Shall I list the things I've done this break from Aretha Franklin to getting my OS X Leopard installed? No! Bo-ring! Here's some depth:

Aretha was good. She's very big now -I mean large -and that worked well for the stage, though she was obviously out of breath when speaking. She wore a screaming turquoise gown with huge feathered sleeves for half the show. Made me think of David Byrne in the Talking Heads movie where he puts on a huge suit-costume to make him look bigger, have more stage presence. Well, Aretha had that. She kept flipping back her long hair and saying she had a bad hair day, a down to earth diva!

Evening was a "reverse opera" with the number of white folks similar to that of black ones at Atlanta opera - present but not in big numbers. Lots of beautiful people with a sense of community. Music exciting and nostalgic for me and others. It was a fund raiser for Joseph Lowery Institute. He's in his 80's and still a charismatic preacher - who referred several times to "Martin" and Aretha's father.

Then there was Thanksgiving with friends, catching up, even getting some artwork plotted out (I'm excited.) Dinner with S and brother with a memorable walk around the lake (see below.) Finally what can I say? I'm a geek at heart -had to get the latest Mac operating system and fiddle with it.

The semester is almost over - next week I'll be on retreat.

All is well.

Metta.

Junaluska round moon
perambulating in 26 degrees
so not last month's
too aloof
too white
too cold
and
its
moon-man face
is numb as mine

“Silence is the final and ultimate teacher and the final and ultimate teaching.”
- Adyashanti


Interesting to watch what is present, what arises in silence. One blip: discovering (presumed) academic dishonesty - a student's using someone's image and claiming it as her own.

Going through art theory books in prep for grad critique class, came across photo of Joel Peter Witkin's. BIG SHOCK! Had seen SAME image - exact in every detail - as a painting, the night before in critique! (This student is unlucky.)

It rattled my body - pounding heart and all this energy running through it. Shock, disappointment, anger - does this person think "I" (in bold 24pt!) can be fooled??

Will see how this plays out.

# # #

It snowed a few days ago and today it's balmy. Leaves are nearly all on the ground. Junaluska run felt good. And speaking of silence - not that it's not often silent in a different way, when he's here - Chuck is returning from a visit to his Mom's.

Enjoyable to be on my own. Beginning to accept and appreciate my hermit-like tendencies.


"True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment." - William Penn

3 fast paced days in Atlanta - dinner with friends, High Museum and galleries with students, and even shopping. Then combine six nights of little sleep with sitting near a chilly floor vent during "Hansel and Gretel" and there's me -teetering between keen awareness (of icey toes) and nodding into oblivian. And it wasn't a very good opera!

We stayed at one of those frou frou B&B's with bears and hearts and too much stuff everywhere. In room, was an inviting little burlap bound book with 3 ivory colored relief elephants on cover - "Pictures of My Journey in Thailand."

Opened it -Aha! Empty! An object full of promises that delivered nothing. Its function was to SEEM like it belonged to someone and give a feeling of warmth to decor. False! False!

(Tempted to bring some photos of our trip to Thailand and put them in next time. Or much better - take photos of the room and of the book and add those. Or write in quotes from "Simulations"....)

Despite an acute case of fake book angst, I had fun. We noticed Aretha Franklin was scheduled to perform at the Fox the following week and got tickets.


"...the sucessive phases of the image:
-it is the reflection of a basic reality
-it masks and perverts a basic reality
-it masks the ABSENCE of a basic reality
-it bears no relation to any reality..."

from "Simulations" by Jean Baudrillard

peaking colors -
gold and crimson
ride on chilly wind,
ultra blue sky


Friday at store in Asheville, noticed two young (East) Indian women dressed in western clothing. One was saying - "That happened to me in India one time..." Exactly what - had already been explained.

They were laughing and playing with such an intimate intensity, so rare to see publicly between anyone, regardless of gender, I wanted to stop and stare. I did not. Had some ego-driven fantasy that they would not be free to behave that way in India and wanted to give them freedom, and to show how broad minded "we" are in health food stores in USA. (As if they would have noticed!)

Pushed my cart toward grains, looked back momentarily and saw them in produce between apples and spinach - kissing passionately.

"You must let go of your desire to cling. The very same thing happened to me. I held on to things, such as the food I liked, the mountains where I lived, the people I used to enjoy talking to. But most of all I clung to the desire to be liked."

- La Gorda in "The Eagle's Gift" by Carlos Castaneda

The season of excess has begun - Halloween to New Year's Eve. Secretly dread much about Christmas. It's so compulsory, tribal, and overdone. I have lots of fantasies about simpler, bygone days when an orange and a walnut were major Christmas gifts....

So - the evening class watched "Art School Confidential" last night. I couldn't get into it. No, it was more than that: it really bothered me. On the surface, too many cliches about artists, and it just wasn't particularly a good movie. Characters were shallow and mean-spirited. It almost hurt to watch. Afterward students screened "Rocky Horror Picture Show" outdoors. (There's a good movie, wonderful musical.)

Me, I left movie halfway and returned to the inspirational Chef Ramsey! In his the current reality tv series, he goes to failing restaurants and turns them (mostly) into successes. I love his passion! He gets angry, screams, and speaks the truth because he cares about food and what he's doing. I feel that way about what I do too - however I pull my punches or try to find palatable ways of speaking (and living?) the truth. Ramsey does not. He's fearless and I think he's enlightened. (God -they're EVERYWHERE lately.)

Such an enjoyable day - really - for no good reason. Paid bills, sent a fax at library, made appointments, stuff like that - very ordinary. Oh, and my juicer came. Like a lot of things, having this is a lot LESS exciting in actuality than it was in anticipation...Then there are experiences like today's mundane ones - that are far MORE interesting than my image or idea of them...