A Day's Worth of Facebook Comments
Topic: Life

Experiment - a day's worth of my comments and messages in Facebook today (and perhaps another day) 

mention of Philly College of Art -
T - did you go to Philadelphia College of Art? I went there '68 - with a break - through '74 (I think), and at one point also the Academy. At least, I lived in Philly til then!

'friends' in facebook significance -
There is no other pleasing and easy word in place yet to signify the facebook version. What the facebook friend circle really is is a network you can turn to to put a word out if you have news, want to share something, or need something - its a cybertown and 'friend' is the leftover word/name from  its origins as a college network. We need a new word for this type of 'friend'!

reply to Mainer about possible old haunts
Wow! I only remember K. H. who later married J. E.. L. T. I met recently through her brother M., and him I only met after I moved up here. I had always heard his name though. I'm still not clear if you are talking about the Spruce Head Community Building or the Rockland rec center dances? I used to go to the Rockland dances every week in the summer for 2-3 summers in '67, '68 I don't even think after that. In Spruce Head I remember we used to hang out outside the community building - by then those dances were considered to be for the older crowd (the music was not cool enough). The cars would be lined up and down the street. There were a few times a bunch of us snuck in there at night during the week and hung out. One time everyone had to hightail it out the back because apparently a cop car had gone by or was coming.

the wolf moon
And, this pic C. struck me as being straight out of your moon video!
The snowy landscape's brightness last night - I could have tried reading by it, but let us read it as a good sign!

Got to have magic.

magic of the moon spoiled by inhabiting it? -
I can't see that happening in our time (or, I don't think I intend to be here to see it happen!) - and if that is what the people living then want, let them have it. People will either realize they love and want the beauty and magic of this life or they won't. Beauty and magic will always be. If we don't have it in our lives, we don't have the energy to live. We give up and die....(is what I think).

my angel band painting
..Thank you! ...Symbols for the other arts - writing: quill & scroll, dance: drum & ?, theatre: the masks, painting: palette & brush. Symbol ideas please...!

 For the angel series - symbols the angels would carry, as they are holding instruments here. Theatre - anything else besides those masks?
...ballet shoes/slippers though!

  ooh I like that angelic harmony coming from an angel band! I forgot already that it needs a name.

Happy Birthday dear friend from cyber-space!

someone's new job -
"..being out there in the community.." - when it comes down to it, maybe that is what a job is really all about, though we  may believe it is about the money.

A Slice of Birthday Cake - Digital!
Topic: Life

A slice of birthday cake!

 

The Belted Galloway Cows at Aldermere Farm, Rockport Maine
Topic: Life

The Belted Galloway cows were out in the main pasture at Aldermere Farm, in Rockport, Maine, yesterday. There is a little pen near this grazing area where they can go for water. When I arrived they were close to the pen, with one at the water bucket. When that critter left, another would wander over. The group moved away from the pen, but the ritual seemed to continue. They were aware when the water bucket became free for the next one's turn. The next thirsty cow would head from the group to the water, like kids in a classroom who know that only one is allowed at the water fountain at a time.

A Question of Faith?
Topic: Life
Some questions to ask:
If everything started by 'accident', shouldn't we be trying to have accidents instead of trying to control things? I mean, this is some accident we find ourselves in the middle of. (But then of course the act of trying to have an accident makes any result intentional rather than accidental.)

And, it would seem, with all the things we do 'wrong' and mess up with, the state of everything should be many times worse than it is. What is holding it all together, driving things so that in general life forms/organisms find life worth living?

When it comes right down to it, there is no way to prove one over the other. The observer can never be bigger than the whole to know for sure that all the facts are in. It is a question of faith or belief. In that case, the question is, which would one rather believe - that we live in a supportive universe or an unsupportive universe? Isn't 'supportive' what we really mean when we ask if there is  a God?

There  are surely holes in my logic, but perhaps the reader will try to take this as a whole and excuse my unholy (or holy?) considerations .

St. George Fishermen's Memorial in Port Clyde, Maine
Topic: Life

Notes on grief and the loss of our loved ones: 

To be a world, to be a thing that we can touch and feel and love,
The pulse of life must go on and off as it ebbs and flows through our many cells
From the smallest collection to the greatest.
It comes in, it goes out
In everchanging patterns and flows.
It's beautiful, it's unpredictable.
We cannot know what will happen next, or perhaps we can know for a moment
and then not.
To know what came next would take the life, the joy, the mystery out of it.
It would become meaningless to us.

A cat will not play with a machine once it catches on to its predictability.
Nor will it believe the cat in the mirror is real for very long.
The cat knows there is no life there of the sort he wants (game, the hunt, the food), that he is made to want.
A man will play with a machine because a machine means something else to him.
He knows somewhere there are other men behind the machine.
He also wants the magic power of life to be his own power so badly that he is willing to believe  magic can reside in a machine.
He wants to fool himself into thinking the magic is in the machine out there instead of inside himself and inside of everything in existence - the great and infinite ALL
But this magic cannot be captured, or held, contained. There is no one thing that can hold it. It can only be in the ALL, through and through everything. It cannot be separate from anything.

Nature cannot be alive if it is not free to be both terrible and wonderful. We do not want fake Nature. We want real Nature. That means both extremes of the experience must fall where they fall. Can we know for sure that we go unwillingly to our 'fate'? What if some part of us does have some idea..

The fishermen go to sea because they love it.
They know the danger. It is part of what draws them to the sea.
They love to pit themselves against the challenges the sea brings.
They love the wildness and the calm. They love the ever-changing of it.
If the qualities of the sea were not real qualities, the experience would not be as meaningful to them.
They know the sea will take more of them than had they gone to work in other ways.
This is part of the thrill and drama for them.
We love them for it.

We love nature/animals the wildness.
That is the very essence of aliveness.
Man must have aliveness and wildness.
It is deep in our nature to need to be always in touch with that.
But aliveness cannot come with only gentle footsteps.
There must also be crashing lightening,  mountains tumbled by earthquakes, and babies pushing forth from wombs with the power to make grown women scream in agony. Few are the  mothers who begrudge their child the pain it caused when coming into being. This is part of the magnificence of life.

Do we assume that the highest value of being is existence in this realm? Can any of us know for sure that we are not in a dream? How can any of this be proven? It may seem like common sense, and since theoretically it would seem most logical, then it would seem to follow that the explanation of our existence is a causal one. But is that really enough reason to believe a thing? If it comes down to just a matter of believing something, no matter whether you believe in a purposeful universe or an accidental universe, then which belief will nourish you more?

Can we know for sure that our little rescued (animal) waifs were not about to return to their source when we crossed paths with them and took them home? Did not this experience of taking care of them greatly enrich our lives? But now it is time for both parties to be released to sail the seas and find other meanings, experiences, and ways of being. Every being must expand its being. It is the nature of consciousness. Nature can seem to be cruel and violent. The animals are at home in this. They understand it. That is also why they are so healing for us. Their presence always reminds us that no matter what is going on in the surface of nature, there is an underlying rightness of all things, there is a peace.

When we look at each other we think the face we see is that of a beloved, (or that of an enemy!). When we look in the mirror, we think we see our own face there. But perhaps we are not seeing deep enough. Look deeper and see that the face before you is but one of the many faces and voices of life, being, magic, call it what you will. That magic, that being, that life, can know no bounds. It is not contained by the face of the beloved, it shines out from the face. It knows no boundaries.

The most painful thing when I mourned the death of my cats was the idea, the thought, that I would not see them again. Then it hit me that I was holding onto that idea. What if instead of holding onto it, everytime the thought came to me, I replaced it with imagining the beloved as if she were coming to me to be petted (or whatever). This was so comforting it was astounding. It had an almost immediate healing effect.

A friend's family lost a dear pet in a tragic way the other day, which prompted these thoughts once again. The pictures of the St. George Fishermen's Memorial were taken earlier this summer. The monument is quite a moving tribute, especially to see the reflections of the sea on it.

Marshall Point light and the fishermen's memorial	The memorial and the compass.
Gary Thorbjornson and lighthouse building reflections	Two boats engraved on the memorial and reflections of the sea.
The Names: John Field, 1941; Maurice Simmons, 1950; Kendall Hawkins, 1957; Robert Powell, 1973; Michael Percy, 1975; Jud Miller, 1975; Eugene Bracy, 1977; Richard (Ricky) Waldron, 1977; Gary Thorbjornson, 2005; James Weaver, 2006; Michael Lord, 2006.