Seeking Crow-ness

The Dalai Lama

I find the face of this man, whom I do not know, comforting. In fact, his countenance makes me feel happy. Not the giddy, silly, act-the-fool happy, but the deep down, spirit-lifting happy. I've felt drawn to Lhamo Döndrub (his birth name) from the first time I saw a photo of his face, in 1959, the year of his exile to India. I was twelve years old; he was twenty-four.

The Dalai Lama seems filled with peace and contentment. I am not, most of the time. No doubt, I need an attitude adjustment. I'm working on that, but not as wholeheartedly as I could be at the moment. Too many aggravations buzzing around my head, bothersome little worry-gnats I swat at, but don't eliminate. I need a bigger fly-swatter, perhaps.

I admire the way he continues to work toward an honorable settlement with the Chinese government which will recognize and respect the autonomy of Tibet. Good luck with that, Your Holiness.

Sometimes I gaze at his image as if expecting it to speak to me, to share his wisdom, to provide me with the answer to some of my questions: Why am I here? What am I supposed to do with my life? (That's a helluva question to be asking at my age. Shouldn't I already have an answer to that one?) How do I evolve out of this mess into the person I am meant to be, if there is a purpose to my life in the first place? I am not depressed when I ask these questions; just trying to determine what to do next. I figure if anyone knows how to find answers, it just might be he. That's a heavy load to put on a photograph of someone I don't know beans about, isn't it?

I usually enjoy these contemplative moods, wherein I attempt to solve the riddles of my little universe. They are exercises for the intellect, spurred on by my insatiable curiosity, hampered by an inadequate education. Lately, though, there have been too many gnats distracting me and I'm having trouble paying attention. Why looking upon the face of Tenzin Gyatso brings stillness and quiet to my restless, questioning soul, I have no answer.

All I know is that it does.

Om.

Good Poem

Small boat

Found what I think is a good poem here,titled Last Post.

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Hope you enjoy the poem and the website, titled My Small Boat.

Best wishes,

Martha

Not a Happy Camper, Blogger!

How I feel toward Google/Blogger right now. Grump.

Since Blogger lost my responses to comments left here, as well as the rant I posted when I learned of it, I will answer them here. Of course, my typing of late is terrible, so it is entirely possible (probable?) that I hit the wrong buttons earlier. Just makes me feel better to blame Google/Blogger for the screw-up.

To June Saville: When I returned home after the test, I enjoyed little chocolate-covered peanut butter rabbits in a scoop of peanut-butter-fudge ice scream. Chocolate has tremendous healing powers...no, really, it does. Wait; you already know that, don't you?

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To Barrett Bonden: Donovan just bought an MP3 player, with money he earned doing odd jobs. He's very proud of it and has offered to teach me how to use one, should I buy one for myself. I will welcome files from you; will let you know when I have one.

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A line from your poem about rock-climbing prompted me to write about my heart as if I were not connected to it, but rather its chauffeur or pack-mule. The truth is, writing in such a detached manner helps keep my fears under control. When I am afraid, I turn to attempts at humor to get me through whatever has me scared. I am such a coward when it comes to medical procedures other than having blood drawn or X-rays made.

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To HLiza: Your friendship across the many miles is the best lullaby I can think of, friend. I appreciate your words of encouragement.

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To Plutarch: Dear Joe, you are a good influence. Henceforth, this heart-health stuff will be my great adventure. I will keep the motor running, so I can head out on the highway. Thank you for your good wishes.
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To Zhoen: I haven't laughed this well, as I did over this video, in a long time. So glad you sent it.

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To marja-leena: Thank you. Apart for my pointless worrying, and my cowardly behavior, the test went well. Will receive the doctor's report in a couple or three weeks.
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Thank you all for your kind thoughts and well-wishes.

Lullaby for a Quaking Heart

The Perfect Pump

In a few hours, I have to take my heart to the hospital for a stress test. Someone there will pump ant poison, with a half-life of 74+ hours, into my veins and watch it travel through the different muscles of my heart in an effort to see which part has died and whether all the coronary vessels are clean, sanitary and free-flowing.

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I don't mind the trip, but my heart is a little scared, and I'm having difficulty getting to sleep because it keeps tossing and flopping in my chest. My heart has one true comfort food - chocolate - but I can't feed it any because chocolate contains caffeine, which is a no-no until after the test is finished.

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Bummer, dudes.

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So, here I sit, in the green glow of the backlit banker's lamp shade, trying to remember all the lullabies I used to sing to my daughter and grandson when they were wee and needed comforting and reassurance that every thing would be all right. My mind is drawing a blank. Can't hear myself think from all the noise my heart is making.

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Found this one which is rather nice, though a bit sadder than I can handle at the moment. I kinda like this one, but it doesn't make me sleepy or calm the jitters.

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Ah...this is it, my homies. "The frog can wait."

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Now my heart can rest, and I can sleep. Just had to find the right lullaby.

(c) 2009 Martha McLemore

It Was Steinbeck

Pooch

A couple of days ago, Joe Hyam posted a photo of a soulful looking dog on his blog, Now's the Time. I half-remembered a quote I read several years ago and attributed it to William Faulkner.

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In fact, it was John Steinbeck who wrote the following: "I've seen the look in dog's eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that dogs think humans are nuts."

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I used to catch our family dog staring at me, and he'd quickly look away. Just before he did, though, I'd have sworn there was a look of bemused puzzlement in his eyes...not exactly contempt, but edging up on it.

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A friend said one time that the only thing worse than a grandparent who bores you stupid with wonderous tales of his/her grandchild is the idiot who does the same with stories about their dog.

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So, I'll stop here.

Born on the Day Out of Time

Red Skywalker

Several years ago, I was researching the Mayan civilization and came across an article on the Mayan calendar and end of time prophecy. That article had links to Mayan fortune telling/astrology sites, which I followed, curious soul that I am. I discovered that I was born on the Day out of Time, according to the Mayan calendar, and that my birth year made me a Red Rhythmic Skywalker.

The Day Out of Time (DOOT henceforth) falls at the end of the calendar year and is the day between the end of the last year and the beginning of the new year. DOOT is always 25 July, regardless of the day of the week. It was a day of celebration, of blood sacrifices, of ritual and thoughtful contemplation of the coming year. It was a high holy day of much religious significance.

I thought at the time of this discovery that being born on a day which did not exist in the time line of a historically important culture such as the Mayan's spoke volumes about my own sense of being outside the norm. I liked the idea that I was not really a part of this world, but was of the galactic, cosmic, spiritual plane instead. My mother was forever saying that I had my head in the clouds and that I lived in a world of my own, which sounded like a criticism when she said it, but maybe she knew something I wouldn't understand until I stumbled across the Mayan calendar site.

What really thrilled me was learning that my birth symbol, my destiny kin, is that of a Skywalker, one who explores space. The day Alan Shepard flew into space in May of 1961, and fell back down again whole and relatively unchanged (except for being the center of an historic moment), was the day I decided I wanted to be an astronaut. For years, when I was much younger, I would lie outside at night when the weather was good and try to count the stars. I wondered how many of those distant shifting, twinkling lights were suns, like ours, around which planets, like ours, rotated. It was the fifties, when Buck Rogers and the 21st century, when The Day the Earth Stood Still (and similar cinematic adventures) were their most popular. Sky King's sometimes-ditzy-pilot-niece Penny was my heroine (six-shooters Dale Evans and Annie Oakley were second and third, respectively).

I was not yet 14 when I decided I would become an astronaut. I told one person, a friend at school, of my ambition, and he laughed so hard I thought he was going to choke to death. He couldn't wait to tell his buddies that a GIRL from the housing projects, who couldn't even pay for her own lunch, who wore baggy, ill-fitting hand-me-downs and had rotted teeth, this GIRL!!! thought she was going to become an astronaut. What wanton hubris, to quote my favorite movie character. I didn't tell anyone else, especially not my mother, who might actually have understood, but I couldn't risk being ridiculed again.

When Sally Ride went into orbit, she carried with her the dreams of a once-13-year-old girl, who never got over wanting to be an astronaut.

Nowadays, the space I explore is more likely to be the space between my ears, what makes me who I am, or the wide-open spaces of America (and the rest of the world, if I live long enough). But I have my Mayan destiny kin, my astral character, to remind me that I am a Skywalker, not entirely unlike Sally and Penny, or even Buck, Jean Luc, Number One and Warf. I am an explorer, born on the Day Out of Time in 1947, a bridger of two worlds; in a world of my own making, whose head is sometimes (thank God!) in the clouds, counting stars.

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(For the person who asked me a few months ago about the name Skywalker, in the title of my blog, now you know.)
(c) 2009 Martha McLemore

A Limerick, I think

Kitchen Sink

A not-so-good poet named Crow
Said proper forms she didn’t know.
“Write of lost glasses;
See if it passes,”
Said Friend BB. “Give it a go.”

Crow labored long o’er rhyming “sink,”
Thought of pink, link, dink, stink, and think.
At last she gave up
And turned to her cup,
Which she drained of tea in a blink.

What can I write about jig saw,
Crow ponder’d, her brain sore and raw.
It cuts like a dream
Through plywood or beam –
How about that? Crow censored, “Nah.”

Writing poetry is hard work,
Be it Crow, Englishman or Turk
Who sets hand and brain
To writing quatrain.
I’ll stop before it starts to irk.

(c) 2009 Martha McLemore