Fall Equinox 2021

 

Untitled - Falling Out of Touch

Mixed Media on Paper

August 2021 10” x 24”

Ruth Ann Howden

Awkward, awkwardly, awkwardness 

I feel indecisive, going in circles

I tell myself not to judge

Not to label

I say let it be, just pay attention 

In the great arc of time 

I aspire to be a mosquito

The one who gets but never gives, may last a long time, but never lives.

Maxim framed on wall of my childhood home

As an act of atonement I have slowed down, paying attention to my impact on the environment, and creating with the belief that art is an act of giving back/restitution.

The time for giving back is now. 

My proposal for national restitution that could be implemented immediately: Transform the 800+ military bases the United States has spread around the globe into refugee centers.

Our military industrial complex has proved to be the disaster that was forecast by President Eisenhower. The U.S. military (the world’s largest consumer of petroleum products)  has caused vast devastation and suffering throughout the world. All for profit. We can chose to stop, take that infrastructure and turn these facilities into life-giving action.

Timefullness* Puts World into Perspective

Look, time vanishes 

with all our urgent concerns 

while the rocks persist

* Timefullness by Geologist Marcia Bjornerud, published 2020

“The great irony of the Anthropocene is that our outsized effects on the planet has in fact put Nature firmly back in charge“

“As members of a technological society that can keep Nature at arms length most of the time, we have an almost autistic relationship with the earth. We are rigid in our ways, savants when it comes to certain narrow obsessions, but dysfunctional in other regards, because we wrongly view ourselves as separate from the rest of the natural world. Convinced that nature is some thing outside us, a mute and immutable thing external to us, but the earth is speaking to us all the time… We need to start thinking like a mountain, awake to all the habits and inhabitants of this ancient, complicated, endlessly evolving planet.”

Random thoughts

Deadline approaching

I used to say deadlines are my friends as they prompted me to get things done — things I felt were important and gave me pleasure both in the doing and in the completion. Now I do what I can, when I can, following the advice of the Oregon poet laureate, William Stafford, who when asked about writer’s block said, “I lower my standards.”

Choice

We’re all alive without our choice. No one has a say over the family we’re born into, nor our gender, race, nation, era. And as for particular talents, interests, physical or mental ability —it’s all a crapshoot. Our personal choices are insignificant, but our choices collectively can be astounding.

Giving Up

Giving up can be like paying forward. Giving up meat so the land can feed more people. Giving up driving and flying so we can have clean air. Giving up military bases so refugees can be housed. Giving up defense contracts so we can have universal education and health care.

“Up on my toes.” There was a girl in my kindergarten class who would start her stories that way. I think her name was Sylvia, but probably am just guessing at that. However, I recall her lanky stature, her mixed-race uniqueness in East Los Angeles (the third largest Mexican population at that time after Mexico City and Guadalajara. I wonder if that distinction has changed in the 50 plus years since I worked at Malabar School, in Boyle Heights.) 

Up on my toes is a wonderful phrase. It says pay attention, I have something to tell you. It also reflects back on advice to keep on your toes, as in danger, be ready to pivot, dodge, duck, change course. A reminder that you have choices besides standing like a deer in the headlights waiting to get hit. 

Up on my toes. A superpower I never achieved, but like to believe that Sylvia perfected it.

I had the pleasure of a vacation on Kauai’s lovely beaches with family in August

Photo by Vashti Ferretti

Back home. Life is good on Molokai (back to boring, boring is good)

The curlew and kolea have returned from Alaska, next will be the whales.

my past ties into 

your future with words to be 

recited aloud

Summer Solstice 2021

 all change brings chaos

reweaving reality

with fateful choices

Untitled (Chaos) by Ruth Ann Howden 

June 2021

Mixed Media on Paper 24” h x 28” w

My painting of chaos seemed to beg a dramatic red slash, or an explosive orange fireball, but chaos is an everyday occurrence, it goes on and on, and on. This image reflects that wearing down, the rusting out and clogging up of systems; while the life force keeps picking up and repurposing the debris. Finding an overall unity, a balance, the yin/yang. It just is. A slow deep tide rising and falling, stirring. 

My question is: Why does that give me hope?

Eclipse of the Flower Moon

The flower moon is setting

over the elementary school

Far to the south as the sun heads north.

Full, suspended, dominating imagination 

extending through the night —

An exceedingly long eclipse holds me.

Rising as a blood moon

Rising as a super moon

A blatant “look at me!” flower moon.

The first bite of a slow devouring

Demands I set alarm to view

Totality.

Obedient to celestial schedule

I rose and went out

Situated my plastic chair on the lawn and

Shared most of an hour feeling

the reality of, the physical

presence of, our only moon

swathed in my shadow.

Feeling the pull that rules the tides

( tides - the only natural phenomenon that

Man hasn’t fu****-up, yet. No, not true

king tides flood basements of Waikiki hotels) 

Yet, tonight a peaceful reminder of cycles

That bring health and renewal.

Now the flower moon is setting 

and I embrace another day

Best started with a poem.

*********************************************

      In loving memory of my dear friend
          Carolyn Pryor  (1934 - 2021)

Spring Equinox 2021

 

This rainbow greeted me at dawn on the first day of the year — 01012021

O After I read Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Schapiro — Analysis of Shakespeare Plays in America, published 2020; I came across a brilliant piece by Elizabeth Winkler, Was Shakespeare a Woman?, From the Atlantic, collected in The Best American Essays 2020, André Aciman editor

Hers was the last essay in the book, only because of alphabetical placement by author’s last name, but it was the most uplifting and positive way to end the collection. Winkler presents excellent evidence that Shakespeare did not write the plays but was a con-man. Attribution is given to Amelia Bassano Lanker, born in London in 1569 to a family of Venetian immigrants -– musicians and instrument makers who were likely Jewish – – she was one of the first women in England to publish a volume of poetry, “ suitably religious yet startlingly feminist, arguing for women's liberty and against male oppression.”

It really pleased to me to consider that title; it certainly seems possible.

My New Year’s Resolution is to ask a beautiful questions. What if?

Somehow that all fits in with Amanda Gorman’s inspiring inaugural day address.

“Now more than ever, the United States needs an inaugural poem,” Gorman said. “Poetry is typically the touchstone that we go back to when we have to remind ourselves of the history that we stand on, and the future that we stand for.”

Hearing her (and lots of other young voices online) gives me hope for a future. The human possibilities/imaginations give greater hope than technologies to straighten out the mess we have caused. Art saves lives.

I realize I want my art to be ‘perfect’, but am not patient enough to achieve it. My life seems to continually spiral back into itself, back to repetition, back to art, it is all good.

Here’s some of my recent/imperfect poetry:

Writer Aerobics

Perhaps 

maybe 

we’ll see 

it might be possible 

under consideration

can’t decide 

rewrite 

try again

Again

Arrival

What are the semantics of place

Return

Agency

Questions – – 

Haunting loops

an in-betweenness balancing act

my words are placeholders

finding own sense in color and rhythm

I will know

When we get there

Today

We might agree this is today

but I'm not sure 

yesterday and someday are lost

the feeling of Monday is certainly gone

Monday was full of expectation, energy

Another day came and left

this day or that day

having only the now, and forced

meditation on impermanence

Epistemic Poetry 101

1

Birth — we begin

Mimicking the language(s) heard

using those words to gather more words

A web commences like

Escher’s hand drawing a hand.

Off we go, out and in —

macro leaps of ideas, micro dives into reason

All without knowing ourselves or how we fit in

And the magical part is, we don’t need to know

for it all to knit together 

into family and community

each adding to the pattern — the swirl of life

2

Gathering knowledge, sharing, coming to agreements

how we live together.

We agree to drive on the right side of the road

or the left, it is arbitrary, but life assuring

Leaving home in the morning, rounding

the necessary bases of daily life,

confident of returning home 

bound in web of traffic agreements

Agreements are fluid, change continual 

Freeways, super-stores, trade deals pushed through 

with lives bypassed/discounted

Notions of exceptionalism disguise, disregard

How can I not feel responsible

recognizing the global destruction 

overwhelming collateral damage —

We could agree to do no harm

3

My clicks through the ether are tracked by systems I cannot comprehend

our patterns of searching, posting, following, have value —

how do we share that wealth, who really owns it?

What else could be done with it?

What can I know about me?

What is known about me?

Who decided, who could decide 

who profits from all that information?

4

Life has been defined as “a self-sustained 

chemical system that is

capable of Darwinian evolution.”

But that tells me nothing about my life

Self-reflection — absurd attempts at seeing myself

in the past-future, in a future-past, in the slippery-now

As I use my memory, it changes

Let the masks fall — I was, once never / I will, forever no longer be

Living with contradictions and constant possibilities 

a life-game we play alone/together

Let’s make it a loving, playful game

5

My task is to unmask myself, hold my roiling 

contradictions up for all to say, ‘see, that’s who she is’ 

Perhaps if I were to step outside of myself —

but again like an Escher drawing, the exit leads back inside

Drawing my words adds to the texture of life’s web 

creating unique paths, new connections, solid anchors

In this tangled mess, looping through time 

is there another me who sprinted off on a different path

But she would be someone else, and 

would we even recognize each other?

Or did my choices throw that draft away 

leaving me to carry on - often unsure, hesitant

But sometimes delightedly dancing on

— on a high of ideas and possibilities

Compulsively playing, replaying, this  life-game with

self-modifying rules and unknown perimeters

Choices skewed by illusions of

free will, entitlement, exceptionalism

Yet, amazingly, I know I am alive

that much knowledge is enough

It took four years, but my first plumeria bloom is perfect, the scent pure pleasure

Winter Solstice 2020

 

Celestial Harmony

‘Great conjunction’ Saturn and Jupiter December 21

Closest alignment of largest planets in our solar system since 1623

October Haiku

This odd, even year

Date: 10102020

Delight in balance

Untitled (Hula)

10” h x 11” w

by Ruth Ann Howden 

Mixed Media on Paper

I’ve spent a lot of time this fall with Federico Fellini and Emily Dickinson. They have a lot to say about the mystery and absurdity of life.

Voice of the Moon, Fellini's last film from 1990, ends saying if we'd all be a bit more quiet we might hear something. 

My feeling is that writing is a form of listening. I write (listen) every day, but have very little to say. What I want to do is share some thoughts gleaned from my reading this year:

Charles Mackey, The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse

 “ Don’t measure how valuable you are by the way you are treated.”

I’ve wondered about the value of my art/life and am aware that a mass produced car (vintage or new) is more valuable than all the art I’ve ever produced.

But then one of my favorite New Yorker writers, Adam Gopnik, sees a kind of lesson in Van Gogh's fate. "It is the moral luck of making something that no one wants in the belief that someone someday will. It is a long shot in a society of sure things. But this moral luck of van Gogh remains at odds with our own liberal civilization that always, and usually intelligently, prefers compromise to courage."

Line from Fellini film “It is only curiosity that makes me get up in the morning.“ 

So I also get up and look for answers, which lead to more and more questions, and leads to delight in the mystery of it all. Remember to beware of answers you can’t question! 

American philosopher Eric Hoffer, “Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.” It is a good reminder that propaganda often is more personal than we realize, and it might be one of the reasons it is so hard to recognize for many. (From Hyperallergic, online arts newsletter)

And then there is the wisdom of Marilynne Robinson in What Are We Doing Here, 2018, 

“Early American historiography is for the most part a toxic compound of cynicism and cliche, so false that it falsifies by implication the history of the western world. To create a history answerable to the truth would be a gift of clarity, sanity, and purpose. The great freedom of conscience would be its liberation from our own cynicism, conventionalism, and narrowness of vision.” 

And of course, James Baldwin, reminds us that the United States continues to be in chaos as long as it won’t face the truth of our past. He is certainly still relevant today, Black Lives Matter. Look up the Resistance Revival Chorus on YouTube – – they are inspiring. I love Ella’s Song, and they cover Woody Guthrie.

Getting back to Emily Dickinson, I highly recommend A Loaded Gun, Emily Dickinson for the 21st Century by Jerome Charyn, published 2016, an excellent book on her life and poetry. I chose to read it because it has the same title as a wonderful film made in 2002, Loaded Gun: Life Death and Dickinson, by Jim Wolpaw and Steve Gentile. A trailer can be viewed at:

https://youtu.be/IFVr03AqQrA

These lines are by Emily Dickinson

“The brain is wider than the sky“… “The brain is deeper than the sea. ..The brain is just the weight of God,/ For, lift them, pound for pound,/and they will differ, if they do,/as syllable from sound.” 

A few more (unusual) book notes:

Activist Odyssey by Silvia Hart Wright

2020 publication by Eugene Oregon author. After reading I went to put a review on Amazon but was rejected because I have not spent at least $50 on Amazon this year. I don’t intend to either. My books come from the library, friends, and Powell’s Books in Portland Oregon.

The Elements of Style by Strunk, White,  illustrated by Maira Kalyan, forward by Roger Angel ( E.B. Whites stepson). A delight, a gem, puts all how-to-write books to shame.

The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley

2018 — novel based on Beowulf - contemporary telling

Old In Art School by Nell Painter

2018 — history professor and author always wanted to paint; does so when retired. I was curious about her academic work and next read her textbook The History of White People

The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnakova

2020 — starting with question of how much is luck and how much is skill, evolved into the depth of self knowledge and analysis of decision making

I started the year with  An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo, Poet Laureate of USA (member of Muskogee Creek Nation, and she plays saxophone too) — imaginative truth teller, musical and compelling, must read again and again! Here is a taste of her work:

“These lands aren’t our lands. These lands aren’t your lands. We are this land.”

Song 6.

Let ‘Em Eat Grass

What we speak always returns

With a spike of barbs

Or the sweet taste of berries in summer

And the last book I completed was Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Schapiro

2020 — analysis of Shakespeare Plays in America as a reflection of the culture wars going on.

Scholarly yet easy to read/follow; the importance of the play topics are relevant and cause intense partisan and political implications. Subtitle: what his plays tell us about our past and future.

fall equinox 2020 - sunrise photos from Kaunakakai wharf

 We might agree this is today 

But I’m not sure.

Yesterday and someday are lost

The feeling of Monday is certainly gone

Monday was full of expectation, energy

Another day came and left

This day or that day

Having only the now, and forced

Meditation on impermanence.

what expectations 

from others, or from myself 

nothing / everything

Do I live by expectations – – even when nothing is expected of me, 

even when I expect nothing of myself, much less expect anything from the world

Lock-down closes paths

It seems there is only one way left

Leading directly to the end

Lessons learned from air travel:

1. During most of the flight, the plane is auto correcting to get back on course

2. If oxygen masks drop, put your own on first before attempting to help others

3. The exit may be behind you

4. It is a very small, beautiful world

Lessons learned from road trips:

1. Perfect time to sit with thoughts

2. Changes can come fast

3. Planning may or may not help

4. Movement seems faster closer to the ground

Lessons learned from walking:

1. Pay attention

2. When watching birds stop walking

3. The world changes every day

4. We are a part of the world

In  What Are We Doing Here? Essays by Marilynne Robinson, she wrote:
Early American historiography is for the most part a toxic compound of cynicism and cliche, so false that it falsifies by implication the history of the western world. To create a history answerable to the truth would be a gift of clarity, sanity, and purpose. The great freedom of conscience would be its Liberation from our own cynicism, conventionalism, and narrowness of vision. 

I’ve had a lot of time in the last six months to read and to think. And my only conclusion is that we collectively have made a terrible mess of things. I have also found there are a lot of brilliant minds out there and that gives hope for a positive outcome, but the odds are not good. We do not seem to learn the lessons. 

Summer Solstice 2020

untitled mixed media 30” x 22” (Mo‘o)

Poets Job Description 

Paint an iridescent metaphor, build magic with words.

Articulate, tell us what you mean.

Enough of this ho-hum, maybe this, maybe that.

Put on the tragic mask and have us all in tears.

Can you enrage us, move us to mob action? Any action . . .

Don the comic mask and proclaim the absurdity of life. When else can you strut and storm if not now? The leaders lie and lie about lying. Make us laugh as if it doesn’t matter.

Hold up the mirror, force us to acknowledge the mask we wear. Reflect our truth, positive or not. Make it okay to go on living. Reclaiming our humanity.

Yours is an immense task, perhaps impossible.

The mask will help.

4 HAIKU

covid-19

Here, proof positive

no us/them division, all

interconnected 

 ****

a poem always says

slow down, wait, pay attention 

I want you to see

 ****

My long life only

mastered the mapping of my

own limitations 

 ****

Just change one letter —

when compromise is good

compromised not so

****

AOD — adventure of the day

(I ‘translated’ from youth to old age a poem published in December 30, 2019 New Yorker by Phyllis McGinley titled Portrait of a Girl with Comic Book)

77, it is no age at all.

It is nothing. 

At 77 you are invisible. At 77 

you have secrets from yourself

and friends you despise. 

You admit none of the terrors that you feel. 

Owning half a hundred masks but no disguises

At 77 you are nothing

AOD

June 13, 2020

Emily Dickinson knew about so much,

and she communicated her thoughts so well,

from her isolation she wrote — 

“Let us strive together to part with time more reluctantly, to watch the pinions of the fleeting moment until they are dim in the distance and the new coming moment claims our attention.”

Be Well, aloha