The Moon, Shabbat and Pot Musings.

The Moon, Shabbat musings, Romantic Pots fall in love and The Pot of Bewilderment
Since the November 8th 2016 election I find myself wandering through
a labyrinth of many emotions with many companions by my side....
I turn to drawing and allow my feelings to emerges 
in the form of the dark shapes of
Lurking Uncertainties
that now populate our daily life.
I am grateful to find humor,
grateful for Shabbat
and grateful to gaze upon Goya's drawings ( more about that in another post)
I am grateful to gaze upon the eternal comforting feminine moon
that was just full.
Here are my musings on this time.
*********

For the last two nights the Full Moon has come in so close to earth. Two nights ago I gazed up into its wonder as feathery clouds lined up like so many angels coming in to sing to earth a comforting song...a comforting ethereal song....

The earth keeps spinning, the moon waxes and wanes and in the full light of the femininc moon we wonder. Last weeks election results have us spinning and wondering, but the cycles of the moon remain. The woman many of us hoped would be elected was not, yet feminine wisdom remains. We wander into a labyrinth of wonder and dismay, hoping not to get lost in our fears and anxieties.

the moon came in so close as if to bring us some comfort, some healing hope, some subtle feminine energy reminding that this strong inner light is not as bright as the sun, but holds its own wisdom..... I felt held by its beauty gazing upwards as the luminous clouds lined up...
as if angels came in close as well, to comfort and console.

**********

 I went to a lovely pottery opening a few nights ago...the simple pots on shelves sang their song and I drew them, as well as the anxious conversations all around...

My sense of whimsy emerged as I drew the pots. Nope, they did not vote, they just remain our objects of beauty to be used and adored.

I drew two pots falling in love amid the conversations as well as the ever present dark lurking shapes of uncertainty that populate my sketchbook now.

 

Shabbat remains

I hold onto the peace and rhythms of Shabbat in my own hand hewn ways.

The need for spiritual rest and insight remains. In facing challenging times, I feel more than ever the need to curl up within the sacred shell of Shabbat..I just want to curl up inside the shell of comfort, rest and forgetfulness... to let go of the world for a day and come back to it invigorated with insight.

 I took a lovely Cat Nap with my kitties!!

 

********

The next day I

Wandered the halls of Mia,

 my brother and I paused before our favorite paintings as always.

 After sitting and musing by the Fountain of Goodness

I turned and went briefly into the African Art Gallery

There before me was this ancient African pot

a very round figure pulling at its mouth

 with the other hand

in a questioning pose.

The expression on the face is one of

 bewilderment, fear and anxiety.

I named it:

The Pot of Bewilderment: What have we Done?

All for now.

Singing my father home

So the years pass after all and hot summer is here again...not as hot as the Texas summer my father James C. White was born, his mother sighing and pushing this intellectual, poet, railroad worker and teacher out into the world. An irascible birth of course, and there he was fully formed in the arms of his mother...later on picking cotton as his sister spun tales for him from the movies she had seen..
and then onto Baylor to be the handsome president of his class...Japan summoned him for his military non active duty.. time to have a girlfriend and sip sake...oh how the boxes in the back room sing of those time...and thus time tumbled by...a brief first unhappy marriage and then meeting that beautiful Viennese woman. My mother Emily.. oh the complexity and the passion..the shared feeling for poetry, the clash of culture and clash..all to be worked out here on the tundra of Minnesota..and me their first born..smiling into the world in the fall of 1952..and how he showed me Greek Poetry..and oh how a life tumbles by..and more children...my brother Wallace, Raymond and Margaret..His work
teaching at The Minneapolis College of Art and Design and then working for the railroad...handsome and erudite, always opinionated and passionate about politics and movies and poetry...the years did pass after all..and there I was calling him on his birthday to tell him that I had indeed rented a cottage on the island of Inisheer off the west coast of Ireland and wasn't it now a gift to him..but that he would have to support me...and 3 years later he and my mother walked the stony roads and we ate the weird and wonderful ray fish..and he charming the islanders with his stories and talk..the years just kept tumbling by and he kept writing poems, but never quite published and kept sending friends his patched together letters he Xeroxed....aging ever so slightly and then yes right into old age.... and finally finally after Emily was gone a year and a half we sat out there in my vine hut in early 'August and he said to me :"It's a Big Old World and I am getting tired of it." I drew him with a sigh and had a feeling he would not be long for this world.... less than a week later he was hospitalized... as I ran between hospitals as Josh lay in another one with a leg infection...I was filled with premature grief and ran to see him yet again with a poetry book under my arm...I read to him The Mower and The Glow Worm by Andrew Marvell...and he paused looking revived as if he'd had a blood transfusion...and later that night he did and he was gone...but ah, before I left that afternoon he smiled and said to me...You Sure Are Pretty...his last sweet oh so sweet words to me...


and he was gone.


the next few days a blur of activity and grief and now four years has passed and his box of ashes is not scattered yet....it is on a shelf with his shoes and glasses and a hodge podge of beloved books...I made sure not to organize the books..just have them the way he would want them...full of thoughts and ideas and papers ....pounded and beaten by his deep reading...


today I took that heavy box down from the shelf and of course a sheaf of carbon paper came down with it...


oh the weight of the years and yet now it is time to sing him home...and place the ashes in several special places..
out in front amid sunflowers he loved to grow..
         in a bright red pot with the hibiscus flowers big as dinner plates ready to bloom.
               down to the falls and scattered to the stream that will bring them to the mighty Mississippi and thus the sea eventually....
                    and surreptitiously to Emily's grave with a stick poked into the ground and the ashes shoved in.....
      and a small amount kept and saved for that inevitable journey south to Texas to plant in the vicinity of a place in east texas...


    yes.. I will sing my father home soon...and the sheaf of carbon papers will accompany the journey.

Musings from the Vine Hut this morning

Musings from the Vine Hut

.....and so you'd wonder...how do I steer the ship...?? through action, direct action and efficient To-Do lists????...or through philosophical contemplation of nature....allowing its twistings and twinings to give insight to our fragmented world.....

Meandering through memory loss

It snowed today. A lovely sticky snow that stuck to branches.
a person could say winter is still here, but it is Spring.
The calendar says so. Here in Minnesota the usual two step waltz forward and back between the seasons....warmth and cold.


Somehow refreshing to have a simple blanket of white. as if its purity could blot out the terrible world news of terrorist attacks in Brussels....as if...as if...once again trying to understand news that is too hard to understand..but feel...and wishing all the lit candles in memory cleared a way...and as fragile as those hopes are, they flicker and are strong.


It is Purim and the celebration of good over evil  in the ancient story is all the more poignant at this time of extreme brokenness with the rise of irrational and dark forces...


I visit my dear friend as always on a Wednesday afternoon..the news of the day is spread across her red bedspread...we reach as always for art and music as we begin our meandering conversation amid the synchronicity of a Vienna waltz that signifies and symbolizes my mother's presence, her best friend for decades..every day marked by a long philosophical conversation in which they shared troubles, rose up above them to discuss world events and then shared troubles again...somehow resolving so much along the way...and the bond of friendship so deep..and our families so woven together.


Even though my friend suffers from memory loss, we navigate our beloved territory of art with ease..I take her on a journey and read to her the NYT  descriptions of museum shows around the country..we soar off to these places in our imaginations and imagine all the beautiful art there is to behold. We make it to the Houston Museum, the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach and then with certainty back to the beloved Metropolitan Museum of Art....from moment to moment we meander through memory loss, but art anchors us and we find sure footing as we journey..landing at a show at the Met about Unfinished works of art by many artists..
My little phone takes us there and back...and we look at each piece carefully and find what is mysterious and unfinished in the works of art with blank faces and unpainted bodies...all of it complete somehow..and despite the empty space of memory loss and the meandering corridors it leads us down..we find our way home as art holds our hand.


darkening twilight descend..and I share the details and inspirations of my walk around the lake yesterday...my friend receives my inner life and holds it in her heart with clarity and enthusiasm...I feel like a ship who has sailed into a good port as we talk into the oncoming darkness of the evening.


the pure white snow holds each foot step of mine as I make it out to the car... renewed by our time together.....I feel the sadness of the world..distanced  a bit .....I feel healed by the circle of light created in our conversation


I drive home into the mystery of night...allowing my deeper questions to float down river where they find a home in larger answers out of sight where river meets the vast sea..

My Day.Entering the philosophers labyrinth of veiled memory and forgetfulness

My day


    It's a sunny day with crisp cold undertones. Still March in Minnesota, but spring is in the air. By the lake I take delight in hearing the lapping of the waves at the shore..The beautiful stick sculpture I saw a few evenings ago at the sandy edge of the lake is long gone......I muse on it's perfect airy nature and the way it was just held together with almost nothing..and how it held space and beauty. A structure about 6 feet tall, with a perfectly placed nest of grasses at the top..Fragile and yet there for the ages. At least for the philosophical memory of it all.
     The ice is gone...the water is warming. I walk in the cold wind.
******
     I drive quickly to work at the nursing home. My car full of tissue paper, bags and boxes that were made into Purim boxes 2 days ago.
     Mikey is waiting for me as always, sitting proudly in his wheelchair ready to go. I cut out the Easter egg shapes, set out the paints and away he goes..painting beautiful stripes on his oval shape.   My dear Rachel is ailing, but still wheels herself with pride to the table.. there she suddenly rights herself and instead of watching as she said she would starts aligning her dainty rick rack pieces with care on her paper egg.
     Jessica arrives with her southern grace, intelligence and charm. She and Rachel are both from Mississippi and often tell me in great detail how they picked cotton in the hot sun...Jessica is well read and sharp as a tack. She proudly brings the whimsical St. Paddy's day hat we made 2 weeks ago and decides to turn it into an
Easter basket. As luck and art would have it...I happen to have a nice piece of paper all cut and ready for weaving right on the table. She starts and then soon opts for the "shocking green, orange and pink fluorescent paper..that I secretly can't stand..but have learned with humility isthe favorite of All my students!!! She carefully weaves the strands, Mikey adds rick rack to his after I make the glue lines, 98 year old Mary watches and Rachel hums her happy tune.  Carla smiles and keeps up a constant. banter as she decorates her egg. We are all in subtle lovely harmony.
    Now if you the viewer stepped back from this table, your gaze and perception might be stopped by the walkers and wheelchairs and obvious infirmities each one struggles with. All those aides are of little consequence though as each one soars like a bird in their own way. My philosophical silver thoughts hover over each one and my ongoing musings that
musings
that
Each One In Their Own Way Finding Their Way to Beauty remains.
      I take a moment to show my drawings of the morning: my cat at the vet and the lovely pharmacist who helped me with my prescription this morning...Rachel smiles at this drawing and leans back in her chair reciting a poem she wrote about her pills and eventually meeting her maker and will he recognize her with all the new parts she has in her body..she smiles, saying she is just waiting to tune up her autoharp so she can sing it..
I marvel and I marvel as the rick rack pokes up its head again and again until I firmly glue it down..I marvel at the rich treasure trove of creativity I bear witness to again and again....
******
and then our time is over..I wheel Mikey back to his room. He never stops smiling. I turn the corner and see the ministers I know in their room.. a brief conversation turns into an insight..as I allude to the icon on the wall and note my Greek Orthodox and Southern Baptist upbringing as well as my Jewish life now..the lovely  young minister says the icon represents the 3 visitors that Abraham welcomes in and in one brief silvery insightful moment I see with alarcrity that the 3 spiritual visitors I have welcomed in are mirrored in this icon..that somehow it holds it all.
    I stop at Rachels Room. Her lovely St Paddy's day hat and Easter basket are already hanging up. we visit briefly and then I am on my way.....wheeling my cart full of goodies up to the locked ward of memory.
***
There I enter the veiled rooms of time, where the residents are fully present and yet vaguely aware of where, who and what they are doing...I slip through the veil of memory and set up the art project. It will be Easter baskets embellished with all kinds of foam art bunny rabbit and chickadees and carrots for the bunnies. It is so relaxing to peel off the back paper and stick them all over the boxes in some kind of harmony. I sit next to Mary Jane who asks each time again and again. Do I put it here??????Do I put it here? here? and my well of patience is full. I draw from it easily and answer her each time.Yes...yes..its fine wherever you put it..yes. yes yes yes.
   The other residents add foam and I decorate the other boxes. It is so relaxing. I think I will get a Phd in Foam Art and let go of my serious Real Artist Aspirations!!!!
   As we work the sun is setting. It has set on memory a long, long time ago...We sit amid the last rays of this day..I hear memory lapping at the shore..I look out across the lake and see the distant horizon..which is how so many events must seem to each one of these dear people now....Easter that once happened, now seems distan and far away..and yet the waves of the present moment feel good as we put our foam bunnies on a box. Carl says its okay but he would like to go home.
    
    I drive home into the setting sun. The waves are still lapping gently on the shore, even though I cannot hear them..

The Flat Tire: Drawing from the Well of Insight

The Flat Tire

     The weather has been cold. I take off work, just a little bit earlier than usual. My car feels really bumpy going down the alley, but I figure its the cold weather..all the way down the street, across the river and up the hill the car still feels bumpy and somewhat out of control.

   Then I realize something is wrong and I pull into a gas station.

Sure enough my tire is completely Flat, down to the rim. I go in and feel very uncertain about what I am going to do ?? The soda pop guy is there, his big truck blocks the air machine, so that's not use to me..my tire is beyond help anyway... I get advice on what to do next....so there I am within the walls of the philosophical labyrinth..wondering and wandering...trying not to feel too anxious and realizing that despite the nitty gritty nature of all this, the philosphical insights may be what matters most..

   I tell the guy behind the counter that I will just have AAA come there and I tell him " You will get drawn!" and sure enough after I make my calls I pull out my sketchbook and start drawing. It's a balmy day, almost tropical about 29 degrees compared to the COLD frigid below zero weather we have been having so it won't take long for AAA to get there... I draw Eddie, a cute young guy and ask him about his work..and there as I draw him the day after the Power Ball tickets were sold out of there like hotcakes, I realize this is my gift..to draw such an ordinary situation and to draw this young guy who's glad to be working in a part of town that isn't as tough and rough as other places he's worked....perhaps the gift is just to start drawing the places I pass by...and to prod a tiny story out of someone..and perhaps to really surprise them by drawing..

such a simple act and such a great way to be invisible...and to perceive...I wait..I draw..I eye the Power Ball machine thinking I should have bought at least one ticket...but I didn't and my dreams of money like those of so many others are like the frigid air vaporizing on a cold day...

    My AAA guy comes and puts the spare on...I draw him too as he efficiently takes care of the tire....I rip my drawing out of my book and give it to him..he is surprised and happy to be receiving a drawing from nowhere...I feel my invisibility and my joy in giving something so simple away....

    I drive on my lumpy bumpy tire...musing as I go on my way to work that the greatest gifts are the ones that come inside of supposed misfortune and bad timing..the tough times always reveal something..... I drive on my way and at the end of the day pull into a gas station where I end up having to buy a new tire....my insight falters...and I am simply glad for the smooth ride driving home...

Swimming through the Labyrinth of Time: Remembering my Mother

Yesterday was 5 years since my mother died. January 16th, 2011

In her honor I went swimming and thus my musings helped me enter the labyrinth of time and memory...

    My mother was a real athlete and often bragged about the time she dove off a very high diving board..the small black and white photo proved it...Her early days in Vienna were full of swimming and skating...I have a beautiful photo that shows her standing at the rink with her brother, all dressed up, a pensive look on her face as she prepares to skate..he looks impish and it is amazing how much my nephew resembles him....

    My mother swam almost daily into her mid 80's with a beloved swimming partner. After their daily swim they would go out to breakfast or he would make her breakfast as his place, creating a sense of style, elegance and order in her somewhat chaotic life.

     Yesterday I donned the swimsuit that was once hers and went swimming in the chlorine pool...I swam and swam until my daily cares subsided and I swam right into the labyrinth of time and memory...recalling the daily swims at Lake Calhoun all through my childhood and how my mother would walk us to the beach a few blocks away every day for a few hours of swimming while she sat under a tree reading...

    and then.... I swam back to that time a few days before she died when I was by her side in the hospital...everything felt hazy and the dark shadows in bright sunlight somehow mysteriously implied that the end was near....we were in old part of the hospital and I stayed with her through the night...her long eventful life spread out before her on the hospital sheets...me sitting in a chair brought in thoughtfully by the Romanian nurse who accompanied our journey through the night.. and there I was  with longing to leave the looming certainty of death and all of its complexity...I just wanted to crawl back in and swim inside the watery womb that once held me...where everything was quiet, secure and nurturing...

she died two days later..

I keep swimming back to memory and then forward into the present moment day by day... keeping up the physical fitness she modeled for me.......keeping up the exercise..that removes the weight of winter depression and keeps me lively and fluid, musing and wondering....swishing through philosophical waters that lead to mysterious insights and answers....

Entering the Philosphers Labyrinth

I enter the philosopher's labyrinth in the middle of the night, awoken by a phone call about my brother's whereabouts.

Even though it was not the first time, I left my dream sleep and started worrying, wandering and wondering about his whereabouts.......passing through the tight narrow passageways that lead to the enclosed rooms marked "More Worries!" and "Worst Possible Scenarios!!" I took a quick right and found that well worn bench in the softly lit room with candles, the room that emanates trust and hope. I've sat there many times before and I let the soft glow fill me as I leave to wander unmarked passageways..

But first the phone calls to places known and unknown. I called the girlie strip club my brother frequents and no way would the guy who answered look for him. ( maybe I was a wife in disguise??) The overnight police man taking calls at the first precinct was practical and reassuring. He told me Not to go downtown and related briefly the chaos of a Friday night downtown complete with fights and stabbing. He reassured me and told me that as hard as it was I should just wait...but to first call HCMC emergency room..
After a few tries I got through. The lights in the Worry room inside the philosophers labyrinth were blinking neon....Well, I thought if I have to go down to the emergency room...as my friend said my blood pressure would hardly go up!!  having been there so many times before. No my brother was not there.
 I followed the policeman's advice and waited. I refilled my hot water bottle and rested against its comforting warmth as I drifted in a dream like trance up and down the hallways and narrow byways of the philosophers labyrinth..wondering and wandering.....
knowing that the temperature outside was way below zero tonight and would my brother be okay??? In the small open air courtyard I set my prayers heavenward, like small birds flying to the divine, hoping and trusting he was okay.

Drifting into the cold night I did not sleep and almost dreamt...remembering his long trip across the country back in 1979 and 1980 when I was far away and we really did not know where he was as he hitchhiked and painted and survived. His paintings from that time have a certain look, of being made against huge odds with light slanting off a house in New Mexico and reflections in water of people on a dock  off the California coast remaining as testimony to that time.

I wonder eyes wide open what has happened...and then indeed time with its heavy boots tramping up and down the bare linoleum halls does pass.

I make a hesitant call at 4:30 am to where Wallace lives and then find out a mere 10 minutes later, that yes, he is home and fine. I sigh a deep sigh of relief...calling the dear policeman again, someone who has cast me a lifeline of support as the sharks of worry circled around me.....yes, I call him to thank him and he tells me he's kept the notes in front of him and that he did call the strip club to page my brother...( he'd left by that time) and he thanks me for the update. I thank him, knowing that the night brings all kinds of drama for him, that is all in a night's work....

I drift into a deep sleep and awake at noon. It's cold outside and by the time I go outside to renew my ice sculptures it is past 2 o'clock.
I almost slip on the ice but quickly regain my footing as I bring the frozen pieces out to the place by the front sidewalk. There I arrange the frozen pieces into some kind of harmony, some kind of frozen offering to this moment of gratitude, of being able to sleep late, drink coffee and attend to my ordinary routines....
the sun is shining now on the frozen earth casting long purple shadows...I muse on last night's adventure of care and concern, glad to leave the inner twists and turns of the philosophers wondering wandering labyrinth..knowing that life will bring more opportunities to wonder and wander there again soon.