I wrote a longer post over at my design/wordplay blog, Raven's Nest -- am just posting a few of the "slices" here to entice my photoblog viewers to head over to Raven's Nest and read that post.
Happy Birthday to Sam who is 18 years old this year... You're all invted to party with us! We have lots of drool, cake, tail wagging and general all-round fun going on. Head over to the virtual party at Flickr or check out the longer blog post at Raven's Nest.
My morning view as I wash up the breakfast dishes. We have never owned a dishwasher. I actually like washing dishes ... call me weird.
Our kitchen windowsill changes depending on the season Or on whether I feel like cleaning up or not (more often not.)
I just dusted.
Dusting is a really strange human activity ... in our particular case, household dusting (which I do about twice a year) is one of those thankless tasks that is never really completed. I use a feather poof to chase the dust from the highest surfaces down, watching the minute particles float and dance in a shaft of sunlight. Then I sweep or vacumn (i.e. stirring up dust) brush my hands off and pretend the house is cleaner.
The light-as-breath soup known as household dust is mainly composed of skin cells, dog and cat dandruff, all kinds of stuff from the atmosphere, actual dirt, mold spores, tiny mites and other flora and fauna better left unmentioned. We have alot of soft, floaty black dog hair in our house, too.
Mites, you say? Ugh! Well, get used to it -- dust mites live on just about every surface in a typical house, especially in mattresses, pillows, carpets and upholstered furniture. There are even some kinds of dust mites that live suspended in the air. These tiny boogers eat other dust particles and their poop becomes yet another ingredient of household dust. the ones that live in your pillows are eating your dead skin cells. (Ah, the succulence! the delicacy!) Yuck! It's almost enough to make me want to hold my breath when I'm dusting. Or maybe I should borrow a face mask from Tim's woodworking shop.
Oh yeah -- Tim brings plenty of dust home from his shop. But I'll save that rant for another time. Sweet dreams tonight! :-D
btw, if you want to see something really cool, check out this website with hundreds of photos of DUST
How to Age Gracefully
~ ~ ~
keep smelling, stay
interested in all the
messages that come alive
like signs,
there are sighs and songs
in every blade of grass and
shift of wind
keep moving, even
if only your eyes
look everywhere,
there is beauty and
movement to watch
like leaves that lift
and fly like birds
~ ~ ~
Maureen Shaughnessy
I will share this post with e.e.cummings, whose love poetry always seems fresh and relevant: here is an excerpt from his poem, "somewhere I have traveled gladly beyond"
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
I fell in love with this dog. She was a classic beauty -- so graceful, elegant, coy yet fully engaged with me and not afraid to look directly at me. I am putting together a collaborative photo essay with my friend, Chris Lombardi, who works at NewWest Network in Missoula. Our photo essay is about the mushers and dogs who run the annual sled race in Montana, Race to the Sky.
Please check back for updates on the essay (it will be published next week) and for more photos and stories about the dogs and the race here on my blog. Thanks for looking.
Waiting
Curled in a warm cocoon,
protected
from the splintering cold
and brittle light outside
I hear a high pitched pulse,
hurled snow crystals, glass
shattered
against glass, enlivened by the play
of light and dancing dark
measured
against the rhythm of lilac branches
in their patient sleep straining
toward light or shadowed tracery.
I hear the winter-weakened sun
roll across a shortened sky,
silence fractured
by icicles clinking like chimes
cast on the frozen ground.
Copyright 2007 by Maureen Shaughnessy
There are two kinds of cats. Those who won't let you rub their bellies ... and those who love their bellys rubbed. Baggins is the second kind of cat: "Ohhhh, that just feels sooooo good. don't stop. don't stop now ..."
What fills the heart that has emptied in despair?
How can surrender change darkness into vision?
He who has seen everything empty itself is close to knowing what everything is filled with. -- Antonio Porchia
translated by W.S.Merwin, from Voices
O lovers
Love will lay a carpet of treasures under your feet.
Musicians
Love will fill your drums with gold.
Thirsty ones
Love will turn your scorched desert into a meadow of paradise.
Forsaken ones
Love will open the doors to the King's palace.
Alchemists
Love's alchemy will reshape gallows into altars.
Sinners
Love will change your apathy to faith.
Kings of the world
in love's hands you will melt like a candle.To the parched lips of those who are willing to surrender
Love will bring the wine
that changes darkness into vision,
cruelty into compassion and dust into precious incense.
Those who think the heart is only in the chest
take two or three steps and are content.
The rosary, the prayer rug and repentance
are paths that they mistake for the destination.
-- Translation by Azima Melita Kolin & Maryam Mafi
"Rumi: Hidden Music," 2001
