No more pretense or pretending not that one is not one, that two can become one or that one comes from four... two can become one momentarily, brief communions can create long term unities, or universalities, that can again change and grow or deteriorate or be as a painting ever changing with age. No time, painting has no time, yes agelessness or bounded by a frame, a time-frame, a guideline, a no name of open, of deep of river and of volcanic spew. Rested. Arresting. Visiting earth. Yawny black gummed, gummy-doo. Melted. Meted across.
sunday, 8:51am
No more pretense or pretending not that one is not one, that two can become one or that one comes from four... two can become one momentarily, brief communions can create long term unities, or universalities, that can again change and grow or deteriorate or be as a painting ever changing with age. No time, painting has no time, yes agelessness or bounded by a frame, a time-frame, a guideline, a no name of open, of deep of river and of volcanic spew. Rested. Arresting. Visiting earth. Yawny black gummed, gummy-doo. Melted. Meted across. 10:14 AM. I am cooking soup, I am roasting beets, I am attempting to put some words here ,, glancing the howling coyote totem sitting in the firewood basket, perfectly carved, silent, axe-weathered, curved, with sharp teeth-like ridges, an ear pulled back, howling position? Drinking water from the river creek, Crestone Creek, perching along rocks in the waterfall behind our house, close, cohabitating snarls growls yip yips. Songs of survival. Greedy lips snarking, Our little Artie is having dental surgery to day, there has been some infection in his old teeth, Maylene and I are here at home praying around him, each sitting in our little corners – she on the couch, me finding myself small on a piece of black wheelchair.... the sun is so shining, the sun is so golden today, the quiet is intense... Artie perhaps in a cold chamber, or dreaming this sunny day, a silence of white. Close to god with wet nosed perfection. OH, Noah just called, Artie just had 11 teeth extracted!! Anyway, even if I was really a writor, one who excelled at scribing a nd revealing truths, telling my own truths or other known disillusionment, other kinds of tails, no recklessness , anything, all of it, forever and forever full f genius,of words to display, intellect , empty full, a cadence that comes from brilliance, Even if. Then every character in my nonovel would be based on my perceptions or on practical data of observation... there is nothing else. Reading history, living thru wars, dying, breathing. All. I have nonovel to write. I have silence yet no quiet,,,,,, the paintings have changing energies. Here is a new one again, from one of the Howard McCord poetry books. I dreamed the DOG. Artie sparkles, my kid, with me for almost 14 years... he is some approximate age of 14 years. I spoke aloud, “Artie has hives”. In dreaming he was covered with a linty scruffy short fuzz of fur, white bubbling into white. Different people told different tales, this dog has this this dog has that my dog your dog his dog and her dog, sometimes a cat. All of it was pretty scary to me!!! and what about little Artie? He seemed uninvolved, surely this was more about me than him, which is of course the truth. Or my truth, not his. What is his truth I will never know because I’m not a dog, even though my nose is often cold and wettish, even tho I wag my tail, especially when I butt walk up and down steps, even though I so LOVE LOVE LOVE dogs, still I am not a dog. There is some crossover in us thoug,h, interbred? The cement is almost dry so I can start rolling over it, with teeny beginnings of cracks, just enough to remember the preciousness and vulnerability that is afforded to me through it's existence, like bones that hold together yet can be slightly fractured and still turn and twist and hold us up. Cement bones. Underlays of paths. Traversed courses....... (new painting in the McCord poetry books) three weeks. ! . water roars, drip to greening.. Intervals and foam and lalala. New sidewalking, daisy lashes around my feet, spirals of marble, shiny glow for each toe. Backflashing, wheelies might spin across that cement walkway, capturing even landed float. We have a new rampy sidewalk leading from my downstairs studio to the driveway, i am now completely independent in getting myself down and out, meaning i can go outdoors all by my self, how cool is this??!! oh yay oh yay for the simple pleasures in life.... Noah put little spirals and geometric shapes into the wet concrete, glass marbles, white tiles, fantasy. 1 month and 1 day until I return to the clinic in alaLAlaLAlamosa, I will probably start walking then, wheelchairless abundance, having spent 6 months within this quiet time of unwalkablility, of learning new ways of being, of wondering when and if I'll be a two-legged standing creature. Well, I know that we humans developed with 4 legs, we walked quadropedded, not this silly biped motion, and having had 4 legs we could afford the loss of one, maybe even 2. Two works allright with eyes, lungs and kidneys. And I actually believe that we have 2 hearts, I read that somewhere. I know it's true because I feel them, sometimes independently of each other, beating the bearishness of breath heavy. DEEP PATH TWO-HEART, ROBIN ONE-HOP. two weeks two days,
or maybe two weeks one day oh I don't remember exactly because it has been so long running the arroyo becoming smoothly aflow becoming so comely so true I almost believe you are real with your waters so finite water like wind instantly adrift and instantly away what do I know? And so it is that it has been, now what... almost 5 months wheeling around as a one legless one yet still two legged. Perhaps it is time for me to learn how to hop, altering from “robin-one-hop” to robin-hopalong”, choosing one over the other for each occasional outing, trusting left leg over right leg, trusting truth over honesty?? Left leg and foot had major surgeries thirteen years ago, it took about 6 months between hospitalizations and recovery to start walking two-hop again. I remember it all very vividly, the pain, the medications, the visions, the doctors, the fears. This time all is easier (although those medications, oh yuck, such muck!!), with kind doctors, visions with gentle mindscapes to escape to, less fear, open landscapes to watch daily...... And with all this joy also the inescapable nothingness, a back and forth of yes and no of myfault nofault, of mind over matter, of matter over mind, of heartsong, of birdspeak, of riverrun.......... such immense pleasure to be had, and sorrow too. I look at my leg, scarred and spindly and waiting for renewal through walk and dance, wanting to feel nofeeling of metal brushing heavily, or nofeeling of what I remember nofeeling might be. Smile, quiet, wait want growth expanded trust. Questionings, youthful as a teenager, that mystery either being exciting or fearsome or something in between what I know and what I do not know, precision not allowed here!!! I have been painting in those little poetry chapbooks, trying to listen to the grace, to the beacon within me, pulling in the light from the big windows and god to maybe make a good painting from a deeper knowledge that I know is a wisdom beyond me. Existential boundaries, boxes within the spiral of creation and of the flowing arroyo.... being with.
mention the grace that I have seen in the black night I will join into ecstasy with ancient regalia, unknowable matters with questioning leers and inquisitive nods, with mannerly saints and with rebels and with the kingdom of white the blister of mendable wounds the battle of kindness over, and over, what is visible. dearest mankle of ankles, or so it seems to me personally. My own my ankle. I watch the snow grow heavily on the tree branches. Our oldest and most beloved Juniper will be lucky to keep her many browned needles. Her ancient wisdom will remain. Her hollowed beauty keeps many secrets. Her companion and neighbor, Pinon, has a fairy house built into her ground breaking roots, Last summer a young girl, Anastasia, stayed here for a few nights and built kings and queens into the magic space, beads and sparkly infusions abounded! So I sit here watching the slowness of snow, the speed of accumulation, the torrent of clouded water dropping upon our thirsty land and trees. And now the cows in the valley will have food for some more months. Noah walked up the arroyo yesterday and saw Ponderosa pines getting nutrition, after years of meek survival through the droughts that they never expected. , The little arroyo behind our home has been running full force for almost 2 weeks now, a waterfall makes music, the song entering through tired ears into my heart. Maya visited last week and we drummed with another local friend to the waters. Mankle and I stayed on the upper deck, yet I was close enough to see and hear all the roar and beat beat, thinking I could feel the spray of foam. Artie and Maylene played near me, deck prancing. Happy dogs!! On Monday Noah took Maya up to the Stupa, and to the Ashram, and to the mysterious and unknown fairy ring, I stayed in the car waiting for them to start glowing before they returned to where I roosted. It's always wonderful to show off this beautiful and spiritually based and blessed Crestone, especially to bestest friends. Lately I wear no cast or splint on mankle, although she is still considered “broken” and I am still using wheelchairs to have mobility. Thank goodness for wheelchairs! Most of the wounds and the infections have healed, now we focus on bone mending and the dream of fluidity, the dancer me. And the reality of becoming closer to God, the wanting to know......... the ashes put upon the open sea,
graying the waters spilling life upon life upon death into the infinity, beyond all that is and all that is not toward a greater endlessness, beyond light beyond dark i open that gate and wander wonder and speak wordlessly at the awesome deep deep gray. yesterday's yesterday. Yesterday and the yesterday before: Because mankle is still healing our Rumi study group met here at our home. It's usually held at Kate’s, Crestone's Sufi teacher and practitioner, and I was honored that the group kindly afforded me one less excursion out of the house. I like going out - and I like staying in because much physical effort is endured by me each time I venture away from home during this healing process. I do a funny butt walk up and down the steps, need assistance with the wheelchair in and out of the studio door to the car, and then whomever is giving me a ride must put the chair in and out each time we go into a building. And I feel alive every time I am out, the air is clear and it helps my ruminating mind to be still breathing. Also, each evening when I sungaze I am guided by this same stillness. And bright light!! Anyway, about 8 or 9 people were here. We are exploring the Mathnawi of Jalaluddin Rumi, volumes1-2. First we do a 20 minute silent meditation and then proceed to reading aloud. It s a bit academic when I read the work solo - it is a new language I never heard or read before, like the first time one reads Shakespeare or hears opera. But when reading with the group it is enlightening and exotic. Yesterday we read a story entitled Another Jewish King. One passage: “To those who know God, the wind of death is soft and pleasant as the breeze......” when we read, we often stop to reflect on personal and academic meanderings. At the end of this passage Rumi alludes to Mount Sinai. I gasped. Rumi spoke of one of my experiences with death! Many of his words are metaphor, death is not necessarily an exact end or passing. My second experience with death: I am in a hospital, it is Mt. Sinai in New York City, it is December, I am comforted, or terrified, by the doctors that I may die, and that they hope to save my life. The room I live in for 2 months is a corner room overlooking Central Park. One would pay $900 a night for this view at such a Madison Avenue address as this if they were touristing and sleeping in a hotel, but I am sure that to be here in hospital costs much more!! I notice before the surgery that this view is gorgeous!! It is is Christmas Eve and so the hospital is quieter and less busy than usual, only emergency patients fill the rooms. I just had major surgery to “save my left leg and foot and life”, I am vomiting and holding emptiness, I am on a bed, my neck is connected to many tubes, I am in and out of consciousness, I hear a violent wind through a low breathing. It is like sirens screaming, hellish, crushing, and then I hear silence because I am no longer aware awake conscious. Then I hear wind again, louder and shrill. Then some morphine takes hold and I sleep. I awake in morning light peering through corner windows aglow with whiteness reflected from all the snow that had fallen in the winter wonderland park, and I hear a new wind – this time it is gentle like a flute song especially composed for my ears. Charming, new singing. I have no more fear, I have become accepting. I have learned this wind song at Mt. Sinai. Lucky me, that was my first lesson in wind-song! The day before the day before: an homage to Dr. Carissa Tripi. the lovely good doctor as Wind, brushing against each other as she tends. a gentle quiet shweee that has come to remind us to have no fear of fear anymore. we go back to memory that has been our story, an unheard song, a bluster of flute. a moony reality as i paint a stormy desert red with fire.
time passes and the paintings change often, from red sand to white and from death to life. from airlessness gasping to a beauty beyond breath. this awakens. a mental impulse and pelter of tears while awaiting graced momentum. to become visible again. when the sky is not afire and stillness sets in, am i here. the picture in my mind and heart.... i will paint again soon. and then i jumped, i fell, i landed. i bounced.
you jumped and you reached down you spilled your hair out, you become broad and deep. i reached. when i started putting down the words in strokes really like pencil marks, like paint splashed, like meaty rhetoric. tender clutch, like mister magoo looking for his bespectacled own face in hazy mirrored madness, like tremendous slaughter of baby lambies for veal cutlets for dinner, like my favorite couch, like the bright view outside with white snowy reflecting back at me, like invasion by good guys, like the comets at twilight, like this spring solstice bringing ambition renewal rejoicing. okay okay I will try.
past the bewilderment where the words are sticky, where they are afraid of their own magic. cry cry cry cry crying all the way through my zoo escapade. i went to the zoo hoping to commune with some animals. and there i stood, looking at peacocks in full array and there i started to cry. and then cry cry. it was so beautiful, i wanted to fly fly. and there i was sad too, enclosed within a giant fence, as protection i knew. and their golds mingled with their green and blue, it couldn't be that ever i could say they flew. it would never be again. and so i cried and cry because i love the peacocks. i escape from nothing. many words have been floating in and out, altho i remember none!! almost like beginning a painting, seeing colors at night right before the big-fall-asleep. and then upon awakening remembering nothing, except that the experience has happened, and usually i am aware of that. and so it is becoming with the words, or the feeling of the words. can words feel? i suppose they are as sensual as colors and images. only they are learned, and they do not come apriori, or do they? so many languages within language. the language of green, the language of purple, of english, of sorcerers, of poets, of buddhists, the language of dharma, of zen, of rabbis and priests, preachers of the saintly wisdoms, speakers of hallucinations, of having seen white light, of growing old, of becoming young again, of cosmic investigation, of meditating on one's navel, of believing in foreverness, of reunions, reincarnations, of meeting anew, of filtering out what does not behoove you on your journey, of becoming friends again with your lover your brother your sister your keenest admirer, you ardent flesh of flesh puppy, mosquitoes that you want to ignore, all the language that fits into one compartment, all the visual codes and migrations of seeing those sufis spin away in ecstasy, whatever one can imagine, or not or think one can, or only hear as words, or as literal physical realities, as real as you want, as brilliant as your fuzzy eyes will allow. the sungazing continues, it has grown into 3 minutes a day at sunset time, i see yellow after i first look away, yellow beams,sometimes greenish. did light go into my brain, my eyes, my soul. i am not to question too much, it is has been handed down to me to do this ritual, and so i do it thinking it is good for my everything, and that i glow and pass on the glow to whomever comes into contact with me.... mankle one mankle two mankle three
you are it. whenever you go to town you hide your mankles, i mean yankles, you hide them under long skirts, under bell bottomed fringey laced leggings, with high heeled men's camping boots, rugged gear meant for mountain climbs, red rocks above a natural steep grade, fast running truck below the skyline. quick quick turn off the cell phone before you are caught under radar spying your inconclusive manner, cell phone no skype, no make-up, wrinkles appear under the sunlit lips, a service unexpected, a mild growth of barely audible speech, a gargle, a ferret climbing near the vines along gardened in terrace, a loose ferret unaccompanied rodent just going out for a walk, a breeze of an instant, a collusion of thinking freedom and actual freedom, a moment again of naked bliss, of fear throbbing through your body, racing into your mind, afraid of a second chance of forgetting and remembering innocence. a blot of energy you think it is time. i think it is time for mankle to be healed!! so i wait and dream a freedom of running, running around like a child i once was, and may become with delusion of an uninformed mind, always thinking i am thinking with my heart, and then that is thinking again. mankle is frozen. she feels her metal plates and her growing bone onto bone, her stiffness, her heaviness. when i look at her, she is much straighter than i remember her, less bony, less fragile, not pretty ankley flirtatious dancer ankle. wet, muddy, sore, ankle achy limb appendage grief. i grieve for her loss of beauty yet i love her still, her majesty is bound to my concept, yet i have no idea. there is a color i miss seeing, it is paint. my hands are drowning in much nothingness as they wait for some energy to bring mankle and my other body downstairs into the new studio. yesterday i brought my body down those steps into the studio of light and unfathomed paradise on my way out with noah and wheelchair. we went to dharma ocean, crestone's largest buddhist center, to hear reggie ray teach meditation guidelines along with a dharma talk. i liked being out and seeing lots of crestone people who i know, some whom i do not know. at one point we were all asked to lie down, i stayed in friend wheelchair, who by the way, needs a name. i'll name her now, “aida”. aida is the one that i go out with, there is another wheelchair that i use upstairs in our home, his name is georgie. they are identical twins altho aida is larger than georgie. anyway, i am sitting on aida with my right leg extended straight out from my right hip, above all the lying down people, breathing in through my nostrils while opening up my heart. we are all opening up our hearts with the nostril thing, wiggling flares. there are about 60 of us, all breathing in out in out together, on our backs, and i pretend too to be on my back. the alchemy of all of us together lying on zafu pillowed black, the infinity of wide nostrils and seeing dolphins pink nosed air breather mammalian lung capacitors. i'll go out next week too. peter pan and the raven.
i was trying to write what i may remember as i was remembering what I might write. about never remembering forever, or forever being in never, or dancing on a river, or about the foreverness of where never might lead, or never lead you, or as your fate forever being led to something that can never be. peter pan in never never land, now in that never ever not ever wherever land. that land is right here! i stand here. i grow tall with that land of vast empirical stillness. i am part of forever in that land, you grow with me as we grow, and we grow taller with being tall. as we grow forever we grow never more. what, wait, are we ravens now? have we become what the ravens forever quote. i believe the ravens –always. they forever speak the truth, as they know it. making aural tweet understandable for those of us who can listen quietly. guttural jims and jams and jujujushee. listening at the stillness time, awaiting breathing sounds of bird beaks, of bird speaks, of fissures and spurting leaks, of truth. leaking truth never. and so i await and i wait and i wait. you spoke, i know that you have whispered the sound i have been waiting for, and yet i cannot hear. i may never await the listening; yet in this quiet the stillness is still a gift. alert. a small cup of kukicha tea, small cup of light caffeine.
alert anyway - and now more so. awake, alive, anew, alas. alas as beginning to an unsung mantra. auspiciously the beauty surrounds me during my infrequent journeys to your soul. have i forgotten to look and memorize your face, an intention i can only pretend to recognize. an inattention. a faceted diamond of brilliance upon your lips. awaiting the signal. to speak, to hum, to radiate. i see the ray, light trying to enter into your features, i see your taut gaze tightening. we are lost together. Today, as many have been, I am found. There really is only one meaning. I find one of my little white dogs sprawled out atop the massage table. Queen Lounger. There is a big slouchy pillow between her and the black shiny surface of the table; soft on semi-soft. Layers of doggy delight. I look and know there must be some dreams going on over there about 10 feet away from me, I try anthropomorphicizing, what might I dream if I am a dog? Her smile, her wiggle, it must mean what it means when I smile and wiggle. And if I do those same things, there are so many hundreds of meanings I can assign to their actions. Some of the human meanings must coincide with the canid meanings, they must, they do!! Anyway, it isn’t important now to list them, any of them; they are all just happening now to some creature who you will probably never meet. And she is so cute!!! And smells good too. I have some stories about some human friends building up. There have been conversations, long and deep, recently. Paths and life’s choices are chanted to me over and over again. I hope to write some down. And Mankle continues her arduous ascent into being healed. Friends: There are tales of wonder and despair. Although I don’t feel like writing them all down now, or ever, oh alas I will put down a few words anyway.
Dear X, is it okay for me to use your real name? Would you prefer I call you XA? Or XAD? Or Betsy? I may ask you some questions too. How does one reconcile with the guilt of survival? Or, how does one reconcile with the emptiness of guilt free delight? Anyway, XX grew up in Germany during WW II. She was a child of 3 when her parents fled and brought her and her sister to stay with a nun. When X was left alone one night, as she had been left alone many nights, while the nun would attend to ministering the elderly and sick and dying, X had a vision. An owl came to her and said “you can go with the nun on her rounds”. Aha!! A three year old shaman is born from the wisdom of Owl’s words. So, X started to accompany her nun “mother”, and learned all about healing. Today, as an elder, X still holds wisdom and courage to help mend and heal. Noah and I both attend a drumming circle that she hosts in Crestone, although, now with Mankle and me in a wheelchair, I drum from home while the rest of the group drums from her sacred space. She has been an amazing helper in this journey to wellness. And so, about one other Crestonian. For today, for now. We know a woman who walks each morning in an octagon pattern around the inside perimeter of her octagon home. This is part of her morning ritual, I imagine it takes a Zen-like focus. After I finish this bit of writing I may walk an octagon path in my mind and let my heart wander where it may….. An anonymous friend has gifted us a “house-cleaning”. Next week someone will come by and clean for us!! The house is so excited, and I’ve suggested to the dogs that they do some extra shedding right before the big day. Noah has been great with the daily chores for the past six weeks, almost all of them, as I lounge and mend and sleep and read and commune with the spirits. And now our lucky home will get her deserved lucky attendance. Ah, simple pleasures in an American life! Mankle Reports begin today as written word. In my head it is spoken word. It seems that my brain tells my mind what to write, although this is completely untrue. The words flow between my heart and my head. When is brain present? Perhaps never, perhaps always since all of me is all of me. As I journey toward god all of me is also all of you, the love for my 2 puppies is all of me too…
Mankle (def; my ankle). 1. Mankle wants a new sock. Mankle broken: Here in Crestone the joy is fluid and jubilant and huge, but the grief can also be just as vast. We recently added an extension to my studio, oooh it has become beautiful with light and openness. When the main carpentry and building of it was finished I started painting the new walls and floors. As I pulling off a piece of masking tape from the ceiling I fell 3 feet from a step-stool onto the cement floor. Mankle is all of me now. Foot connected to Mankle, Mankle connected to the shin bone and up we go until we reach our crown charka. Mankle is currently broken, infected and working very hard to keep my beautiful and well loved right foot. What is not beautiful is Mankle, although Mankle is trying with all her almighty grace to be loved thru her deformity, and yes I know she is…. The emotional response might be one of disgust at first sight, but then the absolute love takes you away from fear or sympathy and puts you back into the light of acceptance, the delight of acceptance, and the allowance of grief. My husband Noah drives us to the doctor’s office every other day. We travel to a larger town than where we live, here in Crestone, to Alamosa CO. Fifty miles of mostly vast desert plain surrounded by huge mountains to the east and west. Snow capped tremendous icons of bravery and spirit. Clouds converging, releasing and washing new miraculous colors you’ve never imaged existing in nature, constantly making swirl patterns also never imagined. Mountaintop meets cloud bottom, mist, anger, sunlight joy. You have seen it in those tabletop photo journals, in your dentist’s office, and on television. The mystery remains elusive and haunting every time I see this, there is more knowing in the mountain than I can ever know!! And it must be the wisdom of the mountain that holds the secrets. And such unknown secrets of earth and the ancient creatures, the giant moss and the iron core lava flow, the winged ravens…. A story, in the City Market parking lot. Or a story in the Walmart parking lot. Or me being in the car, watching. There are also the stories of the people who I am watching. I watch, and then a story comes to me, where they live and what they eat and who they make love to and what about their children, the unsophisticated brother, the amazing sister in law who just won a Pulitzer Prize. So, they come and go from the supermarket, carrying one bag or pushing a cartful of bags and big jugs of laundry detergent, chemicals of every kind, grimacing faces, hungry faces, faces connected to cell phones, hands holding hands, dark hair, light hair, gray hair, no hair, beards, wigs, glasses. I continue watching and in a slightly hazy view I see myself! I am all of them, they are all me, we have no separation for one second. I turn on the radio to hear some music and to relax and rest from all the stimulation of the vastness. I close mine eyes, turn off the radio, close mine eyes again and sleep. Tuesday, February 19, 2013, 12:52 pm Hungry. What’s for lunch? Well, I won’t tell you, it is boring to read about other’s meals, unless they are superstar gourmet chefs creating something so exotic and unusual that just reading about makes your mouth water. No, no – mine lunch will be pure vegetables. Nutrition for my soul, if you visit me soon after I’ve eaten then you might catch a glow too. Sun gazing, most evenings right before sunset. I sungaze for about one minute at this stage. It has been eye-opening and inconceivably beautiful. First I see a dark blobby squiggly shape. It begins moving gently and then a white beam of pure light forms in the middle of the dark, the blackness becomes straight and rests at the sides of the beam, and then the black just disappears and the white beam is entire in its fullness... My wheelchair and I look forward to our sunset adventure together; we have become a team waiting for more light. The light allows me to believe that I will heal. I have searched for it for many years. |
AuthorRobin Ross, a painter Archives
January 2015
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