Find it in the other direction

Arrived at the Lutheran church to hear
FFEAR
the music was beginning.
Sax, trombone, drums, bass

We climbed to the balcony
row of chairs lined up in the back,

Margaret tapped me.

Her hand directed my eyes
inches from my head.

respecting the band's desire
to not be photographed,
I peered down the wall of glass.


What will awe your senses if you turn your head? What is your partner missing?

Mystical Mondays ~ some thoughts on Wisdom

My time at Wernersville has introduced me to Lady Wisdom, and inspired my Sophia spiral design

Wisdom is there to bring us awe each and every moment of the day. I hope to be awed at least daily if not each moment. Maybe one day I will be so wise to live within the constant flow of awesome moments.

Last night it happened within a drum solo


WHEREVER YOU MAY LOOK

Wisdom is
so kind and wise
that wherever you may look
you can learn something
About God.

Why
would not
the omnipresent
teach that
way?

St. Catherine of Siena

Doodling with glass and Red Garland

Last night I featured my bucket of shards and spoke of the process of how the above piece came into being. I hope that I found the shape that each shard desired to be as I took them from bucket to grinder to soldering iron to bedroom window.

Disappointed to say that I could not find a video of a tune from Red Alone, but I am quite amused to post yet another version of Willow Weep For Me...

Shards of possibilities

This afternoon, I put on some solo piano and reached into this bucket of shards. When a piece spoke to me, I spoke back with the glass grinder. Again and again I reached in... Not even stopping to get a bandage till I felt enough pieces had come into being.

Then I washed off the glass and bandaged my thumb.

One by one I took the shapes and wrapped them in copper foil. The jazz played on as a design came into being.

This is doodling with glass

This is finding use of scraps

This is shards of possibilities

Tomorrow .... It will be held up to the light

Jazz and poetry... Ira Sadoff

I believe that music was created to help us experience emotions. Nothing moves me quite like music. 




At the Half-Note cafe
                               for Gene Ammons

Once I heard him play
"Willow Weep For Me"
in a tone so full
and sentimental, I felt
a gap between my ribs
and lungs, a dearth of air,
sorrow soon enough would fill.
I found the blues unfair
to boys like me who came to bars
unprepared for grief
that wasn't strictly personal ...

By Ira Sadoff


Maybe one of the hardest things we face is to feel joy in the midst of pain, but I do believe God desires us to feel emotions as pancakes.  They come in stacks, not just one at a time.  We tell ourselves it is wrong to be happy or the pain of an event masks the joyful moment that fills the present moment.  In 1956 Gene Ammons gathered with some of the best to record some music.

 here is the title track, The Happy Blues...




Individual musicians touch our lives and when they pass away tributes emerge.  Here is one made for Etta James, in which she sings the song, which touched Ira Sadoff, when it emerged from Gene Ammons horn...

Mystical Monday: St. Catherine of Sienna enters the picture

Opening myself to accept help and love has become easier, if not easy...


Vulnerable

Vulnerable we are, like an infant.
We need each other's care
or we will
suffer

St. Catherine

The Gifted Lily

Our front yard is rather small, but I am amazed at all the flowers that come back to grace us each year. The coneflowers will put on a long and splendid show, but others like this lily will be gone in what can seem like a flash.

This first bloom of 2012 brought back the plant's story. I can remember the day a new student came up to me and expressed a desire to be in my horticulture class. The last time I heard from her she was nearing the end of a college degree in horticulture. Somewhere in between she gave me a plant.

What life stories do blooms bring to you?

Into jazz poetry, Sam Abrams

... close yr eyes you have
to hear the bass ...

from In the Capability by Sam Abrams

I am awake, being aware

of the present note.

By Stratoz

Hafiz on our 20th

on our 20th anniversary

Last night I took the photo above and a break from Mystical Mondays.

Mosaic Woman and I were out and about celebrating our 20th anniversary.

But we did not take a break from our nightly habit of reading a translation by Daniel Ladinsky and the last poem by Hafiz ended this way ...

"I am made whole by your life. Each soul,

each soul completes

me."

and here we are on the day we got married

Jazz at Virago, what I wanted is about to happen

cupcakes at Virago
Lansdale, PA
by Wayne Stratz

Tim Leslie has been bringing his drums, his friends, and his passion for jazz to Virago.  The first time I heard him I knew this ~ I wanted him to be playing on the night in June when Mosaic Woman and I hung out to celebrate our art being at Virago.  So now it is about to happen all because:  A friendly talented baker moves her bakery to downtown Lansdale and decides to celebrate art and music.

THIS FRIDAY (6/8/12) Music starts at 7:30 and goes till 10:00 and I plan to be there for the whole gig.

Here is a snippet from the first night we saw Tim...

Mystical Monday, Hafiz and what he never heard the sun say

photo by Wayne Stratz
UCC cemetery
Wernersville, PA

 
at the end of the day, do you celebrate what created awe in your waking hours?  How about today, what happened?

as for me. I sat back and watched a horticulture student, who would never be placed in my physics class, do what any good scientist would do... play with lab materials and examine what happened.

The Sun Never Says

Even

after

all this time

the sun never says to the Earth,

"You owe me."

Look

what happens

with a love like that--

it lights the whole

world.

by Hafiz

from:

Translations by Daniel Ladinsky

Dr Ed Mandalas and Hope

This is my top selling design. It helps that I love it and that a friend bought the first one just before he died.

On Thursday we were hanging our art at the Virago Bakery in Lansdale and I hung a mandala. It seemed lonely and all of a sudden I was inspired. Today I hung this one and cut out the pieces for another. Our art will be there this month and we will be there Friday night to greet folk and to listen to live jazz.

30% of the money from this design has gone to fund pancreatic cancer research. I am hoping that a small bit of that has gone into the hands of Dr. Anirbran Maitra who gave lab time to a high school student, Jack Andraka, who did this.