a poem...
Blue Jay
Talk like a parakeet
Talking to itself
Above my head
From the dropping Pine Boughs.
I looked up and saw Blue Jay.
Blue Jay looked back,
Hopped to another branch,
Looked down,
Hopped,
Talked,
"Chaahh! Chaahh!"
"Okay!" I said.
"Chaahh! Chaahh!"
And tossed some peanuts.
Blue Jay hesitated for safety,
Then dropped, hopped,
Took a peanut, saw another,
Dropped the one, hefted the other.
I admired the blue iridescent tail feathers.
Blue Jay leapt, and flew
Over Strawberry Creek into the Forest.
DolphinWords
Strawberry Creek in Idyllwild, CA...which reminds me, I have a little one about Strawberry Creek...
Strawberry Creek
Strawberry Creek almost dry,
And Yellow Tiger Swallowtails,
Butterflies, singly,
Sometimes briefly two,
Wander over the grey boulders
Among the White Alders
Full of new green leaves.
DolphinWords
Since I've been back in Town, three Halloweens, I haven't been to Idyllwild...hmmph...my favorite place...
San Jacinto
Along the curving climbing highway
When the Pines altitude is reached
And they begin to appear beside the road
The road whitened by granite sand
Eroded from the mountain and mixed into the asphalt
The mental conflicts of the City will begin to lessen
As the coastal overcasts are gone
Revealing the blue, the bluest sky
Over Idyllwild, and the mountain, San Jacinto.
DolphinWords
Yes, they are simple, I know, I've been told that, and wince a bit at that, but, but, I would explain, though I never will to that sincere assessment...and remain appreciative, quiet.
I don't know what to do with 'full of new green leaves'...try not to draw attention to it, and hope it doesn't get noticed!
And I can't remember if it is "overcast is gone", or "overcasts are gone"..
these poems from early seventies...oh...it's the later...my ear tells me...
And when they repaved 120 to Tuolumne in places, I took notice over the years how it would whiten...the Sierra is so much larger than San Jacinto, which is thought of as a miniature Sierra, and explains part of my fondness for Idyllwild...
Progress!...with Maya's fence...Hanh's husband Hi was about, and I asked if he'd like to help, and together we went to Home Depot and gathered materials...4x4s, concrete, and such, for the posts...I'm digging the holes, three dug...working on one that is problematically full of roots...finish that tomorrow....just need five holes two feet deep...then Monday, Hi and I will set the posts...from there I can continue alone, but Hi and Hanh are so happy to help, I'm happy with that too!
DavidDavid
Friday, November 13, 2015
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Her Island of the Western Sea
a poem...
Her Island of the Western Sea
Shark Fin
Dolphin Fin
Pilot Whale Fin
Bonita leaping
From afar distant in the Sea
To my eyes
Blue reflecting grey
Calm slow swells
Pass under slick areas unrippled by the breeze
Of the morning passage
Under the marine layering of cloud cover
Catalina Island
Destined passengers
Sometimes get seasick
Embarrassed
Children laughing, chasing about
Forgotten in my woosiness
Taints my awareness
Told to be still as the horizon line
Hold steady thoughtless
The largeness of the great Ocean
Wonder
A solemnness in everyone's eyes
Fleeting from time to time
Among candy bars and coca cola and talk of other places
Past and Future
Are no homes for travelers
Glimpse the present
Past encrusted
Barnacled pier pilings
In clusters of three bound by entwining ropes
Hand held familiarairily over and around moorings
Snugged by a windlass
Clanked each notch
Secured
The Ship aside the Pier
Gaily covered by a red uniformed band playing
People gathered celebrating
The arrival of the King of the Sea Depths
Produce Neptune's mermaids
Lead the parade through Town
I follow
Continually amused by everyone and everything
Meet in the curio and souvenir shops
Sell time and place
Commemorate
The casino now a dance floor and movies and museum
In which I found the death's head of a prescient dream
Charred black skull of an Indian cremated
Bones in a stone bowl
Under a glass case cover
Jewelry Indian artifacts
Beads and mother of pearl fish hooks
Unused a long time
For fish
Fished
The same now as four thousand years ago
Gabrielinos owned undeededly the island
Hasn't changed much
As a place the present then remains present now
Understood the fascination with changeless time
Humanely embellished
Over
The years
Change
Is our creation
Began in the Ocean began
Clearing the other side of the boat's bottom glass
Permits visibility to nearly eighty feet
Down I look
With my chin on my hands
Have fed too with a broken urchin
Spines don't trouble
Garibaldis
Probably don't know they are our sacred fish
Swim beneath the sea glass
Clear
In the distant deep blue
Silver and blue fish flashings
Over bottomless depths
I strain to see
Presently
I awake from a disappointedly dreamless nap
On my back in the pale blue hotel room
Scents and landscape paintings on the walls
Remind me of other travels
Make awareness hear more things
Outside
Birds calling distantly
The unintelligible voices of people talking
Muffled through the wall
Unlike through the window
The intoning of the low bell gongs melodiously marking the hour
Arrived
An evening time
Sun through broken silver clouds
Above the house decorated hills
Inland
Is forbidden
Changing the hills there
Would be a sacrilege
The Indians would understand
Even after all their trouble with us
As we have yet to understand fully
The holiness of the present
A present, gift, presented
From one generation to the next generation
Unchanged
Alive and living
Still the buffalo
To be seen
Future plans
Made in ticket booths
Become real at appointed hours
Arrived
I take my seat
Beside the black tinted windows
Scenery passes
Through the eucalyptus planted
One by one aside the road
Climbed upwards at first
I was forewarned of things to be
Seen
The buffalos, ground squirrels, wild boars, goats, ravens black
A rare color for the Arabian horses
Bred to a dun desert
Prickly pear cactus
Yellow flowers blooming
The time of the season
Warm
I only wore my jacket in the shaded places
Along the road once for wagons
Widened the Indian's path
About the Island
Mountains, hills really,
But here beside the Sea they seem high
The view
Like from an airplane
Landing field on a cutoff mountain top
Leveled
For arrivals and departures
A shaded glen wagoner's rest called Eagle's Nest
Under the one hundred year old oak
Shades the table where I have a donut and coffee
Shared by others
The warning of poison oak
I am comically familiar with
The left over donuts
Fed the goats, the pigs, the cows, the horses, the ravens,
All the animals
Like the fish
Hurried
Lured for our eyes
Smiled always in their corners
Brought our ride to precarious edges
Of seeing
The rock cliff carved by the Sea like an Indian's head
A frog in a boulder sitting
In the middle of the road the largest old buffalo
Bull with his harem
Cows with calves
Frightened by our passage
Ended down the road to Avalon
Town streets that end in the blue sky
Framed a white board hotel
Window frames painted blue
Like San Francisco's
Memory
Places in most prominence
The sight of an Indian camp on a west facing shore
Looked out all the way to China
Somehow found its way to an Indian's thoughts
While
A large bivalve shell was made into an ochre treasure case
Filled with asphaltum
Preserved the broken in half figurine of Buddha
Buried in a grave before Cabrillo
Discovered
And remembered in the museum
Tells the end of the Indians
Taken by the Franciscans to the mainland
Protected them from marauding hunters
Killed otters and Indians
Gone now
Just a seashell midden in the road cut
Through basalt
Twenty million years old.
DolphinWords
Poem is like from early 1980's...maybe I can find date...bought a souvenir Catalina poster, since lost...brb...no luck...there's a little yearly festival in the Spring, and the poster was about that...picture of Mermaid overlooking the Casino in the back ground...I'll have to look about now and then to see if I can find a replacement copy for my lost one...I was fond of it!...I have been on Catalina just that once...and a few times off shore scuba diving back then...I must have turned poem in as class work, as my old copy is marked up...with long poems of this sort by me I can put people asleep!...it has shifting word play...the little Buddha figurine I've since learned may have come from a visit, or wreck, of a Spanish ship on return from the Philippines...before Cabrillo...
DavidDavid
Her Island of the Western Sea
Shark Fin
Dolphin Fin
Pilot Whale Fin
Bonita leaping
From afar distant in the Sea
To my eyes
Blue reflecting grey
Calm slow swells
Pass under slick areas unrippled by the breeze
Of the morning passage
Under the marine layering of cloud cover
Catalina Island
Destined passengers
Sometimes get seasick
Embarrassed
Children laughing, chasing about
Forgotten in my woosiness
Taints my awareness
Told to be still as the horizon line
Hold steady thoughtless
The largeness of the great Ocean
Wonder
A solemnness in everyone's eyes
Fleeting from time to time
Among candy bars and coca cola and talk of other places
Past and Future
Are no homes for travelers
Glimpse the present
Past encrusted
Barnacled pier pilings
In clusters of three bound by entwining ropes
Hand held familiarairily over and around moorings
Snugged by a windlass
Clanked each notch
Secured
The Ship aside the Pier
Gaily covered by a red uniformed band playing
People gathered celebrating
The arrival of the King of the Sea Depths
Produce Neptune's mermaids
Lead the parade through Town
I follow
Continually amused by everyone and everything
Meet in the curio and souvenir shops
Sell time and place
Commemorate
The casino now a dance floor and movies and museum
In which I found the death's head of a prescient dream
Charred black skull of an Indian cremated
Bones in a stone bowl
Under a glass case cover
Jewelry Indian artifacts
Beads and mother of pearl fish hooks
Unused a long time
For fish
Fished
The same now as four thousand years ago
Gabrielinos owned undeededly the island
Hasn't changed much
As a place the present then remains present now
Understood the fascination with changeless time
Humanely embellished
Over
The years
Change
Is our creation
Began in the Ocean began
Clearing the other side of the boat's bottom glass
Permits visibility to nearly eighty feet
Down I look
With my chin on my hands
Have fed too with a broken urchin
Spines don't trouble
Garibaldis
Probably don't know they are our sacred fish
Swim beneath the sea glass
Clear
In the distant deep blue
Silver and blue fish flashings
Over bottomless depths
I strain to see
Presently
I awake from a disappointedly dreamless nap
On my back in the pale blue hotel room
Scents and landscape paintings on the walls
Remind me of other travels
Make awareness hear more things
Outside
Birds calling distantly
The unintelligible voices of people talking
Muffled through the wall
Unlike through the window
The intoning of the low bell gongs melodiously marking the hour
Arrived
An evening time
Sun through broken silver clouds
Above the house decorated hills
Inland
Is forbidden
Changing the hills there
Would be a sacrilege
The Indians would understand
Even after all their trouble with us
As we have yet to understand fully
The holiness of the present
A present, gift, presented
From one generation to the next generation
Unchanged
Alive and living
Still the buffalo
To be seen
Future plans
Made in ticket booths
Become real at appointed hours
Arrived
I take my seat
Beside the black tinted windows
Scenery passes
Through the eucalyptus planted
One by one aside the road
Climbed upwards at first
I was forewarned of things to be
Seen
The buffalos, ground squirrels, wild boars, goats, ravens black
A rare color for the Arabian horses
Bred to a dun desert
Prickly pear cactus
Yellow flowers blooming
The time of the season
Warm
I only wore my jacket in the shaded places
Along the road once for wagons
Widened the Indian's path
About the Island
Mountains, hills really,
But here beside the Sea they seem high
The view
Like from an airplane
Landing field on a cutoff mountain top
Leveled
For arrivals and departures
A shaded glen wagoner's rest called Eagle's Nest
Under the one hundred year old oak
Shades the table where I have a donut and coffee
Shared by others
The warning of poison oak
I am comically familiar with
The left over donuts
Fed the goats, the pigs, the cows, the horses, the ravens,
All the animals
Like the fish
Hurried
Lured for our eyes
Smiled always in their corners
Brought our ride to precarious edges
Of seeing
The rock cliff carved by the Sea like an Indian's head
A frog in a boulder sitting
In the middle of the road the largest old buffalo
Bull with his harem
Cows with calves
Frightened by our passage
Ended down the road to Avalon
Town streets that end in the blue sky
Framed a white board hotel
Window frames painted blue
Like San Francisco's
Memory
Places in most prominence
The sight of an Indian camp on a west facing shore
Looked out all the way to China
Somehow found its way to an Indian's thoughts
While
A large bivalve shell was made into an ochre treasure case
Filled with asphaltum
Preserved the broken in half figurine of Buddha
Buried in a grave before Cabrillo
Discovered
And remembered in the museum
Tells the end of the Indians
Taken by the Franciscans to the mainland
Protected them from marauding hunters
Killed otters and Indians
Gone now
Just a seashell midden in the road cut
Through basalt
Twenty million years old.
DolphinWords
Poem is like from early 1980's...maybe I can find date...bought a souvenir Catalina poster, since lost...brb...no luck...there's a little yearly festival in the Spring, and the poster was about that...picture of Mermaid overlooking the Casino in the back ground...I'll have to look about now and then to see if I can find a replacement copy for my lost one...I was fond of it!...I have been on Catalina just that once...and a few times off shore scuba diving back then...I must have turned poem in as class work, as my old copy is marked up...with long poems of this sort by me I can put people asleep!...it has shifting word play...the little Buddha figurine I've since learned may have come from a visit, or wreck, of a Spanish ship on return from the Philippines...before Cabrillo...
DavidDavid
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Eleven Eleven Eleven
I had to wait for the updates to my computer to complete, then for the web to load, then for the blog to load, and then I typed in quick, my eye to my wall clock, the time on it nearing Eleven PM, Eleven Eleven Eleven, and clicked on publish...success!, I thought, but the time date for this blog post is 11/11/15, 10:01 PM Pacific Standard Time...hmmph...apparently Time has fallen back an hour without me knowing...anyway, the notion is still there, it's Veterans Day, best wishes to them!...the Great War, WW1 ended on the Eleventh hour of the Eleventh day of the Eleventh month...11/11/...was it eighteen or nineteen?...and the hour?..am or pm?...brb...
day and time world war one ended
I had eighteen ok...11/11/18
world war one ended eleven am or pm
On Nov. 11, 1918, fighting in World War I came to an end following the signing of an armistice between the Allies and Germany that called for a ceasefire effective at 11 a.m.– it was on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
day and time world war one ended
I had eighteen ok...11/11/18
world war one ended eleven am or pm
On Nov. 11, 1918, fighting in World War I came to an end following the signing of an armistice between the Allies and Germany that called for a ceasefire effective at 11 a.m.– it was on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
Nov. 11, 1918 | World War I Ends
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Three Names: Khidir, Subien, Cerridwen
A text only post, and about history, afield from fauna and flora, sort of...and grim, so dear readers, a caution to read on...
I'll put the search strings in bold, these are the beginning of a quote, and the link(s), the ulr(s), which are highlighted too, will be the quote(s) end(s)...
a line from my sestina poem Subien...
"Swimming in the surf was the guide, Khidir,
Working to shore in his form as Dolphin."
I didn't know much about Khidir when I wrote that poem back then...I gathered his name from Idris Shah's books about Sufis...and since, I've found some neat things about Khidir...one is that he is depicted in storybook illustrations, those miniatures from Mogul India, as riding on a fish....just why I don't know, but my poem line could have been something like
"riding to shore on a fish"...that's just a kind of curio...and for the curious, I recommend a web search of Khidir...he is often depicted as being green, and finds correspondence with the Green Man, the Green Knight, and such in Western lore...in Eastern lore, the green often seen in Arab nation's flags is a correspondence to Khidir...the ancient Egyptian god Osiris was depicted as Green too...oh.a late update....and there's a little shrine, looks like a cupola, to Khidir on the Temple Mount...
Temple Mount shrine Khidir
Dome of Al-Khidr, Temple Mount, Old City of Jerusalem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khidr
the name Subien in the Sestina I went on about in a previous blog post...I changed Suibne, which I had wanted to use for the poem, to Subien, so it would rhyme in the poem...all the end line words rhyme, though so softly it's hardly noticed...Khidir the one that doesn't rhyme...the story of Suibne is on the web too...I came across it in Graves' The White Goddess...but it is a well known tale in Celtic lore...one can't help but identify with Suibne in that old tale...many have, and me too!...fancifully, at times, the persona writing the blog is Suibne/Subien...which can lead to confusion, as one might think everything written here is from a real me, and not the speaking of some ancient character from legends...sometimes, sometimes my keyboard is writing words out for a character from ancient legends!...kind of like when I play my toon, Subien, in world of warcraft... I'm in character like an actor...ah, it's all a masquerade after all...gotta go check something...brb...there are now ten Suibne character toons in World of Warcraft....one, my warrior, my first toon...my Suibne has a distinction I'm very proud of...at level 90 Suibne achieved Ironman in Warsong Gulch in random battle ground mode...Subien is my mage, and my main for a long while...I've left Subien, and Suibne at level 90...I like the Mists of Panderia expansion...and rather than level them up to Draenor, left them there...
I have this own little interior private kind of Lord of the Rings realm in my imagination...oh, in fact, I wish I could relate where I first read Lord of the Rings, but some things are just way too interior!
Anyway, the third name I used, Cerridwen, is even more interior, to me, though on the web, there's lots and lots...lol...when I looked up the White Goddess on the web, the book I mean, by Robert Graves, I got to reading the reviews on amazon, where I ordered my new copy...they are really neat to read...book reviews on amazon are nice, as you get to relate to others who read the books you read...something I lost when college classes were over...anyway, I thought to poke fun at the reviewers...and relate what the book had meant to me...lemmesseee if I can find that...brb...
Robert Graves White Goddess Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/The-White-Goddess-Historical-Classics/product-reviews/0374289336/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
Oh, and I misspelled 'lowered'...the entry text box for reviews is tiny...poem was from '66 , put to pen on paper in seventies sometime...some poems are like that...they are just there, whether you, or some ones, write them out or not!
Maya's napping on the porch...
DavidDavid
I'll put the search strings in bold, these are the beginning of a quote, and the link(s), the ulr(s), which are highlighted too, will be the quote(s) end(s)...
a line from my sestina poem Subien...
"Swimming in the surf was the guide, Khidir,
Working to shore in his form as Dolphin."
I didn't know much about Khidir when I wrote that poem back then...I gathered his name from Idris Shah's books about Sufis...and since, I've found some neat things about Khidir...one is that he is depicted in storybook illustrations, those miniatures from Mogul India, as riding on a fish....just why I don't know, but my poem line could have been something like
"riding to shore on a fish"...that's just a kind of curio...and for the curious, I recommend a web search of Khidir...he is often depicted as being green, and finds correspondence with the Green Man, the Green Knight, and such in Western lore...in Eastern lore, the green often seen in Arab nation's flags is a correspondence to Khidir...the ancient Egyptian god Osiris was depicted as Green too...oh.a late update....and there's a little shrine, looks like a cupola, to Khidir on the Temple Mount...
Temple Mount shrine Khidir
Dome of Al-Khidr, Temple Mount, Old City of Jerusalem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khidr
the name Subien in the Sestina I went on about in a previous blog post...I changed Suibne, which I had wanted to use for the poem, to Subien, so it would rhyme in the poem...all the end line words rhyme, though so softly it's hardly noticed...Khidir the one that doesn't rhyme...the story of Suibne is on the web too...I came across it in Graves' The White Goddess...but it is a well known tale in Celtic lore...one can't help but identify with Suibne in that old tale...many have, and me too!...fancifully, at times, the persona writing the blog is Suibne/Subien...which can lead to confusion, as one might think everything written here is from a real me, and not the speaking of some ancient character from legends...sometimes, sometimes my keyboard is writing words out for a character from ancient legends!...kind of like when I play my toon, Subien, in world of warcraft... I'm in character like an actor...ah, it's all a masquerade after all...gotta go check something...brb...there are now ten Suibne character toons in World of Warcraft....one, my warrior, my first toon...my Suibne has a distinction I'm very proud of...at level 90 Suibne achieved Ironman in Warsong Gulch in random battle ground mode...Subien is my mage, and my main for a long while...I've left Subien, and Suibne at level 90...I like the Mists of Panderia expansion...and rather than level them up to Draenor, left them there...
I have this own little interior private kind of Lord of the Rings realm in my imagination...oh, in fact, I wish I could relate where I first read Lord of the Rings, but some things are just way too interior!
Anyway, the third name I used, Cerridwen, is even more interior, to me, though on the web, there's lots and lots...lol...when I looked up the White Goddess on the web, the book I mean, by Robert Graves, I got to reading the reviews on amazon, where I ordered my new copy...they are really neat to read...book reviews on amazon are nice, as you get to relate to others who read the books you read...something I lost when college classes were over...anyway, I thought to poke fun at the reviewers...and relate what the book had meant to me...lemmesseee if I can find that...brb...
Robert Graves White Goddess Amazon
on October 31, 2015
Reviews here remind me of camera lens reviews!
quote
The White Goddess and The Nazarene Gospel Restored are curious: I wrote the first to define the non-Jewish element in Christianity, especially the Celtic. And I wrote the second, with the help of the late Joshua Podro, to drive the Greek and Roman element out of what was a purely Jewish event. The curious result was that a special Early Christian Society got founded at Cambridge, based on the Nazarene Gospel, and various White Goddess religions started in New York State and California. I'm today's hero of the love-and-flowers cult out in the Screwy State, so they tell me: where hippies stop policemen in the street and say, “I adore you, officer.” Also I get a number of letters from witches' covens, requesting flying ointment, magical recipes, and esoteric information.
Robert Graves, The Art of Poetry No. 11
Interviewed by Peter Buckman and William Fifield
Paris Review
Summer 1969 Number 47
I imagine Graves wrote the White Goddess to a young poet friend, and between them, as between lovers, every word had a heightened meaning.
Starting out as a poet? Find it, keep it close by...
To Her, To You
In the cities' world
I had no one to pray to,
No one to wish to,
For good luck and your answer yes
When I called on the telephone asking you to be with me awhile.
So, I found my own goddess of love,
Of the sun and the moon and the earth, everything,
And prayed to her, to you,
My eyes lowreerd
Offering the gift I had to give,
To her, to you.
DavidDavid
(I'm from California, and was there in '69)
Oh, the little guy on the book's cover inspired that poem..:)
quote
The White Goddess and The Nazarene Gospel Restored are curious: I wrote the first to define the non-Jewish element in Christianity, especially the Celtic. And I wrote the second, with the help of the late Joshua Podro, to drive the Greek and Roman element out of what was a purely Jewish event. The curious result was that a special Early Christian Society got founded at Cambridge, based on the Nazarene Gospel, and various White Goddess religions started in New York State and California. I'm today's hero of the love-and-flowers cult out in the Screwy State, so they tell me: where hippies stop policemen in the street and say, “I adore you, officer.” Also I get a number of letters from witches' covens, requesting flying ointment, magical recipes, and esoteric information.
Robert Graves, The Art of Poetry No. 11
Interviewed by Peter Buckman and William Fifield
Paris Review
Summer 1969 Number 47
I imagine Graves wrote the White Goddess to a young poet friend, and between them, as between lovers, every word had a heightened meaning.
Starting out as a poet? Find it, keep it close by...
To Her, To You
In the cities' world
I had no one to pray to,
No one to wish to,
For good luck and your answer yes
When I called on the telephone asking you to be with me awhile.
So, I found my own goddess of love,
Of the sun and the moon and the earth, everything,
And prayed to her, to you,
My eyes lowreerd
Offering the gift I had to give,
To her, to you.
DavidDavid
(I'm from California, and was there in '69)
Oh, the little guy on the book's cover inspired that poem..:)
http://www.amazon.com/The-White-Goddess-Historical-Classics/product-reviews/0374289336/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
Oh, and I misspelled 'lowered'...the entry text box for reviews is tiny...poem was from '66 , put to pen on paper in seventies sometime...some poems are like that...they are just there, whether you, or some ones, write them out or not!
Maya's napping on the porch...
DavidDavid
Monday, November 9, 2015
A Maya (my dog) report...
Well, it's quiet on the porch...I'm listening...I've just finished hammering and making a racket in the evening quiet trying to secure a board across the one section below a window, a second effort...no sooner than I nailed the 3 feet by 2 feet piece of plywood in place, covering the excavations, than Maya went to work on its corners and was pulling if off...she wanted to continue the excavations, her escape route from the porch to the backyard, and points beyond...now I'm listening to see if my second effort has secured the possible escape route...quiet so far...
Now, I've been pursuing an odd health kick...I'd like to lose like ten pounds, and wean myself off fast foods and Denny's...Denny's has a good menu, but the servings are big, and once started on one, I just finish it, and don't make use of the to go box...though sometimes I take home the meatballs, or bacon and sausage for Maya...and a week or so back, I started eating just one real meal a day, usually in the evening, and then I ate a meal at a restaurant I don't frequent and caught some kind of stomach distress...so, in my half starved diet state, I had a tummy ache or something too...it wasn't too hurtful, but I felt very weak and, and at times so out of breath I couldn't move...I've run the symptoms through google, and what I think they are is just plain hunger...brb...
starvation symptoms
The bloated stomach, as seen in the picture to the right, represents a form of malnutrition called kwashiorkor which is caused by insufficient protein despite a sufficient caloric intake.
Now, I've been pursuing an odd health kick...I'd like to lose like ten pounds, and wean myself off fast foods and Denny's...Denny's has a good menu, but the servings are big, and once started on one, I just finish it, and don't make use of the to go box...though sometimes I take home the meatballs, or bacon and sausage for Maya...and a week or so back, I started eating just one real meal a day, usually in the evening, and then I ate a meal at a restaurant I don't frequent and caught some kind of stomach distress...so, in my half starved diet state, I had a tummy ache or something too...it wasn't too hurtful, but I felt very weak and, and at times so out of breath I couldn't move...I've run the symptoms through google, and what I think they are is just plain hunger...brb...
starvation symptoms
The bloated stomach, as seen in the picture to the right, represents a form of malnutrition called kwashiorkor which is caused by insufficient protein despite a sufficient caloric intake.
Starvation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The stomach bloat I've got...it's a usual thing for an empty stomach...but my horsing around with my food intake has exacerbated it...I don't think mine is from a lack of protein, though that's a thought, more likely just nothing in my stomach...
So, so, for the last few days, I can walk around a bit, do a few things, and then I have to sit and catch my breath, or take to my bunk...I was snoozing fine this morning, and a 'hello' and knock at my door...sometimes I just woof out the window, 'what is it?" and try to scare off the salesman, but this was way early, so trundled the few steps to the front door to see...'Do you have a black dog?'
ohhh...I had just talked over the phone with my niece about Maya and the one low four foot fence covered with ivy...'she's been good, like Bunny was, never an inclination to leave her yard'....I'm absolutely certain dogs are telepathic and Maya heard that conversation, which was yesterday, and this morning Maya is down at the far end of the street...and I'm out front in pjs, thinking, 'now what do I do?...this is the worst...'
I got the leash, walked half way down the street, beginning to double over with fatigue, and just kneeled down in the middle of the asphalt, and waited...Maya took her time, exploring this way and that, looking for someone to run and jump on...'she was jumping on people' had been the report...finally I got the leash clipped on her collar, and like fighting a fish eager to get off the line, I reeled her into the house, and to the porch, where I closed her in with all the doors...no backyard until I sorted things out...
I couldn't see where she jumped over, a route over that low fence takes her into a neighbor's yard with higher fences, or so I thought...the far side of their house is unfenced into the backyard...and that's where I found Maya after I let her out into the backyard to pee and poo, and she didn't hesitate a minute to go to the low fence and hop over it again...I had leash in one hand, treats in the other, and once again on my knees waiting on neighbor's driveway, and clipped on the leash...Maya thinks she's a Marlin...at any moment with her backward tugging the simple collar could slide off...I have to keep enough slack in the leash so that wont happen...I tried picking her up...coaxing her along by holding her tail...Marlins have bills, Maya has teeth...by now my forearms are red...and I'm fatigued to the point of crawling on all fours across my neighbor's lawn, my driveway, my lawn, and eventually up the steps into the house, safe...neighbors thought I was playing...it was a near something experience...I had to put my glasses in my shoe, which I took off and left behind, for safety...I was being buffeted...each crawling step, I had to manage the leash...and the collar...I got Maya into the carrier in the living room, and sitting atop it, thought, that's it...off to the pond, to animal control...I can't endanger the neighborhood...and while I can raise the fence, Maya will be now be an escape artist, having tasted outside and points beyond...so I got the carrier on the piano dolly roller, rolled her to the front steps, down the steps, to the back of Silver...lifted the carrier up into Silver...this took like half an hour...filled with sorrow and regret...and the neighbor from the across the street came over to ask about my sad task...I explained, and discovered they were the people Maya had jumped on...actually, Maya had somehow gotten in through an open door of their house, and woken everyone, being her usual self, to the point of tugging on bed sheets...how Maya this morning got from there to down the street where I first saw her, is probably more of the tale....I pursed my lips, and thought, 'continue, off to the pond'...but then the neighbor's kid comes over, who wants a dog, and it's enough...just enough of everything...by now I'm sitting on the porch step all out of breath just from talking and emoting...back to the status quo...I'll install the fence, cage Maya in the backyard, maybe aging and training can civilize her, and I'll keep my fingers crossed she wont do another Houdini!
Neighbor has recommend a harness that straps all around, and when I went to Home Depot to make a fencing estimate visit, and buy that 3x2 board for the porch, a couple walked out of the store with just such a harness on their tail curled high husky...'what's it called?'...'ruffwear'...their husky well behaved, in guide dog training...
Much thanks to my neighbors for all the help...:)
DavidDavid
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Pericles
A text only post, and about history, afield from fauna and flora, sort of...and grim, so dear readers, a caution to read on...
Well, I was trying to think through how to do a post about Pericles, and I haven't a clue, the know how actually...the reach is for his consolidating the Delian League, and moving its treasure from Delos to Athens...and this just when the Persians destroy the Acropolis with its first Parthenon, and then are defeated by the Greeks...this wasn't a big deal to the Persians...Greece a country on the edge of their empire...and the Athenians were content for awhile it seems to leave the Acropolis in ruins, but Pericles set himself about restoring it and built the Parthenon known today...one can't help but read this story, and not see the correspondence to the Temples in Jerusalem...anyway, Pericles and the Athenians used the Delian League to fund the building, and much else, and they began to over reach, and the Spartans took exception, and war between Athens and Sparta resulted...Pericles participated at its outset, but a plague struck Athens, and he fell victim...and Athens fell to the Spartans...they used the just finished Parthenon for a barracks...
These old temples tell the history of their times...looking about, youtube tourist clips of Athens and the Acropolis, I found myself watching the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier below the Greek Parliament building...just the occasions at that one small sacred spot with its sacred ceremony, tell a history...once a vandal set afire one of the guard shacks...the guard didn't move until given the order by other soldiers there without the ceremonial duties...his clothes were scorched and smoking...another time, warning of a nearby bomb threat was given...the two guards remained at their posts...I was curious about the uniforms, and web studied that out...and found the story of the Greek soldier who was commanded by the Germans when they took the Acropolis in WW2 to lower the Greek flag and give it to the Germans...rather than give it to the Germans, he wrapped it about himself, and leaped off the edge of the Acropolis to his death...I've been squirreling away acts of defiance for a post sometimes!...
Pericles' time is called the Golden Age of Greece, and where democracy comes from...curiously, citizens would gather to vote on everything, and everything decided by majority vote, rather than electing political officers who would then decide, though I think Pericles held an elected position, so I have to puzzle over this and what the NOVA clip Restoring the Parthenon is going on about!...perhaps a remnant of this majority voting is trial by a jury of your peers in our courts...that, and the propositions on the California ballot!
Is there a vote coming up?...have to check...June it would appear for the Presidential primary...
Oh...while I've been goofing around, my tenant has been studying for her citizenship test to become an American...I hadn't a clue, until one morning I very early happened on Hanh's husband at the kitchen table...neither speak very good English, but husband is almost zero...after going through permutations of what sounded like 'citizen' , I said, 'Oh, citizenship test!'...and wished Hanh, all dressed up, good luck as she left with her husband taking her to immigration!...and she returned with the tale of the day, and her success...'I very happy!'
DavidDavid
Well, I was trying to think through how to do a post about Pericles, and I haven't a clue, the know how actually...the reach is for his consolidating the Delian League, and moving its treasure from Delos to Athens...and this just when the Persians destroy the Acropolis with its first Parthenon, and then are defeated by the Greeks...this wasn't a big deal to the Persians...Greece a country on the edge of their empire...and the Athenians were content for awhile it seems to leave the Acropolis in ruins, but Pericles set himself about restoring it and built the Parthenon known today...one can't help but read this story, and not see the correspondence to the Temples in Jerusalem...anyway, Pericles and the Athenians used the Delian League to fund the building, and much else, and they began to over reach, and the Spartans took exception, and war between Athens and Sparta resulted...Pericles participated at its outset, but a plague struck Athens, and he fell victim...and Athens fell to the Spartans...they used the just finished Parthenon for a barracks...
These old temples tell the history of their times...looking about, youtube tourist clips of Athens and the Acropolis, I found myself watching the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier below the Greek Parliament building...just the occasions at that one small sacred spot with its sacred ceremony, tell a history...once a vandal set afire one of the guard shacks...the guard didn't move until given the order by other soldiers there without the ceremonial duties...his clothes were scorched and smoking...another time, warning of a nearby bomb threat was given...the two guards remained at their posts...I was curious about the uniforms, and web studied that out...and found the story of the Greek soldier who was commanded by the Germans when they took the Acropolis in WW2 to lower the Greek flag and give it to the Germans...rather than give it to the Germans, he wrapped it about himself, and leaped off the edge of the Acropolis to his death...I've been squirreling away acts of defiance for a post sometimes!...
Pericles' time is called the Golden Age of Greece, and where democracy comes from...curiously, citizens would gather to vote on everything, and everything decided by majority vote, rather than electing political officers who would then decide, though I think Pericles held an elected position, so I have to puzzle over this and what the NOVA clip Restoring the Parthenon is going on about!...perhaps a remnant of this majority voting is trial by a jury of your peers in our courts...that, and the propositions on the California ballot!
Is there a vote coming up?...have to check...June it would appear for the Presidential primary...
Oh...while I've been goofing around, my tenant has been studying for her citizenship test to become an American...I hadn't a clue, until one morning I very early happened on Hanh's husband at the kitchen table...neither speak very good English, but husband is almost zero...after going through permutations of what sounded like 'citizen' , I said, 'Oh, citizenship test!'...and wished Hanh, all dressed up, good luck as she left with her husband taking her to immigration!...and she returned with the tale of the day, and her success...'I very happy!'
DavidDavid
Friday, November 6, 2015
The Siege of Gaza
A text only post, and about history, afield from fauna and flora, sort of...and grim, so dear readers, a caution to read on...
I'll put the search strings in bold, these are the beginning of a quote, and the link(s), the ulr(s), which are highlighted too, will be the quote(s) end(s)...
Like a by the wind sailor, Velella velella, I drift about...
In the movie Noah (see yesterday's post) there's this snake skin, a shed snake skin, and the movie writers have it that it related to the snake in the garden of eden, and this skin, when worn spiraled around one's forearm, imparts some magic from one generation to another...Noah uses it to touch the newborn twins...I thought it a curio, and in looking about, find that when Alexander the Great went onward from Jerusalem in his conquest of Persia he carried before him a flag with a brazen serpent, which was the flag/banner of the Temple and the Jews...the serpent was depicted as a serpent coiled around a pole, and there were bronze statues like this in the Bible stories too...
serpent pole Jews
In the biblical Book of Numbers, the Nehushtan (or Nohestan) (Hebrew: × ×—×•×©×ª×Ÿ or × ×—×© ×”× ×—×•×©×ª) was a bronze serpent on a pole which God told Moses to erect to protect the Israelites who saw it from dying from the bites [1] of the "fiery serpents" which God had sent to punish them for speaking against God and Moses.
there are like 200,000 visitors to this clip, in contrast to the i24 clips I've linked which have like 32 visitors...i24 is very hard to open and see...many in the comments section express a concern for her safety, which I am in complete agreement with...be safe...
oh, here's another:
Lucy Aharish (i24) asks why don't the people in Gaza protest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vAhx5Th_ck
and here is another, a cnn interview of Lucy, and at the, the climax, as it is a performance!, she says what I thought...opportunities for the young...there are a lot of young in the middle east...it's a matter of rebuilding and infrastructures...cities...
Arab-Israeli journalist blames both sides; Israel/"Palestine"; 10-16-2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSyqU47shv0
I'll put the search strings in bold, these are the beginning of a quote, and the link(s), the ulr(s), which are highlighted too, will be the quote(s) end(s)...
Like a by the wind sailor, Velella velella, I drift about...
In the movie Noah (see yesterday's post) there's this snake skin, a shed snake skin, and the movie writers have it that it related to the snake in the garden of eden, and this skin, when worn spiraled around one's forearm, imparts some magic from one generation to another...Noah uses it to touch the newborn twins...I thought it a curio, and in looking about, find that when Alexander the Great went onward from Jerusalem in his conquest of Persia he carried before him a flag with a brazen serpent, which was the flag/banner of the Temple and the Jews...the serpent was depicted as a serpent coiled around a pole, and there were bronze statues like this in the Bible stories too...
serpent pole Jews
In the biblical Book of Numbers, the Nehushtan (or Nohestan) (Hebrew: × ×—×•×©×ª×Ÿ or × ×—×© ×”× ×—×•×©×ª) was a bronze serpent on a pole which God told Moses to erect to protect the Israelites who saw it from dying from the bites [1] of the "fiery serpents" which God had sent to punish them for speaking against God and Moses.
Nehushtan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Graves in The White Goddess proposes solutions to a riddle poem called Hanes Taliesen...each line is a riddle, and one line is:
"I have borne a banner before Alexander"
...the ancient bards looked to have written, spoke most likely, long riddling poems filled with puzzles and allusion that challenged one another, and too for instruction of young bards...I don't know if we have anything similar nowadays, except maybe on game shows, or trivial pursuit games...one needed a terrific memory to be able to participate in these challenges...nowadays there's the web, and I can kind of cheat..:)...
Graves in puzzling over this line, concludes:
"To the learned Gwion therefore, a banner borne by Alexander was equally a banner borne by Moses, and St. Jerome, or his Jewish mentors had already made a poetic identification of Alexander's horns with those of Moses.
The banner of Moses was 'Nehushstan', the Brazen Serpent, which he raised up to avert the plague in the Wilderness."
pp80-81
The White Goddess
Robert Graves
this is on web, but pdf, so cant copy/paste
When I visit the family grave plots, nearby is a statue of Moses, with horns.
(update: have this wrong...graveyard Moses has no horns, but I think it is copy of Michealangelo's, which does, I think!)
It would be a too far reach to connect the Brazen Serpent with the snake skin in the move of Noah, the later looks to be creative story telling...and the banner may not have been a flag, but rather a tall pole with a bronze snake coiled about it...and it would be carried before a Jewish army, and Alexander's...and this in legendary lore...legendary lore surrounds the Bible stories...like stories surround the Bible from the Apocrypha and Torah...
And the Bible studies point out that when Moses fashions the curative serpent on a pole, it is a foretelling of Jesus dying on the cross...
moses serpent pole
And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
Numbers 21:9
Well, that was an unexpected find, and it is a connection, and connections of all sorts...the notions of a serpent as evil from the days of the Garden of Eden, is flipped about, and the serpent on the pole is curative...as Jesus will be on the cross...if this emblem was over the Temple, I don't know, but it would follow...and as I related earlier, Jesus was crucified nearby the Temple...becoming, for a moment, its 'banner'...
Before he came to Jerusalem, Alexander fought at Tyre and Gaza...he had more success than Napoleon...and Alexander asked Jerusalem for help, but they declined, citing treaties with Darius the Persian, so when Alexander defeated Tyre and Gaza, he marched right up to Jerusalem in a rage, but Jerusalem prepared, dressed up in best finery, opened the gates, and welcomed Alexander...both had had prior dreams of one another, Alexander of the Jews, and the Jews of Alexander...and when Alexander met the high priest at the Temple, there was recognition of this by both sides, and an alliance and peace were made...
alexander temple Jerusalem
for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dion in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians;
Alexander visits Jerusalem
The site is quoting Josephus...
Oh, and I watched Lucy Aharish News of Today, 11/4/15 i24 late last night...this is becoming a favored routine!...she takes things personal sometimes in the back and forth, and one guest was berating her, 'you are a journalist, you must be objective, and not in the pay of your employers' or some such, and Lucy wouldn't have it...the guest was a curio, a Palestinian spokesman...he was in the Anna Baltzer interview a few years back with John Daily...brb...Mustafa Barghouti is the guest's name...Lucy was trying to bring to light the subject of Palestinians using social media, radio broadcast, and such, to instruct one another on how to maim and kill...Mustafa didn't want to go there...'it is for me to answer the questions, and for you to ask, it's not for you to give your opinion and bend things propaganda like, like your employers would have it'...or some such...Mustafa would find sympathy with the republican candidates. both being beset by journalists going beyond their stereotypical ask and answer interview format!...at the end of the show there is a Rabin memorial segment with two guests, and Lucy brings it to the close with the question, 'How will things be ten years from now?'...
and I left off wondering about that, and came to the realization that what both the Palestinians and Israelis want isn't land so much, but Cities...big ones like New York, London, Paris...the movement from rural areas to cities is well studied...and I was wondering if Gaza, the little strip of Palestinian land along the Mediterranean had a city, and if the West Bank, where the remainder of the Palestinians are, has a city...oh....this is a project for a post, but on reading about Alexander's conquest of Gaza, I realized Gaza is a city, a very old one!...I had thought Gaza referred to a territory of land like the name of a state.
Gaza alexander
According to the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus, Batis was killed by Alexander in imitation of Achilles' treatment of the fallen Hector. A rope was forced through Batis's ankles, probably between the ankle bone and the Achilles tendon, and Batis was dragged alive by chariot beneath the walls of the city. Alexander, who admired courage in his enemies and might have been inclined to show mercy to the brave Persian general, was infuriated at Batis's refusal to kneel and by the enemy commander's haughty silence and contemptuous manner.
Siege of Gaza
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Gaza
oh...I'm looking about for i24 Lucy Aharish show for today, and no luck...yet...here's an older youtube one, in it she's going on some more about the roots of incitements...all on her own...
(go to youtube)
Lucy Aharish mad as hell)
VIDEO: Amazing. Powerful words from Israeli-Arab reporter Lucy Aharish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rYCQjQkRGs&list=PLUhcXOFf515wH0kAe0u1sfvYxJRBp8Vbi
oh...I'm looking about for i24 Lucy Aharish show for today, and no luck...yet...here's an older youtube one, in it she's going on some more about the roots of incitements...all on her own...
(go to youtube)
Lucy Aharish mad as hell)
VIDEO: Amazing. Powerful words from Israeli-Arab reporter Lucy Aharish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rYCQjQkRGs&list=PLUhcXOFf515wH0kAe0u1sfvYxJRBp8Vbi
there are like 200,000 visitors to this clip, in contrast to the i24 clips I've linked which have like 32 visitors...i24 is very hard to open and see...many in the comments section express a concern for her safety, which I am in complete agreement with...be safe...
oh, here's another:
Lucy Aharish (i24) asks why don't the people in Gaza protest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vAhx5Th_ck
and here is another, a cnn interview of Lucy, and at the, the climax, as it is a performance!, she says what I thought...opportunities for the young...there are a lot of young in the middle east...it's a matter of rebuilding and infrastructures...cities...
Arab-Israeli journalist blames both sides; Israel/"Palestine"; 10-16-2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSyqU47shv0
DavidDavid
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