How This is Done

It's been so long, I've forgotten how to make a post here. Three years about. I'll put up a picture of the coptic blank journals I made for a while, that 'while' I was not writing, not drawing.

The colorful covers are from hand marbled silk I created in the very early 90's, when I was marbling, when I was a member of the world marbler's guild. Or maybe it was the late 80's? For the journals, I also made prints on hand made Tibetan Lokta paper with a wonderful natural permanent printing ink from Wales - Caligo safe wash relief inks, by Cranfeld. I absolutely love carving out the designs for the prints.

The dragon with the rose is one of my drawings I created for use as a label for the powdered incense I made (called "Red Dragon") and packaged in small round tins and sold for awhile during the era of shops filled with crystals and herbs. The dragon is printed on elephant dung paper

I'm not making the coptic books now. It's quite hard on the wrists. They make wonderful gifts and I now have many blank art journals with pages of lovely heavy duty hemp paper to draw and write on when I am able to do so. That's what inspired the making of the coptic blank journals - I couldn't afford the commercial bound art journals. The journals using lighter weight pages are made from paper made from sugarcane. The books are bound with hemp twine.

Charlie Gillett's Sound of the World forum is no longer accessible. It's been 10 years since he died - 17 March 2010. For nearly 2 decades he, the music he loved and shared with the world, inspired me, this blog - even influenced my travels and created deep friendships.  It was in the discovery of the absence of the forum, this decade, that I looked for my blog after a long while, years even, of not looking at it to see if this blog still existed. It does. Somewhat.

It's time to find and fill my ink pens again and quit worrying that I don't (or perhaps, didn't) add color to my ink drawings. As for writing a poem, they have very little to do with time or one's relationship with time in other than cadence.

Rufous

One of a charm of Rufous Hummingbirds, blownup and blurry




.......

January

January arrives portrayed by a two headed god. A new year begins and an old one ends on a calendar which follows the sun and forgets the moon. The computer faithfully registers the change by immediately eliminating the numeral two and replacing it with a three. Nature is indifferent.

More reflective of nature is the garden. It is encircled by trees and the ground beneath them grows wild and untamed. Leaves lie where they land sheltering wild flower seeds and bugs. The birds pick through them. The cat watches the birds. The dog chases the cat. The birds fly away. They will come back. 

Somewhere between nature and calendar, one small corner of the garden sits outright in the sun and is cultivated. It flooded unto desolation in December. As the water receded, wind bared the carefully tended plot into gnarly swirls of mud soaked straw. January topped it with ice. It will need a kind hand to be beautiful again. 

Other than the usual winter disarray, the garden left wild is undisturbed.

.......

On the Eve of Day

A storm's coming

and it's useless

to escape while the whole world spins.

It caught me running

threw me weightless

into the madness of its torrid winds.

.......

Without A Word

time left my side
took with it my day
gave it to another
when I looked away







.

Orb Weaver

in the warmth of the sun...
her silks unbound
 each thread spun 

from yesterday's words
to catch them twisting

round and round

to catch them flying

down and down

to catch them lying

...she waits

....

Blooming Colors

Oops. Lost the text. The photo of the flowers from my garden 
remained. Almost lost the blog. Technical difficulties. 
Timely though for I have but one or two more poems and drawings 
that belong in this picture book and then Judy Sevens
will be concluded. After that, I will either continue here 
or provide a link to my new URL.

......................................................................................................................................

Today, June 1st, I found the lost text that belongs with the photo of flowers:

Today's news from Space Weather - there is a new sunspot 'hurling plumes of plasma off the stellar surface'

The past few months have seen a succession of rainy days. Then the sun comes out and like everyone else I drop everything and go outside because each sunny day might be the last for weeks. Pictures, I'd rather take them than draw them. Writing, I'd rather be outside barefoot and barehanded. 

The climbing rose has gone crazy with blooming.  As soon as the sun warms the garden, we are outside gathering roses. I dug out my old stovetop hyddro-still. The baffles and gaskets are still intact and Libbs and I made rosewater. The first gurgle of hydrosol out the copper spigot spills the scent of roses throughout the kitchen and we make plans to distill the lemon verbena and rose geranium. They too are lush this year. But for now, it's all roses. I've ground up dried petals in the spice mill. Luckily the spices last ground they were those used in perfumery as well as for cooking. The resultant scented powder smells like exotic incense. I'm making Gulkand, a rose preserve by layering fresh rose petals and sugar in a glass jar then sealing it tightly. The climbing rose continues to bloom.

...............

That was last week. For three days now we've been back to the skies of gloom. The syrupy coating on the rose petals has re-crystalized into a cold, hardened lump. To make Gulkand, one must set the jar in the sun every day for weeks, so much for that. I saw not a single bee today. When bees are deprived of ultraviolet light, they remain in their hive, are no longer attracted to flowers, stop gathering pollen - much as people behave who are deprived of the sun. Lethargy. Depressed. Sulking? Still, the ever present greyness Marley and I walked out into this morning gave up to color amidst the varying greens of ferns, sorrel, and grass. Roygbiv is well represented out in the garden, sun or no sun. It didn't take long to gather up a bouquet.

Inside the house and without the dominant green surrounding each, the colors are overwhelming and their brightness suggests artificial pigment, impossibly unnatural or supernatural? The intensity produces something akin to visceral anxiety and the subdued lighting of the above photo provides relief by making the blooms appear more real, or I should say - natural. What or why this should be, I've no idea. And this is just by viewing the spectrum the human eye can see, generally speaking of course.  Somewhere amongst the flowers are the Forbidden Colors - the green that is red, the yellow that is blue - and the bee's ultraviolet and probable other spectrums. If we could see into the spectrums not visible, would the colors be even more overwhelming, nearly blinding, or would they merge with those which were heretofore  visible and present us with an altogether different hue?

In light of the colors blooming and the generally unseen, this is how this morning's world media news reads to me - gloom plus doom. I think I'll stick to the news of the sky to begin my day until the sun comes out again. 

The indigo eye opens to the spectacle before it. 

The true voice which is blue hides

in the shadows of many trees,

a small blue lily 

that shrinks from the sun.

The verdant field with its creatures of song 

pines for song's return

from its last fearless course

into the face of wonder.

Below the field a river like all rivers

empties into the sea,

upon its back the reflection

of eagle's yellow eye as it circles

high above this hollow earth.

and the bright orange poppy

that colors the field with its silken petals

has pulled into a knot

unopened by the sun.

At the beginning is the red dragon. 

When the wondrous poppy was called upon 

to heal the increasing pain

dragon fell sleeping 

within its orange petals.

The indigo eye sighs 

gazes upward

and waits

deep into the purple night.

Voice In Song

In this moment that I know of

songs are sung

in every language spoken

and those long gone.

In this moment that I hear of

voices stilled.

No more would we be hearing

the songs they sang.

In this moment that I sit in

I don't sing.

I listen for the echoes 

of songs once sung.

In this moment that I hope for

songs are sung

by all the voices with us
for those now gone.
...

Mohini Dancing

From behind the ring of fire
made when the moon
covers the sun,
she's danced out of hiding
to earth attuned
her veil undone.

Wearing earth on her body
clay on her face
mud in her hair,
shells dangle from flowers
twined round her waist,
her feet are bare.

She moves her hips
her right arm twirls
the sun's ring round
her wrist aloft,
making scent and sound
of stars a crossed
this tambourine earth.

...

Binky, Boo, And Beetle Too

Binky and Boo were related somehow. Beetle was too. Everyone knew that.

They did not live in the same house. Binky's house was in the east. Boo's house was in the south. Beetle's house was as far west as a house could be without falling into that ocean.

They did not look the same. Binky's hair was straight. Boo's hair was curly. Beetle's hair had hardly grown in.

They did not like the same food. Binky spit out anything red. Boo would eat nothing green. Beetle put everything he found in his mouth.

But they all shared one same thing, Grandma's smile. When Binky, or Boo, or Beetle smiled, everyone would say, "There's that smile, Grandma's smile."

Binky, Boo, and Beetle did not see each other every day. On certain days they would go to Grandma and Grandpa's house in the north and Grandma would smile and tell everyone, "My angels are here." Grandpa would chuckle to himself, "Here comes the wrecking crew."

For at that house they were not angels. They were together and together they made more ruckus than ten hundred indomitable boys. Everyone knew that. When everyone saw Binky, Boo, and Beetle too all together at that house, they whispered, "Those boys are together again." and tightly shut their doors and windows.

One certain day Binky, Boo, and Beetle played loud, louder, loudest ever! Grandpa was deep in a book and deaf to the world.  Grandma stopped smiling, held onto her head to prevent it from flying off, and shouted, "Quiet! I must have quiet! Go to that other room! Quietly! Sit down in there and keep quiet!"

"Here we go again." Said Binky to Boo.

"Oh no, not again." Said Boo to Binky.

Beetle cast himself upon the floor and had to be carried to that other room. Once there, they became quiet, very quiet.

"Let's go somewhere Grandma can't find us. " They conspired.

"Yes, let's trick Grandma and make her laugh." They plotted.

"We will turn into little sneaks and crawl out the window." They agreed.

Binky snuck out the window. Boo snuck out the window. Beetle snuck out the window too.

"My, how quiet they are." Grandma said. She was not accustomed to hearing herself think and it had taken some time for the quiet to be perceived by Grandma.  "I wonder what they look like when they are being quiet?"  She tiptoed to that other room and peered through the crack in the doorway. She did not see them.

She opened the door widely. She still did not see them. "But, they're not here." She worried.

She looked in all the house. "I cannot find them." She fretted.

"They're gone." She gasped.

Grandma ran out of the house, down the street, back up the street, calling out all the while, "They're gone! They're gone! Someone has stolen my boys!"

And everyone whispered behind their tightly shut windows and doors, "Who would steal Binky, Boo, and Beetle too?"

The three little sneaks were so tickled with their trick, they laughed and turned back into people. Laughter was their magic word. Grandma, who was running by on her way back down the street saw Binky, she saw Boo. And, she saw Beetle too, sitting outside the window, together, all laughing.

Grandma became indignant, causing her red hair to shoot sparks. Binky was impressed. Boo was impressed. Beetle sat down immediately and practiced looking innocent.

"Grandma's not laughing." Said Binky to Boo.

"Let's climb back in the window."  Said Boo to Beetle.

Beetle pointed at the window. There stood Grandpa, not saying anything.

Now, on this certain day, Grandpa had finished reading his book and was no longer deaf to the world. It had occurred to Grandpa that the world inside the house was silent. This unusual discovery intrigued Grandpa and had sent him looking. He had looked in that other room and had seen the window was open. He had looked out the window and had seen the three little sneaks turn back into little boys. And, he had seen Grandma sparking indignantly. Grandpa had seen it all.

"What's going on?" Grandpa asked, knowing trickery full well when he saw it.

Binky said nothing. Boo said nothing. Beetle did not say nothing, Beetle said his first word.

"Food." Said Beetle.

"Beetle talked." Said Binky.

"He did." Said Boo.

"Oh my" Said Grandma.

"What's for dinner? " Asked Grandpa. "I'm hungry too."

Beetle had already climbed back in the window and was sitting at the table, ready to eat. And eat they did.

"What angels they are."  Grandma said and smiled her smile at Grandpa after Binky, Boo, and Beetle were asleep.

"What?" Asked Grandpa, deep in another book. But Grandpa was smiling too.

...

The Perigee Moon and the Camellia

This cousin to the camellia which gives us tea, came to full bloom
 in the garden on May 5th, under a Wesak moon.
It takes well to that same soil that gives us the redwoods and
rhododendrons here on the Pacific north coast. Some people have made tea
from its leaves and say it contains more caffeine. I've never tried it.

I took this photo with the eastern sky and the rising moon behind me.
When I looked at the picture, I was surprised to see a tiny moon
 above the tip of a petal noting the day.

That so translucent a bloom

without scent 

would be reminiscent of 

 a simple cup of tea

in the dusky morning,

  

who would have thought 

what that would one day signify

on a perigee moon

on the fifth of May

...

This Wooden Drum

Earth, Air, Fire, and Water

here am I your long lost daughter.

To ocean’s sand and mountain’s loam

I have returned I have come home.

I wandered off a little child

into a storm, a tempest wild.

No wind no rain did fuel this storm

its tumult was of mortals born.

Earth, Air Fire, and Water

Here am I your weary daughter.    

I've traveled far through dimming skies 

and stumbled long with blinded eyes.

Pray let me sleep and dream awhile

on lily petals by the Nile.

Or I could curl up in a bower 

atop the tallest redwood tower.

Earth, Air, Fire, and Water

here am I your beloved daughter.  

This wooden drum is all I own

my hands upon it brought me home.

... 

Photograph by ©Brian Allison

bcaphotography.com
brian@lostcoastprinting.com
lostcoastprinting.com

as always, poem by Judy

...

Feeling Creative Lately?

Like they say, life looses its mystery when you're hungry and it's hard to be fancy free when you're footloose and it's winter and being without a home was not by choice. You see people enduring this every day. It troubles you and you can't forget about it when you turn your hand to your work. Fantasy still has its allure because it's cheap but you fantasize about turning the heat on full blast and to hell with the bill. Appreciation of the Theatre of the Absurd was never more appropriate though it's hardly light reading and your mind is absent. You find focus by cataloging life's inequalities, the more recent the better. Your dreams rarely soar and you are suffering a materialistic bent so that when you search for beauty in the humans around you, you suspect it's being concealed in the possessions and lifestyles which others hoard, the greedy bastards. Furthermore, the most accessible of all beauties, Nature, is being diminished every passing second through human machinations. You find comfort in the recognition that more and more people are loosing hope because validation is a comfort, of sorts. Then, as if that isn't bad enough, mainstream media streams through your life in amnesic inducing wave after wave after wave, each leaving in its wake a stagnant setting, a saturated environment where only the likes of ignorance and idiocy can find bliss...you have been sucked in and if you are not blocked off, your work either looks to you like a Hallmark greeting card or you have been 'getting involved' by writing stuff that increasingly resembles the rants of a madman...woman...

So what do you do? You tell yourself that some of the world's finest inventions, works of art, literature, music have been created under worse conditions than these - be they in reaction to, or in tribute to, in defiance of, or seeking refuge from...so what? You know this. This doesn't help...but at the very least, the creative works of these people are more deserving of attention than the destructive psycho...no, I haven't found a solution. I'm still caught up in the problem, but I'm not giving up. 

Pride in the Wind

Wind blows readily through the broken windowpane.

The curtain stands back from its gaze upon the shadows

its own lacy pattern makes upon the moon

because the moon

is high and big and yellow, pale yellow,

and perfectly round.

Broken bits of glass have been picked out of the wooden molding

so no one can tell at a glance the window needs mending.

At night, on a night like tonight, the curtain

puffs in and out the broken window.

 If one were not proud one could board it up

at least on a night like tonight,

 the wind is cold,

or tack up an old blanket

but it isn't done.

They pull on knitted caps. Push the bed away from the window.

Climb onto its high wooden frame under blankets,

many wool blankets, and watch the wind

back and forth

 cradle the moon

back and forth

in its lace covered arms.

Island

This is Island, a continent surrounded by the sea. Around the edge of Island winds a great river, called Rhythmic. The Rhythmic runs wide, fast, and deep. It springs from the high most center of the continent, flows directly to its shore, turns and winds once around land’s edge, turns again and empties into the sea, into the path of the setting sun.

Near the source of the Rhythmic, atop High Center, stands Island’s only city. It is encircled with stones, placed there by its residents “to maintain the boundaries of our plateau.”

Island has a road. It travels faithfully beside the Rhythmic on its inland bank, crosses the spot of land where river empties into sea, bridges the river at its first deep turn and continues full circle around Island. Always there is movement upon this road.

While the dwellers of High Center, faces to the sky, piled stones around its edge, those who walk together followed the river below. The movement within this procession was always greater than its forward sweep. Forwards, backwards, sideways, yet forever in motion they moved as one. On they whirled and in their passage they inscribed the Great Road. This is the caravan, the wheel, forever circling Island and always in sight of its beloved Rhythmic.

Enclosed between the Rhythmic and the Great Road is River’s Bar, a slip of land joining the two on their tour around Island. Green, and open to the sky, River’s Bar is the shore to those who seek land, the watering ground to those who thirst. To the traveler who rests beside the Great Road, River’s Bar is the land of dreams.

Gentle slopes and many trees of one kind and another form a hoop around Island. One tree standing alone shelters. A forest conceals. Islands inner hoop is forested. It is concealed.

Beneath the needled boughs, between the massive trunks in a mist of ferns and moss resides a presence so vast the living silence is its companion. The lightest foot does not tread, the tiniest wing does not beat, the slimmest twig does not break in the Forest without the attentive gaze of a fathomless eye and the resounding hush of silence.

Everything gives way to something, even a primordial bower. Round topped trees with leaves that ripple in the wind slip out from beneath the tall evergreen spires and spill over the open field beside, blurring all distinction between the two. Here, silence is a stream, the stream of stillness between sounds.

And here stands the Woodlands, a place of roots and burrows and shape filled trees with leaves like wings. Warm, sun streaked colors and busy rustlings fill the gaps between their sheltering arms. Their trunks are the standing through which intricate layers of sound, scent, and motion burst and entwine. Their roots are the growing which prepared the soil for the forest to rise. A thousand eyes flutter through this wild profusion of foot, wing, and leaf, the shimmering eyes of the many-sighted spirit, the spirit of birth.

Beyond the outer banks of the Rhythmic, Island belongs to the moon. Twice every day, dim harbors and vague waterways disappear and reappear in the flooding and ebbing tides. Twice every day, the moon sends a slow wind coursing across Island into the face of the sun. Eastward every morning, westward every evening, the moon’s wind blows. Less than a whisper, unseen and unnamed, the moon’s wind blows.

Much of Island is yet to be seen. Much of Island waits for a name. Where imagination leads, memory follows and Island continues to emerge from the surrounding sea. Yes, everything gives way to something.

Redwoods Mantra

In the heart of the redwoods

the living silence stands.

All else flutters, drapes, and dims.

If I lower my eyes

in no way obtrusive

I too am a veil

on the breath within.

...

Errol & Maggie's Porch

If I lived in a city, I would have a garden on my roof and so would all my neighbors.

 I'd cover mine with terra cotta pots and fill them all with dirt and flowers 

and scented herbs. In one of them, I would plant a lemon tree. My clothesline 

would be the spinning kind with umbrella spokes

 and my clothespins would be wooden. And if it rained on a summer's day 

the rainbow would be double.

...

The Eve of Idiocy

on the eve of idiocy
she saw children pressed between headlines
like dead flowers
loved ones go and never come back
from three wars

on the eve of idiocy
she looked back
upon the road to madness
she'd so much enjoyed
in her youth

on the eve of idiocy
the moon
eclipsed

.......

We Ran Together Then

Lying quietly in summer's open field, eyes half closed against the sun, the hot yellow grass molds the majestic shadow of buzzards wing. How low will they drift, how near will they circle before they discover we are pretending at death and at last moment glide away?

If we had seen an eagle circling, or even ravens, we wouldn't have been so bold. We were small enough, we thought, to be carried to a high sky world and raised as eaglets or fed to eaglets. We couldn't agree on the intent of ravens. We were different, even then.

Beside the field, a thin river resounds on the rocks in its bed. A low wind shimmies down the willows along its bank, slides beneath the dead dry leaves at their feet and begins to spin. It spins skyward, it churns earthward, a dusty whorl of leaves and wind.

We jump up chasing, laughing, mocking. It spirals back and pulls us inward, keeps us running takes us reeling, dizzy in its wayward spin. Grabbing hands we leap together, headfirst blindly towards the river yelling, "Save us! Save us! Save us from this crazy wind!"

The leaves scatter freed across the water, stick, and become little islands for bugs. We drop between them into the one pool where the river is over our heads. We know the river. We know it loves us. It keeps our imprint at its side, the running tracks of an earthbound wind.

I remember the summer we were watchful of eagles. I remember each of our sun streaked faces. And I remember, we were barefoot when we ran. But I cannot remember...were we spirit or were we creature when we went running on the whirling wind?

(A childhood keepsake for Kathy - for all of us - and our summers together on the riverbar at Redwood Creek) Note: I made the large muslin doll. The Teddy Bear, Charlie, was a gift for my first birthday. The little doll was made years ago by a member of the Blackfeet Tribe.

Window Vase

The rain does not stop. 
It still feels like winter. 
Every day, I look past the vase in the window to the garden
which is green because of the rain. 


We all have landscapes we look at everyday, 
faces that are so familiar 
we should be able to draw them from memory, 
but we can't. 


My garden changes in winter, 
I know it is different because some of it has gone
but I don't know exactly what is missing. 
The garden has changed slowly over time and
unless I compared it to a photograph, 
I couldn't point to what was once there. 


Winter is like this, 
I know the leaves have fallen 
but I don't know which fell first.