the place of caught breath

 

This is the solstice, the still point

of the sun, its cusp and midnight,

the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; 

the place of caught breath, the door

of a vanished house left ajar...

__Margaret Atwood

Every morning a new arrival

 On this glorious June day,  I share a quote from Hildegarde:

"O most honored Greening Force,

You who roots in the Sun;
You who lights up, in shining serenity, within a wheel
that earthly excellence fails to comprehend.

You are enfolded
in the weaving of divine mysteries.

You redden like the dawn
and You burn: flame of the Sun."

-  Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), Viriditas

and some recent photos from my garden:

June 17

June 15

June 21

June 21

June 21

 

 and this, from Rumi:

 

Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire

for that work has been put in every heart.

 being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

 

I had the Bell Telephone Company find him for me

 

The title for this entry is a sentence in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse Five, which I teach in the Modernity class.

It reminds me of myself in these recent years... actually, during the last twenty years.

Technology has developed so that no one needs to call the operator at the Bell Telephone Company to find the address and phone number of long lost friends and lovers.  Now we have Google, and Facebook, among other resources.

So, late at night, I find myself searching for friends and connections I haven't had in decades. Lately I've been searching for Maureen McCauley, a high school friend who changed schools - from Bishop Shanahan to Cardinal O'Hara -  when the latter school opened close to her house in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.  I think I've found her -  she's an attorney in New York State -  but I haven't actually called her.  Yet.  That's just one.

Facebook has enabled many more connections.

Some - old sweethearts-   have even emailed me because they saw my name on Google. After fifty years.

It must be our advancing age that impels us to seek these connections.  Especially since many of the older generation -  the eighty and ninety somethings-  and of course, the parents of our friends,  have passed through the veil.

More on this, I hope.   

At Cape May

 Arrived on May 23 to a bright, hot sunny day. Since then, the temperature dropped and it's been too cold to sit on the porch.  Still, I love being here.  Four of us the first day; now we're up to 10, and by the weekend we will be 20. I am such an introvert that such a loud and chatty group overwhelms me, but I am still glad to be here. We had some "high drama" and angry outbursts at home the two days before I left, which made me very glad to be away.

I can't get myself to go out early to the birding sites, mainly because of my very real fears of  - how to put it delicately? -  pooping accidents.  This is depressing, but there it is.  I can't do an hour away from any access to a bathroom.

Still I love being here.  Here are some photos of Cape May by other Cape May lovers:

Yellow breasted Chat - one of my favorite birds here:

Rainy May days

 

I meant to write sooner, but I am struggling with depression just now... that not wanting to do anything.

Thank God the garden keeps me moving, but with the cold rainy days, and with the plants that keep growing and needing to be cut back ... so many!  I feel loath to address them either.

I keep listening to my audiobooks and re-watching "The Chosen" and reading Facebook.

And now I am in the midst of grading 24 essays, anticipating 24 more essay exams coming on Tuesday.

Maybe by this time next week I will be emerging .Sigh. 

But here are some lovely memes from The Garden of Bright Images.

Thoughts on my birthday

 

Some of these "memes" from the Facebook page "The Garden of Bright Images" are very appropriate for me as I face my seventy-third birthday.   I still can't believe I am this old, or that this many years have passed.

Yes!

April's in the Skies

 

Here's a poem by Alicia Ostriker:

April 

BY ALICIA OSTRIKER

The optimists among us

taking heart because it is spring

skip along

attending their meetings

signing their e-mail petitions

marching with their satiric signs

singing their we shall overcome songs

posting their pungent twitters and blogs

believing in a better world

for no good reason

I envy them

said the old woman

 

The seasons go round they

go round and around

said the tulip

dancing among her friends

in their brown bed in the sun

in the April breeze

under a maple canopy

that was also dancing

only with greater motions

casting greater shadows

and the grass

hardly stirring

 

What a concerto

of good stinks said the dog

trotting along Riverside Drive

in the early spring afternoon

sniffing this way and that

how gratifying the cellos of the river

the tubas of the traffic

the trombones

of the leafing elms with the legato

of my rivals’ piss at their feet

and the leftover meat and grease

singing along in all the wastebaskets

 

Source: Poetry (February 2011)

 

I m amazed at this Spring

 

artist:  Esme Shapiro

Here's a poem from D.H.Lawrence:

"This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,

Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,

Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between

Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration

Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze

Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,

Faces of people streaming across my gaze."

 

-  D. H. Lawrence, The Enkindled Spring

artist: Daniel Garber

My heart is numbed too much for hopes or fears

 

Here is a wonderful poem by Christina Rossetti:

A Better Resurrection

by Christina Rossetti

I have no wit, no words, no tears;

My heart within me like a stone

Is numb’d too much for hopes or fears;

Look right, look left, I dwell alone;

I lift mine eyes, but dimm’d with grief

No everlasting hills I see;

My life is in the falling leaf:

O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,

My harvest dwindled to a husk:

Truly my life is void and brief

And tedious in the barren dusk;

My life is like a frozen thing,

No bud nor greenness can I see:

Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;

O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,

A broken bowl that cannot hold

One drop of water for my soul

Or cordial in the searching cold;

Cast in the fire the perish’d thing;

Melt and remould it, till it be

A royal cup for Him, my King:

O Jesus, drink of me.

Source: “A Better Resurrection” from Goblin Market and other Poems, by

Christina Rossetti. Cambridge: Macmillan, 1862.

 

artist   Bonnie B Cook

 

I can't find the piece I wanted to post, so here is this one!

 

Easter Monday

 

art by John Faupel

Here's a poem by R.S. Thomas:

The Answer

 

by R.S. Thomas

 

Not darkness but twilight

In which even the best

of minds must make its way

now. And slowly the questions

occur, vague but formidable

for all that. We pass our hands

over their surface like blind

men feeling for the mechanism

that will swing them aside. They

yield, but only to re-form

as new problems; and one

does not even do that

but towers immovable

before us.

Is there no way

of other thought of answering

its challenge? There is an anticipation

of it to the point of

dying. There have been times

when, after long on my knees

in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled

from my mind, and I have looked

in and seen the old questions lie

folded and in a place

by themselves, like the piled

graveclothes of love’s risen body.

 

 

 art by Melinda Cooper

Get Used to Different

 

It's Holy Saturday, somehow appropriate that I speak of my experience of watching this show.

Recently I finished watching the 8 episodes of "The Chosen"  Season One.

I wasn't thrilled with the first episode, but each following episode hooked me even more.

What I believe as a Catholic, particularly the Incarnation, was not contradicted.  The stories from the New Testament are told with a lot of creative backstory, which I actually liked.

One of my favorite scenes was the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.  I've read that passage many times, but this dramatization really brought it to life.

I also loved that the Apostles were all young men - which, given the average life span at that time, was probably true.

But I have been especially captivated by the portrayal of Jesus.  As it says in the Gospel, he speaks with authority,  and heals, and clearly has a divine nature. But he's also down to earth: a little scruffy, witty, and warm.

The actor who portrays him is a devout Catholic, which I didn't know when I watched the series.

He has a wonderful face.  I am sure the real Jesus has a wonderful face.

The last day of March!

 Has this month seemed long to anyone else?   I guess it's because I am yearning for my garden to wake up.

and this:  

Always the sky keeps expanding

 

artist: Venus Alzouohu

Here's a poem by Eugene Gloria:

Palm Sunday

BY EUGENE GLORIA

Always the sky keeps expanding.

Wide as America’s brave margins,

wide as my loneliness in the Middle West.

I lean against a dust cloud behind us,

the glory sinking into a muted timberline.

I am drunk with longing. The wind is singing—

 

my drunken friend, the wind, hurls

sweet curses at my face.

We have learned to love

this road, which lies down like pythons,

refuses to forgive our excesses,

refuses to consider us kin. Our driver’s

 

sign overhead reads, Jesus is my co-pilot.

Jesus who crossed the city

gates of his ancestors

on a road carpeted by palms.

Our goodtime driver must know this—

he drives with abandon,

 

despite our fragile cargo: scholars and accountants,

prophets and exiles all the same to him.

The road, which suggests things, is tired of ceremony.

It lies down to sleep like the snow.

Lie down TallMountain, lie down

Serafin Syquia, lie down Li-Young, lie

down Divakaruni, lie down Eman Lacaba,

lie down pilgrims of the open road.

Shameless, we gather our light

jackets in balls. We rest our heads,

our faces upturned to a squall of stars.

I near the end, my soul recites.

 

O loneliness, my body responds.

This empty road is a house

where no one lives. What strange fire

we bring when we come to this house.

 

Eugene Gloria, "Palm Sunday" from Drivers at the Short-Time Motel. Copyright © 2000 by Eugene Gloria.  Reprinted by permission of Penguin Random House. Used by permission of Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Source: Drivers at the Short-Time Motel (Penguin Random House, 2000)

Wind Advisory

 A very blustery March day.  I am hoping the blossoms on the Star Magnolias don't blow away.

Here's a photo of them from last March:

Here's a poem by Rilke:

 

"Harshness vanished. A sudden softness

has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.

Little rivulets of water changed

their singing accents. Tendernesses,

 

hesitantly, reach toward the earth

from space, and country lanes are showing

these unexpected subtle risings

that find expression in the empty trees."

-  Rainer Marie Rilke, Early Spring 

 

My lips will sing Your praise

 Here are some of my favorite artists images of the Annunciation:

artist:  Henry Tanner

Today is the feast of the Annunciation -  when the angel of the Lord gave Mary the message, and she said yes.

Today my Sisters and I said our Annual Vows during the morning Mass.

I love this psalm from Morning Prayer:

Psalm 63

God, my God, for you I long

my soul thirsts for you

my body aches for you

Like a dry weary land without water

So I gaze on you in the sanctuary

a vision of strength and glory.

For your love is better than life,

my lips will sing your praise

I give you a lifetime of worship,

my hands raised in your name.

I feast at a rich table,

my lips sing of your glory.

On my bed I remember you

On you I muse through the night

for you have been my help

In the shadow of your wings

I rejoice.

Yes, I cling to you.

Your right hand holds me fast.

Annunciation      artist:  John Collier

Annunciation      artist  Brigid Martin

Annunciation      artist:  Fra Angelico