428. 


Principles

Stands

Message people don't always make it

I was having a phone conversation with M and we compared notes of recent deaths of some stars in their 60's and 70's recently.  “That's right here” we agreed.  The 80's and 90's as I see around me are not nearly a sure thing for those of us a bit younger.  The conversation drifted to a certain type of person.

M mentioned two men she knew, one 68 and the other 75, who died last week and who were fisherman.  These were just not ordinary fisherman.  One was an historian and writer.  The other I don't recall.  But both had other dimensions to them, and fishing put bread on the table.  It was straightforward, honest as much as allowed today, not desk work, and was out in nature close to the womb of the sea.  Their lifes were a statement in this modern age.  “Honest work keeps the mind pure” could be one of their motivating  themes.

But none of this mattered with death.  Cancer ravaged their insides and their lifes ended.  They made a statement, stood for something, and they never made it to old age.

I recall watching a documentary of a man in Alaska who lived in a log cabin, having left his regular job years before, and befriended many black bears.  The bears would let him hold their cubs, a rare thing.  Hunters visited with their high powered rifles and looked and wondered.  The man continued to do this but eventually, good intentions and all, was closed down.  Sickness and regulations ended his 'thing' and he had to move back to some town into an apartment.  His life communicating with bears was ended.

Another very older man in the desert carved out passionately a monument from sand and clay with comments about his faith.  It was like a small mountain.  His health suffered as he did not take care of his basics all the time and he ended up in a nursing home with other elderly.  I wonder if he watched game shows as others did and played in group bingo. He lived on, but not as he thought he would. 

Finally, there was a very old board member where I live, Arnold.  He ran the place with an iron glove and occasionally gave me a break.  As he would say, 'because it was you.'  His wife was mentally gone and died earlier and his daughter came to stay.  She was frighteningly thin and worked in computers.  Everyday she would bike miles to the train station and take the train to work.  At night when passing her I would see her bike lights blinking on dangerous Military Trail.

She also swam slowly but long, maybe for an hour a hundred laps or so.   She got the response from people she wanted.  She was strange, into marathon swimming and into bicycles, but people would admire her tenacity and performance or at least gave her space.  I could imagine in her mind she thought we thought, '”wow, look at what she's capable of doing.  She's defying normal limitations.  She's hooked into something special.  She might look slight, but look what she can do through her will and focus.”

Well, Arnold, her dad, died in his 90's and later I saw her getting out of her bright purple bug with a cane with her hair colored in a punk style dressed neatly but looking painfully thin.  Later I passed her while biking and she stopped me and said '”could you please lift this into the garbage for me.  I'm a sick woman.”  At another time I had heard that she was hit by cars twice while biking at night.

In her early 70's she had transformed from capable and stubbornly independent and doing things her own way to a sickly person asking for help and some mercy.  Her dad left her some money I’m sure and that maintained her but she was a shadow of the 'do it myself marathon lady' I remembered.  Her stand and life statement was no longer. 
I've taken many stands. 

My latest life stand is to see if a germ of an idea can emerge from wherever and whenever it was conceived.  It's a message in a way.  It makes me pause as I see what happens to people who stand by their message.

427.  Past

426.  Past

Observations

Chores   
  
Endless chores
with no resolution
one leading to five more
that expand into the future
seemingly pushing out life itself.   

425.  Past

Principles

Philosophy


Balance
 
You can understand
principles of living.
You can reach certain
conclusions about life.
You can patiently wait
for that perfect revelation.

None of this necessarily works.

Simply having some balance
might be the answer.

424.  Past

Principles

Wisdom

True wisdom

As you age, sadness and loss produce acceptance and reconciliation.  These qualities seem like wisdom but are really logical reactions to what happens in life, given enough time.  When you accumulate heartbreak after heartbreak your demeanor adopts a sweet sadness, which goes way beyond wisdom.  It is wisdom realized naturally.

The young imitate true wisdom, as if you can learn it or take a course in it.  With them it becomes an accomplishment, intertwined with ambition.  It’s added as another tool in their arsenal.

When you are older you can become a free agent, for there is less at stake, and you can call life as you see it.  You can be more true and wise.

423.  Past

Principles

Life

Resting with the lamb

A writer observed a boxer
giving it his all
naked and  exposed
for all to see.
He wrote the boxer was sad
but everything ends up sad,
until the lion rests with the lamb.

422.

P:rinciples

Nature

The sky, beauty, art and more.....

The entire day tinkered from cloudy to clear.  When clear the scattered clouds were precisely constructed and the sky blue had a shimmer and calming energy to it.  When cloudy the grays were gradual and gentle but the formations were strong.  So it was in Florida on that afternoon.

When looking at the cloud configurations I found myself thinking of how they would be painted.  What colors would I use?  What is their anatomy?  Dalessio, a younger man, who studied in the same manner I did but more extensively, would paint with color value shapes and his paintings were quick and virtuoso.  They lacked the depth of a Collins, another younger painter, who early on realized the limitations of  color values and made the effort to study the structure and anatomy of natural phenomenon, in this case clouds.  His paintings had weight, not  quite the same as a Claude Lorraine or German 19th century painters or the Dutch, but there was weight in them.  He often went for the big effect and statement, can't blame him, but his technique was not always up to it.  Still, as he said, he loved doing it and he did quite well.

I looked at the sky when it turned blue and thought of all the landscape painters I admired from the past.  To paint half as well as many would be a joy.  In my life my training was not that extensive and I was exposed to many other art influences and many other life influences.  People don't realize painting can be enjoyable as you improve your craft if you have a craft or a way to obtain it.  In this world on this plane it's a high way to appreciate the creation, combining the highest of intelligence, intuition, and knowledge onto one canvas.  I had a taste of this but just a taste.

At 22 when I went to Gammell for a crit of my work he said I was late and I heard from one  his students he thought Jews rarely became excellent painters.  Well, I didn't prove him wrong but Collins did.  Art has had a place in my life but not as a painter.  This afternoon I had brief glimpse of what it would have been like.  Naturally, mental gyrations followed.  At first I was self condemning for not being able to become competent at the craft.  Then I tried to figure out how I could shift my whole life to do so.   I then backed off from both roads as I was being led to a black hole.

Tired that evening I pulled up both the shades on the patio and a panorama of the sky above the low buildings and some trees greeted me.  Night was beginning to enter but not fully.  I lay on the chaise and just looked up.  Those blues, those pinks, those grays were caught so well by so many nameless painters.  My juices stirred and I wanted to paint the sky too.  Life would be so simple if I could.  The artists of old had such fun with the skies.  They were a playground for the imagination or just simply to observe and record.  It was also a vehicle to take joy in the craft.

I realized that evening I was viewing beauty.  Art at its finest was an appreciation of this beauty.  How did I know this?  I was feeling peace and harmony while looking upon it, that's how.  Nature was at its finest.  Why not build a craft based upon capturing what was so pleasurable and peace giving?  Translation, why not paint it?  I understood in a deep way after all these years why beauty in art and capturing it was so elevated on the scale of human activities.  It was no accident that Leonardo could do everything, sing, design, and write but art held his fascination.

I then had another realization.  When meditating, or appealing to the above, or hearing a soft voice from beyond, at least lately, tranquility was not forthcoming.  In other words, the higher dimension, what is transcendent, or just God, lately was not easing my insides.  Now, when viewing the sky and fading blues and silhouetted trees I felt a healing.  The world, or a certain beauty from the world, was helping heal my wounds from the world.  In other words, it took the world to cure you from the world.  God could be an anchor, but you still needed the world.

From this followed another understanding .  The focus was on living and making peace with my life.  Uncharacteristically I was thankful just to admire what I saw. No action was required.  I considered the effort to record the sky in paint.  Truthfully, it would be beyond my strength.  Then I mercifully understood such an effort was not necessary.  Mere acknowledgment of what was before me and its grandness was the reward.  Beauty and harmony in nature was enough in and of itself.

Finally, what followed was liberating.  My ego could rest.  I actually felt glad that other artists throughout the centuries had captured what I was appreciating.  When I saw the sky I thought of them.  I was grateful certain humans were capable, through environment and inclination, to have brought human craft and skill to a level that aligned itself with this beauty.  Good job artists.  I'm glad you did it and at least presently I feel no jealousy.  I see the beauty, you caught aspects of it, and  I'm content in knowing this.  Nature and art had aligned in harmony.  I was thankful for this awareness.  A sense of completion had been reached, at least at this juncture. 

Later that night the Cohanan, my dad, called because a piece of mail he sent me had been mistakenly sent back.  I mentioned this insight to him and he seemed to say it was a blessing to have had it and that I was fortunate and that I should write a paragraph about it and he'd like to read it when it was done.  Hmmm.   More confirmation.

421.  Past

Principles

Living

No agenda

Always an angle
always a reason
always a purpose.

Not this time.

I will appreciate
with no agenda.

420.  Past


Theology

Spiritual

Steps to the spiritual life

There are certain steps to the spiritual life.  This, of course, implies that there is a way to live a spiritual life.

First, one becomes awakened to the fact that there is something more than this natural world.  This becomes refined until one accepts that there is a person like being that is in charge.  After this awakening, one often falls into an acceptable religion or system that offers some guiding rules of behavior.  Often it is full of dogmas, some of which are practical and useful.  For a time one conforms to their rules, thinking doing so is righteous and good.  However, this conformity falls apart after a time.  Acting righteous just lasts for so long until it exhausts you and no energy is left.

What one is left with is the knowledge  that there is a maker.  However, any religious system emerging from this knowledge is suspicious.     An intimacy, a one on one is sought and realized.  All manners of reaching out to the maker are tried, including communication.  Some things are tested and discontinued, some things work and then don't work.  One persistently looks and sometimes finds.

419.  Past

Principles

Living

Regular guy versus standing out

I remember watching a black and white western when a ranch hand felt his work was dead end and would just eventually wear him out and leave him helpless.  He was good at breaking horses and this was his shot to break out, to reach for something more, “that more” being the rodeo.

In the big city, amidst the teeming masses, if you weren't regimented into a profession, or had a place in the counter culture, you would often feel the need to break out, to make it, somehow, to rise above the rats in the cage, or the institutionalized education mills.   This is how it was when I was growing up.

In small blue collar towns dreams seemed to be centered on breaking out of a 9 to 5 clock in factory job.  Early death from pollutants or just being worn down seemed to be the sentence if one didn't escape.

Of course, I’m being a little harsh with these examples, but you get the point.  There is a valid need to break out of a rut, to be something more, to stand out.

On the other hand when visiting the Midwest city Cincinnati, Ohio, I was impressed by how just living and being and going along worked out well.  One could be an average student, get along with peers, party, watch football, be a good fraternity brother and eventually land a corporate job, then own a home, eventually have a family and all was okay.  You were a good regular guy, a community contributor, a concerned citizen.  And you were a fair person and had little to hide.  Nothing was wrong with this picture.

I played ping pong with a girlfriend from the Midwest one time and I complemented myself after a good shot by saying, “boy, I could have been good at this.”  She countered with “stop getting off on yourself.  Most men are able to play a good game of ping pong.”  What was an out of the ordinary skill to me was standard behavior to her.  Regular guys know ping pong.  To me, that one good shot confirmed that I could have risen above all if I had the chance.

I was a city boy where to live one had to excel or dull oneself into conformity.  She was a Midwestern girl where steady work was the norm.  Hmmmm to it all.  Well, to her America was built on the middle, citizenry, and contribution (these were her ethics).  Europe had their monarchies and aristocracies and masses.  The masses struggled and the only way out was through excelling in some way. New York had roots in this.

On the other hand the American norm has its good and bad.  Often a strong middle class thwarts greatness.  However the middle class provides stability.  Yet even in America sometimes one has to break out to survive old world style.

So, this was another dichotomy with no single answer.