OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Thirty Six UNEXPECTED SURPRISES

Okay so how's this for randomness: phone rings.   "Hello?"
                                                                                 "We're number neighbors."
                                                                                 "What's that?'
                                                                                 "Our cell phones have the same number except                                                                                          mine ends in 19 and yours ends in 20."
                                                                                 "Okay that's cool."
                                                                                 "Okay bye."

Who knew?  This is apparently a thing people do, texting and phoning their number neighbors.  For what reason seems less certain.  To spread some sort of millennial good will??  It seems to have caused problems and some threats from people who felt harassed or stalked.  It simply made me curious.  I thought at first Number Neighbors was some kind of political group or cult.  When I realized what it was the voice on the other end just sounded young to me.  Like 40 years younger than me.  What was hoped for in this interaction?   Friendship? Chance encounter?  Will I hear from him again?   Should I have said more or offered anything to this person seeking contact on the other end?   It reminds me of the time I lost my diary, full of very personal stuff, at art school during the early 1980's.  It was returned to me eventually - in my mail box with a note from two people who wrote, "We enjoyed reading this and can't wait to see the movie."  Considering I was trying to be a filmmaker back then it was a nice surprise and affirmation.   Albeit a bit weird as I never knew who they were.

Surprise can be such a delight when it is pleasurable and about possibility.   Today I worked with a two year old client who could not get enough of the stacking cups I brought for him to play with.  Every time he hid a cup under another one I would say, "Where did it go?" and he began to repeat "Where ih go."   With great delight he would squeal when the smaller cup would be revealed. It never got old.  I had to leave the cups with him until next time.   Prior to this he has wanted me to chase him around the house playing hide and seek.   The pleasure in being found and after being hidden is a basic human pleasure.   The ability to retain an image in our minds even when we cannot see it is a gained human skill and so important to our ability to feel secure in life and to later be able to retain abstract symbols like numbers in higher math.  

Later tonight the surprise was a thunder head to the south despite the clear bright sky over the river. As evening fell the cloud began to light up with heat lightening.   A spontaneous firework show miles away in the distance without another cloud in the sky.   We watched for a long while as the sparks and veins of light shot up into the billows of the cloud and disappeared.  

OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Thirty Five SCHEDULES

As spring rolls along and plants are blooming and I do all the usual things I do in the spring as summer approaches - weeding and planting tomatoes and putting away the winter clothes to get out the shorts - I find myself falling back into a routine schedule that was disrupted this winter by an unendurable agitation and rage.  This was combined with despair and hopelessness on such a mass scale that most of us became motivated to act or to try to understand those who were actually jubilant at the nation's new leader.

Many things have occurred in those five months.  The plot both thickens with intrigue and with lassitude.  I find I cannot sustain the rage and have become more focussed on my own life despite the continuing ridiculousness. As 45-T-Man returns from his Grand Tour of the Middle East and Europe - having proclaimed a "home run" - and settles into his routine of tweeting and denying reality as "fake news," I find I just don't care as much any more.  This both a relief and quite alarming.   It's a relief to just live my life - eat my pancakes - and move on.  But there is still so much work that needs to be done.   The reason I can relax some is that activism has now become part of my normal routine.

So here I can remind folks of several events to be aware of:  

- 1)  Friday, June 2 is National Gun Violence Awareness Day - Westchester County is recognizing that and I'll be down at the train station handing out leaflets and distributing orange ribbons to commuters.   Wear Orange is the slogan in honor of 15 year old Hadiya Pendleton who was killed in Chicago by gun violence. In 2015 her friends decided to honor her by wearing orange, the same color hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves.   So #WearOrange and represent for Gun Violence Awareness.    https://wearorange.org/

- 2) Jon Ossoff is running to fill Secretary of Health Tom Price's seat in Georgia.  He has been leading in the polls, but it is close.  His winning a democratic seat in the congress could make a big difference right now.   Election is June 20th and there are lots of ways to help from writing postcards to making phone calls to donating.    https://electjon.com/

This is not political but of interest as well - my friend Sabine will be premiering her film Letters from Baghdad at Lincoln Center and Angelica Film Center on Fri June 2 and Sat June 3. It's the life story of Gertrude Bell who was known as the "female Lawrence of Arabia" and had quite a big influence on the course of diplomacy in the Middle East in the early 20th century. Quite timely.  The directors will be there for Q & A.

http://lettersfrombaghdadthemovie.com/

In thinking about schedules and routine, I realize complacence is too easy to fall into, but then one cannot live forever on the edge of the seat.  There need to be pockets and moments of stillness when we collect ourselves and remember who we are.   I am reminded of Maya Angelou's last tweet: "Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God."  

OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Thirty Four MEMORIAL DAY

In memory of my husband's grandfather Irving Monroe Obreight who served in the US Army during the first World War.

Irving M. Obreight

My grandfather Gaston de Bethune who was a Colonel in the Belgian Army doing reconnaissance over German territory in hot air balloons mapping their positions.  He later enlisted in the American Coast Guard during the 1950's.  My grandfather Clark Lewis Maurer, a sailor in the US Navy during WW I; and my father-in-law Howard Dexter Wetherell, Sr. who served in Germany during WW II and then remained in the army reserves for years before marrying and becoming a father.

Drawing of a WWI Belgian soldier by Massonet

This bouquet from my garden is in honor of all my relatives who have served to keep others safe and free. 

OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Thirty Three PARADE

In these times when it becomes challenging to be patriotic about our government and the decisions made by those in power, when we appear to have business leaders rather than leaders of people and public good, there is something faith restoring about the small hometown parade and celebration of the every day heroes who keep us safe.

On this 100th anniversary of American entrance into the First World War (April 6, 2017) Hastings-on-Hudson, NY is designating our village a Purple Heart Village in honor of the fallen veterans who have served from the community.

Main Street was filled with veterans, soldiers, sailors and local people clapping to the tune of the marching bands.   Flags and purple heart balloons where tied to every lamp post. The parade ended with a ceremony designating the Purple Heart status on the town and of course many speeches...then the playing of taps to remember the soldiers who gave their lives in war.

Purple Heart Village 

Hometown Sweethearts 

Marching bands and military parade

Vintage cars

My friend George driving a veteran of foreign war 

Soldiers from foreign campaigns

Our mayor and state politicians

 Local cheerleaders and baton twirlers

Little League 

The Mother's Club

Girl Scouts

Boy Scouts 

Westchester Police Emerald Society - drum and bagpipe corps

Our volunteer fire brigade!!

And our fire trucks, of course!

There has been some controversy about this purple heart designation by those who consider it war mongering in a time when the possibility of war seems likely in the hands of certain players. But I am patriot in the sense that what feels like democracy to me is to be involved with the public process on the local level and to celebrate those public servants who help make our democracy work.

OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Thirty Two JOURNEYS

Our friend Mark has arrived today from Chicago on his way to the Cape.  It is the beginning of the season of road trips and journeys.   My husband will join him soon to go fishing for striped bass.   My daughter is off in Wisconsin at a writer's workshop.  My son will leave for California to see his girlfriend and I am preparing madly to be ready for my journey up to Deer Isle, Maine in two weeks.   The wind is scattering us in all different directions.  I think of the birds and their annual migrations; the freedom with which they pick up a breeze and take to the air.  

This evening the cat birds were out in the early dusk chiding each other from wires to rooftops.
Cat birds are social creatures who like to imitate other birds and make a variety of sounds from singing to mewling like a cat.   Or they could be Northern Mockingbirds who like to sing at night in chorus and jealously protect their territory by diving bombing your head.

Northern Mockingbird

Catbird

It's Memorial Day weekend the unofficial beginning of summer, the air conditioners are in and summer solstice is just around the corner.

OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Thirty One LIGHT

Some times it is just all about the light!   Every painter's dream.  This is my view this evening just before sunset.

As I listen to the radio all afternoon while I'm writing, and the bombs are just dropping left and right, its seems maybe our Congress and Intelligence communities are beginning to more than see the light after T-man's thug-like performance in Brussels yesterday and his son-in-laws shady dealings with Russia.   In a world of reality it would be true - I'm hoping we have not permanently slipped thru a crack in the time-space continuum to an alternative universe.

OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Thirty SPIRALS

I can't believe I haven't talked about spirals yet.  One of my favorite subjects.

This is prompted by the discovery of cyclones on the poles of Juno, a moon of Jupiter.   The Juno spacecraft is busy doing fly-byes and collecting all sorts of exciting discoveries about the big gas planet.   One of the things they are trying to discover is if Jupiter has a solid core, but what they have discovered is the presence of potentially earth-like water on one of its moons and now cyclones and brilliant auroras on Juno its major moon.

Cyclone's on Juno's pole - NASA 

Juno Spaceship pole to pole orbits - NASA

"We're all jumping up and down with huge excitement," says team member Fran Bagenal, professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

"The results are really quite fabulous," she says. "And they're fabulous because they're not what we expected. If we just saw what we expected, it would be 'ho hum, ho hum, that's good but, you know,' ... Seeing puzzles and mysteries and getting us all excited wondering what we are seeing is more exciting."

Some of those puzzles and mysteries are pretty obscure. For example, there's some startling new data about the spectacular auroras at the poles of Jupiter — which are like the Northern Lights on Earth but much more dazzling.

These auroras are caused by energetic particles streaming along Jupiter's magnetic field lines, and Bagenal says there should be strong electrical currents associated with all those streaming particles.

"But we haven't detected the magnetic field perturbation associated with them," she says, a detail perhaps important only to people who've spent their entire lives studying Jupiter.   Reported by Joe Palca, National Public Radio

Cyclones are of course spirals and spirals are an ever present form in the cosmic construction of the universe.  They can be found in the shape of our DNA, the shape of galaxies and plant and animal forms.  The spiral is the path of energy and has the mathematical formation of the Fibonacci sequence where every number in the sequence is the sum of the two before: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55...    Also known as the Golden Ratio, this universal formula has fascinated mathematicians, biologists, philosophers, and artists for centuries because of its natural proportional appeal and its ubiquitous presence.   Spirals are common symbols in energy healing and in many mystical beliefs. Now we can see them on Juno.

OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Twenty Nine NEW CONNECTIONS

Today was one of those days when I just didn't want to get out of bed.  Nothing in particular was wrong.  No terrible pain in my back.   No anxious dread about meetings or papers to grade.  As a matter  of fact I had a great day lined up, but even though I woke at 6:30 after a deep sleep, I didn't want to move.  I was too busy dreaming about something.  I seem to recall I was somewhere new and being questioned by someone about my art and this was very exciting.  Why on earth would I want to move?  

I was trying to think of what to write about today and I made a list: sit-ups, scales - all rather dreary, but my violin teacher likes to say, "Scales keep us honest," and he's been at it for 95 years.   Then there are the sit-ups.   They are like my little dose of castor oil.   I try to do 96 every morning and most mornings I do.  Not this morning when I was too busy dreaming, but most mornings.  They have a very corrective effect on my fussy lower back, they get me activated and they keep that annoying little rubbery shelf which has developed on my stomach somewhat under control.  I think it's all about "core strengthening."   Strengthening the core protects the lower back and if done properly sit-ups can do just that.   This does not mean actual sitting up in the sit ups, which will strain the back. I have been taught by my chiropractor to keep the chin up toward the ceiling with a grapefruit size space between the chin and collar bone and just raise the arms and upper body up keeping the chin toward ceiling.  It is a much more subtle movement and it engages muscles up the length of the torso. Then you can do the same thing only bringing your knees up to meet your arms - chin still up with grapefruit size gap.  This can be repeated then on left and then right and the whole area gets a workout with very little strain on the back.   It's taken months by I see results.   Do I sound like Jack LaLanne?  Remember him - the Household God of Exercise?

Any way that is not what I wanted to write about, but it is a good thing.  Mostly I wanted to talk about the day I had which was meeting with two relatively new friends with whom I have shared interests:  Buddhism - One is studying at the Tibet House in Manhattan.   The other art - of course.
I had lunch with my friend who is studying the combining of Buddhist practice and psychotherapy and we compared notes about our crazy large Irish Catholic families.  For dinner I met my friend Nancy at a gallery we are checking out in Chelsea.  It might be a place we can curate a show together in Manhattan. Dinner was then a brainstorming session about creating a show based around weaving and collage.   Makes me think of my dream this morning.  There is nothing like new friends to make you feel young and excited about projects and life.   Hurrah for summer and time to work on projects.

OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Twenty Eight VINDICATION

Now I try not to be vindictive.   That really does set well with my Buddhist tendencies, but I must admit many small packets of vindication seemed to be flying our way today.    Even as ISIS is out there bombing children with their misguided vengeance for the deaths of Syrian and Iraqi children and our president is calling them "losers" - there is enough going on today on the home front that should give Air Force One and its passengers pause.  Maybe their final and last stop should be Siberia.  

The Supreme Court in a 4-3 vote (upturned by none other than conservative Clarence Thomas!) ruled against North Carolina voting redistricting, agreeing it was as racist. This is a direct result of the dismantling of the voting rights act so its heartening to see.   What is more the former head of the FBI testified on the Hill today and said he was concerned enough about Russian espionage last summer to call an FBI investigation into the campaign and contacts with Trump's campaign.  When asked if there were anyone who might be trying to cover up these contacts he said that would need to be disclosed in a closed session without public access.  Not good news for Trump and cronies.   Not to mention everyone - everyone except donkey ears Ryan - hates the budget which Mnuchin says does a favor to the taxpayer.   Even top Republicans are saying the only tax payers it gives any break to are the billionaires.   Then!! New Hampshire delivers the first special election victory for a democrat. Edith DesMarais won for State Senate in a red district that went for Trump in November.

They should definitely stay away.   I think we can handle things without them.

OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Twenty Seven PAIN

Fire - pain ??? How can these be good things.  There is far too much pain in the world as it is, but as usual I have a method to my madness.   The first of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism holds that "life is pain or suffering" also called "duhka."   Pain is caused by desire or attachment to things, life, memories.  This is the second noble truth.   In order to be released from pain one must practice non-attachment - the third noble truth.   Once one is able to practice non-attachment, generally a by product of mindful meditation, then one has commenced on the eight fold path to enlightenment - the fourth noble truth.

My truth is that I wake up every morning with pain, a by product of getting older with creaky joints.
Five years ago the kind of pain I live with now just flattened me.   Even now there are some days I just can't pull back the covers.   But now I know what to do and the truth is you manage it.   The other aspect of dukha or suffering is that we humans are really stuck with it.  We are stuck in the cycle of "samsara" - reality where pain is a given, unless we can break the karmic cycle and become bodhisattva or enlightened beings.   When I meditate I've come to appreciate the chronic sciatic pain in my hip because it reminds me that I am alive and of this world.  It is my samsara.  Today Barbara Borysenko's meditation was to try and learn from pains, dissatisfactions and complaints.   What do they have to teach me?   What do I need to remember that I have rather than regret that I do not have? I suppose some day I'll be ready to let go of my pain and release myself from the grip of reality, but for now I'm going to stick with this planet, this plane of being.

Now that is a big commitment actually.   Sitting with pain, being with pain and teaching others to do so is big part of what I do as a therapist.   It's key to do grief work.  Today a long time teenage client came in to tell me of a death in the family and I had to sit with him and help him to recognize the sadness, not just the anger and irritation which are easier tolerate.   We as Americans spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on pain relief and avoidance.  It's become epidemic with opioids and ruined thousands of lives.   In their June 2017 issue Consumer Reports published an incredibly responsible and valuable article on back pain and effective means of relief.   It basically spells out that opioids do nothing for long term back pain or any kind of chronic pain because they become addictive and their effectiveness diminishes.   What they did promote were Tai Chi, yoga, acupuncture, massage and chiropractic as well as general stretching and exercise as ways to help the body adjust to and handle to pain.   The studies apparently show their a great diminishment of pain and sometimes recovery using these more old fashioned tried and true methods.  Not something the AMA or the pharmaceutical industry wants to hear.   CR is widely read and this is responsible journalism at a time when we have a public health crisis.

I went for my own dose of pain relief in the form of Reiki Circle tonight.  The simple laying of hands and energy work have their own magical qualities which are hard to quantify.   Then I was assaulted again on the radio driving home.  19 dead and over fifty injured in a suicide bombing at the stadium in Manchester, England.  Most of the crowd were teenagers - children!   When will it ever stop?  Not as longs as we live this cycle of duhka - samsara.   I grieve for the dead and for British society, which will no doubt experience a new wave of anti-Muslim hatred.

But I looked up at the locust tree in the rain when I got out of my car and even in the purple night I could see its blooms and smell the sweetness in the air.   Amid the pain and suffering we have only to look for the sweetness and know that this too will pass as all things do.

The Empire of Light - Renee Magritte 

  

OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Twenty Six FIRE

I spent the day making a house out of bubble wrap with a roof of bamboo poles.  Nineteenth century German architect Gottfried Semper described enclosure as a basic architectural element, which originated in textiles such  as woven grasses and branches.   These in turn became screens, tapestries and eventual walls to divide space (A. Palmer, 2015, Smithsonian).   

What gives us a sense of home and safety?    Philosopher Olivier Marc says if you give a child a box they will get inside of it.  To seek enclosure and safety is a a basic instinct.  When I was walking home yesterday a helicopter circled above and out to the river.   I looked up and then south to see billowing black smoke from  the direction I had just come.   The new apartments down the street had caught fire and every fire truck within ten miles was soon screeching to the scene.   My friend who lives next door to these apartments hosed down his house in case the large chunks of charred insulation should set his wooden shingles alight.

There is nothing more awe inspiring than the power of fire, except perhaps the power of the sea.    This is especially true if it threatens our home, the center of our sense of security.
It's the second apartment building this year to burn on our street.   The first was from a cigarette in a mattress.  Time will tell what caused this latest one.  Fortunately no one was hurt.
I'm required to do mandatory fire safety training for my hospice job every year for which I am grateful. and I have the utmost respect for volunteer firemen and women.  They rush to the scene of any fire, walking into the flames when most of us are running the other way.   

Creation of fire, however, is also the discovery which defines us as human (Ronnberg & Martin, 2010, ARAS)   Fire was imagined as both a deity and a gift from the gods.   

Sumerian Fire God

It's a primary component of the cosmos and a basic element of alchemical transformation.  While considered destructive, humans would not have been able to cook foods or heat their dwellings without fire craft.  Fire making is a skill in which people take great pride and care. 

 Both destruction and purification can be its the result.   As in the legend of the phoenix, a transformed being can arise from the ashes of fire and when a forest burns it destroys life, but can promote the growth of new seedlings.  Many plants and animals have have evolved adaptations for fire tolerance.   The Southern California Lodgepole Pine's cones are sealed with a resin that can only be released by its heat and the Giant Sequoia depends upon fire to open up gaps in the forest canopy so their saplings can mature.   

The presence of fire in the neighborhood makes me grateful and mindful of my own dwelling, the care we have taken with it, and the fortune we have had over the years to live here in safety.
How fragile is this sense of safety in the face of the raw elements of natural world.

OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Twenty Five DRAWING

I am now over a third of the way through the 365 day commitment to this blog of good things.  
It is sometimes the only writing I do each day and yet it provides that opportunity.

Today I returned to another old skill, which I do not do nearly enough of, yet it is nearly like breathing.   In order to apply for an installation there are several drawings required.
Without practice what the eyes sees and what the hand does are not always so well coordinated, but the pleasure of making marks and the feel of graphite on on paper evoke old memories.

Today on Studio 360 I heard Kurt Anderson interview Dr. Eric Kandel, Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist, about his new book Reductionism in Art and Brain Science in which he explores how we find meaning in art.   He won the prize for research into memory.   The book looks at how we distill memory and knowledge of aesthetic qualities in order to understand the abstractions contained in art.   He looked at the memory of sea slugs to understand human memory and speaks of bottom up sensory experience (lower brain function) combined with top down cognitive function.  This combination results in a reductionism, which allows memory to be reduced and integrated.   Kandel makes the argument that reductionism lead to the abstraction of the figure and other representational schema in modern art.  He maps this transition and explores works from artists ranging from Turner and Monet to Pollock and Warhol.

The process of drawing is one of reduction, but also of creation.   One can't possibly recreate reality in an image, but the drawing itself becomes something new unto itself.

Van Gogh  

Louise Bourgeoise

OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Twenty Four RECYCLED

I am the proud parent of two children who do not like to buy their clothing new.  They are connoisseurs of the thrift store.   Additionally my son, who is now composing his own music, has begun to purchase vintage mixers, synthesizers and recording equipment.  Not exactly Luddites like their mother, but some sort of throwbacks.  Nick found a forty year old typewriter in the basement a few years back and dusted it off to bring to college.  Shades of Hemingway.   He even scoured the the Yellow Pages (not the internet) for a stationary store going out of business ,which had the right ribbon and bought quite a few before they closed.

Recycled papers have always been one of my favorite collaging materials; old letters, yellowing Christmas wrapping from the 50's, old stationary.   Today I wrote a proposal to do a sculpture installation made entirely with recycled plastics.   Re-using and making new feels like an antidote to overconsumption.

OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Twenty Three BLOOM

Okay - "a day late and a dollar short" but I do have a good excuse.    Yesterday was the birthday of my dear friend Francoise, who died seven years ago.   A great excuse to celebrate with her family and friends, which is what we did until about midnight last night.  

But otherwise I am enjoying that brief window of blooming, which I await every year and savor for as long as I can.

Dear, dear,

What a fat, happy face it has

This peony.

Kobayashi Issa

There is a particular New Zealand peony in my garden that blooms first.  It is called Silver Dawn and is a single ivory leafed flower with the scent I remember from my own wedding bouquet.  I nostalgic memory evoked by smell.  I watch the ants busily collect the dew from around the bud before it unfolds.

The other surprise every year is the amaryllis:

More blooms from the garden to come.