more big sky country

big sky country, originally uploaded by Sea Dream Studio.

Flickr of fortune

fortune, originally uploaded by Sea Dream Studio.

Oh, I love all these fortune teller images! Hope you like them, too!

big sky country

Another walk to Will's bus stop and another spectacular sunrise. Do you see the butterfly in the lower photo? I swear, unless it is overcast, every sunrise and sunset in north Texas is amazing. My neighbors must think I'm wacky always taking pictures of the sky. Oh, well...

must see TV...

AMERICAN MASTERS
Orozco: Man of Fire
Wednesday, September 19, 2007 9 - 10:00 pm PBS
Often thought of as the other Mexican muralist, beside his more
flamboyant compatriot Diego Rivera, Orozco was a leader of the
Mexican Renaissance. His bold, dynamic frescoes had a profound
impact on American painters and inspired U.S. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt to put artists to work during the Great
Depression. (CC, Stereo)

Learn more at the companion Web site.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/

communion

What of our offerings, the beautiful,
and the profane? We come together
at this altar, this place of desire
and peril, seeking, saving, holding
dear the wounds and roses we have gathered.

There are prayers for illumination,
another for the falling of a veil.
We remember a soft inflection
that brings a river of regret,
a certain shade of blue, a cornflower

glance across an infinite prairie.
We bear them up, our own relics,
the mundane, the nearly grand,
the hoped for, the abandoned.
These are our moments, pale petals

of open flesh we tender over
fraught waters. Often it is a cast
of light or a scent of limes and tallow
that brings us to our knees, some snare
that falls into our path and conjures

an hour when we rested in the hand
of mercy. There now, we find a way
to sleep and dream these things,
that we might breathe and endure
in this thin and unforgiving air.

port of call

Off the scalloped coast of Brewer’s Bay
I offer my gouache bones to the sea,
narrow blades and arcs beneath my tan.
This water owns me as it owns millions

of mirror-scaled fishes and anemones.
My heartbeat mimics the docile waves,
a syncopated affirmation; I am here.
The seabed is smooth, so close, I wonder

about the need for air. Could I stay
within this perfect blue, a glint
of sunlight or a ripple in the sand?
My cocktail waits, coconut
and Callwood, the local libation.

I am just a day-tripper, another migrant
with sandy feet. It is impossible
to remain, not all of me, only the part
that is rooted, a slender white cedar
on the cloudy crest of Sage Mountain.

meanness~ from the Tao de Dale

Okay, I will confess that there are many things in this world that I do not understand... compressed air, crop circles, flight, fundamentalists, algebra, Iowa... and so forth, but the hardest thing to wrap my mind around is meanness. Intentional ugliness. Of course I've hurt people with my selfishness, carelessness, inattention. There is often collateral damage in the way we live, but directed, premeditated cruelty is a whole other thing. I've seen it in thinly veiled as humor and boldly wielded like an ax. I suppose it comes from a damaged place within the perpetrator. I think perhaps it is best to feel compassion for such people as their spirits must be deeply marred.

jubilate!

Ah, much better now... having found wonderful elements with which to create! What a glorious day. I have decided to be benevolent and forgive the seasons for changing. Very generous of me, no? I love a fruitful search, a moment of joy. This will do nicely for today.

on the rim

Maybe I've had too much coffee (ha! as if!), but this is one of those tenuous feeling days. Sort of wobbly and vulnerable... yuck! Don't like it. I think it's the coolness in the air, the dreadful hint of autumn. It does not delight me. No, not so much...

easily amused...

Ah, Mr. Waffle puppets~ There was a time when these would have provided me with an embarrassing amount of joy and entertainment value.

A Baggie with a face~good enough.

Patriot's Day

Went to the observation at Will's school. Very touching to see all the kids singing. Some of the youngest ones weren't even born until after 9/11. These two boys were so sweet. They kept their hands over their hearts for the entire ceremony and just kept grinning at each other.

I drove home listening to Gen. Petraeus speaking to the Senate on Iraq. God, what a mess. How do we unravel such a tangled knot? So much sorrow....

In Kyoto

My restless sleep is shantung now.
I have mislaid the weightless surrender
that held no knots or slubs. Instead
I touch the poorly stitched threads
of recollection that unravel at my touch.

You bound me once in fine jacquard,
the raw fiber spun with thrust and verse.
I was a curled leaf in your brocade
cloak, gladly woven near the root
of a stunted maple that arched
across your back. It was enough
then to rest in a raised shadow
that your fingers sometimes found

Do you wear me still, tangled
in the lace petals of a plum
bower, waiting for winter
to reveal my face? Bamboo
and pine cover your sleeves
of snowy silk. How supple
they are in the icy wind.

It is August and I toss beneath
an unembellished sheet. In my dream
I am sewing arabesques and drifts
of frozen flakes up and down
the night-hued lining of your haori.

kick ass video

http://musicjesus.com/videos/watch.php?video=SmVAWKfJ4Go

magic words

SEDATION DENTISTRY

sweetness

I am not a superhero...

but I wanna' be one! I am trying to save the world (well my little enclave of it, anyway) and honestly, it is a bit harder than I'd imagined... but, no worries, my minions. Justice and prosperity will prevail! Have no fear... un-super me is on the job 24/7!

And... I have had an insomnia-born epiphany (and we all know how reliable those are!). I do actually think I've figured out something quite grand!! Time will reveal all. Now, back to work!

Limitless~ from the Tao De Ching

The Way is a limitless vessel;
Used by the self, it is not filled by the world;
It cannot be cut, knotted, dimmed or stilled;
Its depths are hidden, ubiquitous and eternal;
I don't know where it comes from;
It comes before nature.

naked eye

A flame red moon, the owl’s eye
winks, early fallen leaves
are dark confetti
on a well-kept lawn.

The eclipse has stolen my sleep,
tucked it away like a thief.
I am ever the lamb of the sky,
the easy mark, enthralled by cloud

and constellation. This night
it is the sharp edged umbra that enchants,
the nested shadows aligned,
Taurus and Orion on the eastern rise.

It is now, pale throat revealed,
upturned and empty, that I feel
most full, most able. The lucent coin
that hovers above is a portal.

In totality’s fire I dip my hands
and drink deep the lambent light,
a rendered radiance that bears
the sweetness of a pledge.

here's the problem...

that damn mammalian brain...

sky blog

Perhaps I should just devote this blog to the sunrise... since I'll be seeing it every morning. I really don't mind rising early. When I travel I am always up at dawn. I love seeing the day begin in new places. And Texas does rock when it comes to the sky. In no way does it compensate for how far I am from the ocean, but it is a fine thing and I appreciate it.

school days...

First day of school for my brood... There are some advantages to early rising. There are bunnies about and here in north Texas the mornings begin with a bit of fanfare in the sky.

I am left with a quiet house that feels very empty after nearly three months of summer vacation.

I do not like being a part of the mechanism that generates this sorrow.

attitude adjustment

Do I believe in HappyLand? Well, there it is in glorious black & white. It is (was?) in British Columbia of all God forsaken places. Hmmmm... the jury's still out, though I confess a bit of a leaning toward... not so much.
What do I believe in? Oh, I thought you'd never ask...
~the curative power of the sea
~flight
~music as a balm, a means of transport, etc...
~sailing
~scissors
~silence
~the Caribbean as a place of unparalleled magic and beauty
~secrets
~fairies, elves, talking animals (well, not really but I'd like it to be so)
~happy hour
~HappyLand... no, not so much.

well, well...

Yet another wonder... The IBPC has given a nod to my poem, "Immeasurable"... an honorable mention. The vastly talented Gary Blankenship took first place honors! Way to go, Gary!

http://www.webdelsol.com/IBPC/comentary.html

School starts on Monday. Fifth grade for Will, ninth for Ian, college for Kate. What brutal summer. I am actually ready for it to end... well, to begin ending, I suppose, is more accurate.

water ~from the Tao De Ching

The best of man is like water,
Which benefits all things, and does not contend with them,
Which flows in places that others disdain,
Where it is in harmony with the Way.

So the sage:
Lives within nature,
Thinks within the deep,
Gives within impartiality,
Speaks within trust,
Governs within order,
Crafts within ability,
Acts within opportunity.

He does not contend, and none contend against him.

score!

Ah, good news! I have gotten a most lovely order for pendants from a B I G international company! It has taken a little time to hammer out, but at last I have the order! I am very excited to have my work in this company's logo shop!! After my dental appointment I can get started on filling this nice, big order! Thanks to all powers that be!

scrapbook

I despise the backward look,
the dissection of every vignette,
filed and cross-filed into a tangled snare.
Memories lurk- threadbare hobos
with their crude cipher and astonishing agility.
They ride your ass if you slow down
long enough to let them on.

My mother rises unbidden at the scent of almonds.
Pretty and strong, she stirs the flames
beneath a pot of blood and kisses,
ladles the sticky-sweet fodder
into my bare hands.
I hate the recollection of her misplaced hope,
how it spilled onto me its inescapable taint.

Early on my father, young and cocky,
eyed a more inviting table.
He was a poor provider
whose own greed gnawed a hole too big
for us to fill and ate away the frayed threads
that barely bound him.

My siblings are blurs of black and white,
pushed to the periphery,
their faces are too much like mine,
the familiarity unbearable;
a funhouse mirror minus the fun.
I relegate them to a summer picnic
on a rare day of harmony
that I most likely dreamed.

And there’s me in scuffed red shoes,
panties sagging below the hem
of a homemade dress. My hair is long
and am holding a goddamned
biscuit of all things.
Look at how I gather every sort of anxiety
I can fit into my maw.
Already I was too hungry,
too willing, too lost.
This is the foundation I inherited-
one foot lodged in chaos,
the other in the most embarrassing sort of hope
that comes from too much reading
and climbing trees to look
into the neighbor’s kitchen windows.

It is better to forget than to sift for some
unlikely morsel that has lost its sweetness.
Wiser to disregard the sparse tenderness
that must have sometimes passed my lips.
Now I keep moving. Indistinguishable,
I say grace and remember nothing,
never think, for one minute,
that my belly might be filled.

What a relief!

Here I was thinking I needed swords and cannon balls.
Come to think of it, why would one wish to be protected from pirates?

I need some of this action...

Everything you can imagine, is real.

~Pablo Picasso

I am captured in this season

of thunder claps and moist earth.

The dull sky is a jar lid made of zinc.

I press my hands against the milky glass

take a shallow breath and wonder

if I'll outlast these smothering storms.

Islands Magazine has selected my photo of Tortola as Photo of the Day! Very cool!http://www.islands.com/pod_list.jsp?id=50696

on emptiness

We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the wheel depends.
We turn clay to make a vessel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends.
We pierce doors and windows to make a house;
And it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends.
Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the usefulness of what is not.

~Tao Te Ching

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

where I work...

it could happen

I'd need a cooler and perhaps a few more feet of land,

but I can so easily place myself in this picture.

Doing much soldering today. I hope to complete around 50 pendants.

return of grey skies...

Our respite from the rain was brief. I am so very weary of storms.

Mark and Ian leave for a week in St. Louis tomorrow. That leaves just Kate, Will & I here. It should be quiet and calm. I plan to let cobwebs cover the stove. Actually, I went to the grocery store today and stocked up on goodies for us. I hope to get a lot of pendants soldered. I am down to less that 30 right now! EEEK!

I am afraid to look at the weather report.

Bryant Duke 1930-2007

I hope the leaving is joyful; and I hope never to return. ~Frida Kahlo

AOL Poll

Poll Results
How much faith do you have in President Bush's Iraq policy?
None 77% 103,610
A little 11% 15,337
A lot 11% 15,178
Total Votes: 134,125

from where I sit

It is never a bad thing to spend a day with this vantage point. What a lovely and much needed respite. I am learning to love the lake.

most shocking...

How amazing...

http://webdelsol.com/IBPC/winningpoems.html

Really

utterly

surprising.

And

very nice.

Well, I can add nature photographer to the list of things I am not. I was so delighted by this morning's sunlight that I went outside to take some photos of my jewelry for eBay. Natural light is so much easier to work with when youare taking photos of jewelry. A little white butterfly caught my eye and I followed it, snapping away and I must tell you... patience is not my strong suit. I offer my heartfelt admiration for all of you photographers that lie in wait for that perfect shot. I need a longer lens.

a break...

We've had a slight respite from the maddening deluge that has plagued north Texas for the LAST TWO MONTHS!! The photo above is last night's sunset. We had about half a day of partial sunshine which has given the populace the will to live again. Now, of course, the clouds are back and the weather map shows seven more days of thunderstorms. sigh... I am not a rain person. I am all about the sunshine. Oh, well... blah, blah, blah. Weather talk.
I have mucho arty stuff to do. Need to solder pendants. I have some commission work to complete. And I need to prepare my things for my booth at Market Square. I just want to watch "Deadliest Catch" and cut things out of paper...
Kate and Ian return from DisneyWorld tomorrow night. I miss them!
I hate this weather.