Summer Solstice 2022

 

Untitled — Entanglement 

MixedMedia on Paper

May 2022 — 30” x 12”

Ruth Ann Howden 

WORD SALAD

A salad, best fresh 

full of surprises like pickled beet, 

crunch of cucumber or celery, 

savory dressing, topped with pop of cherry tomato

A poem, best marinated 

in considered combinations, yes surprises – 

in word and beat and thought

A potluck of idle or busy mind

A compulsion or a meandering discovery —

All of the above, yes

This word salad aspires to 

nourish as well as to be enjoyed. 

If there is something not to your taste 

push it to the side of the plate 

and forget it. 

I will not be offended. 

My own pleasure, in a never perfect product,

will not be lessened.

Breaking Bread

Feeling too large

Taking too much space in this small kitchen 

My years of service blatantly displayed

None the less, the daily gatherings around me

Secures my place. After being lovingly washed

And set with cloth and cutlery I hold meal after meal 

Setting freshly baked bread in the table’s center - 

My ritual gift for those who gather 

around Grandmother’s table -

I ask each to say what they are grateful for today 

And what they’ve found to bring them a smile

It’s often the same

Only this sturdy oak table could hold so many blessings

Watching the Mountain 

Long before I found my treasured spot, molten lava welled up from earth’s core and spilled itself into a mountain

Welling up, flowing down

Ridges sharp, or softly curved, formed on the way back to the sea

Wind and rain accented these forms, earthquakes, landslides, erosion

Welling up, flowing down

Eons of change sculpt the ridges, life’s phenomenal growth clings -

This uneven ground we call home/mountain/mother

Welling up, flowing down

The clouds and mist, rain and humid air, reveal the subtle changes in color and curve

The bright sun blanches detail, highlighting the brute strength of rock, giving us the illusion of permanence, stability - convinced it has always been like this

and will always remain, no matter the destruction we impose with our desire to make all surfaces smooth and safe

While at dawn and dusk, the light, shadows, mist, reveal fragile edges being worn away

Long after all humans are gone, the earth will continue 

welling up, flowing down 

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Vernal Equinox 2022

 renewal, ritual, repetition— it’s always dawn somewhere — begin again

I’ve added to my weekly schedule the tending of a butterfly garden in front of our library

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.“ Cicero

After decades of restlessness, always moving on; I am finally at home - happy contemplating the shadows and changing light on the mountainside without the compulsion to see what’s on other side. As I am tending the butterfly garden, walking, or swimming,  it all feels right for this time of my life/meditative, can’t imagine anything better — I am lucky and grateful.

maybe ruth ann 

we might agree that I am ruth ann

or maybe not

all those photos from yesterdays

- they are someone else

the toddler and child, the

teen and young adult

all the memories and scars

tokens and jewels

these I own, along with official records

and old letters; but I’m only me today

that jewelry, those  photos and documents could be anyone’s

treasures found in thrift shop or estate sale

only the drawings and paintings, a few poems,

cinch me tight - yes, that’s me

we recognize each other, there is no maybe

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

I grew up in Southern California, and found it so boring that the adults were always talking about the weather. There isn’t much weather in Southern California. But my parents and aunts and uncle‘s had grown up in North Dakota where weather was a matter of life and death. It drove them out during the depression and drought. Of course they paid attention to the weather. 

I recall an uncle telling me about being lost as a teenager in a snowstorm and following a fence line not knowing if he was heading towards home or not. Luckily he was, but then he said, “I never told mom about it.” He was my grandmother’s baby, it would have been devastating to lose him so young. They tied ropes from the house to the barn so they could get out to milk the cows and feed the animals, and then find their way back. 

I’ve been thinking of this because of the climate crisis, the weather is again a matter of life and death. I saw a headline saying climate scientists were talking about going on strike because they are not being listened to. The inter-governmental panel on climate change has warned us, at the conclusion of a 6,000 page document, that “the window for action is closing.” Our president in his State of the Union address never mentioned the climate crisis.

       One organization that is actively looking to make a positive change is Bill McKibben’s Third Act, and the Banking on Our Future campaign, action we can take together to make major impact

check it out at:

Third Act

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

Words are my way working towards a sane/healthy future, often my words explode and come out as shrapnel rather than as the sharpshooter I strive to become. I let them fly anyway, with hope that I will get better at hitting a target in the future. And in the meantime they might add to the narrative of people working together for the greater good, to avoid mass extinction. And so I lob my grenade of a poem - it may be simplistic/stupid, but it lets me vent my frustration 

          Abundance

Take heart America

Yes, it’s sad hurricane and fire

have removed your homes

The ocean rise, super storms

and power outages, are

inconvenient for business as usual

Remember this is a

Country of Abundance. Just

consider all the guns

we own. And we have

phenomenal growth in trash

Abundant trash that 

grows with our abundant

hubris and distrust

We’re also racking up enormous

amounts of certitude to

our delusions

Add to our growing trash all

the violence, trauma

and hopelessness accumulating daily

While the bar is continually rising on

arrogance that can

turn away the needed talents

trying to cross the border, into this country of

abundant confusion and hypocrisy

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

renewal, ritual, repetition— it’s always dawn somewhere — begin again

In memory of my New York City cohort 

Eleanor Mefford (July 1942 - August 2021)

Winter Solstice 2021

 

ANOTHER YEAR - BE OF GOOD CHEER— THE RETURN OF THE LIGHT!

Third Fig

Edna was blessed with two figs: 

Searing light of inspiration and 

delicate balance of temporal home. 

I feel gluttonous claiming 

a third fig just for 

it's tempting taste.

(In homage to Edna St. Vincent Millay)

https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/millay/figs/figs.html

I am thinking of staging an art exhibit of my paintings and artist books in January at my home. If you are interested in attending please let me know.

  

Untitled — MixedMedia on Paper

October 2021 — 11” x 14” each

Ruth Ann Howden 

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I’ve read a lot this year, and I want to share a few notes from books that gave me hope.

This is not a passive hope that someone will save us, but hope for our being active together.

Timefullness by Marcia Bjornerud, (2020) I wrote about this book earlier this year, and I keep thinking about her incredibly long-range view of time/geological scale I know we would be acting far different if we could get free of our quarterly-profit mode of thinking. A shift in perspective. . .

Hope by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams (2021)

A survival guide for trying times is an easy read, well written in an interview format, listing four reasons for hope: 

1. the amazing human intellect. 
2. the resilience of nature. 
3. the power of young people. 
4. the indomitable human spirit.

What we nurture and encourage wins. A reminder of how much our words matter, even when we don’t know it; that hope is a socialist gift.

Radical Hope edited by Carolina De Roberts (2017)

“letters of love and dissent in dangerous times.” I liked how book was divided into roots, branches and seeds. Various authors writing about the time when #45 came to power based on racism, yet finding hope in indomitable human spirit. Horrendous stories of immigration and harsh reality of trying to make it in United States. Luis Alberto Urrea quotes Neil Cassidy as writing to Jack Kerouac, “Grace beats karma.” Katie Kitamura on distrusting certitude: “I need to believe in the value of the doubt I now feel, in its ability to create a space for the slowness of thought and conviction. I need to believe in it, not least because it promotes thinking before acting – – and if there is one thing we know about the president elect, is that he acts before he thinks.” And Celeste Ng’s family motto “ be kind, be curious, be helpful.” Goal is to be open always. Cristina Garcia, “ I hope technology isn’t holding you hostage the way it does so many of us today, fracturing concentration, keeping us neglectful of those we love, surrendering our time to eat empty seductions.” 

Saving Us by Katharine Hayhoe  (2021)

A climate scientist’s case for hope and healing in a divided world. Mostly she is talking about interpersonal connecting with values to establish understanding and trust. Individuals do not make much impact, except with their words and by banning together for action.

Feline Philosophy by John Gray (2020) — I am not a cat person, can’t explain why I read this, but yes it was enjoyable and thought provoking. “Human beings chase power in order to give themselves a sense of escaping death,… cats accept life as a gift. Humans are different. Unlike other animals, they are ready to die for their beliefs. Monotheists and rationalists regard this as a mark of our superiority. It shows we live for the sake of ideas, not just instinctual satisfaction. But if humans are unique in dying for ideas, they are also alone in killing for them. Killing and dying for nonsensical ideas is how many human beings have made sense of their lives.”

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (2020)

A novel based on her grandfather who successfully fought the US Government in 1954 to prevent their tribe’s termination.

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

hopeful haiku

Reimagine hope -

proceed by questioning all. 

It’s still possible

Words

Language is our super power. yet

We toss out words carelessly, 

they can explode with sweetness, or fury. 

Words can console or cancel,

then regroup into exquisite bouquets. 

I* want to spread words like seeds and rose petals 

toward a future of good cheer. 

Examine and question

Read aloud, what do they say now, and now?

Listen 

(*I am not a robot)

Index

 Updated December, 2022

paintings:

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: 

Reflection --winter 2022

A gift --- winter 2022

Gifts -- fall 2022

Butterflies — summer 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:

Ode to My Pain -- fall 2022

Mt. Repose -- 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:

https://members.efn.org/~rah/index.html

art by Ruth Ann Howden

Instagram/social media:

#rahowden

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.

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