The road of life is an arduous and twisted path, unmapped and uncharted, but the journey, while often frustrating, is never dull. The views along the way can be breathtaking or heartbreaking, sometimes at the same time.

Echoes

Erased, like mistakes

The faint imprint fades, leaving

echoes of what was

Lessons I've Learned From Meditation

Live a good life.

Love well and laugh often.

Give what you can, even if it's just your heart.

Leave your emotional baggage behind and become a backpacker through life, taking only what you need and can carry on your back.

Forgive others for being as human as you are.

This image is a reflection, like meditation.

Ballard Art Walk Show at Source Salon and Spa

We will be having our first photography show, opening June 13 for Ballard Artwalk at Source Salon and Spa in Ballard.

About the Show: Water. Light. Reflection.

In the Northwest, we are surrounded by liquid mirrors and blessed by a sky that is constantly flirting and dancing with the sun. Creating tricks of the eye and fleeting reflections of another world, one of fluidity and movement, lasting only a brief moment before becoming something other once again, our water and light are both muse and artist. The images in this show were inspired by these muses and created by the artistry of nature, captured as they were with no filters or color adjustments. We hope these images give you cause for reflection of your own.

http://www.sourcesalonspa.com/

http://inballard.com/detail.php?id=secondsaturdayartwalk

Where Were You?

Where were you

when I lost my way?

Where were you

on that dreadful day?

I searched for you

You weren't to be found

I called your name

but not a sound

Where were you

when I lost my mind?

You were what I needed

but couldn't find

I looked for you

searched high and low

I wished for you

I hoped you would know

Where were you

when I lost my soul?

Where were you

when that bell began to toll?

I prayed that I could

find the hidden clue

the path, the return journey

to way to you

Where were you

when I lost my way?

Where were you

on that dreadful day?

I searched for you

I looked for you

I wished for you

I hoped for you

I prayed for you

But without a sound

you were nowhere to be found

As I lay crying...and dying

on this cold hard ground

This was inspired by a story I read about a soldier who talked about losing rather than finding his religion while serving in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He was speaking of it as relative to losing a limb or a sense and being no less of a loss for him but one he felt was permanent. As someone who is definitively spiritual but no longer religious, it was easy to get inside his head. Remember all those who have served or are serving our country this Memorial Day and especially remember that their wounds and scars may not always be ones you can see.

Close

I shun your affection

You wonder why

I no longer feel close

So far from where

We began

Yet so close

To where we end

Will we last

Look back someday

Feel close again?

Will I remember

How it felt

To be so close

To never feeling

close again?

Or will we come

To a close

Journeys apart

On roads that

Never come close

I love to play with words and close (klohz) and close (klohs) seemed like synonyms that could describe, with a simple word,the beginning and end of a relationship. Read the title either way. I wrote this about the end of the relationship of people who were both close to me.

Desert, Sun, Water

You are angry, yet beautiful

Like a woman possessed

At first glance, gray and bare

Devoid of all life

Then the glimpses of color

Begin to caress my eyes

Red, like the blood you have

Drained, stains your walls

Shades of green and yellow

Touch down in the caverns

and crooks, where water once

Roared over you

You are not barren but bountiful

Wild bursts of pink and purple

Scattered throughout the brown dust

At one moment, still and quiet

The next, winds swirl in a thousand

Directions at once, warning

Visitors of your power and fury

You are to be revered, respected

Even feared

Relentlessly caressing me, while

Breathing new days into you

The sun unleashes all she has

To offer and your reach for her

Open wide and wide open

Water, blue as the cloudless sky

Above you, defies nature

Cool and still, it invites

Calls for me to ripple its surface

It is your mirror, where you

survey your beauty and

Revel in your unique glory

Lulling me into a false sense of security

As the blue sky turns black

Filling with impossibly near moons

And ages dark stars

The scorching heat of your days

Becomes the ripping cold of your nights

I am humbled by all that you are

Days

On a bench, wishing

Days need nothing more than this

Peace, quiet, wonder

At That Moment

At that moment

when your heart aches

with loneliness and pain

At that moment

when your heart breaks

and you feel more alone than alive

At that moment

when your heart soars

your spirits lifted to new heights

At that moment

when your heart roars

with fulfillment and peace

At that moment

when your heart throbs

cutting into your very soul

At that moment

when your heart pounds

with excitement and exultation

At that moment

when your heart abounds

with everlasting love

At that moment

when your heart is freed

At that moment

when your heart is in need

At that moment

At any moment

I will be your friend

To all the friends in my life, you are nearer and dearer to me than you may know.

A Story of Love

There was a memory

A tear fell from her eye

A chill swept through her

Then she felt his hand

As he laid it upon her shoulder

Warm and strong, without a word

She turned to him

He gathered her up

Filling the emptiness she felt

with tenderness and light

The sun shining on his golden hair

His touch healing, soothing

Reaching down into her soul

His love overwhelmed her

His passion overcame her

He wiped the tear from her cheek

Bent, he kissed her gently

Sending shivers through her body

And with his eyes he told her everything

As he took her by the hand

And together they stepped into the sun

This one is obviously about my partner on this crazy rollercoaster ride called life! Love you with all my heart...

The Color of Pain

What color is Pain?
Is it black? Dark and disturbing
Is it purple? Vivid and real
Is it red? Bloody and beaten
Is it blue? Sad and lonely
Is it green? Dying and decayed
Is it brown? Dirty and spoiled
Is it white? Bright and clear
Won't you tell me what color it is
Maybe then I can make it go
Mask it. Hide it. Suppress It. Bury it.
Where does it come from?
How do I make it go?
Does pain know what time it is?
Does it hurt the most in the dark?
How does it know when you are alone?
How does it know your vulnerabilities?
the secrets you keep?
How does it know weakness from strength?
Self pity from self doubt?
I wish I knew what color pain was
But I fear the truth
Pain is a rainbow

This photo has been updated with one I took. Thank you to my friend Bill for loaning me his awesome image to use.

Haiku by CWR-Slayer

I cannot believe

the duplicity, struggling

to rise above it

Haiku by CWR-A Life

A smile, sunshine

in the park, under a tree

souls meeting their mates

18 years ago today, my soul met its mate and has never been alone since....

Haiku Triptych-Haunted

No changes, the same

secrets hiding somewhere down

the path to my soul



I sit, afraid, torn

what does it mean to be so

frightened to know you



Why after all this

time do the same demons come

to haunt me, my love

I Saw Her

I saw her alone

about to step off the edge

of her life

A life left behind

in search of some

sort of peace

To quiet the storm

raging inside her soul

This was oddly inspired by an NPR story about Andrea Yates. The story kept going through my head until I sort of understood what she was trying to say about what she had done to her children. In her mind, she was saving them from something that she imagined was worse than killing them. As a voyuer of others' lives, I found it interesting to try and get inside her head but kind of scary.

Words

There is a certain power to words that is often not addressed, the power of words not spoken. These words are the most misunderstood and underestimated words in all the world.

Haven't you ever wished you told someone how you really feel or felt the sting of wishing someone would utter the right thing at the right moment only to never have it happen? Or sat on the couch while the person next to you doesn't hear a word you've said and when they say "what?", you say "Nothing"?

There are no more words to express what I feel now, having opened myself up to find my feelings rebuked and belittled. And yet, a few simple words could save me, a few measly bon mots to soothe my troubled spirit but this is not a gift I will receive. So inexpensive, so perfectly fitting yet never once given and certainly never when I need it the most.

Which makes me feel alone in my love. More attention, more words being shared, given to others and none left for me and no time spent with the words I've tried to give you. So be careful or you will simply be a cunning linguist alone with nothing but your empty words.

Haiku by CWR-Will

Fighting back, I will

my self to be stronger than


the forces at hand

I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King Jr

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Haiku by CWR-Quest

At peace with myself

I seek to bring others to

Joy within themselves

Afraid?

You can bang your head against my world

Knock me around

to silence me

You can call your cops

You can slam my head in your door

to make me scream

Why don't you want me to be heard?

Why don't you want me to be

Why are you so afraid

of someone like me?

You can stick a sock in my mouth

Knock me down

to silence me

You can raid my soul

You can shove your knife in my heart

to make me quiet

Why don't you want me to be near

Why don't you want me to be

Why are you so afraid

Is it me you fear?

You reach out you hand to me

and slap me in my face

to silence me

You can throw your stones at me

You can rip my flesh from my body

to make me dead

Why do you need to invade my world

Why do you need to silence me

Why are you so afraid

to express yourself

Like me

Dedicated to every person who has ever been judged for being different from the rest. Be proud and Out loud and stand out!

Emptiness of War

The leaves flew around the empty playground

where the children didn't play anymore

and all the grass had begun to decay

The trees had withered

Their branches clawing at the cold earth

like angry fingers clinging to survival

The clouds never leave

There is no shelter, no solace

Only despair and hopelessness

A broken swing clanging in the distance

reminds us death lurks behind every shadow

Ghosts wandering, rejoicing in our pain

and everywhere you look, there is destruction

Life is taken before it can be lived

Forever altering the course of history

The damage so devastating

there is little hope for renewal

Where can we go can from here

Have we lost our hold on tomorrow

the future slipping through our fingers?

CWR

Stop the devastation before it is too late! Somewhere out there is a new day...

Haiku by CWR-Dark Light

Seeking truth, insight

I look inside the corners

of my hidden self

Haiku by CWR-Journey

A journey, a quest

faraway places call me

my soul drawn to them

Why?

Who are you?
Who am I?
Who are you to question who I am?
Why do you care?
Who are you to decide?
Why does it matter?
Who do you love?
Why is your choice the right choice?
Why do you worry so?
About me?
About what color I am?
What gods I believe in?
Or whether I believe at all?
Why do you care how or where I worship?
Why do you care who I love?
Who I hold?
Who I share my soul with?
Why does it matter?
Why don't you care about me?
Why do you want to oppress me?
Why do you want to suppress me?
Why do you want to choose for me?
Who chose for you?
Why do you care?
Why does it matter?
Who said you could decide?
Why do you care about what I do?
Why don't you care about who I am?

CWR

Dedicated to the struggle for Equal Marriage Rights...why??

Derek Trucks Band-Snoqualmie Casino

This was the first concert of the year and a new venue for us as well. The new Snoqualmie Casino turns its ballroom into a theatre for concerts, so it wasn't acoustically perfect but the experience here made up for that.

Plenty of free parking all around the casino made it an easy in and out and the venue is right off the freeway, so access is great. There was no body cavity search and once your ticket is scanned they give you a wristband so you can wander the casino. You can bring your drinks into the show and they are casino cheap and strong, so I've been told. For non drinkers, bottled water is free!

The show started on time and the band was hot! Some of the highlights were Sailing On, Get Out My Life and a smoking My Favorite Things that evoked some Coltrane as well as Duane Allman. After touring with Susan Tedeschi as Soul Stew Revival, the DTB was ready for some long, bluesy jams and Derek delivered some smokin' hot solos. He had the slide on for most of the show and was working the whole neck.

Mike Mattison was looking like Joe Cocker as he escaped into the soul of every word he sang. His sweet voice is always a complement to the outstanding musicianship of the whole band and you can see how deeply he feels this music being played by his friends and bandmates. Bassist Todd Smalley had a smile on his face for the whole night and sometimes his bass sounded like horns as he pulled and bent some deep notes.

The new songs are very jazzy as well as bluesy and the Afro-Celt influences continue to be strong. New album is out on 1/13 and I'll be picking it up fast. All in all, absolutely great show and was surprisingly impressed by the venue.

Peace Out, CWR

God, Part 33 1/3

I believe in poetry
I believe in the magic of words
I believe in the power of positive thinking
I believe in love and peace
I believe in me
I believe in my right to live free
I believe in the earth
I believe in music
I believe in tomorrow
I believe in life
I believe in the sky
I believe in the oceans
I believe in the rocks and the trees
I believe the truth
I believe in hope
I believe in New York City
I believe in friends
I believe in spirit and soul
I believe in family
I believe in myself
I believe I'll have another
I believe in you
but
I don't believe in God

With undying devotion to John Lennon

The New Year and How to Use a Blog

I've been giving my blog some thought and I've decided how to use it. In the new year, I will be posting my poetry and haiku here, sometimes matched with photos by the hubby or I.

I'll be writing notes and reviews on music and concerts we are enjoying and other cultural events we attend or want to hear about from others.

And occasionally, I will rant about issues that are important to me like equal marriage rights, housing and health care for everyone and the end of war everywhere.

In other words, this will be like be able to read my journal except you won't get the really good private parts!

I don't intend to offend anyone since I don't really expect anyone to actually read this blog but if you are reading and have opinions, please share them. My mind, like my heart, is wide open!

Happy New Year. May all your tomorrows be better than you imagined.