Monday, September 30, 2013

aching with rose

Good morning Monday. Just your basic 6:30 a.m. sky. A nice way to usher in the light of what promises to be another beautiful day of autumn. I'm just emerging from a sort of creative/art cave made up of writing, rewriting, daydreaming, walking and reading. It is, of course, the time of Fall Arts here in Taos and there is such an abundance of events that I tend to pull in rather than reach out. Since I've lived here for so long I tend to choose the more obscure events to attend -- if any at all. Like the Chinese poetry and hermit tradition presentation at Metta Theatre on Friday, a rainy cold day that resulted in the first real snow on the mountains next morning.
On Saturday I helped out a friend at the craft fair in the park. Elaine Sutton (Gypsy Moon) is a bead artist and designer and it was fun to wear, touch and sell her incredible work. Gorgeous museum-worthy bags, collars, bracelets, spirit dolls, earrings. This isn't your basic hobby/craft. Her work is truly art.
Check out her website. The spirit dolls below represent three of the four elements (l to r): fire, air, water.
Today I'm stepping back into the quotidian world. There are ordinary things that need to be done. Not the least of which is to finish some of the items I plan to show in the Yuletide Fair in November. Production is definitely lagging this year due to changed priority-settings (photo of sign taken in London when I was there three years ago ~ I took lots of pics of signs ~ words used so creatively (and with a touch of humor) by the Brits.
I'll manage to meet the commitment to the show, will have wonderful things to display, and perhaps it will be the last time I do it. This is a year of firsts and lasts, reawakenings, and choices. Change is everywhere and it can be disturbing or liberating ~ or both at the same time.
I see simplicity
in the complicated.
I do great things
while they are small.
I can get anywhere
from here.
   (Wayne Dyer, affirmations from The Tao Te Ching)



Wednesday, September 25, 2013

lions & bears & buddhas, oh my
So far this week it's been all about animals in some form. When I had to drive to the local tire fix-it place I was ushered into the hunter-themed waiting room. I noticed the couple of deer heads mounted on the walls, ignored them and just picked up a copy of Rolling Stone to read an article that looked interesting. It was fine until I felt I was being watched. Looked to my left and this is what I saw. Oh my. He was big. And I felt awed and sad.
A couple of days ago I brought a friend to Floyd's gallery and she bought a small wire donkey sculpture for her garden. Floyd's work is characterized in the media as "found (or junk) art" since he uses what's available. But it's far from junk. The donkey on display outside was festooned with flowers. It's made from old rusted baling wire, "some of it more than 40 years old" we were told. And since Floyd has been part of a ranching family for most of his life he manages to capture the essence of whatever animal he's working on. It's pretty amazing stuff. His Des Montes Gallery is located on the Hondo-Seco Road and well worth a trip if you're in the area. 
But the best animal of all is this version of Dante The Lion King. 
Dante (great grandson) is currently living within his favorite character. This kid who is not three years old yet started nursery school a couple of weeks ago with confidence and enthusiasm (and a backpack). On my birthday he sang: happy birthday greatgrammies. I miss him.

feet firmly planted in air?
After a half day of work today and all of yesterday, I took off this afternoon to meet a friend who is a great editor and with whom I planned to discuss my next writing project. Gorgeous day at Wired cafe. I sat outside under the trees in cool breezes, warm sun, cobalt sky, fluffy white clouds, sound of bamboo water fountain playing out melodically nearby. But he didn't show up. Not a tragedy as I spent an hour with tea and notebook. But he was a definite no show and he and I will discuss it at another time. You just can't trust fiction writers to remember things. The atmosphere of the cafe helped me to stay calm and I actually had a lovely time for myself.
   The stone fountain
was pouring out its eternal
fountain of story.

             *******

   The peaceable fountain
continues telling its things;
the history lost,
the pain has found words.
            (excerpts from Antonio Machado)

Saturday, September 21, 2013

father sun, mother moon

Good morning!
Bye for the day, Harvest Moon.
As another poet said: wow! so this is joy, then.

(I'll post again tonight, but wanted to share this magical morning with you as it's happening).

Be patient.
Respond to every call
that excites your spirit.
      Rumi

Thursday, September 19, 2013

dancin' in the light

Home after a day in Santa Fe. Flying through the canyon, music playing, windows open, wind in my hair (no rain today, no rock slides on the road) -- I felt young and joyful. Woke very early to a fogged in world.
At first light, I stepped into a Japanese brush painting (barefoot on a wet cold deck in my PJs). This is the stuff poems are made of....
....then I turned around toward the west. The Harvest Moon was setting....
I wanna see you dance again
on this harvest moon
        Neil Young

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

funky & fun

On a vast open mesa off the highway stands the Taos Mesa Brewing Company. It rises from the landscape in daylight like an oasis. In the darkness of the night it's more like a surprise carnival. 
Once inside its cavernous space it feels lively, comfortable and friendly. Beer, wine, food, music.
Last night SOMOS held the second of its StorySlams there. Nine tellers took the stage for seven minutes each (some longer, no hook or bell). At the end of the storytelling a winner was chosen by audience applause (yes, it sounds hokey, but this was a cool crowd of authors and artists galore).
The winner moves on to the next StorySlam (in two weeks) and eventually, whoever comes out ahead will participate in the annual Storytelling Festival in early October. This is a big deal with celebrated tellers who come to Taos from all over the nation. The sound system at Taos Mesa is good, the stage lighting rather dramatic, and each person was bathed in one of a rainbow of colors. Bonnie Lee Black got posterized in blue....told her story of killing a green mamba snake in her house in Africa before it killed her. The full story is in her book How to Cook a Crocodile.
Bob Silver, man of many talents (clinical and forensic psychologist, writer) has a new book out, Tributes & Tirades...full of humor and politics. He always makes me laugh and I went home with a copy (he just happened to have a few available).
Steve Rose, poet, performer, friend, was illuminated in deep red for his story about an ill-conceived trip to Singapore in his youth....
Annie MacNaughton, orange, recounted a Native American story that involved peyote, a buffalo couple that may or may not have been real, and poetry....
A good time was had by all. Those of us who are not oral storytellers and tend to stick to writing our stories down were inspired by the guts it took for those writers to step up on stage and perform. Writing is such a private, solitary affair (that allows for editing) but not so with telling - you can't hit the delete key -- and that red pen that's so handy?  Useless. So we cheered and the winner was determined by the level of noise we generated. I drove home in the black night feeling fine. Words from the entire evening swirling around in my head.
And tonight the autumnal equinox begins with a full harvest moon, but that's another story. For now wherever you are, look at the moon and let it's light bathe you. I'll be looking at the same moon.







Monday, September 16, 2013

things that fit

Trying to work today without much success, so went for a long walk in the cool sunny air in a very green park (it looks more like spring around here than fall). It was lovely and just what I needed. I listened to music as I walked and felt the rain-washed air envelope my body. For a brief time I had an extraordinary feeling of freedom and thankfulness within me as if I was dancing alone in the absence of all that I knew and was bound by. (Mark Strand). And...chamisa (aka rabbitbrush) is blooming everywhere!
Yesterday I drove to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge because I hadn't been in a long time and I just felt like driving (you know, when you get that feeling--a full tank of gas and the desire to banish a melancholy moment). Well, I couldn't exactly head toward the Pacific or the Atlantic, so I headed toward the river a few miles away. This spring the area officially became the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. It is pretty impressive. Here's a quote from the speech Senator Udall made earlier in the year when the site was designated.

From the 800-foot-deep Rio Grande Gorge to the top of Ute Mountain at over 10,000 feet, the Rio Grande del Note has some of the most varied and spectacular vistas on earth. Human beings have walked its trails since prehistoric times. 
As for the bridge that spans this amazing gorge on Hwy 64, it reaches 1280 feet across and over the river 600 feet below. Sadly, many people have chosen to plunge to their deaths from its ramparts and officials have taken steps to try to block off some of the more open embankments. But on Sunday the place was pleasantly buzzing with tourists, activity, and ice cream in the old Bus Stop. There was even a guy sitting by the railing with his guitar singing An Octopus's Garden. I didn't get permission to post his picture so you'll just have to imagine a colorful shirt, a straw hat, a nice looking youngish man singing out to the sky (since no one seemed to be listening except me).
As I walked across the bridge I spotted two Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep resting on rocks far below. Well camouflaged, they blended right in. I read that they can see up to one mile and therefore have an advantage over predators. I guess they don't consider human gawkers toting cameras dangerous.
And as I was taking pictures I looked up toward Ute Mountain and saw a herd of them grazing in the far distance. I zoomed the lens all the way out and captured two before they roamed away.
All in all, it was nice to be outdoors and feel the wind in my hair, then back in the car, windows down, music from Leonard Cohen on the CD player. I love September.
     "Our lives are rivers
and rivers flow and move to the sea,
which is our dying." Marvelous lines!
     Antonio Machado

Friday, September 13, 2013

silent spirits

Sun spots, pole shift, spies, global warming, aliens? NM just broke it's 70-year record for rainfall yesterday. It rained heavily toward morning and has been raining all day. Three people in Boulder, Colorado died in floods from a "30 foot wall of water with debris [cars] in it" (according to The Albuquerque News).
I wrote my blog earlier today and when I tried to save and publish it, it disappeared forever. Then I drove into town with the netbook that was recently cured of a nasty malware virus and is now not connecting to the server and discovered my cell phone wasn't working.

works in progress
I'm not going to try to recreate the lost blog that was a preview of the personal essay I'm writing on photography, vintage and otherwise. Just some notes and pictures from it.

Edward Weston in Lamy, NM, 1941...photo by Ernest Knee, print by Dana Knee. Part of my collection and traded with Dana, several years ago, for a handknit sweater. It's beginning to go sepia at the edges.
The album I kept as a ten year old that still survives with photos that haven't faded the way digital prints do now.
Meanwhile the oldest of the old photos are just beginning to fade after almost 100 years. 100 years! I have to save them somehow.
Black and white and sepia. What my world is today. I come from a photography-oriented family. My father's darkroom in the 1950's, my brother's 35mm, my Brownie Hawkeye, my mother's touch with Marshall photo oils. What camera did they use, I wonder, for the photos that were taken of my mother, her siblings and friends, on the beach at Throgs Neck in the Bronx -- she always told me they had "innocent fun" with the boys. Played forfeit games (read: kissing games) under the trees. If you knew my mother when I knew her, you'd find this hard to believe. But she is the pretty smiling one, second in from the right, c. 1920 or so.
And my 19 year old father ~ always a dashing car guy....his last conscious breaths were taken in his car sixty-six years later....
and the rain falls upon my door
So grateful for the rain yet wondering if this portends heavy snow for winter. Decide not to think about it. What will be, will be. As with everything in life. It's all very confusing to have one's assumptions turned upside-down. September and most of October are always the most perfect months here and the dire predictions about serious turns of events coming soon, begins to feel possible.

   And it all vanished back inside
like a soap bubble in the wind.
              Antonio Machado

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

on that day

An extraordinary day of remembrance and clouds. Every year on this date, the Taos Volunteer Fire Department hoists up their tallest crane and attaches the American flag to its very tip. I love it, it's very moving (and I can never get a full picture of the truck and crane because the firehouse is on a busy road and I can't get far enough away to snap a photo without risking a hit and run!). How can any of us forget how terrible that day felt, no matter where we were. I salute the firefighters who risk their lives to protect all of us.
Rain during the night and clearing in the morning revealed an incredibly bewitching scene that resembled a Japanese brush painting. The season has definitely turned. This morning had all the earmarks of autumn. And all day, as the sun shone, the drama in the sky was unreal. But real. It's where we live. That in itself is extraordinary. So much in my life these days fits that description.
Driving home from various errands on an ordinary road....
The first time I laid eyes on New Mexico it was after traveling 2,000 miles. On a late afternoon in July we drove west into Tucumcari on I-40 where we stayed over before heading up to Taos next day. All I saw were the clouds. I hung out of the car window snapping picture after picture and declaring that I'd never seen clouds so close except from an airplane window. I think I saw a pink pond that day, too. That was in 1986 and I've never gotten over New Mexico clouds in cobalt skies. I'm loving the cooler temperatures and my walks in the park are invigorating now instead of enervating. Chamisa is blooming yellow and more rain is expected tomorrow.
happy birthday
wonderful gathering last night to celebrate friend Tania's 50th b-day (she looks 30). A small gathering of friends, conversation, food, wine. I had to go alone, but didn't feel alone at all. The specially made b-day cake kind of slid off the tray and ended up as an original basket cake. It was delicious, made by Mica at the brand new Farm Market Cafe at Overland.
Listening to Leonard Cohen today (Dear Heather, "On that Day")

Did you go crazy
or did you report
on the day that they
wounded New York

Monday, September 9, 2013

goodbyes abound

Yesterday was an emotional day on many personal levels, but surpassing all the rest, was the memorial/celebration for Charlie Strong, artist, curator, bon vivant, dapper dresser, and friend.
He left behind hundreds of pieces of his art and a hole that can never be filled in quite the same way. His widow Lyn (married for less than a year) will carry on in his name. 
The memorial celebration was held at the Harwood Museum of Art and about 200 people showed up to sit under the tents and the trees to listen, to speak, to eat and drink and honor Charlie. It was a perfect Taos early September day. He would have liked it. Blue skies, white coulds, 75 degrees, gentle breeze. Perfection. I was asked by SOMOS to speak on their behalf and, I admit it, I was nervous.
I don't have problems speaking to large audiences under ordinary circumstances, but this wasn't ordinary.  Still, I managed. I knew Charlie well. He was a complicated, talented man. We ate, drank, and laughed a lot with him for many years. He became an icon of art in Taos.  He brought his San Francisco smarts, his commitment to art (and writing), and raised the level of the Harwood Museum while inspiring many creative individuals to be what they could be. I was able to speak about his directorship of the Foundation that funded the anthology I edited, but I could also speak to a personal relationship that spanned more than twenty years. Ron was not able to attend, but I represented him as well. He and Charlie had a relationship that was often artistically contentious, but also included mutual birth dates, families, and Margaritas.
John Nichols read a wonderful piece he wrote about their relationship with a guitar and closed his segment by playing (over the top) his own rhythm and blues improvisations which he said he hasn't ever shared with an audience as he usually sings and improvises in his kitchen at 3 AM. He brought the house down, broke the tension and sadness that had been gradually building. Others stepped up to the mike, told their stories. Maria Fortin, dear mutual friend and long time director of the Mabel Dodge Luhan House....
Bill Davis, photographer extraordinaire....
So many others. The whole event made me grateful (again) to live in this amazing place where there are so many talented people who have chosen to live here -- sometimes they're not even sure of what compelled them to stay in the first place. It's a common Taos story and one that I can relate to. A place so far from where I lived my life for more than half of my life and where I expected to remain. In my east coast mind, New Mexico was a desert where people wore blue jewelry and that was all of it. I was wrong. At least about northern NM. But there it is and it's what makes the place so special. There are few rules here as people live the way they wish to. It's liberal politically, and all ways of thinking and living just get integrated into the whole. I often call it an island of misfits, in the best sense, which ironically fits (except for the island part). But in a way, a wide valley is an island, too, isn't it?.
To add to the fullness of the day, the old cat Snowshoe (because he had six toes on each foot) passed on yesterday. He was over twenty years old and was beloved by Charlie.
It's lightly raining now on this evening as I write, the wind is vocally blowing around the house like the voices of the ancestors (not mine) and a drift of welcome dampness flows into the room from the opened door. An hour ago, before the rain came, Taos mountain lived up to its name: Sangre de Cristo, the blood of Christ. The colt is running in the rain.

Dora McQuaid (Taos poet) wrote this morning:
 ...love sometimes comes and lifts you up in ways even the heart simply cannot imagine possible...I hope that love holds you in shelter and grace today, deep and mysterious, as it lifts you up.