OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Twenty Seven PEOPLE WITH BOATS II

Tonight - a beautiful end of summer evening - I went out for the first time this year on my husband's boat.   What a perfect evening with smooth water and cool breeze and a clear sky with stars appearing above the twilight.

We traveled north under the new Tappan Zee Bridge and looked up at the not quite completed Eastern span.   What a privilege to see the world from the water.

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Twenty Six PEOPLE WITH BOATS

Today was rainy and cold; more like October than the end of summer, but Dean and I were able to get our five miles in this morning.   I took advantage of the day to hole up on the couch and do research I've been putting off all summer.   A whole day devoted to scouring the online stacks of NYU's library. My computer desktop is now packed with reading for tomorrow.   The day ended with a surprise visit from our son and his girlfriend.  We baked a chicken and potatoes for a cold rainy night. I'm guessing we're seeing the outer edges of Hurricane Harvey and I'm grateful that I can spend a quiet day out of the storm in the warmth of my home in the company of family.   During breaks from reading I caught glimpses what people in Houston and the surrounding region are experiencing of the storm; elderly people up to their chests in cold murky water.   But also fleets of small craft boats filled with storm victims and captained by ordinary citizens.   While our so-called president is bragging about the magnitude of the storm, ordinary Americans are stepping up to save their neighbors.  

Here's what you can do: http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/ways-can-help-people-hurricane-harvey/ - or write a check to the Red Cross.

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Twenty Five COOL DAYS

Just taking a moment to say how much I appreciate the waning days of summer.   Cool air, blue skies and the clicking  of cicadas and tree frogs.   Hurricane Harvey is upon us and Fall looms large on the calendar.   For now the scrim of summer is down for one last act before Labor Day.

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Twenty Four STRANGE FRUIT

Strange Fruit was Billie Holiday's signature song, but it also seems to have been part of her undoing. I learned this today while listening to NPR's On the Media.   They did a show exploring the so-called "war on drugs" from the 1900's post Civil War until President T"s current focus on the opioid crisis.

Henry Anslinger was the government agent first assigned to tackle the illegal use of alcohol during Prohibition.  He became the first director of the Federal Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms.
While laudanum was broadly used by white middle/upper class women for nervous conditions - "the vapors" - and were the highest incidence of "addicts" in the early 20th century, Anslinger demonized minorities and particularly jazz musicians for use of marijuana and heroin.   He felt Strange Fruit was far too suggestive and subversive o be performed in public especially by a black female jazz singer with a heroin habit.  Written by Jewish Bronx school teacher Abel Meeropol, as a reaction to images of lynched black men hanging from trees in the south, it became and anthem for the civil rights movement decades later.  Billie Holiday continued to perform it in defiance of the suppression of her voice and the songs powerful message.  I have always admired Billie Holiday's voice and artistry, but not till now have I considered her a political activist.   Anslinger essentially destroyed her career as a result.   She became a martyr and a cult hero in the face of white supremacist attitudes in the government.

Seems highly relevant in the wake of recent violence in Charlottesville.

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Twenty Three RENEWAL

It's been years since I spent time in this house.  My parents named it Bird Haven because of the numbers of birds that visited the feeder outside the panoramic picture window of the kitchen.  It was the house of their retirement.   In the breezeway between the house and the guest bedroom where I spent so many nights, I found the acrylic painting I made freshman year in college for an intro to painting class:

It's kind of a quirky odd still life, but it brings to life an even earlier era in the home where I actually grew up that is now long gone.  But you can see the sliding door to the dining room reflected in the mirror.  It may be the only image left from the rooms of my child hood.

Chris and Meghan have renamed Bird Haven - Bird Haven Ranch because they now have horses and paddocks and a barn there. They intend to buy sheep as well so Meghan can spin and weave her own wool.   It was a refreshing pleasure to renew my relationship to this property as well as to my brother and his little family.  It was wonderful to see how they are transforming the property into a productive and creative working farm.   Meghan has a worm farm for making natural fertilizer for organic farmers.  She's planning to cultivate the abundant hollies on the acres for holiday garlands.   Her weaving business involves turning recycled t-shirts and blue jeans into rag rugs and table runners.   Then my brother makes things out of recycled woods and metals.  He created my frames out of packing crates for elevator parts!    Their kids make toys and paintings on scraps of wood and are learning to weave and handle tools and ride horses and build stone walls.   It's exciting to see the creative energy in all their efforts.  My parents would be very proud.

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Twenty Two COUNTING

On my way up to stay with my brother for the weekend I counted the minutes and hours peel away as I sat in traffic first on the Merritt Parkway and then on Rt 95.    Hours counting the amount of work I was not able to do while sitting inexplicable parking snarls along the Northeast Corridor.

I've gone up to RI to the home of my parents which is now occupied by my brother Chris and his wife Meghan who is a master weaver.   I wanted first to be able to spend some Q-time with my 6 year old niece Ghislaine and her 3 year old brother Joseph.   Secondly Meghan was re-warping her 6 treadle floor loom and promised allow me to assist her.   Third my brother is amazing in his ability to fix and make things.  He promised to help me construct frames for several large paintings I've been working on.   Many reasons to return home.   I continued to count more as soon as I arrived.  Five to remember the presence of my parents through the sound of classical radio WCRB in the kitchen; the bird song clock, which was my mother's; the garbage disposal sound which I always associate with my dad.    Additionally walking around the house and the yard evoked so many years of being on this property with my parents, for our wedding reception which occurred in the yard under a big tent and then for years with my own children who ran around and played where I now saw my nephew and niece.

Counting became the focus of my evening as Meghan taught me how to measure the warp for the loom using a warping board.   The counting becomes a focus and a rhythmic practice as you move back and forth with the yarn looping under and over and crossing thread at the appropriate spots.

Meghan said after awhile I wouldn't need to count because muscle memory would take over.
I found with my little niece and nephew playing "car' on the furniture nearby it was hard to focus.
I needed to count as a form of focus.   Meghan speculated that the color and texture of the yarn could affect focus depending upon how attracted or repelled you were by it.  This seems a fine research question for materials in the therapeutic use of fiber arts.  Laying the warp on the warping board is a contemplative practice and could be used to transform traumatic memory.  

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Twenty One TAKING STOCK

Today I stepped back and stopped after an intensive week of painting.  It's time to make a show card and my friend John photographed my work while I stood aside and watched.   Under the lights and on the wall it was show time.   Was it gallery ready?   Did it make sense?   There were glitches but I'm pretty happy with the results.

As John said to me, "Now is the time when you get to explain to your audience what your work is about.  You get to justify your work."

There is nothing like stepping out of time to take stock.  Taking a breath before moving on.

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Twenty ANTI-GRAVITY

We all have days when we are dragging ourselves around.  95 F weather.   Too much insanity on the news from Russiagate to neo-Nazis to North Korea.   We hold tension in our bodies and then loose touch with them.   Basically a bunch of walking zombies.   Seriously.  This is part of the reason I've begun to study Somatic Experiencing (SE) which puts the focus back on a subtle awareness of the body and what it has to tell us.

Tonight I attended a workshop in a local church sponsored by the Riverarts arts council on the Alexander Technique so I could compare it to SE.  Mr. Alexander was an actor who began to loose his own voice on stage  so he studied his own body patterns to determine how to fix this.   His technique emphasizes awareness of the head and neck and how this "steers" the body in space.  People experience "tightness" wheightedness, breathlessness - and the instruction (very simply as this is all that I learned so far) is to free your neck and push up from the earth and not give into the gravitational force that pushes us down.   It's a simple subtle instruction that I've found myself remembering as I went through the following day.   "Where is my neck?  Is it connected to my body? Am I straining to do an action?  Can I push down on the earth to rise up into action without straining my neck?

We had a wonderful, out-of-the-box teacher from the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia named Ariel Weiss who lead us in numerous exercise designed to make us aware of our bodies in space.  Her favorite word is buoyancy.   The way I see this it this is another way of stepping into the flow or energy stream to make use of it.

OGT DAILY Two Hundred and Nineteen RECYCLED AGAIN

What hot and sloggy day!  But what a fun day I had.   Today I got up early to help Dean clean out his truck of fishing poles and coolers etc... so we could head to Long Island City, Queens to Materials for the Arts.   This is a city run organization which takes all sorts of materials from industries in the city and around the state and offers them to schools and community organization to be used in the making of art.  What a treasure hunt!   Bins and bins of fabric scraps in every color and texture; bins and bins of weaving yarns and buttons and zippers; hundreds of bolts of fabric; old mannequins; cell phone covers; Xmas decorations... you name it.   One of my companions found a 5 foot velveteen covered set of letters which she'll use somehow in an art exhibit.

I stocked up on material for the art therapy dept. and found several treasures which I'll use myself.
I helped the textile arts dept. restock their shelves with bolts of fabric and have an exhausted but deeply satisfied feeling now.  It feels like I've discovered Santa's elf workshop.

.

Fun ahead. 

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Eighteen ECLIPSE!

When I was growing up in the 60's there was a total eclipse of the sun every year except 1964 and 69.
There are several types of eclipse - annular: where the moon is smaller than the sun and leaves a bright ring, partial where the moon does not completely move over the sun; and total: where for several minutes the sky goes from sunny day to dark night.   This is a terrifying sight.   In ancient times it was thought to bring death and destruction because humans worshiped the sun that provided light and warmth and made crops grow.   The word eclipse comes from the Greek ékleipsis, which means to fail of abandon.   Mystical powers were ascribed to this heavenly event.    It was thought that the eclipse was a symbol of change or loss.   Indeed the years of my youth were times of great change and cultural shifts from the Vietnam War to the counter culture movement and the rise of civil rights and women's rights.

There was another total eclipse again on March 7, 1970.   I would have been just eleven years old and still in elementary school.  I remember distinctly being warned "Don't look at the sun," and we were instructed how to create a pin hole camera to watch the eclipse.  This was done with a box that you put over your head like the earliest form of virtual reality.

So this all came back to me today when I realized it was 12:30 pm and the great event was about to occur.   My neighbor and I laughed when we almost collided with our home-made gizmos headed for the bright lawn across the street.

I had made a cereal box pin-hole and then a much simpler grocery bag to put over my head.  The latter proved the best and I was even able to take photographs.   Marjorie had two pieces of cardboard, one with a hole which allowed her to project the image onto to the other.

At 2:44 as predicted the sky darkened and became hazy, but it did not become night because were not on the path of the total eclipse which occurred somewhere down around Tennessee.   What we saw looked more like a crescent moon.   Half an hour later everything was back to normal and the whole thing was over.

1:45 pm

2:45 pm 

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/eclipse-information.html

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Seventeen MY DAD

Okay - again a day late as this should have been posted on 8-20-17.  I want to honor my father on the 98th anniversary of his birth.   When he was born in Schaarbeek, a suburb of Brussels on August 20, 1919, the midwife delivered him with a caul over his head - a piece of the amniotic sac had come with him.   According to wive's tales this was the sign of a wise man or a sage.   It turned out to be the truth with him.   A man with an encyclopedic knowledge of history, an avid life long learner who took Greek and Hebrew lessons well into his eighties, a gifted and beloved chemistry professor and researcher and a wise and loving father who invented stories and read us the classic so they we all developed intense and complex imaginative lives.   I am forever grateful to be his daughter - his Mimsy Borogove.   Happy Birthday Andre J.

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Sixteen SUMMER ROAD

So this is a day late because I arrived home at 1:30 am last night after driving home on the NY thruway with one head light and being stopped by a state trooper.   That is my excuse.

But why was I out so late and in such a situation?   Because I went to see the opera with the American Symphony Orchestra at the Fisher Center at Bard College in Annandale-on-

Hudson two hours north from here.   Death, drama, destruction, betrayal, mad love, infidelity, children out of wedlock, suicide, folk dancing and soaring arias and oratorio.  Everything you could hope for in the grand soap opera of life.   We saw Halka - the Polish national opera which has lots of folk dancing and costume.  My friend Janet was generous enough to spring for the tickets and for dinner!   And she offered me a bed for the night, but I have a fifteen year old blind, deaf, incontinent doggy at home whom I could not abandon and thus had my own drama driving home with the one headlight.   The policeman was very nice actually and cautioned me to go slow and stop if it started to rain.   It was clear sailing though on the thruway and a good discipline for me to take my time and plant myself behind another car all the way down I-87 back home.

Normally I am an inpatient highway driver and like to get in the lane with no one impeding me.  I love highway driving actually.  On the way up I drove the Taconic State Parkway which is one long green strip between Westchester County and northern NY bordering on Vermont.   There are no houses, stores or even street lights on the Taconic.  It's a rural isolated road and not one to drive alone on at night, especially not in a down pour.   You also want to watch your speed as the state troopers like to hide behind banks of trees and surprise you and its known for grisly accidents from people driving way too fast.

But on a sunny summer day with the clouds rising over the ribbon of road and the surrounding green hills it seems like summer could never end.   Driving up the Taconic is the essence of August to me. It's a bittersweet experience traveling north, which feels timeless, even when you know that the summer will be over in just a few short weeks. In fact I saw a first reddened maple yesterday somewhere near the Dutchess County line.

I have a long history of traveling up that road. I first dropped my son off at Y camp off it when he was nine years old and cried all the way back home.   Later he went to a music camp in the Berkshires called Greenwood which could be reached via the same route.  I spent many an August Saturday traveling to hear him play chamber music in his summer whites with a whole bunch of other barefooted musical geniuses in a beautiful barn on a rolling Berkshire hill.  The quality of that experience - hearing him play cello in the orchestra when they rolled through Beethoven's 5th symphony - not an eye was dry among the players or the audience when they were done. It was so emotional.  Hearing these young teens sign in harmony and unison together and play Handel and Mozart and Shostakovich with such heart and skill was an incomparable experience.  I'll never forget walking out of the performance barn in the pitch black night behind a group of 15-16 year old boys as I headed for my car to make the three hour trek back down the Taconic for home. They were passionately discussing Shostakovich as they headed to their cabin for the night.  Only at Greenwood; a magical place which helped shape my son's sense of his place in the world.

Every time I headed home from there I carried the high emotion of this rarified experience of hearing young, gifted musicians and there was always an awareness of its fleeting nature. The sweet melodies of youth linger only in memory.  Used to be I would load my son and his cello and his dirty laundry in my Subaru for the long trek home at the end of his few weeks and he would be sad for days. The last time I saw him there was his last year after six years as a counselor.  He was headed in the opposite direction driving a new girlfriend back to Boston leaving me to make the trip down the Taconic on my own.  

Then he chose to go to Bard College and the Taconic became the source of a new destination and adventures.   Summer meant driving up to see him working at the Bard farm where he spent a July eating only kale and beets and trapping woodchucks who were eating the beans.  He lost ten pounds then.  Eventually that drive took us to his final concert at Fisher Hall as a graduating Senior and graduation fireworks on the Hudson River as is the Bard tradition.   It is road laden with memory for me; rich and sweet, melancholy and mournful, the memory of childhood a distant echo.   Along the way, however, I have developed my own destination and associations with this summer road by attending an art retreat in Catskill, NY.   It's what a mother must do to survive the loss of her children when they move own.   Driving up yesterday for an evening of music at Bard, I savored the sweetness of the green road and blue skies above me as if they could never end.

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Fifteen NAPPING

With my crazy work and sleep schedule - in the studio till 11 pm.  Eat dinner at midnight.  Watch tv until 2 am - I am way too over tired and accident prone.  So today I did the most sensible thing and took a long nap on the couch in my studio.  Aaaah what a pleasure.  

And what exactly have I been watching until 2 am every night?  A dreary Netflix original called "Thirteen Reasons Why" which is a teen drama about suicide.    Aside from the National Enquirer/People Magazine titillation factor, this is really homework of  kind for my Adolescent Development class for which I need to write the syllabus.   One of the units is depression and suicide.
I think I may assign watching an episode so we can debate whether this type programming is helpful or harmful to depressed and suicidal youth.  Despite the usual stereotypes: the rich jocks, the alienated artsy type, the beautiful girl who is labeled as a slut, the clueless parents - they do good job of describing adolescent intensity, drama, self-focussed myopic narcissism and extreme creativity.  They also do not shy away from showing the ugliness of cyberbullying, date rape, and the callous back stabbing of youth who are not yet comfortable in their own skin and unable to articulate their feelings.  The suicide is depicted and not overly sensationalized.  It is the aftermath and the build up we are meant to see and understand simultaneously.

It's my opinion that teens for the most part do not get enough sleep and make many stupid decisions as a result.  More napping should be built into high school schedules!

But seriously now are we glad Steve Bannon has been kicked out of the White House finally?

Ding dong the witch is dead!   Ding dong the wicked witch is dead!

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Fourteen A FALL

Some times taking a fall can be a good thing.  It checks your speed when you're going too fast or spinning out of control or reaching to far and fast like Icarus.

That's what happened to me today.  I have so much to do that every moment of my August is scheduled.   Between my solo show in October and book chapter I have been asked to write (also due in Oct) I am slightly crazed and not getting enough sleep.  This is all in a good way though.  All things I want to be doing!  But this morning I overslept for my doctor's appointment and when I arrived realized I had to move my car because of street cleaning.  By the time I re-parked I was 1/4 mile away and already late.   Not focussed on where I was going the sidewalk, which on this stretch of road resembles the Appalachian Trail for its undulating peaks and valleys, grabbed the tip of my sandal and sand me flying hands first onto the pavement which sandpapered the palms of my hands,
ripped a hole in my pants and my knee and my ankle, and did something awkward to my right arm.

By the time I was finished with my appointment I could not move my right elbow to do much of anything because it had begun to swell up.   I spent much of the day with it in an improvised sling and popped several Advil.   By afternoon I was doing pretty much all I had to do with a few twinges here and there.  Tonight the Ace bandage and an ice pack are going to be my new best friend.

But the reality is things could have been so much worse.  At my age I could have broken something.
It forced me to slow down and watch my feet, not drive so fast - use the mantra: "Whenever I get there is going to be okay."   And really what I remember of the fall is that on the way back to the doctor's office despite my bleeding knee and limp arm was a stand of twelve foot sunflowers growing
in a trash can by the road.  It reminded me that we are in the heart of summer still when the sun is at its height and the harvest of flowers is ever present.  Another month and winter will already be calling.   August is so lovely and bittersweet.  

I call that a fall into grace.   I think our president is on the verge of a fall into disgrace.   I'll wager he's not likely to notice the sunflowers

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Thirteen OUTRAGE

Much as I like to promote balance and equanimity sometimes there is a time for outrage and today was one of them.

As Heather Heyer said on her Facebook page:  "If you're not outraged you're not paying attention."

Heather Heyer's Memorial 

Her mother had a message for the fascist element who helped set the stage for her death.   "If you think you are stopping her voice, you just magnified it."    According to friends and family Heather devoted her life to injustice and now the Alt- right has made her a martyr.   I'll wear purple in her honor tomorrow.

But my outrage reached its boiling point today when I heard 45 make statements about there being good people and violent people on both sides in Charlottesville.  He is openly condoning the Neo-Nazi, racist, fascist, alt-right fringe who seem to be gathering steam to be violent elsewhere.  This must be because he agrees with them.   What is he doing in the White House??

A little or a lot outrage is the answer today.   To feel otherwise would not be a good thing.   We have gone beyond the boiling point.   We are all frogs in the pot of water now.

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Twelve SYMMETRY

I found this perfect little sphere on my walk this morning with the dog.

It seemed a balm for the imbalance present in the world right now.  
Someone on the radio this morning described the rage and violence of the new breed of white supremacists as a form of rebellious identity formation.   While facile and pat in some ways; equating asocial, trolling, blatant racism, and fascist sentiments with a reaction to a culture of diversity and political correctness is some how comforting.   Reminds me of kids raised by hippie parents who become neoconservatives or wall street bankers.  Also that life runs in cycles and we're in a cycle of imbalance right now.

Today I've tried to cultivate images of balance and symmetry as the news has seeped in here and there with stories of armed riots and hate speech and the tacit approval of our president.

I am reminded all day of beauty.  The dandelion.   A feather from the morning doves.  The dahlias which keep blooming in resplendent abundance and the forget-me-nots which have blossomed finally after months of cultivating in the basement.

The best examples which come to mind are the inspiration for my current installation project: wampum treaties.   The Two Lines treaty created in the 17th century between the Five Nations of the Lenni Lenape people and the Europeans declared the two peoples would live in peace along the waters of the Hudson River as long as the sun shines, the grass grows green and Mother Nature continues to rule over the earth.   Despite the demons which appear to currently reign humans are capable of higher instincts.

The Two Lines Wampum  Treaty

The William Penn Treaty

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Eleven DISABILITY

Who gets to determine whether another person is disabled or not?   That is the question raised by a poet who is herself disabled from birth by Cerebral Palsy, Molly McCully Brown.

Her new book of poems The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded (Persea Books, 2017) imagines what life is like for those who were born with her condition and others, many decades before her own birth.   Many were considered feebleminded because their bodies were distorted by uncontrolled muscle spasms.  Molly explores her own advantages as child of enlightened understanding of the medical issues regarding CP and contrasts this with the lives of those who were shut away.

Hers is an essential voice for the disabled who are often the most invisible and unseen members of our society.   She was interviewed by Terri Gross on Fresh Air recently and she could not be more eloquent about what it meant to be defined by her own body from an early age and yet how she managed to articulate and define meaning for herself in a way that presents a beacon for all those who are born with "difference" whether it is neurological or not.   She notes that if she had been born in an earlier era she might have been placed in an institution herself.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/books/review-virginia-state-colony-for-epileptics-and-feebleminded-molly-mccully-brown.html?_r=0

A Prayer for the Wretched Among Us

Always, they tell you to go 

where God calls you. 

What they don’t say is that, sometimes, 

God will call you to the wilderness,

gesture toward the trees, and then 

hang back and wave you on alone. 

This is how I wound up granting absolution 

to low-grade idiots and the worn-out women 

who turn them over in bed at night and, 

at dawn, go home to their own families, 

try not to think of ghosts 

wasting away in this world.

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Ten LIGHT IN MUSIC

It's almost too unbearable to contemplate the death of a woman in Charlottesville, VA due to racial hatred and violence.   The light filled mornings of my time on the Cape will become clouded over soon with the oppression of everyday news if I do not focus on the positive - the "one good thing" each day.

Fortunately I woke this morning to the voice of Krista Tippett as I have many a Sunday morning.   Her guest was young musician Craig Minowa whose band Cloud Cult is considered indie-alt rock, but whose music is more about seeking light and meaning in life.   Craig's two year old son died mysteriously in his sleep a few years back.   His albums Light Chaser and The Seeker both speak of the search for meaning and light in every day because we just don't know who brief and unexpected our lives might be.

Craig Minowa of Cloud Cult

So today's post is really an unabashed plug for several young musicians including Craig.

This morning after hearing Craig on the radio early,  I took the Governor's Island ferry over to the Rite of Summer Music Festival to hear my son's friend Finnegan Shanahan perform his orchestral suite The Two Halves with Contemporaneous, a contemporary classical music ensemble.   What a delight to hear this music live.   Finn has a beautiful voice as well as deep skills as a composer.
The album references the Hudson River and its dual nature as a tidal river.    

Finn Shanahan and Contemporaneous at Rite of Summer Festival 

Finally I drove from Governor's Island up to The Tompkins Corner Cultural Center on Peekskill Hollow Road in Putnam Valley, NY - a full 1 1/2 hours north to hear my fiddle teacher and friend Harry Bolick perform songs from his encyclopedic new book Mississippi Fiddle Tunes and Songs from the 1930's (University of Mississippi Press).   Co-authored by Stephen T. Austin this book contains 320 tunes collected by Works Progress Administration field workers during the Depression along with many photos of fiddlers and a history of the WPA field recording.  
You can hear some of the tunes at www.mississippifiddle.com.  

Tompkin's Corner Cultural Center, Putnam Valley, NY 

Harry was accompanied by yet another talented young musician, the versatile Nathan Bontrager who played cello, but is equally comfortable on fiddle.   He's an international old time and traditional music player who is also immersed in the world of new music.  He currently resides in Germany.  

Harry and Nathan in front of WPA Photos

                                                    

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Nine HOME AT LAST

Much as I didn't want to leave my Cape Cod idle, I have come home at last and all the little pieces of my life are settling into place.  I was so ambitious thinking I would get so much work done tonight, but it took me three hours just to unpack and reorient to my surroundings.   The garden needing a weeding although I was pleased to see the forget-me-nots I planted from seed in May are finally blooming.  Then I needed to just go around and touch all the things which belong to me and remember what it means to live in this house.

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig,

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Eight ROUTINE

Back to the ritual of stretching - even if I can't remember the routine my body does.   Front bends, seated bends, repetitive stretches to strengthen upper back and sit ups for the core.   Being on vacation and immersed in the daily therapy of nature I almost don't feel the need for the routine because I'm biking and swimming and walking on the beach, but to return to it feels like home.

I am at home within my body.   Solid standing tree pose on both legs this morning.   I could not have done that a year ago.  Balance and routine.  I feel myself returning to what I know because I know I have to leave soon.  Just a day or so more.   I will listen to the news again and hear that our government seems to be preparing us for war of some kind somewhere.  It seems the logical conclusion as way to avoid the uncovering of extensive corruption and incompetence.  No one wants to unseat a commander and chief during war time.

What I wish is to remain here where I can engage in thalassotherapy every day.  Where the waves are gentle and lapping when I swim and the terns fly above my head under warm and sculptured sky.
Someday soon...someday...I will swim everyday in these warm waters.

OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Seven STONES

I'm a gatherer of stones.  Stones contain the energy of the place from where there were gathered.
These are from Coast Guard Beach on the Atlantic Ocean at 8:30 am on a sunny August morning when the tide was midway out and sand was laid bare with flat stones.

Stones also hold the energy of where they came from the earth - granite and sandstone boulders in the mountains carried down stream; slate and basalt cliffs along a river like the Hudson.

Carrying a stone can allow you to be in the present and past at the same time.   Stones carry stories of the history of the earth.