BirchLane.net
April 2004 (editing)
to be continued
Sunday 25
Packing Clothes Is Harder Than Packing Books.
Saturday 24
Best Buy.
Friday 23.
Rain.
Things are not what they appear to be...nor are they otherwise.
Surangama SutraThursday 22
The Contractor.
Wednesday 21
Neighbors. This past weekend, Betsy told our neighbors, Geri and Louise, we are separating; I told our neighbor, Andrea, today.
Tuesday 20
Space.
Monday 19
Walking Princess Daisy. A friend posts two poems for me:
Posted formylastsigh.
Fallen angels
Our wings fall away like ages
and we are left human
with stone feet
and eyes no longer through skylights
but turned unto day
still greening across the sod.
January 16, 1996
From a one-bedroom apartment window
Flakes fly through a beam by the street corner.
A few naked crystals
caught in the act of falling,
pink beneath mercury vapour.
Their motion sudden, harried
lost from a world
of others drifting unseen in darkness.
Based on a poem written January 23, 1996.
I moved into my own apartment on January 20, 1996.
Sunday 18
Come, Have Breakfast. This morning, at Edwards Church in Northampton, Massachusetts I recognized a performance artist I have always admired; Sally Greenhouse. And during the
And I cried today:
Saturday 17
Blossom. Today, Daryl helped me pick out furniture for my new studio loft--and the tulips blossomed.
Friday 16
The Apprentice.
Thursday 15
Little Gidding:
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentations,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.I love this poem.
Wednesday 14
(Misty.)
Tuesday 13
Rain. Not an unlucky number.
Monday 12
Concerto.
Sunday 11 (editing)
Easter. Woke and made a big breakfast for all of us. Afterwards, Danielle, Daryl and I went to church. The minister read the following poem:
A fish cannot drown in water,
A bird does not fall in air.
In the fire of creation,
Gold doesn't vanish: the fire brightens.
Each creature God made
Must live in its own true nature;
How could I resist my nature,
That lives for oneness with God?
Mechthild of Magdeburg
And what about Danielle and Daryl?
Saturday 10 (editing)
Without Words. A life-changing day; let us explore it with this:
Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty."
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
~John 19: 28 & 30This morning, we told the children we are separating.
Friday 09
Good Friday. I went to a Good Friday service today at noon; I started to read the book of Ester.
Today's service was very different from the Maundy Thursday service; it was
Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.
It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.~ Psalms 130: 1-8
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
~T. S. Eliot, from Four Quartets, final sectionThursday 08
Interior Landscapes.
Wednesday 07
Another Present. And this morning, I woke to find among many notes, these two:
You do have a way of capturing the quintessential essence of the subjects in your photos. This one really speaks. Your amazing photographs warm my heart and fill my day with moments of beauty. Beauty that continues to stay in my heart and mind even after those moments have passed.
Of course, the photo below, taken yesterday morning in Northampton, is not necessarily in the vein of which these friends speak, but I thought it was so darn funny:
Tuesday 06
A Gift. When I woke I found a message in my in-box from a friend:
Your Gift.
I can't imagine waking up someday and not being able to look at the unique way you view the mundane and make it burst from the screen or how you've capture the very essence of a person or place.
So many days when things get bumpy, your posts are a balm to the weary soul. Thank you for making my little world a better place.
Monday 05
The Way.
in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.
~Isaiah 30:17
In paradise, which the righteous have been promised, many rivers flow: there are rivers of unpolluted water; there are rivers of milk, which is always fresh; there are rivers of delicious wine; and there are rivers of clarified honey. In paradise the righteous shall eat every kind of fruit, and they will be protected by the Lord.
-Qur'an, Muhammad, Surah 47:15From "366 Readings From Islam," translated by Robert Van der Weyer.
Sunday 04
Palm Sunday. (add comments)
Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl.
~RumiSaturday 03
Editing. I spent last night and most of today editing my galleries; I am still editing; wanting to dramatically reduce the number of images. I did drive to the Oxbow today, which was flooded, and then I went to Holyoke.
Friday 02
More Rain.
petrichor (PET-ri-kuhr) noun
The pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell.
[From petro- (rock), from Greek petros (stone) + ichor (the fluid that
is supposed to flow in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology). Coined
by researchers I.J. Bear and R.G. Thomas.]
"Petrichor, the name for the smell of rain on dry ground, is from oils
given off by vegetation, absorbed onto neighboring surfaces, and
released into the air after a first rain."
Matthew Bettelheim; Nature's Laboratory; Shasta Parent (Mt Shasta,
California); Jan 2002.
"But, even in the other pieces, her prose breaks into passages of lyrical
beauty that come as a sorely needed revifying petrichor amid the pitiless
glare of callousness and cruelty."
Pradip Bhattacharya; Forest Interludes; Indianest.com; Jul 29, 2001.
At bottom, every man knows perfectly well that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time. Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)
Thursday 01
A Whole Lot of Rain. And wind. Two minutes after nine:
I read the following (edited) here and found it interesting, if not inspiring:
Various thoughts about writing: ...... Specifically, I've been thinking about why I write and what I gain from it. Earlier this year, I faced the question of why bother writing at all? I'm guessing that this is a question which all writers confront from time to time (maybe all _people_ confront it in one guise or another from time to time). But it came to me full force; I had to think about just what the hell it is that I get out of writing, and what success as a writer would mean to me, and what would failure mean? At this point, I don't really think there is such a thing as failure for me, in terms of my writing. When I think about why I write, I always find my way to the same answers: the physical sensation of euphoria I get when I write, the possibility that my words draw forth physical or emotional responses in other people, the necessity of translating what's in my head into something else (some other media than pure thought...in this case the written word). Nowhere in that list does "making money" appear, and while yes, I would like to be published widely and have lots and lots of readers, I really could not care less about the possibility of fame. Fame and money have nothing whatsoever to do with writing. It makes no difference if one of my stories becomes widely read or famous; the next story I write, I have to start at square one again. The next story I write can never have anything to do with how many people read my last one or how much money I made on the last one. So as nice as it would be to make money off my writing, it's incidental. If I really cared about money, I'd never never never never never never never have decided I was going to devote myself to my writing. If I thought about money, I wouldn't be able to write at all. But it's more than that: I don't like people who think about how much money they're going to make. I don't like people who care about money. I don't want to be a person like that. I'd rather die than care so much about money. There's simply nothing that money can give me which I can't get by sitting down and writing. When I write, I don't exist in this world. I don't know how else to explain it: I am somewhere else. The only thing money is good for is to give me a safe place to write. That's it. Which means, of course, that I'm not anti-having-any-money; a little bit of money is nice, because there are some things that it's nice to have; there are some things it's nice to be able to do, having some money. The thing is: I can't really imagine what I'd do with a lot of money. I can't imagine it helping my writing any. Even now, when I do have enough money to attend writing workshops or to take writing courses here and there, I just haven't done that: it's not where my writing is at the moment. I would only take workshops if my writing were to benefit, and at the moment, my writing needs something else: peace and space to experiment and play. Which I do not in this world but in wherever it is I go when I'm writing. That world doesn't seem to operate on money; it operates on words, which are endless. I want more words. I'm greedy for words. Gimme gimme gimme. And I'll give back. Words are like love that way: the more you give, the more there are to play with.
........So I choose words over bitterness. When I feel, as I often do, the inevitable approach of bitterness or anger, I'm suspicious of it. Bitterness is a signal to me that something is deeply deeply wrong inside of me. Bitterness means that I am failing at living. It means I'm about to lose something of myself. I'm about to commit a crime, or sacrifice a hope, or choose a side, or blind an eye, or shut my thoughts. Bitterness in me means the world is not worth living in, and knowing that, I can somehow (but perhaps there will come a day when it's no longer possible) construct a new world. It's a lie that the world we exist in is the only one we have. Every word I write turns this world into something new. This word...this one right right right right _here_ never existed before. It's new.
So revel in it.
Nothing is stopping you.
I like this photo below; taken tonight, before dinner (pizza):
