering
the small bit of dust we now claim as our true self
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targets

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I saw the oncologist today. He graduated me from three month visits to six month visits. Nice! As we talked, he said my target was five years, and I've been healthy for three. I told him my own target was fifty years…
And tomorrow I get the second cataract out. Can you imagine how many visits it would take if we were spiders? Or maybe the spider doc would just do half the eyes at a time.
As grateful as I am for medical technology that improves my lifespan and quality, I'm nevertheless hoping I never have to walk into a hospital again. After tomorrow, that is.
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I see, sort of...

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Wondering again.....
Is the visible spectrum called that only because that's what's visible to us as humans?
Some insects see beyond the visible spectrum. I wonder if someday, with the help of engineers, there might be aids to help us actually see, with our eyes, wavelengths not visible to us now. I can imagine a lot of things, but my brain cannot imagine colors other than the ones I now see.
Colorblindness. Who do I know who is color blind? Is this a brain malfunction, or an eye malfunction?
Fascinating. I wonder if someday we'll be able to see what we cannot see now.
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Kimono as Art

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We viewed a stunning exhibit, "Kimono as Art" in Canton, Ohio. I knew little about it, but I hadn't seen my friend in quite some time, and that was enough reason to go. Four of us walked in, three of us absorbed the information first. I chose to simply walk into the exhibit and experience the art. Usually that works best for me; this time it didn't. Maybe. The kimonos were magnificent. You had to stand back and absorb the overall beauty of the finished piece, then walk in closer and appreciate the detail. Stand back, walk forward, several times before each piece. Thirty kimonos, hung side by side, lined up along three walls of a long exhibition room.

What I didn't realize until I saw the video was…the kimonos, lined up, created a panorama that could only be fully appreciated by seeing all of them together. My friend, following the suggestion of seeing the video first, knew what to expect. She walked into the exhibition hall, stopped, and wept. It was that beautiful.

A couple of the kimonos had a design element that seemed off to me, but once I saw them as what they really were - segments of a magnificent panorama spanning three walls of the room, I understood the reason for that design element. Maybe we're like that. Maybe? We can be stand alone pieces of art, or we can look beyond our individuality and see the panorama of "one."
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too much wondering, perhaps

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All the millions of years that passed before I was born…
Did my spirit not exist yet?
Or am I wearing the mantle of forgetfulness?
I was taught that I would live forever in heaven, so I would contemplate eternity in one direction, but it seems to me if eternal life is real, we should be able to perceive eternity in both directions.
Or maybe it's all directions.
I wonder how many directions that might be…
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the grand adventure

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Maybe I don't believe in death.
Maybe death is just a doorway
with a curtain across it.
I don't think the universe
has a trash heap.
So nothing ever disappears.
Things just change.

Wouldn't it be boring
if we existed for eternity
but never changed?

Even heaven would be a drag.

One day my ashes will be absorbed by the earth.
Maybe, someday,
They'll nourish a tree.
Or, after the sun novas
maybe they'll be flung out into space
waiting for a chance to help form
another star,
then maybe another planet.
Maybe trees will evolve on that planet.

I wonder if even now
the ashes of an extinct race
have helped to nourish my own life.

Isn't life/change the grandest adventure?
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a glass full of tears

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Tonight I raise my glass to my gay friends. Their journey isn't easy, and it certainly isn't finished.
However,
Iowa. Who would have thought Iowa!
Vermont. The legislature overturned their governor's veto and now they can marry there, too.
Progress. But it's progress I celebrate with tears. My friends have endured so much pain, and it's not finished yet.
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the significance of insignificance

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What an incredible adventure it is to be a sentient being.

Someone I love told me she feels so insignificant. We're all insignificant was my response, though I could have come up with a better one, in retrospect.

But I had been thinking about the insignificance of individuals in the herd, the flock, the gaggle, what have you. When I think of species becoming extinct, it's not about individual members of that species dying, exactly. All individuals die.

Let me back up a bit. Much earlier in my life, when subjected to mental or emotional pain, I'd go sit on the moon and observe the earth, trying to find my own footprints. From that seat, my experience was insignificant on the planetary scale, thus easier to bear. That was only a temporary fix, of course. I'd have to go back and slog it out, fixing or fighting or apologizing, whatever that particular experience required.

So I learned I'm not the center of any group, and in fact, am as insignificant as my toenail clippings are to the continuation of my body.

But that's not the whole story. I am a sentient being (usually...) and take great pleasure in pondering things that can't be understood with the configuration of brain cells currently residing in my headbone. I'll just have to let it go at that. Have a good day, y'all, and don't take yourself too seriously, but take yourself very seriously. Both.
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go forth and multiply

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dandelion elders
cutting apron strings
encouraging their offspring
to fly
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go with the flow

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Apparently it isn't necessary to understand life. We just have to go with the flow, even when the flow has almost stopped. Talking with mom today, she told me she thinks she's lived too long. There was frustration and sadness in her voice. Today she is so tired of the serious limitations imposed on her body. She hopes I understand. I do. One day she'll leave, and even now she yearns for it. Different traditions have the family "keeping watch" after their loved one has died, and hospice workers have told me of the great honor of being trusted to attend someone's dying. But I'm called to witness even now, as mom struggles with whatever portion of life is still hers to live out.
love
witness
compassion
dignity
when appropriate, humor
May she have an overflowing abundance as she contemplates and struggles through this last mountain she has been ordained to climb.
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wow

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The eye patch is off, and I've stepped into a more colorful and sparkly world. Wow. Because cataracts develop slowly, I never noticed when white morphed into cream. But it did. With my photos, I always had to work with the white correction function to get what I wanted. Was it my camera? No. It was my eyes. Now, with one eye "fixed", I walk around looking at things anew, first with one eye, then the other. In two weeks I get the other cataract removed, and I'll leave the dingy world I've been living in.

I wonder.
Is there an equivalent in our hearts?
Maybe we could find and remove the cataracts surrounding our hearts.
What would we then look like to each other?
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arrrrrr matey

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I had cataract surgery today, and since I had an eye patch, it made sense to go to Long John Silver's for lunch afterwards. They gave us an eye patch discount! The anesthesia, sodium pentothal, was given only so I wouldn't feel the shot in my eye. I was back awake before even getting into surgery. The nurse said I wouldn't remember the surgery. Well. That's a challenge if I ever heard one, being someone intensely interested in the fine points of consciousness.
I do remember the surgery.
I also remember my incessant chatter…
:-/

The patch comes off tomorrow. It's so nice to have a surgery to look forward to for a change. It was every bit as easy as my friends have said it would be.
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We've #2

This is another fiber wall piece (art quilt?), 37"x37", created from scraps from my workroom "floor". Prom dress hems, bridesmaid hems, pants hems, pieces from stage dresses, bits and pieces from clothes I've made for myself. In fact, there's fabric used to create make believe chain mail helmets for a bunch of singers! I love putting sequins, denim, madras plaids and seersucker fabrics together. It's like putting people of different cultures together. It works.