A certain lack of something

This was how I felt before I adopted my three kitties.

Weathered,
patched with odd bits,
a jumbled collection
re-assembled without instructions,
left outside everything to rust away.

I carry on though. Not so sure. Positive but aware of reality. Carrying memories. And a tiny spark of hope.


originally posted 8/16/2016

Art: where the broken wings fly after all

Originally posted April 4, 2008. Thought I'd haul it up here again and update it a bit to remind me.

Every person has beauty and value. Some have other unsavory aspects which obscure the beauty and value, but it's there.

Some of us are eccentric, obviously old, ridiculously odd, too fat, too thin or perhaps misshapen or unpleasant or unreliable. Some folks, though beautiful, are misshapen in ways more difficult to see - disfigurement by the constant prejudgement of others, where every word was twisted, shaded, weighted and measured against some mythical standard of perfection. Or by constant criticism during childhood where every flaw was carved up like a roast repeatedly. Or by constant underserved praise and by life passages bought and paid for by blood money rather than earned. This unhappy learning is latter replayed on others.

Sometimes people find it really difficult to get past it all. Some are like moths that have emerged from the cocoon in a jar that was too small. (See my pencil drawing above) Their wings unfolded only midway and are forever bent. Yet even in this there can be value.

Like many other resources, the past can be transformed. Rather than repeat it, and live it out again and again, rather than turn the bitter criticism or the too clever manipulation on others or measuring them against an imagined perfection, or insulting them for dramatic effect (sounds familiar in the current political scene) -- the best use of the past is to render it down into art. (Not the so called Art of the Deal,  but art in the expansive sense - whether literary, musical, visual, theatrical etc.) In that way it is an offering, and something is given to world.

It doesn't even matter if the world accepts it. It is the making of it, and perhaps the offering of it, that heals in a way that golden toilet seats and hair implants never can.

- Mar  Walker

Short Poem on Aging: Surprise

Can't understand how I grew so grey.

It crept up over 10 years or more.

Inside I feel like I'm 22,

except when I feel like I'm 94.

......

A Few Headlines from July 17 2018

REPORTS OF UNFORGIVABLE DISLOYALTY AND DISSEMBLING BY A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

Consider this:

Things you don't want to hear but should really consider
about yesterdays indictments of 12 GRU officers - that is 12 Russian Military Intellegence Officers:

Far from being a witch hunt - this is a digital spy hunt to defend our country - with huge consequences. I know many folk who don't want to know because it's just too distressing.

The problem with sticking your head in the sand is that, besides targeting every election going forward from here, these Russian Military digital warriors are after more than politics. THEY HAVE SKILLS AND MALWARE THAT CAN BRING OUR INFRASTRUCTURE DOWN some of it already implanted in our systems. Imagine things embedded in power plant software, hospital software, our antiquated patchwork electrical grid, train and airport control software.

Think of all the huge systems for government and industry where physical processes are controlled digitally. The time to defend us is now. But our POTUS is still calling it a witch hunt and rigged. Our congress is hellbent for leather trying to cut everything and cover up what has been done, talking endlessly about Hillary's emails and Obama - like they secretly rule the present world. The House Congressional Oversight hearings the other day were a disgrace. I watched them and I don't need a reporter to tell me what happened. They are looking to the past, grandstanding instead of defending us now.

The time to defend us IS now. Our POTUS says why was nothing done about this at the time - well something was done - a counter-intelligence investigation was opened by the FBI - and that same POTUS fired the man in charge of it at that time - FBI director James Comey. And this week POTUS will meet, alone, without expert preparation, without transcripts, without video, without witness - with the man who commands the GRU - Vladimir Putin. AND THE ONLY RECORD WE WILL HAVE OF WHAT GETS SAID - IS WHAT PUTIN CHOOSES TO RELEASE TO THE RUSSIAN STATE-CONTROLLED MEDIA . Sad indeed.

Cumulative power of tiny specks....

Landscape at Saint-Charles, near Gisors, Sunset  by Camille Pissarro

We always doubt the power of the small, the contained. We doubt our single, individual lives, wonder if we can matter at all.

The power of a bit of dust lies in juxtaposition with other unnoticed specks. It's in the whole where a speck has its best effect. One star in a sky of stars. One life in a history of lives.

  This is my favorite picture from the current Clark Art Institute exhibition. It's called Landscape at Saint-Charles, near Gisors, Sunset  by Camille Pissarro, 1830-1903. The application of color is in spots and specks. The effect is cumulative and it almost glows on the canvas.  

Specks, little dots or points of paint are featured in a technique called pointillism pioneered by Charles Seurat. In this picture the museum notes, Pissarro was experimenting with that technique.  We could experiment too, try to see ourselves in the context of our country, our continent, our planet, our solar system, universe, multiverse.  As we zoom out, our speck-ness seems more and more natural, comfortable. We are in places as it were. Right here. Right now.

Two from The Clark, Degas

The Clark had a free admission day on Easter. I took photos of my favorites. I'll start with two juxtaposed works, Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, and Portrait of a Man both by Edgar Degas.