Thursday, June 28, 2012

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?

Monday, June 25, 2012

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



Saturday, June 23, 2012

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...

Friday, June 22, 2012

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


Wednesday, June 20, 2012

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...






Monday, June 18, 2012

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?

Thursday, June 14, 2012

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




Tuesday, June 12, 2012

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



Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Jazz at Virago, what I wanted is about to happen



47  155/365  Cupackes!
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...



Monday, June 4, 2012

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


Sunday, June 3, 2012

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.