Rear Windows part 1

 

As I recover back at home, my photo opportunities are limited. Here's the April 15 view of fallen dogwood petals and transformation to greenery. Those leaves at the base of the tree were the early harbingers of spring a month ago...daffodils.

On a tangent, I'd like to recommend a short article on Substack by Robertson Work...which I've linked over on my blog Inner Workings. or go directly to his essay Being and Doing in Mystery and Ecstasy.

But let's consider Sepia Saturday for a moment. Suggestion of an old truck. I think I've already posted what photos I had in my files. Let's see if there's anything new available.

Our host Alan gives this information on the above photo:

Our theme image this week features an early twentieth century motor vehicle (the body of which, coincidentally, was built by my father's Uncle Albert). Leaving aside the family pride, you might want to use the image to prompt reflections on vehicles past and present, or, noting that the wagon was used to transport beer, you might want to take a diversion into the realm of beer bottles. And, as always, you can take a completely unchartered diversion to wherever you want - all we ask for is an old image and some new thoughts. Deliver them on or around Saturday 18th April 2026 and leave a link on the list at Sepia Saturday.

When living in Tampa FL until 2007 when I retired, I would drive busy streets constantly. Back before I was blogging, I already was taking photos thinking artistically. And at that point I had Picasa, a free photo editing program. So I formed collages with the topic "Rear Windows."

 

If you live  in a city, you stop in traffic frequently, and see interesting windows of the vehicles ahead of you...thus the rear windows.

I'm going to include some as individual shots too so you can see the details.

OK, to be continued. There are too many for one blog post. And if you're interested, help me figure out which year all those license plates were from. I can't focus on any so far...sometime on or before 2007.  To be continued.

Systems changing

 "Contemporary biological sciences, from planetary ecology to botany, zoology, and neuroscience, have documented that we are all in dependent co-arising, (sic.) that we are all part of systems and relationships, that each of us is not so much an individual but a node on a network, a plural being whose body is made up of billions of microorganisms as well as what we call human. There's a wonderful new field of biology called processual biology that looks at the world as made up of processes rather than objects, as phenomena forever flowing and changing and thereby exchanging with each other and changing into each other. It proposes that it is more useful and accurate to think of ourselves and most of what we call things as events.

After all you yourself in this very moment live by taking gulps of the sky into your lungs and could not last long without taking in that most gloriously fluctuating of all things, water, and devouring other forms of life, and other things come out of you, be they poems or babies or political contributions. Buddhism gives us Indra's net, a vision of an infinite net whose every nexus contains a jewel reflecting every other jewel; science gives us another version of that world of systems, connections, and relations. 

For the survival of our democracy and our planet, understanding that interconnectedness, that capacity to relate and the abundance, joy, love that spring from it, are no longer abstract topics but an urgent political matter.

By Rebecca Solnit on the first anniversary of her "Meditations in an Emergency"

Person attending the emergency demonstration in San Francisco the day Alex Pretti was murdered, with a sign that gets to the heart of the matter.

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Reminder to check the UN Declaration of Human Rights (on my other blog)

And please go read on Substack, my friend Robertson  Work on the United Nations today. 

This organization of multiple countries has many different goals. Do they have a format in which to move forward with our world needs today?

I commented on Rob's Substack about the UN...and he answered. I'm including these to let you know that we CAN come up with better solutions to those that had worked in the past but no longer are effective.

From BR:

 My thinking these days is about systemic changes that need to be envisioned. I went back to the UN Declaration of Human Rights first. I'm trying to see what system might work better than the one that is currently failing. There are some good ideas behind our government, our culture, our way of life...but we obviously have many problems, and I don't believe they can be solved within this current broken system. With Love as the foundation of my new concepts, as well as studying some of the better systems yet devised, I am looking for best ideas to move toward. Any thoughts?

Robertson Work

3

Thank you, Barbara, I so appreciate your way of thinking! Yes, the Human Rights Declaration is essential. There is much wisdom in our constitutional democracy but it has been bought by the wealthy and must be renewed. Yes, love and wisdom as the foundation for new systems. Doughnut Economics has much to offer. Integral thinking, social artistry, group facilitation, mindfulness practices also. Also, creating islands of sanity and care at the local level. 

. . . Let's keep this dialogue going! 

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What better idea do you have?

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Here is a bit of my collection of the Buddhist Monks on the Walk for Peace. Sorry about duplication of those I've already published.

It's a kind of archive I guess. This is the last day of the Walk for Peace - Their goal was Washington DC

Flowers keep my living room smelling so good!

 No, not floral scents.

But I just came into the room, and a few hours earlier I'd lightly watered them all. I try to do it a couple of times a week.

There was a wet earthy smell. So delightful.

All the plants were pulled from windowsills, while curtains and blinds were closed at night against the cold (7 degrees Saturday night) but sunshine Sunday morning meant opening to the light! Then back closed up that night too. But Monday there was sunshine, none on Tuesday or Wednesday, and Thursday was rain/snow to start the day.

The orange Kalanchoe is having more trouble blooming in the winter.

I just love this orchid...here's one branch of blooms...

The other branch also is full of blooms.

This purple/white orchid bloomed ages ago, and has lost a few of it's blooms, but somehow is still holding a few out to enjoy!

Three pink Kalanchoe plants are in the bigger pot...but the ones that have been behind the curtains have turned white. So I just rotated the planter, to see if the sun gives them pinkness.

Sadly, none of the flowers I'm growing have scents. With my allergies, that's probably for the best.

Sharing with Floral Friday Fotos!

And Thankful Thursday!

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Walk for Peace

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I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.

MAYA ANGELOU

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"Please join me and many others in making the six compassionate vows of: 

environmental sustainability, 

gender equality, 

socioeconomic justice, 

participatory governance, 

cultural tolerance, 

nonviolence and peace."

Barb Rogers

(Thanks, Robertson Work for stating this first.)

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Sharing with Thankful Thursday

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In case you don't already read Jay Kuo's newsletters..."The Status Kuo." Here's a very moving piece he published to Substack yesterday about the Shadow Congressional Hearings about ICE.

Maybe the peacemakers - 3

 As of 2025, there have been 20 women who were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The heroines of peace – the 16 women awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize before 2014 (1901-2014)

These are women who received their prizes after the above photo collage.

• Narges Mohammadi (2023)
• Maria Ressa (2021)
• Nadia Murad (2018)

And in 2025 Maria Cordoba Machado of Venezuela won... (see my blog, Maybe the Angry Women - 4)

I plan to give you brief (yes an intention) biographies of these other Laureates. 

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"Please join me and many others in making the six compassionate vows of: environmental sustainability, gender equality, socioeconomic justice, participatory governance, cultural tolerance, and nonviolence and peace."

(Thanks, Robertson Work, for this invitation.)

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I've clipped a lot of information on Baroness Bertha von Suttner, available on Open Yesterday's Pages. I had no idea she had been instrumental in Peace movements before WW I. See Open Yesterday's Pages for a lot of information (just half of what's available!) As an early peace activist she may have influenced Nobel to make a Peace Prize! 

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Last week, Bruce Springsteen wrote: “I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.” You can read the lyrics below.

Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes
Against smoke and rubber bullets
By the dawn’s early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots
And Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead
Their claim was self defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes
It’s our blood and bones
And these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight

In chants of ICE out now
Our city’s heart and soul persists
Through broken glass and bloody tears
On the streets of Minneapolis

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

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The song as he sang it was included on my post earlier. But sometimes people want to read the lyrics too. 

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My son in Columbus OH sent me a text while he and his wife were protesting ICE on Saturday afternoon. My son in Tampa FL was a security guard for the Gasparilla Parade that day...in very cold and windy conditions for his Mustang Sallie's Krew on their float, throwing out beads. I posted some snow photos before the day was over of Black Mountain's snow.