This Moment Is Too Important to Sit Out

Tags

common ground, Current Events, election, Election Day 2018, inspiration, personal, Politics, President Obama, speech, voting

I’ve tried my best to steer clear of politics on this blog. I spent too many years in the trenches fighting for economic, social, and environmental justice. Too many years canvassing neighborhoods, making phone calls, getting out the vote. Too many years trying to find common ground between groups of people with diametrically opposed and often hostile viewpoints. It was exhausting and enervating work, as well at times, exhilarating and soul-satisfying.

As I retired from that work I tried to carve out another space for a different kind of soul-satisfying endeavor, and this blog is part of that effort. So I’ve tried to keep the two apart and will continue to do so, for the most part. But the times are such politically that I feel the need to use this space over the next few days to voice my conscience, as well as vote it, and to urge others to do so.

If you have been following this blog I know that we have more in common, more ideals and values that unite us than divide us, whatever our political persuasion, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative. I’ve found over the years that what often divides good, well-meaning people is based more on gross misunderstandings, irrational fears, and entrenched distrust than on anything else. That’s a formidable wall to knock down or climb over. But we must do it.

Most everyone agrees that this is an election of our lifetime. That our vote now counts more than at any other time in our lives. President Obama on the campaign trail this week has spoken to that in a speech to the University of Illinois. His words are well worth noting, no matter which political party you belong to, because he’s speaking to all of us, urging us to see each other with new eyes, and to find the common ground we so desperately need, now more than ever.

Please vote, and vote Democrat, even if you aren’t one, to restore the check and balance and accountability we need in Congress to keep us safe and sane during these troubled times.

A few excerpts from Obama’s speech:

I’m here today because this is one of those pivotal moment when every one of us, as citizens of the United States, need to determine just who it is that we are, just what it is that we stand for. And as a fellow citizen, not as an ex-president but as a fellow citizen, I am here to deliver a simple message, and that is that you need to vote because our democracy depends on it. . . . 

[E]ven if you don’t agree with me or Democrats on policy, even if you believe in more libertarian economic theories, even if you are an evangelical and our position on certain social issues is a bridge too far, even if you think my assessment of immigration is mistaken and that Democrats aren’t serious enough about immigration enforcement, I’m here to tell you that you should still be concerned with our current course and should still want to see a restoration of honesty and decency and lawfulness in our government. . . . .

[T]o move this country forward, to actually solve problems and make people’s lives better, we need a well-functioning government. We need our civic institutions to work. We need cooperation among people of different political persuasions. And to make that work, we have to restore our faith in democracy. You have to bring people together, not tear them apart. We need majorities in Congress and state legislatures who are serious about governing and want to bring about real change and improvements in people’s lives. And we won’t win people over by calling them names or dismissing entire chunks of the country as racist or sexist or homophobic

To make democracy work, we have to be able to get inside the reality of people who are different, have different experiences, come from different backgrounds. We have to engage them even when it is frustrating. We have to listen to them even when we don’t like what they have to say. We have to hope we can change their minds and we have to remain open to them changing ours.

And that doesn’t mean, by the way, abandoning our principles, or caving to bad policy in the interests of maintaining some phony version of civility—that seems to be, by the way, the definition of civility offered by too many congressional Republicans right now. We will be polite as long as we get 100 percent of what we want and you don’t call us on the various ways we are sticking it to people. 

Making democracy work means holding on to our principles, having clarity about our principles, and then having the confidence to get in the arena and have a serious debate. And it also means appreciating that progress does not happen all at once, but when you put your shoulder to the wheel, if you’re willing to fight for it, things do get better. And let me tell you something, particularly young people here, better is good. I used to have to tell my young staff this all the time in the White House, better is good. That’s the history of progress in this country—not perfect, better. The Civil Rights Act didn’t end racism, but it made things better. Social Security didn’t eliminate all poverty for seniors, but it made things better for millions of people.

I know there are white people who care deeply about black people being treated unfairly. I have talked to them, and loved them. And I know there are black people who care deeply about the struggles of white rural America. I’m one of them, and I have a track record to prove it. I know there are evangelicals who are deeply committed to doing something about climate change. I have seen them do the work. I know there are conservatives who think there’s nothing compassionate about separating immigrant children from their mothers. I know there are Republicans who believe that government should only perform a few minimal functions, but that one of those functions should be making sure that nearly 3,000 Americans don’t die in a hurricane and its aftermath.

Common ground is out there. I see it every day. In just how people interact and people treat each other. You see it on the ball field. You see it at work. You see it in places of worship. But to say that common ground exists doesn’t mean it will inevitably win out. History shows the power of fear. And the closer that we get to Election Day, the more those invested in the politics of fear and division will work, will do anything to hang on to their recent gains.

The antidote to a government controlled by a powerful few, a government that divides, is a government by the organized, energized, inclusive many. That’s what this moment’s about. That has to be the answer. You cannot sit back and wait for a savior. You cannot doubt, because you don’t feel sufficiently inspired by this or that particular candidate . . .  All we need are decent, honest, hardworking people who are accountable and who have America’s best interests at heart. And they’ll step up, and they’ll join our government, and they’ll make things better if they have support

We have been through much darker times than these, and somehow each generation of Americans carried us through to the other side. Not by sitting around and waiting for something to happen, not by leaving it to others to do something, but by leading that movement for change themselves. And if you do that, if you get involved, and you get engaged, and you knock on some doors, and you talk with your friends, and you argue with your family members, and you change some minds, and you vote, something powerful happens. Change happens. Hope happens. . . . . With each new step we take in the direction of fairness and justice and equality and opportunity, hope spreads. And that can be the legacy of your generation.

You can be the generation that, at a critical moment, stood up and reminded us just how precious this experiment in democracy really is, just how powerful it can be when we fight for it, when we believe in it. I believe in you. I believe you will help lead us in the right direction, and I will be right there with you every step of the way.

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When the Sea Rises and the Light Fails

Tags

Advice, humanity, inspiration, James Baldwin, life, personal, quotations, troubled times

J.M.W. Turner

“For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.” ~ James Baldwin

My world has shifted in the last few weeks in a way that has left me reeling, looking for something to hold onto, to keep from sinking into darkness.

The remarkable thing is I’ve managed to pull myself back from that edge, to realize that no matter what seems to be happening “out there,” what really matters is what’s happening “in here,” in our own consciousness. Will we let an overwhelming sense of loss, grief, and rage pull us under? Or hold on tight to the ones we love, and the things that give us joy, a sense of buoyancy, and the ability to ride out this storm.

I am not alone. Those in the Carolinas experiencing the ravages of Florence have been been facing those rising seas, that failing light. We all experience these calamities, whether of our own or another’s making, or something completely out of our control. Nothing is fixed “out there.” But our minds are our own. We get to decide how we weather our storms, whether we hold on to each other and the things we love, or let the sea engulf us and our light go out.

The Rich and Sensual World of Scent

Tags

beauty, Creative Nonfiction, culture, Deborah J. Brasket, Fragrance, inspiration, obsession, Perfume, personal, sensuality, the senses

Lately I’ve become obsessed by scent.  Perfume, to be more precise.  I seldom wear it, which is why this obsession is so strange.

It all started with the quest to find the perfect perfume for my daughter’s bridal shower.  I wanted something intimate and earthy, something that would literally become her.  A signature scent that would be all her own. It had to be perfect, like her–warm and rich and exciting, and deeply satisfying.  Something that made you want more.  That you would never forget and never forget wanting.

And in this quest I tumbled down a rabbit hole into a rich and sensual world where one single sense seldom privileged—smell—was given full rein to romp and roam and sate itself in scent.

We humans rarely give ourselves that pleasure.  We privilege sight, touch, sound, taste, and the feel of things.  Poor scent is a step-child to the other senses, neglected, forgotten.  Not so for other species where the sense of smell is primary with a full palette of colors and a symphony of sounds.

Often when I sit on our front patio overlooking the surrounding hills and valley below, my little dog sits with me, looking out as if as mesmerized by the beauty of the landscape as I am. She seems totally enraptured, her nose raised, nostrils quivering, her whole body trembling in delight.  But she’s reveling in smell not sight.  She’s drinking in that delicious flood of scents flowing uphill from the valley below.

I imagine her savoring each scent the way we savor each note when listening to a symphony, carried away by the trill of arpeggios, deep thundering drums, long sweet notes like violin strings, the soft low moans of cellos, blasting trumpets, cascading piano keys, all washing over her, tumbling together, fading away, like movements in a symphony of scent that I am deaf to.  How I envy her!

We’ve long known how smell and taste are intricately connected—in fact, we can distinguish far more flavors through smell alone—inhaling and exhaling—than we can by our tongues.

What’s new and interesting is how scientists are discovering a similar interconnection between smell and sound that gives rise to a new sensory perception quaintly coined “smound.”  If this new science bears out it will only confirm the old science.  In 1862, the perfumer G. W. Septimus Piesse noted how “Scents, like sounds, appear to influence the olfactory nerve in certain definite degrees,” and he developed an “octave of odour” to measure those scents.

Musical metaphors are used in describing perfumes, which are said to have three sets of “notes” that unfold over time, each interacting with the others to create a “harmonious scent accord.”

As I wandered along countless cosmetic counters in the search for the perfect perfume for my daughter, spraying sample scents on slips of paper and waving them in the air, or daubing them on my wrists and forearms and inner elbow, knowing how scents change when applied to skin, mixing with our natural pheromones and warm pulses, I was savoring those musical notes: light florals steeped with sandalwood floating on a musky base.  Amber and lotus blossoms with a hint of peach.  Cardamom married to rosewood.  Lavender and rosemary.  Vanilla and violets dampened by oak moss.

But there was more to the whole process than scent–the name had to be perfect too, evocative and mysterious, lyrical and alluring.  The shape of the bottle had to be sensual or simple, daring or dreamy, as fitted the fragrance and the name.  It all had to flow together.

I finally found it, amazingly. The perfect perfume for my perfect daughter.  She loves it, and her lover loves her in it. So I’m happy.  But still hungry.

Still wanting more. More of my own to daub on earlobe and wrist, to line along the window sill like colored glass or exotic orchids.  Scents to soothe and stir, arouse and savor.

I want to collect scents the way I do books.  To sit quietly, alluringly, on my shelf, its richness and beauty and promise in full display, just waiting, waiting, waiting, for the perfect moment when I take it in my hands and lift the stopper and let the initial scent rise, and all its sweet layering, lingering notes play over me again and again.

I want scent to light up every neuron in my body.  To flow through me, light and airy, like champagne bubbles. I want to hear it taste it see it feel it popping all about me.

I want, I want to be, sated in scent.

This was first posted five years ago in a slightly altered version.

Dancing Through Time and Space, Pinching Ourselves Awake

Tags

inspiration, Jimmy Buffet, life, music, personal, Philosophy, travel

As you read this, I’ll have flown across the Atlantic and landed in Madrid. I may be strolling through the Prado marveling at the artwork, climbing castle steps in Segovia, or sipping espresso at a sidewalk cafe in Paris.

It all sounds like a fairy tale to me now, sitting here tapping out this post to the beat of Jimmy Buffet’s “Trip around the Sun.” Wondering at the wonders to come.

Our whole lives are like this, spinning through time and space on this tiny planet. Traveling through a transient present, glancing back at the slide show of our past, gazing forward into a hazy future full of airy phantoms zooming toward us.

Who knows how this all will unfold?

“We’ll have to keep pinching ourselves to believe we are really there,” says my cousin who I’ll be traveling with.

And so should we all, every day of our lives. To keep present in the moment, right here, right now, before it slips into the past. Before the future with all its airy uncertainty settles around us like a warm blanket and slowly unravels into mere memory.

This life is too loose, too swift, too fluid, to do anything but marvel at its passing, to be dazzled with dizziness as the earth spinning beneath our feet spins around the sun.

Sometimes I think I must keep dancing in place just to keep up.

If only we could live every moment of our lives as tourists, pinching ourselves awake.

I’ll leave you with the song I’ve been listening to.

A Slice of San Francisco

Tags

lifestyle, personal, photography, San Francisco, travel

Last weekend I accompanied my friend Paula on a trip to San Francisco. We stayed in a lovely old building owned by the Native Daughters of the Golden West and designed by Julia Morgan, a five-floor townhouse in the heart of the city.

Third floor parlour . . .

. . . and atrium.

While she attended meetings, I took my camera to explore the nearby neighborhood, full of lovely Victorian homes.

This little fellow caught me by surprise!

The Victorians weren’t the only interesting sights as I made my way to the famous Haight- Ashbury district.

In the afternoon we took the bus across the city to the old Ferry Building and eventually to Fisherman’s Wharf, and two Peach Mules at a seaside pub as we watched the sailboats gliding into the sunset.

I think in another life I could live quite happily in one of San Francisco’s Victorian walk-ups, wandering by foot and bus through it’s many colorful landscapes. It would take a lifetime to explore this vast and vibrant city.

Poetry that Takes Us Beyond Articulation

Tags

inspiration, meditation, National Poetry Month, personal, poetry, Spiritual transformation, spirituality

Pierced by the Morning Light, by Rick Stevens

Some of us are always seeking a path beyond ourselves, beyond articulation. It’s not escape. It’s the opposite of escape. Its entering the present moment so fully all boundaries fall away.

Beyond articulation, beyond words . . . and yet poetry is often the way we savor those moments. It becomes the latch that allows us to re-enter that rare space.

I’ve written about these moments in the past and shared some of the poetry that rose like mist in the aftermath, capturing the essence, if not the thing itself.

Here’s one I wrote and shared in Wheeling Away on the Isle of Pines, slightly altered. If you’ve had such moments too, or know poetry that takes you there, please share below.

A Path Beyond (Ilse du Pins)

There is a path
green and thin
that wends away
and wheels me in

Rising, falling,
tree by tree,
lanced by light
through streams of leaves

Breathing pines
that breathe in me
like heady wine
flowing, free

Green above
and green below
no in, no out,
no high no low

Winds are water
everywhere
I walk on water,
float on air

Drifting mindless
round the bend
bursting out
bursting in.

by Deborah J. Brasket

More of Rick Steven’s amazing paintings

Other posts that savor such moments:

Walking Among Flowers

Into the Flow

Taste and See, I Am Spare

Ta-Da! My New Home Studio

Tags

art, art studio, creativity, inspiration, office space, painting, personal, writing

After having pumped it up, I hope it isn’t a let-down to those who have been waiting to see it, as promised.

Ir’s certainly not as exciting or whimsical as so many of the studios posted on these pages that have inspired me. But it’s mine. And it does say something about me, I think, being practical, inexpensive, yet filled with color and things I love that inspire me.

My husband made me this long wall-to-wall desk top out of pine planks stained a red oak. It sits on inexpensive Ikea knock-offs, purchased online through Office Depot that are surprisingly solid and well-made.

My studio features two work stations, one for writing and one for painting. I bought inexpensive cubes on Amazon to keep my desktop organized and to keep photos of ;my loved ones near. An odd assortment of cups and jars and baskets keep my paints and brushes tidy and handy.

I re-purposed this portable laptop table as a way to extend my painting work space. It slips under the desk when not in use.

The focal point of the room is this large blue wall hanging featuring two colorful molas from the San Blas islands when we were sailing through the Panama Canal.

The many layers of fabric cut and sewn together with such  tiny stitches amazes me.

Another fabric favorite hangs next to this old blue couch that I bought at Pier One Import years ago. It folds out into a single bed, not very comfortable, but well used over the years.

I bought the fabric hanging at a county fair years ago. Again, the tiny details amaze me.

The room also features the flags we saved from our around-the-world sailing adventure. They’ve been stored rolled up in a box till now.

When entering a new port it was protocol to fly the flag of the host county as well as our own. My daughter made several of these on an old portable foot-pumped sewing machine that fellow yachties gave her.

I’d planned on buying a counter-height craft table full of fun cubby holes for storing stuff that I found on Amazon. I wanted a place where I could stand to work when I wanted and extra space to create collage paper and spread out the pages of my novel-in-progess when in the process of reorganizing and revising pages.

But I couldn’t bear parting with the super-handy lateral filing cabinet that had been part of my old office. So my husband used that as  base for an island, putting it on wheels and using the old desk-top perched on extenders to create a large island that I could roll out of the way when not in use.

In this photo it’s holding the two thick binders with drafts of the novel I’m currently working on. In the cubbyhole beneath I store old paintings, magazines, etcetera.

When we bought this home in foreclosure all the closet doors were missing for some reason. So I put up a curtain instead and decided that I like it, and so it remains.

There’s my bookcase, of course, one of several throughout our home, more books than I’ll ever finish I’m sure, especially now since my Kindle is put to such good use too.

And then there’s my own artwork, scattered through-out the room. I have to hang it somewhere, and it does inspire me to want to create more.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour. The room is still a work in progress. I need new window coverings and a new desk chair. And I’m eager to shop through some flea markets and antique stores for more fun and inspiring containers and curiosities to add to my shelves and desktop. But essentially it’s done, and I’m happy with it.

“Truth & Love Wins” Redux

Tags

good government, Love, personal, Politics, special interests., the common good, truth

Sunrise with Sea Monsters by JMW Turner

I am happy to report that at least in one very narrow slice of life, truth and love has indeed won. If you read my original post, the whole thing started with me ruminating about a nasty custody battle, and my fervent hope that “truth and love” would win in the end. It did. The judge was not persuaded by all the lies (easily proven) that were slung against my son, and the eventually ruling favored him, while benefiting the mother as well. A win-win, as I see it, and hope that she does too.

On the political front, I’m still hopeful that “truth and love” will win in the end, and there is evidence that this is bearing true.

But the problem with “winning” is that it splits us all into two camps: the winners and the losers. And when that happens, no one really wins, at least for long. The pendulum will keep swinging back and forth between the two camps.

In reality, truth and loves “wins” only when there are no losers and winners, when there is only the common good. As a nation we seemed to have moved far away from that once common goal. In fact, the whole notion of a “common good” seems to be in ill repute.

In the struggle between rugged individualism and the common good, a struggle which gave rise to our nation, rugged individualism seems to be winning out. “Rugged individualism” even sounds way cooler than the tepid “common good.” Who wants to be “common,” after all?  Or “good”?

During an earlier age of Enlightenment and Reformation, “the common good” was a revolutionary idea:

Saint Thomas Aquinas held “the common good” (bonum commune, in Latin) to be the end of law and government; John Locke declared that “the peace, safety, and public good of the people” are the ends of political society, and further argued that “the well being of the people shall be the supreme law”; David Hume contended that “social conventions” are adopted and given moral support in virtue of the fact that they serve the “public” or “common” interest; James Madison wrote of the “public,” “common,” or “general” good as closely tied with justice and declared that justice is the end of government and civil society; and Jean-Jacques Rousseau understood “the common good” (le bien commun, in French) to be the object of a society’s general will and the highest end pursued by government.

The “common good” and ‘”good government” were one in the same:

Though these thinkers differed significantly in their views of what the common good consists in, as well as over what the state should do to promote it, they nonetheless agreed that the common good is the end of government, that it is a good of all the citizens, and that no government should become the “perverted servant of special interests,”[10] whether these special interests be understood as Aristotle’s “interest of the rulers,” Locke’s “private good,” Hume’s and Madison’s “interested factions,” or Rousseau’s “particular wills.” Wikipedia  

But we live in troubled times and good ideas cycle in and out of favor. Self interest and serving special interests seem to be winning the day. And so there will be no peace.

Jane Addams, the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1831 wisely cautioned: “The  good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”

I’m hoping for the sake of peace in my family, and our nation, that a “common good” will be secured for all of us.

Swept Away by the Music of Pat Metheny

Tags

As falls Wichita so Falls Wichita Falls, Entertainment, inspiration, jazz, jazz fusion, music, Pat Metheny, personal

Thomas Moran (1837 – 1926) Mary’s Veil, Utah

I first fell in love with Pat Metheny’s music when listening his seminal album “As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls.” I couldn’t agree more Carter B. Horsley in The City Review:

“As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls,” [is] perhaps the most important jazz recording of the past 15 years or so and on a par, in terms of historical importance, with John Coltrane’s, “My Favorite Things,” and some of the great Miles Davis and Charlie Parker classics, which is to say it is a masterpiece.

The title track of the album is a mysterious 20-minute-and-42-second excursion into sound effects that seems to turn a playground into a stadium and has riveting interruptions of great authority followed by digital narration, literally, interspersed with glorious crescendos and great anthemic sweeps of emotion. What is most extraordinary is that the incredible music is performed by just four individuals, one of whom was Nana Vasconceles, a Brazilian percussionist.

I used to listen to this CD on my way home from Cal Poly University as a graduate student, my mind still reeling from all I was reading, weaving together the poetry of  Whitman, Wallace Stevens and Emily Dickinson with the transcendentalism of Emerson and deconstruction of Derrida, Lacan’s Mirror Stage and Bohm’s Implicate Order. Seeing how all these insights and ideas flow into and out of each other, creating a rich tapestry of potentiality. Each seemed to sing to the other, play and dance, tickle and tease. Somehow it was all related. At some deep level it all made sense.

Within that fertile mindframe as the sun melted into the sea and the ribbon of highway curled along the coast, I let myself be swept away by Metheny’s music. The title track starts off so softly you can barely hear it. Soon you make out distant voices, children’s laughter, like some dream you had of childhood long ago. This soft rambling mixture of ambient sounds and gentle waves eventually turns into something else, recreating itself into a rich exotic sound experience, what my granddaughter calls “China music” when I play it for her. This too breaks apart into something else as the music reinvents itself. Now we are zinging through interstellar space with weird pings and synthesized sounds carrying us along as the night darkens. Then the music mellows and rises, mellows and rises, moving slowly, steadily, over and over until it sweeps into a  an ecstatic crescendo. This too mutates into something else, low slow rumbles, voices chanting code, a strain of conversation too low to make out, then laughter, children calling to one another, as if we’ve taken a journey through time and space and back again. To where it all began.

I wish I could find a video recording of this track to share here, but all that seems available is a live performance, which is substantially different from the CD recording I fell in love with and, for me, does not capture the richness and nuance of the original.

But I will share here another Metheny favorite which showcases the beautiful permutations of his music and especially his masterful handling of the listeners expectations as his music rises and falls, rises and falls, gathering momentum until you feel you are in the hands of a very experienced lover who is taking you slowly to new heights of pleasure, then backing away and building again, over and over, until finally it comes: What you’ve been waiting for, expecting, at long last. It washes over you and carries you away and afterwards you feel sublimely satisfied. I always turn the sound up in those final moments as it nears the climax to intensify the experience.

To feel that extraordinary effect there must be no distance between you and the music. You must allow yourself be carried away, give yourself over completely to it. As you must immerse yourself in any great work of art to truly experience all it has to offer.

This one is called “The Truth Will Always Be.” Enjoy.

 

 

Three Favorite Art Studios

Tags

art, art studios, creativity, inspiration, personal

I. My art “home away from home”

Nearly every week I come to paint with friends at this art studio, tucked away in the vineyards of Paso Robles. My friend Deb had it built years ago. I met her and Paula when we took a pastel class together two years ago. Since then, it’s become my art “home away from home.” We sit and paint and laugh and chat and encourage each other. It’s been a blessing to have such friends in my life.

II. Terrill Welch’s Art Studio

Terrill’s artwork and studio has been an inspiration to me since I first met her over five years ago when I began blogging. I loved the way she talked about her work and her creative process on her blog at Creative Potager. And I loved the charming space that she worked in and her beautiful surroundings on Mayne Island in British Columbia

She created her own U-Tube video of her home art studio which I am happy to share here. Recently she opened her own art gallery to showcase her artwork.

 

 

III. Kelly Rae Robert’s “Soul Shine” Art Studio

I’ve never met Kelly, but I fell in love with the studio she shared with three other women when I was searching for inspirations for my own studio. I love the color, the whimsy, and all the creative ways of organizing and storing art supplies.

Her website and blog are full of lots of interesting and inspiring articles and podcasts. You can take a tour of her “Soul Shine” studio here. She has since moved on and tours of her new studios can be found here.

What inspires you in your work? Do you have any favorite art studios or writing spaces that inspire you to create?