not quite universal

Awareness seems to come to me slowly sometimes, or in big batches demanding attention. Over the past week it has been about kindness. It has come to me in daily inspiration passages, in overhearing kind or unkind remarks, thinking about my own opportunities for kindness that have been missed, or those that have manifested. I looked through my journals for other times this was in my thoughts and found several quotes. I had not remembered even writing some of them down. So, awareness does come slowly.A brief internet search brings up thousands of quotes, poems and prayers. Obviously not just my concern, but one that is nearly universal!

Quotes on kindness:

Wherever there is a a human in need, there is an opportunity for kindness and to make a difference.

            Kevin Heath

Practice kindness all day to everybody

and you will realize you’re already

in heaven now.

            Jack Kerouac

The best part of life is not just surviving,

but thriving with passion and compassion

and humor and style and generosity

and kindness

          May Angelou

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

            Jean Jacques Rousseau

Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.

          Scott Adams  

Be Kind to Humankind Week (August 25-31) was created in 1988 by Lorraine Jara, after she heard a report of passersby ignoring a drowning man in distress. She was inspired to foster greater kindness in the world.

sharing art on the street

An artist who lives on my street has been hanging 3-4 art pieces every week for several months on the street level window screens of an apartment building. Some are collage, some drawings and few oil or watercolors. They are meant to be taken by passersby. I have been pausing each time I go by to listen to comments of the folks who stop to look. They are usually positive, sometimes expressing a great deal of appreciation. Most people look and then leave them in place. But, in a day or two, all of the art has been claimed by someone. The artist dates the pieces. Some are new and some are from past years. For those of us who write or paint or do photography with virtually no hope of making a sale, it seems like this sharing is a viable and sensible way of getting “recognition” for your work---and for clearing out your house!

inspiration to passion

The “artists’ book” is art that is realized in the form of a book. There are major collections of these works and the Pacific Center for the Book Arts mounts a significant exhibition every three years at the San Francisco Public Library’s Main branch. The passion and devotion of artists for their special area of work was so apparent last Saturday at a walk-through with the artists. From concept to completion of a final work may take months, even years. The central medium of the art ranged from non-traditional book forms, including photography, collage, hand-made paper to more traditional art forms of printing and the plastic arts. As each artist discussed their work, I thought of how we are called to a “passion”. In sports, dance, writing, in caring for family & loved ones, or for preserving a cultural heritage ─ what inspiration takes an individual from interest to passion?

I did not take any photos at the exhibition, but thought in this time of the World Cup, the passion of so many of my neighbors seems to be soccer and this photo might do to represent it..

lost in the sunlight

Are we given dusk to see what would be lost in brilliant sunlight? Do the smudgy, darker days of our lives sometimes have a greater clarity than those full of sun? Or, is it that the gloaming slows us for night?  Night followed by dawn. And, then it all repeats in a slightly different variation. Life, I guess.  (However, I did get a chance to use “gloaming”…which was the word that came to me when I took the picture.)

a second butterfly moment

Several years ago, on a warm summer day a magnificent painted lady butterfly landed on my arm. It was one of the most amazing moments of interaction with nature that I have ever experienced. We, the butterfly and me, stood silently interacting for long moments and then the painted lady moved on. This morning, sitting in my garden enjoying the soft fog-littered breeze, a Monarch landed on my arm and seemed to be observing me. It then moved to a flower, its more normal site. The photo is terribly out of focus, but so glad to have it. The poem is from the previous encounter.

When a painted lady touched my arm

Vanessa Cardui.  Hina,

messenger of truth.

Wings in symmetrical mandala:

symbol and man in a gyred dance.

You migrate from a somewhere:

on a code,

a portent, a command?

Unsure passing:

as real as death, certain as life—

signaling the intricate contingencies of love.

Oh, butterfly. Be not the trickster. 
Be the painted lady who touched my arm.

like the belt

Yesterday, I started to put my belt into my newly-washed Levi’s. As I have for my entire life, I threaded the belt into the first loop on the left side of the jeans. Suddenly, I realized that the belt, and probably dozens of belts before this one, could just as easily have been threaded through the right side. It simply had never occurred to me that there was a choice. It started a cascade of thinking about choices that are never made in life. Something seems to work and I go with it without even realizing there are options. I know the belt issue is silly, but how I view other important aspects of life, faith, history, politics and relationships are often like the belt.---un-examined and not questioned.

imported beauty

The beauty of nature in its myriad forms fascinates me. Yet, I wonder at what point do we look to the exotic, the imported and the unusual, but miss what nature provides at our doorstep. This glorious peony was at the sidewalk display of my local flower vendor. And, it had a tag “imported from Oregon”. Peonies were magical expressions of the fullness of spring when I was growing up in Colorado. My grandmothers and my maternal grandfather were exceptional gardeners and were tremendously proud of their spring gardens: peonies, iris and lilacs. But, it does not get cold enough here in the Bay Area for some of these to thrive. So, we import them. I love them and love the memories. Yet, I wonder if we sometimes miss what our generous climate gives us when we “import” beauty.