As time crushes you, bends you earthward, be drunk: with wine, poetry, earth.
Today’s American Sentence is inspired by this quote: Read more…
I’m rage sighing, no pants wearing, headed for electric chair eating.
Also: day drinking, toilet paper hoarding, weed pulling, cat walking.
Hand washing, hand washing, hand washing, hand washing.
What’s your coronavirusitis Monday Every Day Agenda?
April is National Poetry Month plus locked down with stay in place orders so I’m posting an American Sentence or two every day along with an image that reflects my experience during life in the time of the corona.
Today is the predicted peak day of COVID-19 in California. My agenda usually includes lots of outside time and exercise including traveling, skiing, walking, hiking, gardening, yoga, pilates, and Foundation Training. I’m fortunate that my home is near the beach, hiking trails, and the Ventura Botanical Garden.
But we are supposed to stay home and we are doing our best, and other than gardening, I’m just not doing much, not even my yoga practice. At least I’m doing my writing practice here with these American Sentences and writing about my travels plus lots of writing on my wine blog, and getting out and working in my yard.
It’s worth it. It seems we are flattening the curve. We’re doing it right in California. We’re saving lives.
According to today’s Press Play with Madeline Brand on KCRW, Read more…
Crisis Bunny concept model: MB Hanrahan. Photo: Dina Pielaet.
Life in the time of corona: the Easter Bunny wears mask and gloves.
April is National Poetry Month. It’s also life during the time of the corona virus. So I’m posting an American sentence or two every day along with an image that attempts to document what it is like. Ventura Dina Pielet took this photo of Crisis Bunny (MB Hanrahan) carrying a basket of masks while wearing one along with gloves. This is part of a series that MB has created over the years, and many of them are collected in her book, Holidaze Cards. Read more…
National Poetry Month: April 11, 2020 — Covid Dreams
This covid couple sports handmade masks — they may not be proper but they serve the purpose! Felted handcrafted art and photograph by Borbala Arvai.
These days so bizarre it’s hard to separate dreams from reality.
April is National Poetry Month. It’s also life during the time of the corona virus. So I’m going to post an American sentence or two every day along with an image that attempts to document what it is like. The covid couple above is by Borbala Arvai; more of her work below. Read more…
Husserl says the world is yours to make on each and every occasion.
April is National Poetry Month plus locked down with stay in place orders so I’m posting an American sentence or two every day along with an image that reflects the sentence and my experience during this life in the time of the corona virus.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I am missing my walks in the world. But it is more than just the physical walk. It’s the mental walk too.
Henry David Thoreau reminds us: “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
What are the thoughts that dominate our minds? What have we planted in the soil of contemplation? What’s your American Sentence for today?
Allen Ginsberg came up with the concept — an American sentence is like a haiku in that it has 17 syllables but it’s not three lines in a stanza but one line, a sentence. As haiku seeks to offer an image that generates emotion and conveys a moment in time, the best Sentences do more than just be a sentence in 17 syllables.
I learned about American Sentences from Paul E. Nelson who I met at the Taos Poetry Circus in 2000.
According to Paul, the key to writing a good American Sentence comes from Ginsberg’s notion that poets are people who notice what they notice.
He has been writing one a day since January 1, 2001. Learn more about American Sentences and how to write good ones from Paul here.
Share your own American Sentence in the comments!
IMAGE with Thoreau quote is by Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo: “One of the only westerners trained in the rare Buddhist art of silk applique thangkas, she is passionate about the preservation and evolution of this Tibetan cultural tradition. His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave his blessings to Leslie’s work and encouraged her to make images that speak to the spiritual aspirations of people across religions and cultures. Leslie’s work is simultaneously traditional and contemporary, and her fascinating story is the subject of the acclaimed documentary film, Creating Buddhas: the Making and Meaning of Fabric Thangkas. Leslie mentors a select group of students around the world through her Stitching Buddhas Virtual Apprentice Program, and her Weekly Wake-ups provide a thread of inspiration to set your week on the path to awakening.”
The Latin phrase solvitur ambulando means “It’s solved by walking.”You be soul by walking; you create your world the way you walk in it.
During Covid, I miss making soul as I move through the world walking.
April is National Poetry Month plus locked down with stay in place orders so I’m posting an American sentence or two every day along with an image that reflects the sentence and my experience during life in the time of the corona.
I usually walk about 10 miles a week, Read more…
While we have been busy sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, and not taking dirt or any other paths, a lot of people have promoted how the planet is taking a breather: the air is cleaner, animals can move about more freely.
But Sierra Club lobbyist Jim Hines says he has been busier than ever because work continues full sped ahead in the executive offices of the U.S. Dept. of the Interior and at the White House.
- APPROVED: building a new section of the Keystone XL Pipeline
- APPROVED: building a LNG terminal to send natural gas from our public lands in Wyoming to the Chinese market
- GOING FORWARD: opening up new offshore oil drilling
- DONE: eliminated protections for migratory birds
- DONE: shuttered the federal endangered specie act
- DONE: prevented all public comment on destructive projects
- APPROVED: mining for uranium on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon
- STOPPED: enforcing environmental laws on the fossil fuel industry
- APPOINTED: completed reappointment of anti federal lands zealot as BLM director
- CONTINUED: work on a BLM Director vision to create an autonomous region in the west from our national public lands
“Our challenges facing our nation are huge right now,” says Jim, “and to add to the problems each one of us has in attempting to stay alive some of us have to deal with an administration out of control when it comes to destroying America’s national parks, national monuments and other national public lands units and the protection of wildlife.”
- working through the courts
- reaching out to congressional members and staffs
- reaching out to Administration officials who are doing all of this
- informing the American public about what is going on behind the scenes right now…..of course all done remotely at this time.
Wearing boots and a skirt but no bra, I pull weeds, plant seeds between storms.
From Ginsberg’s “Guru”:
“It is the city that vanishes; I stay with my forgotten shoes.”
which reminds me of Ray Carver’s “New Path by the Waterfall.”
“Guru” can be found on The Lion for Real by Allen Ginsberg which features musical accompaniment by Bill Frisell, Philip Glass, Paul McCartney and others and on Ginsberg’s 1994 two part disc Holy Soul Jelly Roll; this track was produced by Hal Willner who died yesterday. Scroll down to listen to it. Read more…
From California to Kilimanjaro 1: My Journey to the Roof of Africa plus a link to Tony Fletcher’s Podcast
Kilimanjaro is the Holy Mountain of Africa. Standing at over 19,340 feet, it looms majestically over the countryside and dominates the horizon in Tanzania and Kenya. It’s the highest point on the African continent and the highest freestanding mountain in the world.
In spring of 2017, I made a “to do” list of sacred journeys. I’d already done part of the Inca trail but wanted to do more, I had been to the Pyramids, I’d walked around most of the Welsh island of Anglesey, and I wanted to do the Camino de Santiago. In 2021, I would circumnavigate Mount Kailash in Tibet. I slated Kilimanjaro for summer 2020.
But in December 2018, I was invited by Tony Fletcher to join a climbing expedition in August of 2019 to Kilimanjaro. I debated and finally in late July, I committed to the trip– one that Tony would record for a planned podcast, a series that would kick off his “One Step Beyond” travel adventures.
Originally presented on four Fridays February 7, 14, 21, and 28, it’s available online, and you can listen to Tony’s podcast here.
Right now because of the novel corona virus pandemic, we can’t travel. we can’t even really leave our homes, much less our countries.
All dreams to go there, do that have been put on hold, my own included.
(Yes that’s an American Sentence…)
Today Read more…
National Poetry Month: April 7, 2020 — Decide to Decide
Art by Daniel Arsham. Photo by Gwendolyn Alley. Willing model in Amsterdam July 29, 2019.
During days of corona possibilities, decide to decide.
April is National Poetry Month plus locked down with stay in place orders so I’m posting an American sentence or two every day along with an image that reflects the sentence and my experience during this time.
The American Sentence above was inspired by a Facebook Live with Seth Godin this morning. I took the photo when I was in Amsterdam on a long layover last summer on my way to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. It’s Travel Tuesday and I know many of us are longing to travel and missing out on planned trips; I should be coming home from a ski trip and packing for a festival and then next week going to France and Germany. But of course none of that will happen so I need to decide to decide what to do amongst the possibilities my life presents me. Read more…
art predator 