Of life and art I've had my say quarterly for 12 years. I've given myself permission not to do a spring solstice blog this year. I'm re-prioritizing how I spend my days and energy.
ALOHA
I now give my attention to
the rare gift of another day.
Monday, 17 March 2025
Index 2012 - 2024
Index
Updated March 2025
Paintings:
Untitled double haiku - Winter 2024
Visual haiku - fall 2024
Life Time artists book - summer 2024
Feral Wise Woman - spring 2024
Components for Explosive Words- winter 2023
Painting Time - fall 2023
Between A Rock and A Hard Place — summer 2023
Entanglement Doubled – spring 2023
Untitled – winter 2022
Hula II – fall 2022
Entangled series – fall 2022
Entanglement – summer 2022
Two untitled black & white — winter 2021
Falling Out of Touch — fall 2021
Chaos — summer 2021
Hula -- winter 2020
Mo‘o — summer 2020
the good enough life — fall 2019
intersection — fall 2018
aporia — fall 2018
Kupeke fish pond — summer 2018
abstract palm — August 2016
clementine — winter 2015
sea turtle — summer 2014
yin/yang Lino print — spring 2014
five palm paintings — April 2013
proposed palm poster — winter 2012
haiku:
5 new haiku - winter 2024
Group of six - fall 2024
Stuck - summer 2024
Custodian - spring 2024
Regressive Reality of Old Age - spring 2024
Words - winter 2023
Course Correction- winter 2023
Earth/Sky - winter 2023
Mandatory Overtime (two haiku) winter 2023
Fire - fall 2023
Transgendered — summer 2023
Reflection – winter 2022
A Gift – winter 2022
Gifts – fall 2022
Hopeful — winter 2021
Timefullness — fall 2021
(past/future) — fall 2021
Chaos — summer 2021
October -- Winter 2020
Expectations — Fall 2020
COVID-19, plus three more — summer 2020
change — spring 2020
harvest — winter 2019
connect — winter 2019
my good enough life — fall 2019
bonus — summer 2019
new year, plus ten more — spring 2018
1000 year old friend, plus eight more — fall 2016
whales — summer 2016
winter — winter 2015
paradise — winter 2014
what if — winter 2014
poems:
Custodian of Liberty on Strike - Winter 2024
Sip of Respair - fall 2024
Queen of Good Intentions - fall 2024
Custodian of Yellow - summer 2024
Respair - summer 2024
Game of Life - spring 2024
Overtime reconsidered - fall 2023
Paying Attention — summer 2023
Spider Woman — summer 2023
What My Library Means To Me — summer 2023
Allowing Another Overtime — summer 2023
hand moving – spring 2023
overtime – spring 2023 t
two friends – spring 2023
ode to my pain – fall 2022
kamakou – fall 2022
word salad – summer 2022
breaking bread – summer 2022
Watching the Mountain – summer 2022
maybe ruth ann — spring 2022
Abundance — spring 2022
Third Fig — winter 2021
Words — winter 2021
Awkward, awkwardly, awkwardness— fall 2021
Eclipse of Flower Moon — Summer 2021
Writer Aerobics — Spring 2021
Arrival — Spring 2021
Today — Spring 2021 (With eight sunrise photos taken off Kaunakakai Wharf)
Epistemic Poetry 101 — Spring 2021
Emily Dickinson & Joy Harjo -- Winter 2020
Expectations— Fall 2020
Poet’s Job Description — summer 2020
AOD (Adventure of the Day) — summer 2020
May — spring 2020
No Way — spring 2020
madness — fall 2019
head is colorful cocoon — summer 2019
consistent c —spring 2019
moving nouns — spring 2019
artist of intent — winter 2018
vertigo — winter 2018
binary paths — winter 2018
fragile — fall 2018
vast — summer 2018
O 2 K — summer 2018
return to central pacific — fall 2017
perpetual summer — summer 2017
ode to central pacific —spring 2017
persistence— January 2017
stories:
S.G. — fall 2019
world on a whim — summer 2015
travel blog — 2012 - 2013
art work from 1990’s and first decade of this century:
email:
rahowden@gmail.com
Thursday, 19 December 2024
Winter Solstice 2024
It's the time of year when light is returning, yet a shadow of despair is creeping around us - I barricade myself with words / poetry and painting; daily I express my gratitude for my home, friends and family, my art. I look for small delights. I keep practicing . . . persistence.
Untitled (double haiku)
Ruth Ann Howden
9" x 16"
Mixed Media painting / collage
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Head up and tail out
Mo'o in plumeria leaf
Dreaming in the scent
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Custodian of Liberty on Strike
The Statue of Liberty lays down by the shore
Putting out her torch in the bay
She has given up, enough with the hypocrisy
As the tide comes in, and flows out, Ms. Liberty wails
Calling for the superhero Maya to help
pull her out of deep despair
Superhero Maya Lin who folded the tragedy
And divisive energy of the Vietnam war
into a poem set in stone
Saying their names
Ms. Liberty knows that Maya is not alone
Many welcome all who wish to join their communities
Fear of change will not stop the change
What will it take to get Ms. Liberty
back on her pedestal?
Where will the flame come from
to relight her torch?
She cries her lament again and again
How can she welcome anyone to this current darkness
As the sun rises, as the sun sets
She cries with those yearning to be free
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New Haiku
Home is where one sleeps
peacefully waking happy
deep in gratitude
#
Juggling my thoughts
surprising combinations
ever new delights
#
Reading calms my mind
letting go of present time
Lost in book sublime
#
Custodial gift
Self-care by giving away
My art with a hug
#
A haiku a day
keeps the compulsion at bay
while I simply play
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The following is from Vicky Durand's book Wave Woman a biography of Betty Pembroke Eldridge - by dropping just one word, her curious sentence turned into a haiku:
"Speaking of friendships
everyone should have a bird
It won't deceive you"
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Visual Haiku
Taking my Visual Haiku
(4 x 6" mixed media images on paper
shown on my fall blog)
attaching them to fabric, making wall hangings.
They please me.
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I belong to the group, Humanists of Hawaii, and when they requested new lyrics for holiday songs, I found the exercise great for venting.
My contribution is set to We Three Kings of Orient Are; here's just the first verse and chorus (sparing you the rest of my rant):
We the judges of SCOTUS are,
Accepting gifts from near and from far
Right-wing leaning, somber proceeding
Following our TV star
O lead forever, our new king
Making deals that quickly bring
More riches to the one percent
Fear and hunger to the rest
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the entire song book,
a bakers dozen - unholiday song booklet is free to all at:
https://www.seedoflovehawaii.org/songs4all
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"Think lightly of yourself
and deeply of the world"
Miyamoto Musashi
(thanks Jamie)
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Words cannot come close to expressing
the great loss to our community of Liko Tancayo
Georgiette Likopualehua W.I.P. Tancayo
March 12 1961 – November 23 2024
I now turn my attention to the rare gift of
another day.
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