Face and shadows to start

 

A self-portrait by my son, Tai Rogers. He's now a high school art teacher, a challenge for which he's quite capable. But the logistics are somewhat daunting as he begins this new avenue of endeavor.

As winter lingers (though a respite of 70F degree days has surprised us) this redbud has just it's own limbs to show still. It lives near our Black Mountain Library.

By Susan Seddon Boulet

Thanks for all the positive  feedback about the divine feminine and Women's Day last Sunday. It really touched my heart. Especially since I heard that day of two deaths of dear ones, one a sweet pet, the other a husband of a blogger. There are now empty spaces in my friends' lives. And it reminds me how easily we can lose one another. Give out some hugs today!

Yes the Bradford Pear is beginning to blossom. Will we have more freezing weather? Due Thursday night this week!

Lunch back in the dining room at the Lakeview Senior Center! Here Trivia, the manager, interviews a new participant.

Wandering around to say hi, or taking a  seat and catching up with others, the group of seniors was so happy to be together again!

More signs of spring, green leaves appearing on a bush.

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Life

gifts me with breath.

All i have to do is allow it in.

I have been holding my breath long enough,

afraid of life itself...

~ Barbara Heile

and Mary Oliver

When Death Comes

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

—Mary Oliver

Happy Halloween!

 Trick or Treat!!

This evening many a child will go to bed with sugar streaming through their bloodstream...bringing about some wild and crazy dreams!

Happy Samhain, or Halloween!

The Valley Echo did a good article about our Pet Parade in Black Mountain...which is in a bit different location this year. Still cute photos. 

Mexican festival

Barbara Baker is my daughter-in-law who bakes extraordinarily delicious Moonlit Macarons. 

The passing of the witches hat. 

I was enjoying talking with my granddaughter, Cayenne over lunch, about costumes. She makes her own designs and is much more skilled than I have ever been. But I mentioned I'd decorated a velvet witches hat with stars and moons in fabric paint, and offered it to her.

So after lunch with friends we went to my apartment and she tried it on, and left for Florida with it! 

An altar for ancestors

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And on a more practical note:

My iPad keyboard on-screen suddenly split apart.

I have no idea what I did, nor how to get it back to correct format! HELP!!

There's what the keyboard looks like on my iPad these days. Really weird. It just suddenly happened.

Today's quote;

In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.

HENRI NOUWEN

Real witches

Witches tea party!

Personally I've been wondering why I'm not in a celebratory mood for Halloween this year. I finally realized that dealing with life and death issues while being sick this year, I'm thinking a lot about my own mortality. And I do want to continue to live as long as I'm somewhat capable, and able to think clearly. So I've looked at a natural burial place in a local cemetery, then decided against making a decision on that now. It's really depressing.

And I'm not doing much talk about end of life issues. I want to have plans to move forward instead...in this living world. Whatever the other one might be, I'm just putting it aside for now. 

As I write this Monday morning...

Right now I'm having an aural migraine, where I lose vision and get blinded by sparkly lights in a blooming kind of circle. It starts in the center of my vision, and ends with streams of banners on the outside. Usually it only lasts 10-15 minutes, and then I have light sensitivity for a few hours. As you can see (while I can't very well) I can keep doing many things, including driving, by shifting my focus around to wherever the vision still remains. No pain usually. Whew.

So when everyone's decorating their lawns with death...skeletons, fake graves, ghosts, goblins, living dead everywhere! - I have little interest. I've always avoided horror movies. Too much to be scared of in real life, thank you very much. I don't want a fake scare.

I used to put up an altar for the ancestors. Even that honoring of those who gave me life has lost its interest this year. I just miss so many people who have "gone on before." Including my pets.

I do still have friends who are witches, or at least witchy. I love that they celebrate with lots of decorations, and maybe some special foods for Halloween. 

I got out my caldron...which has served many rituals. So that's as much as I'm decorating this year.

My visit with pulmonologist Monday gave me a honest appraisal of my recovering from pneumonia. He said I'd need another 3 months before I've cleared enough to have my lungs evaluated to see the status of my bronchiectasis...where various lung damages might show up on a CT as well as with breathing tests. I was realistic. If my lungs have at least a half ability still for breathing, I want to plan to move to the southwest US where it's drier. If my lungs show a great deal of damage, I'm reconciled to not moving, but planning that green burial plot for eventual use of my remains.

So we have to wait till early February to find out more.

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H. Byron Ballard, a friend, a witch who lives in Asheville NC.

A joke photo of Byron recently taken.

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And for those who are aware of this time when our ancestors who have gone before are closer to us, there is this:

A prayer for the dead.

Each night, at twilight, we remember. With love, with gratitude, we remember.

You have come to the end of this pathway

In a journey to which we bear witness.

You have come to the end of a pathway

That is barred with a gate and a door.

May this door open swiftly and silently.

May this gate give you a moment’s grace

In which to rest your spirit before you venture through.

We stand here with you, as your companions,

As your family, for you are beloved.

But, for now, we must remain here.

We can not go with you to this old land.

Not yet.

For you will see the Ancestors.

You will see the Beloved Dead.

You will walk among the Divine Beings

That guide and nurture us all.

You go to dwell in the lands

Of summer and of apples

where we dance

forever youthful, forever free.

We can hear the music in the mist

The drums that echo our sad hearts.

We can see your bright eyes and your smile.

And so we open the gate.

We push back the door.

We hold the gate open.

We glance through the doorway,

And with love and grief and wonder

We watch you walk through.

Hail the Traveler!

All those remembered in love, in honor,

Live on.

Farewell, o best loved,

O fairest,

Farewell.

Amid celebration, a death (kept quiet)

Ohio State University police cordoned off an area outside Ohio Stadium after someone fell from the stands and died during a graduation ceremony Sunday. (He fell from top deck before the ceremony from next section over from where we were sitting - completely unaware)

Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch/USA Today Network

Published 12:04 PM EDT, Mon May 6, 2024

A person fell from the stands at the football stadium during Ohio State University’s graduation ceremony and died Sunday, university officials confirmed.

“Tragically, an individual fell from the stands and is deceased,” Benjamin Johnson, a representative for the university, told CNN in an email Monday, adding the school had no additional details to share.

The identity of the person who died is not yet available.

 The commencement was hosted at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, which can seat more than 100,000 people. Guests were seated in several levels of bleachers lining the horseshoe-shaped stadium, as seen in video of the event posted by Ohio State.

Ohio State awarded 12,555 degrees and certificates at the ceremony Sunday to students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries, the university reported.

Chris Pan, a social entrepreneur, musician and inspirational speaker was the designated commencement speaker for the event.

The university is working to make counseling and other support resources available for anyone affected by the incident, Johnson said.

Stadium deaths are not unheard of, especially as stadiums are being built bigger to accommodate larger crowds, researchers say.

Ohio Stadium could seat about 66,000 people when it was first built in 1922. Over the years, the stadium has seen several renovations, including those to build extra seating and install railings, according to Ohio State.

A loss like no other

 We lost a dear friend. 

I hadn't seen her in months, but knew if I had walked into a room where she was, she would have greeted me with the warmest smile imaginable. She would have inquired as to my life, and shrugged off her own many miles and many people she'd been around and affected.

I just saw the right poem for this loss.

When Great Trees Fall

by Maya Angelou

When great trees fall,

rocks on distant hills shudder,

lions hunker down

in tall grasses,

and even elephants

lumber after safety.

When great trees fall

in forests,

small things recoil into silence,

their senses

eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,

the air around us becomes

light, rare, sterile.

We breathe, briefly.

Our eyes, briefly,

see with

a hurtful clarity.

Our memory, suddenly sharpened,

examines,

gnaws on kind words

unsaid,

promised walks

never taken.

Great souls die and

our reality, bound to

them, takes leave of us.

Our souls,

dependent upon their

nurture,

now shrink, wizened.

Our minds, formed

and informed by their

radiance,

fall away.

We are not so much maddened

as reduced to the unutterable ignorance

of dark, cold

caves.

And when great souls die,

after a period peace blooms,

slowly and always

irregularly. Spaces fill

with a kind of

soothing electric vibration.

Our senses, restored, never

to be the same, whisper to us.

They existed. They existed.

We can be. Be and be

better. For they existed.

The pottery studio has set up a little memorial for her in their window.

I also mentioned this dear woman's passing when I first heard about it several weeks ago HERE.

Art in the neighborhood

 After some of the underbrush was trimmed back last week, I can see how tall some of these trees are as I climb the hill of Walker Rd. (yes I thought it was a street, but it's just a Rd.)

 In front of the A-Frame house are a couple of sculptural elements. (view going up hill)

View coming down hill. Both this home and the cottage further down the hill have lots of trees shrouding them.

On the right (going uphill) are a lot of garden features, but I heard a fountain...so I  peeked over the hedge to see...

Yes, over by the porch, right above the head of this little angel in this picture...a stream of water flows from a bowl. You probably have to be there and hear it to find it. The yard has many little attractive garden features. More photo opportunities, I think!

I love reading a blog by Ronni Bennett, who has several terminal conditions, and is sharing her own thoughts and feelings with her readers. She approaches death by talking about her own sense of it, and sharing other's writings. The comments on her blog are often full of supportive and caring people's thoughts as well...and there are usually a lot of them.  Yesterday she shared a video of a children's book about death...and I got a lot out of it, so am giving the link here.  Cry Heart, But Never Break by Danish children's author, Glenn Ringtved, illustrated by Danish artist, Charlotte Pardi.

Today's quote:

We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Fish grow, fish die

No setting on my camera would capture these little guys without blurs

I was so excited Wed. a week ago, that some baby guppies had survived the appetites of their parents...and here are some of them about double that size.  I did however lose one of the pretty mother fish this week.  I guess I should have remembered to take her back for a refund (within 14 days of purchase) at PetSmart.  But I'd already flushed by the time I thought of it.  I do always send a blessing to the little fish spirit however.

This shot does show the gap between the 2 turquoise pieces of plastic that hold the plastic barrier in place, which is how the babies escaped to the nursery side of the aquarium.

They are beginning to have some colors, which I find interesting.  I look forward to maybe being able to get the camera to focus quickly enough next week to have one out of about 25 pics in focus.  Fingers crossed.

Mortality

When I was 69, I began to accept my own mortality.

I'd worked with elders for years, so I had certainly been thinking about my own death during some of the time I was spending with those who might well have been closer to their own deaths than I was to mine.  I never took that for granted however.

I remember one of the youngest people who worked with me at an Assisted Living Facility, who was shot one night.  That was a tragedy that shocked everyone, staff and residents equally.  His funeral was very well attended.  His wife said he'd gone outside to check if there was a prowler.  She heard someone on the other side of the bedroom door and shot him through the door, accidentally thinking he was the prowler.

Anyway, death is a constant companion of elders.  Maybe that young man thought of his death occasionally, since he was around elders daily just like me.  It doesn't mean people are depressed just because they think about their death.  Unless they start planning a way to make themselves die.

I do have the feeling often that I might be dying right now, whenever I have chest pains, tingling fingers, etc..  What if I have a heart attack is usually my first thought, whenever I feel something doesn't feel right.   Those jokes on TV weren't completely off base.  It's one of the first thoughts.  I just don't use it to get attention.  I never have told anyone that I think about it.

Will there actually be that light at the end of a tunnel?  I joke when I say this, though I know many people think seriously about that.

Lately I've been thinking that I'll probably be with the spirits of lots of my ancestors. There's a reason for that.  It's more real in my experience than that tunnel.

Every October for the past few years (and I don't remember how long) I've been visited in my dreams while asleep by various ancestors.  So far they have all been people I've known...not anyone relatives who died before I was born.  But I've had to ask them, respectfully, to let me get some rest during the night.

I have no doubt that this time of year, with the changing weather, the reaping of crops, the snuggling under covers while the north wind turns cold, that there are spiritual presences that can be available for those who are open to communicating with them.

Now I'm not into seances, rituals where the dead are asked questions, or psychics generally.  But when people say the "veil between the worlds is thin" I have to agree.

So that's why I'm thinking of my own death so much also these days.  I figure if I do drop dead any time soon...I might have to deal with these spirits in some way, and perhaps a lot more intimately.

There's lots of theories about life after death.  I've always (well, maybe since I was a young adult) believed that the after-life was just what each of us believed it to be.  Sort of a smorgasbord of available choices, based upon a religious or non-religious belief of each person.

And for me I just figured it wasn't what any religion said it would be.  That's because all of the religious beliefs I've heard of have completely irrational answers, certainly unprovable.  So one belief I had was that a person's soul or spirit continues in the minds of those who remember them, and the body becomes chemicals that are returned to nature to nurture new life forms, from plants to animals and insects.

But I have also begun to believe that reincarnation makes sense.  Unfortunately there isn't a lot of support for that belief in a Christian neighborhood.  But if there is a continuing essence, perhaps the spirit or soul of the individual, I would like to think of it changing into another consciousness.  And I also enjoy the thought that this essence would address similar issues that I've dealt with in my life, and perhaps do better than I have, so the next time (or the next) there would be a completion.  This final sense of enlightenment is satisfying, where the spirit or soul would no longer be held by the issues and can be totally free to join with some kind of eternal bliss. 

But I don't pretend to know this as true.  So death just represents something that will perhaps provide answers to this curiosity.  Just as my belief in a deity is that She is immanent, within each and every thing around me, so has my death become part of my daily activities.   In the meantime, I've got a lot of living to do still.

And my ancestors who visit me at night may have something they want me to listen to, if I'd only be able to understand it.