Tag: Photo Art

Photo Art

In which we search for the heart of the wood…

heartwood2

“As symbol, or as the structuring of symbols, art can render intelligible — or at least visible, at least discussible — those wilderness regions which philosophy has abandoned and those hazardous terrains where science’s tools do not fit. I mean the rim of knowledge where language falters; and I mean all those areas of human experience, feeling, and thought about which we care so much and know so little: the meaning of all we see before us, of our love for each other, and the forms of freedom in time, and power, and destiny, and all whereof we imagine: grace, perfection, beauty, and the passage of all materials to thoughts, and of all ideas to forms.”
― Annie Dillard, Living by Fiction

Photo Art

Hope

img_4398adj1asq1b

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

Howard Zinn

General

Funkiness and Malaise

IMG_2486adj2a

When last I posted, I was plagued with a pink laptop display among other things. The display issue has since been resolved thanks to an ASUS update that mysteriously appeared one day. This after I had checked numerous times for updates that might resolve the problems. Windows and its quirks remain inscrutable, I guess.

Anyway, once the display issue was resolved, I found myself in something of a creative funk. I had ideas for stuff but seemed to be lacking the will to carry anything through to execution. Malaise is the word to describe my frame of mind. So I have spent time reading and watching TV. Sounds productive, doesn’t it? But I guess sometimes we simply need to recharge for reasons we don’t always understand.

Continue reading “Funkiness and Malaise” →

General

3 Day 3 Quote Challenge – Day 2

IMG_1937sq

Thanks again to Paul – wwwpalfitness for nominating me. 🙂

Three quotes for three days

And once again, I will simply invite those who visit this post to participate in the challenge if they would find it interesting to do so.

When I decided to take on this quote challenge, I knew that I wanted to focus on poetry in looking for quotes to feature. That led me to my own collection of poetry books and gave me a chance to revisit some old favorites. One of the books I pulled off the shelf was The New Naked Poetry, an anthology published in 1976 which features some fine poets. Two of them, Peter Everwine and Philip Levine, were actually professors of mine when I attended college at California State University, Fresno many years ago. My original intent had been to include some quotes from their work. But then I noticed something. Of the 26 poets included in this anthology, only three are women. Now that may have something to do with the focus on naked poetry which is loosely defined as poetry without adornment – no formal structure, no rhyme, etc. But I suspect it may also have something to do with the time period in which the volume was published. In any case, I decided to include one quote from each of the three women for this post.

Continue reading “3 Day 3 Quote Challenge – Day 2” →

General

Some Days Are Like That

Some Days

Well, yesterday I had another day of not feeling so well followed by a night of not sleeping so well. Today I do feel much better but very, very tired. By today, I had hoped to be finished up with the three day, three quote challenge as well as having a new piece of short fiction to post. There’s always tomorrow. As they say.

Since I know I’ll get sucked into the DNC coverage tonight, I’m going to stop worrying about trying to get caught up more here until tomorrow morning. See you all in the new morning!

 

General

3 Day 3 Quote Challenge – Day 1

Roethke

Thanks to Paul – wwwpalfitness for nominating me. 🙂

Here are the rules that I copied:
Three quotes for three days

Three nominees each day(no repetition)

Thank the person who nominated you.

Inform the nominees.

Since I think some of my contacts have previously participated in this challenge (or one similar) and am unsure if some of the others would like to, I am going to depart from the nominees rule and simply invite those who visit this post to participate in the challenge if they would find it interesting to do so.

Today I am featuring quotes from the poetry of Theodore Roethke, specifically his poem Meditations of an Old Woman. You can read more about him here.

1. How can I rest in my days of slowness?
I’ve become a strange piece of flesh,
Nervous and cold, bird-furtive, whiskery,
With a cheek soft as a hound’s ear.
What’s left is light as a seed;
I need an old crone’s knowing.

2. In my grandmother’s inner eye,
So she told me when I was little,
A bird always kept singing.
She was a serious woman.

3. I see a shape, lighted with love,
Light as a petal falling upon stone.
From the folds of my skin, I sing,
The air still, the ground alive,
The earth itself a tune.