First to the Gate
If you were born to innovate,
your one desire to create,
take care you don’t equivocate,
for if you do, I fear your fate
will be that you react too late.
Someone will beat you to the plate!
So if you don’t desire this fate,
Act boldly, friend, and do not wait!!!
The Daily Addictions prompt is innovate.
Thanks, Forgottenman, for bringing it to my attention. There may be a brief ad at the beginning you can cancel after a few seconds.
In the Open
The day is balmy
with segmented clouds.
The African tulip tree
spreads its boughs wide
over the seated ones
as well as the one who stands in front of us,
leading us to ground our feet,
relax our arms with hands palms up
and to go inside ourselves
to watch our breath
and be in the now,
in the state that she calls openness.
To be in the future is not openness, she says,
and to be in the past is not openness.
Only the now is really living.
And it occurs to me
that when I think I want a cup of coffee
and leave my studio to go in search of it,
then, in the kitchen,
can’t remember what I’m there for,
(and the reason why so many
friends my age are doing the same)
is because we are in this state of openness
more frequently
as we get older.
Wanting a cup of coffee is in the future,
and remembering we wanted a cup of coffee
a few minutes ago
is having to remember the past.
Standing here in the kitchen
listening to the baby birds’
loud cheeps
from their nest in the kitchen overhang
is being in the now.
And so it is that all of us, as we age,
are in the deepest stages of meditation
most of the time
and should not worry so much
about Alzheimer’s or dementia,
because we are where Tibetan monks
and ladies leading meditiation
would have us be.
Open. Living the now
with increasingly
less memory
for what was
or was to be.
The Ragtag prompt today is open.
Knees
Knees, knees, folks have knees
from Katmandu down to Belize.
In Peru, where they ride llamas
they still have knees in their pajamas.
Further north, up where it freezes,
even Polar bears have kneezes.
Knees, knees, folks have knees
to ogle, fondle, pet and squeeze.
(It’s easy when they’re under kilts.)
Some knees on roller skates or stilts
are scabbed and scaly, skinned and sore
but still they know what they are for.
Knees are great to bounce a baby,
to kick a soccer ball, or maybe
to bend in prayer when they’re in church,
or form a perfect sort of perch
for swains who fall on bended knee
to say, ‘I’d like to marry thee.’
Knees, knees, folks have knees.
In sun they burn, in snow they freeze.
Yet knees can cross and knees can knock.
Knees can jog you round the block.
Knees are handy and dependable.
And aren’t we glad that knees are bendable?
The Daily Addictions prompt today is convenient. I ask you. What is more convenient than knees?
Hot Virginity
I must have said no a hundred thousand times
as we enacted first-love’s mimes.
Parked breath-heavy in the summer night,
how we would tongue and rub and bite
at those cloth boundaries as, at love’s height,
he asked if we might,
whereas I, preferring passion’s flight,
turned on the light.
Fandango’s prompt today was memory.
Click any flower to enlarge all.
These gorgeous little flowers were growing by the road. The largest was no more than 3/4 inch wide. Those are grass spikes behind them, if you want to guage their size. I’m holding the lower part of the stem so you can’t guage their size by my fingers as they are closer to the camera. My friend couldn’t understand what I was bending over and doing as I photographed them. Lovely miniature posies.
Numerous Mexican legends surround Rabbit, and each object in this retablo depicts one of them. Even the name “Mexico” is derived from Nahuatl words for the rabbit in the moon; and its capitol, Mexico City, is built on six lakes in the form of a rabbit. If you open the box this retablo sits upon, you will find inside a manuscript that conveys the story of the rabbit in Mexican legend and how I was drawn to it. The Aztecs had a legend of 400 drunken rabbits who were the gods of pulque–a drink made of fermented Maguey–the same plant that Tequila is made of. The woman sitting next to rabbit might be Mayahuel, the goddess of Maguey, but it is more likely that she is the Jaina woman explained in the quote below from the book Maya Terracottas.
“Representations of Maya women occur more commonly as Jaina figurines than in any other medium. These Jaina figures represent two kinds of women, both archetypes of female behavior. One is a stately, courtly woman who is sometimes shown weaving; the second is a courtesan who appears with all sorts of mates, from Underworld deities to oversized rabbits. The imagery of both derives from Maya concepts of the moon, perceived as an erratic, inconsistent heavenly body, whose constantly changing character follows the monthly cycle of female menses…
…The second female type is far more active, and she projects her sexuality…she is usually bare-breasted, and she gestures, as if offering herself to others. The demure woman may be painted in various colors, but this one is generally painted blue…Nothing else in Maya art conveys sexuality more convincingly than these figures. Although they may be conceived as the moon goddess and her consorts, they also reflect human behavior. As companions for the dead – perhaps particularly for old men – they seem to promise renewed sexual activity. For the living, such Jaina figurines may have been titillating objects for private observation.” (Schele: 1986, p. 153). Cf. Kimball, Maya Terracottas, p. 23
Since Fandango’s prompt isn’t up yet and I didn’t post to yesterday’s prompt of Legend, I’m doing so now. This is a reblog of a post done three years ago.
Click on any photo to enlarge all and see as slide series.
Cee gives us quite a bit to choose from today. Hope all of these things don’t need to be in one photo: geometry, bushes, window, brick, curtain, green, tan, wall, building, dark red, tree.
Some of the photos have many of the required components, all have some of them and all of the words are represented somewhere. Hide and go seek!
I loved this wild little car I found parked outside the pharmacy when I left it yesterday. Someone with a great sense of humor.
I’m not sure what this tiny flower was–perhaps a chive bloom? I barely noticed it leaning over in the tall grass of my lower garden. Beautiful in macro, though.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 