Sublime

If you don't get chills after listening to this, you're not alive.

Cheatin' dawg

"Herbie’s dog knows he isn’t allowed on the couch. But he thinks (Tim Blair's) Daily Telegraph colleague Herbie and wife Karen are out of the house."






BUSTED by Karen:















(hat tip: Tim Blair)

dolphin love song

“If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.” -- Billie Holliday

Since I've known him, Tom's totem has always been the dolphin.

He thinks his totem is the deer, and he resonates to it, in his own way. But me, I think it's this wonderful creature.

Consider:

"Dolphin reminds us to balance work and play and let loose of tensions." He does this handily.

(That's me, in the background, listening to the Happy Raconteur :o)

Something to make you smile

O, my luve is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.
O, my luve is like a melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun.
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve.
And fare thee weel, a while.
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

(Robert Burns)

Tune in, turn on, drop out

Why do we all resonate to this concept?

It's revolutionary. Right?

Well ...

We must ask ourselves "what we are asking."

Thinks me, anyway.

What do we want?

I think it goes further than that. I think that what we want to know is, why we're here. Well, there's no good answer. So, the next question is, why do we care?

I think we care because we want answers to ALL the questions we have of the Universe.

Why not? We question, and we want answers.

Why us?

Well, because we want it.

Right?

Why do we want it, and why us?

My answer: Because we want it, and we want it because we want better.

land of enchantment

Well named.

"New Mexico" -- that is, the land wrested from the Mexicans in the waning years of the 19th century -- has its own magic.

On cursory view, it's high chaparral, scrub pine. Ignored. Unnoticed.

That is good. I don't wish this clean, heretofore ignored stretch of land to be noticed. If noticed, it will be immediately recognized as desirable ... for the wrong reasons.

This is land that has been clean right up until now, in our let's-overpower-everything lives.

Clean.

When I was a young, partying 20-something in New Mexico, it didn't take long before I learned about the springs of Jemez.

You only wanted to .... well ....

just experience it. I know, words fail. But, well, all you wanted to do was just .... be.

There was something about lazing about in mineral-soaked pools, with big sky all around, and nothing to distract.

A snippet in time, perhaps. But also a knowing.

little friend

We have three bathrooms in our house. Every morning, in one of them (sometimes two), a bat rests during the day in a window.

The picture -- borrowed from the Internet -- shows one example of the little guy I watch every day. He's a little brown bat, common here in Pennsylvania.

He rests between the storm window and the screen, so there's no danger of him flying wildly about the house (as have other bats in the past).

I'll go in to sit down at the toilet. The window is on your right, as you're sitting. You're inches away from Little Bat .... who's slumbering peacefully, his little hind paws, with their tiny fingers, clinging effortlessly to the screen. He never minds your gaze. He's deep in sleep.

Round about dusk, you rush up to the bathroom to watch him.

If you're lucky (and if you learn to time when he wakes -- sometimes, just your being there and coughing significantly wakes him up), he begins to move.

He'll yawn. He'll begin to scratch himself, with tiny movements so fast they're quite outside the measures of the oscilloscope. He'll clean himself, licking off the dust he's accumulated throughout the hot and dusty day.

Then, he'll exquisitely stretch his wings. First one, then the other. Sometimes, he must stretch both two or three times.

(After all, he'll need them to be in top form, all night long, chasing bugs.)

After this endless wake-up routine, he'll climb quickly down the screen and take to flight.

***

I know bats are feared. I've had encounters with them myself and, shamefully, freaked out.

But, you know ... I love them.

They count on us.

They count on the fact that there will always be insects to eat, and they can always co-exist with us, more or less, in harmony. They ask nothing of us. They would probably be perplexed by our fear of them, did they know.

All I know is, every time I watch the little guy take off, I'm renewed.

symphony in red and khaki II

For no reason whatsoever, I Googled "poetry," and then "images" -- nothing spoke. So I Googled symphony, and found this image, by artist Laurie Maitland. It sings.

quiet riot

Behold the Kuna.

Ah, vanity ...

The Crab Nebula

... did you know it's located in the constellation of Taurus? :)

Al Gored

... or, the emperor has no clothes.

Long and winding road ... expectations ... and other (un)realities

Cupid, draw back your bow ...

The things we do for love.

***

Once upon a time, there WAS a once-upon-a-time. You know, the motor-neuronic, utterly wonderful, coming-together of connecting. Romance with a capital R.

Being a grown-up, you discover Love means much more than sensation. Much more than illusion. Stuff like ... they'll be there when I'm not so pretty ... they'll forgive me if I stray ... they'll forgive me anything, because, well ... they actually LOVE me. They want ME.

Love. It's a pretty thing, kind of like a card you get for your birthday. Oh, how nice ... she loves me!

When, deep down, you just "know" you don't deserve it. You fear it. "Love" is somehow equated to "the parents," beyond whom you just can't get past. The parental imprint: You suck. The grown-up reflexive response: Must-avoid-entanglements=Must-cut-self-off-from-"love."

What kind of self are we when we fear love?

Love is the powerfulest thing there is.

Why do we cut ourselves off from Universal power? And why do we hurt ourselves ... or the one we really do love?

Heavy, karmic bad stuff. Me, love is everything. You'll never, ever, catch me dissing someone for caring enough to love.

Love is everything.

We will remember them

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place;

and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

-- Lt. Col. John McCrae, May, 1915

***

For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

2012

~Peace train soundin' louder ...~

Tired of life's dirty collar rings just refusing to come clean? (You've tried soaking them out, scrubbing them out, but you've still got ..... *Ring around the colllllllll - er!*)

Get ready for the ultimate detergent.

In 2012, many things are going to happen. Whether we want them to or not. And, I don't know about you, but I want them to. I'm tired of ring-around-the-collar. Time to feel clean.

If you're curious, Google Mayan calendar and harmonic convergence. That's enough to get you started. Pretty soon, you'll start thinking, whoa. And that's a good thing!

Or not. Depending on your reality.

Okay, here's the date -- Dec. 21, 2012, Sloppy Joe's, Key West, Florida.

Ask for Tom or Mary. We, and other upwardly bound mortals, will be there, and we will welcome you like you'd died and come back to life. (Which you will *s*)

The changes that are coming are not like the oil embargo of 1974. Not even like 9/11. We're about to step into a new dimension. Maybe not all at once -- our puny, ant brains can't quite conceive of that, just yet. (But if you're a seeker, you've already noticed subtle shifts in questioning, feeling, understanding, hell, even food digestion. Guess what? Your DNA is changing to accommodate the Shift. Enjoy!)

So ... file it away. Key West. World's end ... and life's beginning. See you there :o)

Very cool artist

... my friend and co-worker, Matt Leavens

Mournful Monday image

... in honor of the people at Virginia Tech who died.

(artist: Donna Cleary)

creeping intolerance

We've been tolerant of intolerance for far too long.

We've also been afraid to name the source of all the world's threats today. It is militant Islamism.

My idol Theo Van Gogh died in the service of pointing this out to us.

Perhaps it's not the religion that makes these thugs make life miserable. Me, I think thuggism knows no bounds.

But whatever the label, it needs to be dealt with now, with a good dose of common sense.

You don't @##$% where you eat.

The Iliad and D-Day

One cover of Homer's Classic "Iliad."

(from boingboing.net)

Drop on by!

Well, it's accomplished -- head on over to shootingstar23.com, where you'll find a quite new, and most-definitely-under-construction, probably-for-the-rest-of-my-natural-life, web site --

This foray into 21st-century self-expression is a LOT of fun :o)

Coming soon -- my own web pages :o)

At last I've been bitten -- I have taken vows as a novitiate of the Brothers and Sisters of the Creators of the Web Page. The creative urge will not be denied, and if expression is, as Stephen King said -- diarrhea of the keyboard -- then consider my new home the Porcelain Throne.

The first page I'm working on is a paean to Vincent Van Gogh and his great-nephew, Theo. (Hence the Monday Evening Very Cool Image.)

Do stay tuned.

Monday makes me wanna SHOUT!

Most excellent Monday evening fractal

The nice thing about being a Crab is intuition. You can bypass all those tiresome details that ~prove~ what you're thinking and seeing actually exist. You just KNOW.

And fractals were something I just ~knew~ -- and understood -- without understanding the math.

Make no mistake -- these amazing creations ARE math.

(For a brief history of the math involved, go here.)

It comes down to smaller versions of things being replicated to larger ones, and vice versa, in a wonderful symphony of images. The fractal I offer here was computer-generated.

(A thing which, in itself, is a powerful song ... binary numbers, alpha and omega, if you will, capable of generating so many, many possibilities ...)

I love the idea of endless possibilities. I think that's what life is all about.

This one's for you, Greenie :o)

Viva el Flamenco!

Poetry in motion ...

"When the Lady walks, she leaves cinnamon and roses."



(via the Manolo at shoeblogs.com)

Late winter, Monday evening cosmic picture

Miss Magatha

This is my Maggie, half of the twain with Dana. Isn't she beautiful?


She doesn't think she is. But then, she's 16. Many people think 16 is when we're our MOST beautiful ... but we're so self-aware at 16, it's hard to step outside ourselves. I, myself, think I got stuck at 16. I like the way things look from that perspective. Fresh, intuitive, emotional, still innocent, but worldly, too ...


If Dana is a Woman-Child, Maggie is a Child-Woman. Her emotions are now smooth-running currents, now tsunamis -- it's her life's task to master them, Scorpio as she is, and at 16, she's doing mighty well. One look into those clear blue eyes, and you know she'll forever be a child, in the very best way.


Learn how to surf, my English Rose -- and heaven will smile on you :o)

***

"You come on like a dream, Peaches and Cream,
Lips like strawberry wine,
You're 16, you're beautiful, and you're mine." (Richard Sherman and Robert Sherman)

The Sea

“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.” (Vincent Van Gogh)









In Handel's "Messiah," one of the arias begins with "I know that my Redeemer liveth." It is a statement of hope and a statement of certainty.

(Not to mention one of the most heart-breakingly beautiful pieces of music ever written.)

Consider it.

Jesus was a simple* man. He was a carpenter, bred in inland Bethlehem, but He easily surfed with his fisher brethren who lived, and died, on the sea, because He was the original Renaissance Man.

Jesus's love of -- and familiarity with -- the sea, resonates with me.

Water. Power. No control. ALL control. Myriad, competing calls ... all of which return to the source, which is water. It is as fluid, and timeless, as now.

The ocean is my womb, my brother, my friend, my enemy, my lover ... it is as indivisible as breath, as warmth, as sight, as wonder.

UPDATE: Commenter j.d. hildebrand shared this verse, expressing that it should be added, and I completely agree. (Thank you, jdh!) It is wonderful. Here it is:

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind.

... the incredible, edible Escher

Hey, Nineteen

Today is my Dana's 19th birthday.

Nineteen? I was cruising down the immortal highway, racking up pinball points with effortless ease. Tired? Nah. Nothing a quick cat-nap and a swig of brew won't cure. On to the Next Big Thing. Tomorrow, there will be more Big Things. Worried?

About what? Whether I'll be bored tonight?

Ah, Nineteen.

It's quite a wonderful crossroads in life. Wonderful, and scary. ("I really ought to be planning my future, but .... I'm having such a good time just BEING ...")

Beautiful, bursting, ripe, anxious, thinking --

My beautiful Dana ...

Lucky me, she's an artist. That's what she Wants To Do With Her Life.

Praise God.

She is 19 today. She is riddled with anxieties, worried about the future, but filled with the unquenchable force of forward energy. She has her head in the stars, and her feet on the ground. She will not only survive, but conquer.

Prayers really ARE answered :o)

You are already blessed, my amazing Woman-Child. Know that you always will be.

*****

Hey Nineteen

That's 'Retha Franklin

She don't remember the Queen of Soul

It's hard times befallen

The sole survivors

She thinks I'm crazy

But I'm just growing old


(Steely Dan)

let's swim

Ever notice how good water feels?

Try splashing water on your face when you're tired, or sad.

You'll feel brand-new.

***

Swimming in the streams,
ancient dreams, forever real,
and I am renewed.

***

"Water of love, deep in the ground
But there ain't no water here to be found
Some day, baby, when the river runs free
It'll carry that water of love to me." (Dire Straits)

***

Water is love, reminding us that beauty is all we need to know.