Thoughts of Mother

(October 31, 1927 - July 5, 2002)

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Mother is...a flower
blooming for ever
within the summer time
of another place...........


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Captive Friends

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Sun's Gaze

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Precious Water

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Pace has been slow as turtle at my place of employment...which would be nice except that there are many many other places I'd rather be...other things I could be doing...but then again...it is an opportunity given to write about a subject often on my mind...how lucky most of us...here......are to be able to access harnessed water to use as we wish...and...unfortunately... in the quantities we want...
When I open a tap at home...water gushes out clear...cold...and delicious...having been drawn up from a mountain spring...100 feet underground. It was not always this way - when I first moved to the mountains there was no running water in the then one room cabin... there was a well but water had to be hauled manually several hundred feet in 5 gallon containers. A hardy task...especially during the winter months when several feet of snow covered the ground. When one does not have running water...everything takes on a new dimension...water has to be heated...for cooking... washing dishes... bodies...and clothes...a task...with three small children... Every drop of that five gallons becomes precious...and one soon develops a sense of how much is normally wasted...how it's taken for granted... when all one has to do to obtain it is turn on the faucet... That experience especially has helped me to remain conscious that water is not to be wasted...or harmed....
There are many who do not have tapped water...often...not by choice...like on some of the reservations... and other poverty stricken areas pocketing the abounding wealth. When I went back to Haiti a few years ago...water was in short demand...the "affluent" inhabitants did have a limited amount of running water due to their being able to purchase water to store in cisterns...state or city provided water is non-existent...but those in the poor areas... the slums... and the rural areas do not have such access...and most have to do their bathing...and clothes washing...in rivers and creeks...if they're lucky enough to have such water sources nearby...and have to haul their drinking and other water from the same places...which are often contaminated from the use of "modern" cleaning agents... instead of traditional cleansing herbs and plants. Disease is rampant due to the lack of clean and potable water.
The last few years...this area I live in has seen drought...and the governmental "rationing" of water instituted in the spring and summer months....much to the whining complaints of those who have to...space out days on which they can wash their cars or water their lawns... Talk about a twisting of priorities...how I wonder...would these complainers fare if their taps were cut off...it they had to live even a couple of days without the ability to access this precious...vanishing...gift...from the Earth...whose oceans make up about two thirds of its body...like the saline water of life in ours...and account for almost all of our drinking water. Maybe they don't know that in 1999 there were about 50 coastal areas earthwide which were considered...dead...where life could not be sustained...due to the killing effect of residential...vehicular...and industrial toxic pollutants...in 2004 there were 150...and the number continues to grow. Think we can all read the math on this one.....visualize as coupled with the rapid ravaging of Earth's rainforests...where 50 to 90 percent of her species live...including millions of our own...and which are home to many of the medicinal plants used for milleniums by Earth's native peoples and now used as a base for "advanced" medicines. Rainforests which it is estimated will disappear in 30 to 50 years if the current...greed driven...pillaging continues. That's around the corner...so scary and heartwrenching...to think of the terrible consequences which our young ones will have to face headon in adulthood... But...hope remains nonetheless...as each and every one of us...can...still...choose to live...in ways to turn the tide of disaster we've created... boomeranging back straight for us..............


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Dreamscape

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Purple Haze

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Evening paints the foothills in purple's hues.............

Tunnel Vision

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Dragon Flys Waiting

Dragon flys have always been a part of me...since even before I can remember...as a child seeing them fly low and close...often hovering long enough for me to get a good look at their mysterious lightness and grace full beauty....then disappearing at speeds reaching 40 mph. It remains such a gift to have them come near....and feel the incredible radiance and power eminating from their small being.
Several years ago...I went back...back to my native land...after an absence of so many years...carrying...along with my suitcase... a homesickness buried so deep....I didn't feel it until my feet were about to touch the ground. A couple of days after arriving in that sorrow soaked land... which has never recovered from Columbus and his followers setting their bloodseeking boots on its peaceful shore...I was staying at a place near the sea and looked out of the room's large window...into the thick drops of a torrid dense tropical rain fall. I saw them immediately...at least fifty...magical dragon flys...clustered together...standing so still in front of the window... facing me...waiting...in the rain...welcoming me back...rerooting me to the home of my native ancestors. It was not long after receiving this...vision...that I had their mark etched into me....as a reminder...that we each hold a place...in the universe...
I have read that in ancient times...some dragon fly flew on wingspans of 27 inches or more! What a wondrous sight that would be to behold...two plus feet of these creatures....who prepare for their earthly debut for years sometimes...nymphs growing in water...until they finally emerge as their magnificent selves...each wearing a colour of the rainbow... This year there were many many of them...dancing everywhere...
About two years ago my brother...who lives on the east coast...gave me one which he had found....life gone. It was intact...so delicate...beautiful transparent blacklined mesh wings outstretched...legs tucked neatly under its body. I wasn't sure what to do... whether I should return it to the earth...but sensed that this one had found its way to me for a reason...and that it was a sacred gift to be taken care of for a time... Then...a couple of months ago...on an urge...I walked into a second hand store...to browse for nothing in particular...and as soon as I did so the young salewoman...seeing their likeness on me...told me that a large dragon fly had come into the store a few weeks earlier...perished on a window sill...and lay there still since they didn't know what to do with it. She asked me if I wanted to see it and take it home. Of course...I did...amazed....that another was being given me to guard...black with blue coloration of its body...lines and transparency of its wings...exactly...like the one at home...only smaller. When I rested them together...it seemed...destined... that one had been here waiting...and that the other... waiting there... had been found..............................

Moon's Shine

Moon...keeps looking in on me
this melancholy night
as if she knows
the day has been hard...
and my outlook discolored by one
camouflaged in the dark
trying to take
what is not theirs...to have...
But moon...light traveling
the wideness of my window...
draws me to peer out and look up
to soak in her healing rays
journeying through space and in time
to shine hope and brightness...upon me...

(Written yesterday evening after dealing with the attempted theft of my 83 year old father's car...)

Nevada Nights

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Memories of a time...long ago...and of a sky fire...bringing in the night..............

Collision

I see and hear life
splatter before me...
moth...has collided
with my merciless windshield............

Elks' Meadow

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Elk...augmenting the beauty present...on Magnolia Mountain........

Where Goes the Rail's Road

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Winter's Wantonness

Wind shimmers the clumped
remnants of autumn's first snow
dotting the green yellow and orange
hues of the mountain...
I notice the wounded
casualties all along the road
severed limbs of trees lie
broken from the weight of white
come too soon to burden
leaves not yet ready for the fall...
testifying like so many
silent witnesses to the wantonness
of an impatient winter wanting
anxiously to arrive............


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Faith

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Photographed in New York City many years ago.............

Snow Web

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Out of the Clouds

My posting today was going to be about how snow in the mountains and freezing rain in the flats has discombobulated everyone here scurrying to work to school to wherever...the early winter...disregarding our feeble cries of not being ready...so used to the summer many have forgotten that time marches on... However...what the inclement weather really kept bringing to my mind was the manner in which others have been disastrously affected by the latest war of weather in the last couple of months...and most notably in the past week. As the cold water dripped onto my head and I observed the mud lining the paved and unpaved streets I remembered those in Central America and particularly in the Mayan villages of Guatemala. Usually...I try to keep a head in the clouds approach to world events... only occasionally peeking out to see if I can find out what's really going on out there. I know and am fully aware that awful things continue to happen worldwide but I prefer not to focus or dwell on the snippets I sometimes catch scrolling across the tv screen or the internet pages. Once in a while though...the news which does leap out causes me to do some further investigating... especially when someone says to me "did you hear about what's going on in ....(fill in the blanks)" So...this morning...thanks to a very slow day at work...and a very fast computer...I was able to "surf the net" for news of the latest disaster to reach our ears (prior to the natural-disaster horror which has hit Pakistan...as I write this...a headline catches my eye..."Quake Despair Grows...30,000 dead: No Aid").)...the Mayan villages wiped out in and around the Department of Solola...hundreds of villages affected once more by manmade or natural calamity...thousands dead...vanished during the night by heavy waves of mud sliding into the villages and homes...into family compounds where dozens of family members were lost... instantaneously... vanished into the oozing mud...buried under 30 feet or more of muck...now to be declared "cemeteries"...
The magnitude of the reality unfolded there and in other parts of Central America devastated by a force currently given the name of Sam...wants to make my mind shut down...how would a survivor live through the horror...of losing so many and so much...of being forced to abandon and leave bodies of loved ones in the mud...without being given the proper ceremony to carry them into the afterlife...how would one face the present...and the future... find hope to begin...to live... laugh... love...and rebuild...again...
For me...the helplessness of not being able to do anything to alter or better what has unfolded...hurts...so I turn my mind to what I can do...and find perhaps an answer...in the power of thought...thoughts sent by those who can still see the hope in living...thoughts of hope and strength sent to those elders...children...brothers and sisters facing those awful days and nights of anguish and of hunger...thoughts to ward off and counter the despair and the agony which must be feeding in the air...thoughts sent in trust that this too will pass for those afflicted... thoughts of thankfulness for the blessings which surround me and mine... Tonight...in class... the unseen opponent which I face and do battle with will be pain... hardship...sorrow... and desperation...in my own limited way I will fight for those unfortunate ones in the only way possible to me...with mind focused in the goodness of life...prayer...and a healing for humankind...

Reflections

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Air Changings

It seemed to be coming...the hints have been in the air and...as I rounded the bend south of Nederland last night...there they were...furiously flurrying flakes...just passing through...for now...harbingers of what awaits us as time continues its journey. This morning...the frost on my porch and the air's chill let me know that winter is indeed pushing autumn to leave...even though the colours are still cresting in parts of the high country and the falling leaves are just beginning to layer the roads. The white of the Divide's peaks and Barker Reservoir's rough and choppy waves rippling and bashing against the waiting shore, the rocks and the dam wall reinforced the knowing that...this is...not...summer...behaviour. The weather in Colorado shifts and shapes rapidly and can be drastically different from one elevation to the other...making simple decisions like...what to wear...painstakingly complicated. There have been times when the snow is howling and blowing itself into a whiteout at 10,000 feet...and one cautious 4,000 foot ride down the canyon later...the sun's heat makes the long sleeves and warm gear one is wearing totally inappropriate. Conversely...once in a while...it's been warm as heck up high...and blizzarding in Boulder. There really is no rhyme or reason to it...and one soon learns not to depend on the weather forecasters...whose labeling of weather patterns "in the mountains" or "in the flats" usually describes what's happening in only one minute and isolated portion of the referenced territory....and you can never be sure which one... Temperature changes of 30 to 40 degrees...within the day...are not abnormal during the fall and winter months...but the good news is that...in the flats at least...winter days can be as balmy as 70-75 degrees (Fahrenheit) ...and the sun's radiance as hot as in the summer...melting the snow down below rapidly from one day to the next...and leading one to often think that what we have here are "weather fronts" and not necessarily seasons. In the higher elevations...although the winter temperature may be merciful and relatively warm from day to day...the ground's snow comes to stay in November and doesn't leave till April...and sometimes May. Still...I'd rather brave a dry Colorado winter...with its everpresent sun...than an east coast winter...with its bone penetrating dampness....and a cold which drags on and on for weeks on end... The worst part about the coming months...for me...is the dark descending so early...bringing a sense of gloom and rush to even the best of days...especially as I travel up the mountain not ever knowing for sure...what awaits me...in...or past...the canyon..........

Regulators

Almost daily the question returns...why do some people insist on taking the lead...when they're not ready and able for the task?? The internal query...rhetorical in nature...usually comes... while driving...and is almost automatic now...when...others...
...rush to pass ahead...from the right hand merging lane...only to slow down once in front... forcing everyone on the road to crawl along at their desired...slow...speed...till the next...far off... passing lane...at which time they accelerate...preventing anyone from going around them...then...revert to their snailness...when passing is no longer possible...
...turn onto the road right in front of me...when the space behind is clear...causing me to lean hard on the brakes... sometimes missing a hit by only several feet......only to... slow down to sightseeing pace once they've taken the lead...
...speed to tailgate my vehicle in the...nonpassing...straightaways... sometimes coming bumper to bumper ...and backing way off when the road gets slightly curvy...demonstrating that they wouldn't be up to the leader task... even if they did succeed in pushing me off the road........
I never mind moving out of a true leader's way...for example when it's obvious that the aggressor cutting in...or the maniac behind me...is really in a rush...at least they keep up the pace...or become a blur in a matter of seconds.........but it's the fakers who are...rather...annoying...and antagonistic to a peaceful ride to or from wherever. The only answer I have been able to find is that the faker...is no more than a...self appointed ... regulator...abiding by the golden rules of the "I'm always righters"... the "me firsters"... and the "you have to do it my wayers"... who seem to be so ...historically ... prevalent in ...conqueror...societies..................

Explorings

The other week I was happily surprised to find out that two of my classmates are also bloggers. One of them mentioned how easy it was to post pictures on blogger... so the other night I decided to explore the process and give it a try...she was right...so I will probably make this a regular activity.....which will hopefully complement the times when the words are just not here...yet.........
I've started with pictures of my cats...and Sugarloaf Mountain...west of Boulder....both of which thoughts have been posted on previously..........

Sugarloaf.....A View

Sugarloaf Mountain.....its barrenness still a contrast....sixteen years after the fire.......as seen from Sunshine Canyon............ 

Brotherly Love

Ninja and Guts...sharing a moment.........