BirchLane.net
April 2006
Wednesday 26 (editing)
Tuesday 25 (editing)
Jennifer and Ralph.
Monday 24
"All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream."
~Edgar Allen Poe
Restless today. And I am worried about my father; his stay in the hospital following his knee replacement surgery of last Tuesday has been extended. He sounds awful. The doctors are not sure why his stomach is so distended. He lays there with a tube stuck down his throat which drains what is in his stomach.
Sunday 23
Progress. Another wedding booked today (A big wedding; 280 people) and the family of eight I photographed last week wrote today and said they loved the photos.
Saturday 22
April Showers. All day it rained. But it was beautiful.
Friday 21
Networking. My seven minute presentation this morning to my BNI Chapter was a success. I was told it was, in fact, "great," and left the meeting with two wedding referrals and a documentary project. When I got home, the phone was ringing. It was a woman named Suzanne who was referred to me by Beth, whose wedding I am photographing in August. Suzanne wanted to know if I was free to photograph her wedding on June 24. I am meeting with her and her fiancé on Sunday.
Thursday 20
New Photo Albums. My friend, Tesia, is the sales and marketing director of a company here in Eastworks called SuzeCo. She is developing a new line of photo albums which will feature photos of mine on the outside cover. Today I went back to her office to photograph her and the prototypes. A poor photo but--
Wednesday 19
My List for Friday Presentation. For my seven minute presentation this Friday, I want my fellow members to learn about my philosophy, about what makes me unique, and to educate, excite and inspire them about how to find and give me good referrals. A few things that differentiate me might include:
1. Degree in Art History
2. Worked as a Photo Journalist
3. Consider myself an artist and work every day on my art
4. Created an art gallery devoted to promoting young women photographers
5. Testimonials
Dennis:
Tuesday 18
A poem and a few photos.
And Day Brought Back My Night
It was so simple: you came back to me
And I was happy. Nothing seemed to matter
But that. That you had gone away from me
And lived for days with him — it didn't matter.
That I had been left to care for our old dog
And house alone — couldn't have mattered less!
On all this, you and I and our happy dog
Agreed. We slept. The world was worriless.
I woke in the morning, brimming with old joys
Till the fact-checker showed up, late, for work
And started in: Item: It's years, not days.
Item: you had no dog. Item: she isn't back,
In fact, she just remarried. And oh yes, item: you
Left her, remember? I did? I did. (I do.)
~Geoffrey Brock
We see Spring approach in yellow and green.
Monday 17
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not;
but remember that what you now have was once
among the things only hoped for.
~Epicurus (341 BC - 270 BC)Sunday 16
Easter. Holidays are always difficult days for me. Difficult days since Betsy and I divorced. And Easter is dramatically difficult; it is a holiday so chock-full of memories--yes, Easter-egg hunts on Birch Lane over and over again throughout the day and then, later, a big family dinner. I am alone today--ironing and editing photographs. Nadine is, I might add, mad at me: I picked her up three times to get her to pose with me for a self-portrait. Meow. I am not depressed. I am Lonely. Daryl and Danielle joined me for church, which was moving and funny; tradition tells us Easter services should be infused with humor--our minister read a few church bulletin blunders; they were very funny: "The church choir will be having a sing-a-long outside on the lawn next Saturday; bring a blanket and be ready to sin!" And for some reason, when we started to sing the first few words of the first hymn, "Christ The Lord Is Risen Today," tears welled up in my eyes and I had to take a few seconds to compose myself. Later, during another hymn, Daryl and I looked at each other and said, "God, this one is difficult to sing." Oh, and when we entered church, Danielle was greeted with a big hug from an old friend--the hug broke her sunglasses; at least they weren't RayBans, like Daryl's, which his girlfriend bought. Tonight I am going to make egg salad for dinner and watch a few movies: Saraband and Spring, Summer Fall Winter and Spring Last night I watched two Asian horror movies, (hoping to be inspired for some new dummy photos) Pray and Marebito --both were rather disappointing; certainly no A Tale Of Two Sisters.
The Coming of Light
Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.
-- Mark Strand
and
Saturday 15
Birth and Rebirth.
Friday 14
Good Friday.
Almost The Full Moon:
Thursday 13
Maundy Thursday.
Maundy Thursday is the Thursday before Easter. Christians remember it as the day of the Last Supper, when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and established the ceremony known as the Eucharist. The night of Maundy Thursday is the night on which Jesus was betrayed by Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The word "maundy" comes from the command given by Christ at the Last Supper, that we should love one another.
In Roman Catholic churches the anthem “Mandatum novum do vobis” (“a new commandment I give to you”) would be sung on Maundy Thursday.In many other countries this day is known as Holy Thursday.
(BBC--Religion & Ethics)
Driving home from Ithaca:
Wednesday 12
The Voyage of the Hero.
Doubtless there are those who will still ask what all of this has to do with us. The answer is that it has everything to do with us. The journey of life is the search for the self -- for the personal myth which is veiled in the local and the immediate but which, on a deeper level, is but an expression of the world myth. James Joyce, Joseph Campbell, and others have called this myth the " monomyth." To understand the monomyth -- to relate to it meaningfully -- is to create a mythic consciousness and by so doing to rejoin the real forces from which our modern age of reason and technocracy has done so much to remove us. As individuals and groups we need to put our personal myths into proper relationship with the human myth. We need to rediscover the magic or"unknown" in life.
The monomyth itself is an expression of the journey of the hero figure, of our own journey through physical and psychic life, and of the evolutionary path of humanity to full consciousness. "The hero," writes Joseph Campbell, "is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, normally human forms." The hero does what we would all like to do; he literally "finds himself." For Campbell:
the agony of breaking through personal limitations is the agony of spiritual growth. Art, literature, myth and cult, philosophy and ascetic disciplines are instruments to help the individual past his limiting horizons into spheres of ever-expanding realization. As he crosses threshold after threshold, conquering dragon, after dragon, the stature of the divinity that he summons to his highest, which increases until it subsumes the cosmos.
from Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero by David Adams Leeming
Tuesday 11
Art and Weddings.
Out at the pond:
Monday 10
The Language of Flowers and Silent Things.
Elevation (from The Flowers of Evil)
Above the lakes, above the vales,
The mountains and the woods, the clouds, the seas,
Beyond the sun, beyond the ether,
Beyond the confines of the starry spheres,
My soul, you move with ease,
And like a strong swimmer in rapture in the wave
You wing your way blithely through boundless space
With virile joy unspeakable.
Fly far, far away from this baneful miasma
And purify yourself in the celestial air,
Drink the ethereal fire of those limpid regions
As you would the purest of heavenly nectars.
Beyond the vast sorrows and all the vexations
That weigh upon our lives and obscure our vision,
Happy is he who can with his vigorous wing
Soar up towards those fields luminous and serene,
He whose thoughts, like skylarks,
Toward the morning sky take flight
— Who hovers over life and understands with ease
The language of flowers and silent things!
-Charles Baudelaire
translated by William Aggeler
Sunday 09
Palm Sunday.
Church was crowded. I was lonely. I left before the service ended.
Saturday 08
Nadine and Nature.
Friday 07
Waiting for Rain and Anniversary Days.
A definition is a concise statement setting forth the nature
of the thing in question.
—- Saint John of Damascus
The Fount of Knowledge, Chapter VIII
A door is an opening one goes in
or comes out of. A street is a map
for the feet to follow. Snow is
moisture frozen in white clusters
and falling through clouds. Clouds are
white, gray, or black patches
sewn into the fabric of sky. The sky is
not visible today. Neither is the sun.
The invisible is the visible
temporarily concealed, as God is
and has been for thirteen centuries now,
although His light is the light we walk in.
Walking is a form of movement
peculiar to man and taking him
away from some objects and towards others.
Thus I am walking from Balliol Hall
to St. Mary's Cathedral, which is
a building where mass is sung
and lectures are given. Both are
made out of words. A word is
(according to the saint from Damascus)
a door behind which
the Spirit of Truth waits. And a door
is an opening one goes in or comes out of.
-- Thom Satterlee"Fourteenth-century scholar and reformer John Wyclif is the subject and often persona of this collections of poems ranging from traditional to free verse and including some shaped like the objects they describe, an altar piece, the head of a pin. Winner of the 2005 Walt McDonald First-Book Competition in Poetry"
Note:
John Wyclif (ca. 1324-1384) was born and raised in Northern England, perhaps near Richmond in Yorkshire. He attended and later taught at Oxford, becoming the University's most renowned scholar during the latter half of the fourteenth century. His years coincided with the Black Death (1347-1350), a Papal Schism (begun in 1378), and the Peasants' Revolt (1381). His writings and lectures inspired the first complete translation of the Bible into English and involved him in life-threatening controversies with Church authorities. Pope Gregory XI and Archbishop William Courtenay both condemned him.All this poetry is making me feel inspired:
my fingers smell
of red onion
isnt it romantic
this rural life
lets order out
for pizza and beer
so many signs
of spring rain
a bright red bud
the creative habit
a precise machine
a certain smile
the secret life
of plants
wind and birds
and voices
thank you
for your patience
for square windows
and squares of light
what do we knowstories we told
to only each other
dreams we wanted
to last forever
if you come home
look for me please
and say hello
Thursday 06
Paradise. The landscape of my window abounds with beauty.
Wednesday 05
A Good Day. First, woke to snow!
And then later in the afternoon:
And continuing the theme of the cycle of life and death:
I like this image for its representation of forces of nature.
Tuesday 04
Driving with Darcia. Olga (aka Darcia) and I went for a drive out to The Chesterfield Gorge yesterday afternoon. There was a mist in the air and it rained slightly but the colors were lush and beautiful. I let her use my camera and I think I have now created a "monster." Click. Click. Click. Actually, I am happy for her and she is taking some great photos.
Early in the morning I saw this and it made me think of the cycle of life and death:
Monday 03
Providence.
"The moment one definitely commits oneself,
then Providence moves too. All sorts of things
occur to help one that would never otherwise
have occurred...unforeseen incidents, meetings,
and material substance, which no man could have
dreamed would have come his way."
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Sunday 02
Changing Time. Written by Bruce and Olga: Last night I forgot all about tomorrow; In a small New England house, here in Easthampton, the center of the universe, we stood over an Asian potluck table that was crammed with peanut noodles, sauteed vegetables with soy sauce, homemade sushi, another kind of noodles with bits of egg and green peas, red peppers stuffed with carrots (my addition), and a small lemon cake with blueberries. The guests were mostly artists and writers (Marjorie and Dennis , Tess and Gary (?) Kim and Trace and a dozen or so others); some brought their children, who happily ran around and explored the house. We talked about our work, our pets, our vacations. After everyone had eaten, we went outside, where the host, David (who mixed the music for my Famous People Famous Places slide presentation) made a beautiful little fire. Standing and watching the orange flames while eating coconut ice-cream and sometimes glancing over at the two dogs chasing each other on the other side of the yard, I think we all found a little bit of inner peace. For the first time in a long time, relaxation wasn't an April Fool's joke.
Daryl 'n' Kiley at Treydon's Bar and Grill.
Saturday 01
New Month.
Yesterday morning:
This morning:
This evening (Nicole, Mary, Greg, and David):
Marjorie and Nicole:
Olga:
