Monday, October 31, 2005

Día de los Muertos

What an interesting mix of religous and fock law this is.

It is nice to examine the edges of an issue or event and realise how grey it is and how little that matters. All that matters is that people enjoy it and welcome it and it brings them comfirt.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

cbc and sun and canvas

Listened to the cbc all afternoon while attempting to paint. How great it is to really look at something, decompose it, look at all its parts and then the whole. See it for the first time.

Chosen subject - leaves. Having racked up countless millions this seems reasonable.

Results are mixed although I notice that the result is improved when I paint each piece and move on and temporarily forgot what it is just paint what I see.

Overall a nice day to fall back.

Friday, October 28, 2005

Christopher Pratt for a today

Christopher Pratt (Canadian Painter):

“Somehow or other the greatest gift we have is the gift of our own consciousness, and that is worth savouring. Just to be in a place that’s so silent that you can hear the blood going through your arteries and be aware of your own existence, that you are matter that knows it is matter, and that this is the ultimate miracle.”

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Food for thought

Real turkeys are heavier than imagined turkeys


Ontological Arguments:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Today's :-)

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
- Quoted by Rudyard Kipling in From Sea to Shining Sea

Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else.
– Ogden Nash

He who knows Love

By Elsa Barker

He who knows Love—becomes Love, and his eyes
Behold Love in the heart of everyone,
Even the loveless: as the light of the sun
Is one with all it touches. He is wise
With undivided wisdom, for he lies
In Wisdom’s arms. His wanderings are done,
For he has found the Source whence all things run—
The guerdon of the quest, that satisfies.

He who knows Love becomes Love, and he knows
All beings are himself, twin-born of Love.
Melted in Love’s own fire, his spirit flows
Into all earthly forms, below, above;
He is the breath and glamour of the rose,
He is the benediction of the dove.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

scenes from today

Starting badly with drunken sleeps and sleepless wakes

Rain

Amazing doods dressed for halloween taking photos in the subway.

Rain

Leaf stained sidewalks

Rain and walking in the rain

Silence and loneliness exposed and shared.

Rain

So so sad babies handed over in public, from poor to well groomed and smart and smug.

Rain

Dark and work. A day is gone. Good.

Alabaster Blues

Calcium not Copper Concentrates and crystallizes
Fun in store as the crystal grows, silently, unseen
The winds of change are still and
quiet as timeless pressure and erosion
forms the translucent purely hard and softly still.

Waiting, waiting.

When the time is right, with patients and love
the beauty emerges, joyful and whole

Saturday, October 22, 2005

The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life
By Robert Buchanan (1841–1901)

THE MASTER said:
‘I have planted the Seed of a Tree,
It shall be strangely fed
With white dew and with red,
And the Gardeners shall be three—
Regret, Hope, Memory!’

The Master smiled:
For the Seed that He had set
Broke presently thro’ the mould,
With a glimmer of green and gold,
And the Angels’ eyes were wet—
Hope, Memory, Regret.

The Master cried:
‘It liveth—breatheth—see!
Its soft lips open wide—
It looks from side to side—
How strange they gleam on me,
The little dim eyes of the Tree!’

The Master said:
‘After a million years,
The Seed I set and fed
To itself hath gatherèd
All the world’s smiles and tears—
How mighty it appears!’

The Master said:
‘At last, at last, I see
A Blossom, a Blossom o’ red
From the heart of the Tree is shed.
’Tis fairer certainly
Than the Tree, or the leaves of the Tree.’

The Master cried:
‘O Angels, that guard the Tree,
A Blossom, a Blossom divine
Grows on this greenwood of mine:
What may this Blossom be?
Name this Blossom to me!’

The Master smiled;
For the Angels answered thus:
‘Our tears have nourish’d the same,
We have given it a name
That seemeth fit to us—
We have called it Spiritus.’

The Master said:
‘This Flower no Seed shall bear;
But hither on a day
My beautiful Son shall stray,
And shall snatch it unaware,
And wreath it in his hair.’

The Master smiled:
‘The Tree shall never bear—
Seedless shall perish the Tree,
But the Flower my Son’s shall be;
He will pluck the Flower and wear,
Till it withers in his hair!’

Monday, October 17, 2005

Wedding wilderness part 2

Memories:
How great it is to dress up
The calm and involved groom
The smiles
Everyone dressed up
The relaxed bar drink
Chatting with new strangers and new perspectives.
The glimpse into lower class American life
The roads and the traffic
The healthcare and healthcare everywhere
The religious dogma and the spiritual peace it brings

wedding weekend in the wilderness

Thud thud bump bump bump werrr werrr whale werr. The road noises are endless and the miles disappear so slowly.

Eventually:

The wedding day is beautiful and the motherly details busy, the bride calm and the groom unusually chaty.
10 minute ceromony and the drinking begins.
Cricket and football fans mingle and tell each other stories
The nite is young and then suddenly done....

Saturday, October 15, 2005

"vigilance and service"

A border experience.

14 - the number of immigration staff apparently doing nothing.
25 - minutes of time to process 1 person
0 - amount of organization obvious. Only the use of hand cream tells me they have actually done this before. Hand cream to make the finger print stand out of course.

How much I feel safe now knowing these guys are in charge: zero

The Return Trip - Guns and Gifts

US Guy wanted to know did I have any guns
Canadian Guy - did I have any gifts

Conclusion - Americans don't want you leaving with any of their precious guns and Canada's don't care about guns but want you to pay Taxes.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Found this

Found this on a blog - like it -


"In the ecology of spirit, just as in the ecology of matter, one eventually discovers that one cannot simply throw something away.

The corollary is that, with regard to both matter and spirit, there is no such thing as junk."

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Ode to a Nightingale - first 2 verses

MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Dont think about the War in Iraq much

This was interesting -

http://costofwar.com/

What else we could have done with the money - of course we would not have, but wow we could have changed the world

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Quote for today

There are people who make things happen, there are people at watch what happens , and those who wonder what happened.

Anon

Friday, October 07, 2005

up and down - from the film fest and Intermission from no where

A view of life in the check republic.

Nationalists, white supremacy, cancer, wasted lives from small mistakes, the need to recreate in the world in their own image. Humm, I am sure I have seen this film before.

Intermission

Story of nothing, no where and somewhere. Everyday, real time, real life, nicely told, depressingly told, already I cannot remember it.

Beauty a formula? The Golden Ratio

X^2=X-1. X= 1.6180339887 - the Golden Ratio

Found in nation and Art and all over. Why is this case?

What is Beauty? Is that a good question? Do we need to know what it is? Why is Beauty? Japanese have Wabi-sabi.

Others thougths:

My favourate: Beauty is nothing other than the promise of happiness. Stemdhal

Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it." Confusius

To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms -- this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness." Eistein

Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful." Emerson

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Mae west

"Too much of a good thing is wonderful"

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Day to day

What was my vision for today?

A life is gone, for $21.40 and an empty travel bag in and empty elevator. The soft wet noise is not, the late night cries for attention have been met with more attention than desired or deserved. A life is gone. Just like that. A hole is left.

What was my vision for today? No.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

October weekend

What a beautiful sunny and warm weekend.

The signs that winter approaches are clear.

The leaves have appeared on the grass and leaf stains on the sidewalk. The chipmunks are busy and cheeks full. A woodpecker rests on the deck on its way south.

My first attempts at oil painting in 30 years. A really relaxing 4 hours and 3 paintings later.......

Yoga outside was really cool, in the open air, so refreshing and warm

Saturday, October 01, 2005

layer cake

Lock, stock, smoldering and then going out.

Apparently complex plot on reflection turns out to be no plot at all really. Some great performances saving this otherwise uninteresting movie. The scenes and sets are nicely filmed and created.

It you are desparate for something reminding you of England, like me, go ahead and rent otherwise rent the motor cycle diaries.

The Aristocrats

I try to be open minded and I have reportedly a strange sense of humour based on feedback I receive from time to time.

The Aristocrats causes me to wonder about funny, while I did giggle a little I also fell alseep at the end. Partly figured north americans do have a sense of humour after all, partly concluded they really don't.

In the end this just deosn't seem that funny