What a moment of calm and kindness. Belize, Ambergris Caye in particular, is full of life, brilliance, kindness, and heart. What a magical leap from winter and its time of reflection to one of transcendence. Breathe in the spirit and delve into the possible. We are all eternal light, oneness manifest.
We are That which is beyond This. We are that which is unborn and undying. We are that which is everlasting and ever-expanding, pure, free, forever. The lotus heart rises out of the muddy swamp to glow in the sunlight. We too must open our hearts to remake the world with knowledge of healing and beauty, not fear and hate. There is no future for torment and division, for war and slavery. The only way out is through Eternity. The only Reality is Pure Consciousness. We are That.
Once you stop clinging and let things be, you’ll be free, even of birth and death. You’ll transform everything. You’ll possess spiritual powers that can’t be obstructed. And you’ll be at peace wherever you are. Zen Master Bodhidharma (quote thanks to the Shelburne Zen Center newsletter)
We live in changing times of course, yet the eternal is unchanging and the source of all we know. Inspiration comes from breathing in life in each moment, but also as Nabokov says, with the magic that surrounds us. Peace is a choice of being.
I discovered in nature the nonutilitarian delights that I sought in art. Both were a form of magic, both were a game of intricate enchantment and deception. Vladimir Nabokov (quote thanks to his story “Butterflies” in The New Yorker)
from Shuvinai Ashoona “Mapping Worlds”
Exhibit at Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, QC
Dear friends, neighbors, and family,
Many seem to be baffled by the quiet at GreenTARA Space despite the mailings and postings about the focus on this year’s CAFÉxchange Project. Sorry about that! But I am loving the change and use of other venues to carry out the work. If you missed the Four Cuban Photographers photography show at the Darkroom Gallery in Essex it may yet come back around, but also maybe not… Please visit CCTV for a mini-look at the events or contact me if you want to see the work after it comes down. Links are on the homepage.
And mark your calendars for Sunday August 20th, 4- 6pm. The Selkie Trio—Mary McGinniss, Juliet McVicker, and Steve Wienert—returns to play their wonderful music in the Gallery. They weave a blend of strings, harmony, and deep rhythms from the well of rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, and Celtic song. Come listen to new material from their pending release “Blue Hour” and of course old favorites.
Meanwhile we still have more rain and rising lake levels.
Last week’s Lake Champlain Committee report: It has been two weeks since flooding devastated many communities in the Lake Champlain watershed and throughout the state of Vermont. The heavy rains lasted for days and sent rivers and streams over their banks, pouring into homes and businesses and carrying a swill of debris, nutrients, sediment, untreated wastewater, chemicals, and more into Lake Champlain. Of course we all know that it continues to rain and the impact of water, erosion, and overloading of nutrients carries forward into our future.
Note that you can support your local arts organizations, farms, and businesses by supporting them directly. Many have been directly impacted by the flooding and any money they don’t have to apply for is an amazing gift.
Curiously, all the rain has inspired me to spend more time reading… In particular a book called Power of Language by Voirica Marian. It reminds me that I once studied linguistics and had a passion for language. Maybe I still do. Marian goes from describing research on the impact of multi- and bi-lingualism to examples of different worldviews depending on which language you are speaking.
Here’s her description of your brain:
Think of neural networks of your brain as any other complex system explained by emergence theory. Complex systems have two key properties: (1) the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and (2) they are highly interconnected and dynamic.
The way that language abilities can change over time is explained by the second property: the brain is a self-organizing organism that learns and adapts based on input and experience. Neural networks emerge and change, connections strengthen as a result of use, and synaptic pruning occurs with disuse. (pp 62, 63)
In the chapter called The Ultimate Influencer, she talks of America’s founding fathers not favoring one official language.
Thomas Jefferson argued for having a multi-lingual nation because as a nation of immigrants the American colonies spoke English, Dutch, French, German along side the multiple indigenous languages. Presidents Adams, Jefferson, Garfield, Arthur, Van Buren – all used more than one language, both modern, and classical. Today we think of the USA as a monolingual English speaking country which of course belies all our current multi-cultural identities. While she doesn’t really get into the number of languages and their uses in the US, she does make a case for the variety of dialects across the country and for AAE (African American English) as a language. (p 131)
But I love her discussion of how we become different versions of ourselves in different languages as each language engages its own cultural values along with the words. She quotes a Chinese Proverb: To learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world. And this leads to a discussion of gender usage in different languages.
In America’s Indigenous languages, animals and plants are referred to with the same or similar animate pronouns as those used for humans, and the boundaries are placed not between humans versus everything else but between the natural world and everything else.
You hear a blue jay with a different verb than you hear an airplane, distinguishing that which possesses the quality of life from that which is merely an object. (p 135)
Argentina tried to push back on gender stereotypes by attempting to put an end to using gendered language and replace it with gender-neutral terms, while places like Sweden and France added new gender-neutral pronouns. In Sweden they added hen as distinguished from han (masc) and hon (fem) and in France the new gender-neutral pronoun is iel which merges il (masc.) and elle (fem). In English we’re adopting they which like the second-person pronoun you is both singular and plural. (p 139)
I’ll stop here with these passages from Viorica Marian’s book, but am continuing to appreciate how we need to know words from other languages, like Sanskrit, in order to more fully understand concepts missing in our own language.
Dear Ones,
Last week's blog was about "hot"… this week's seems to be about "wet", or shall I say flooding!
And the flooding is not just in Vermont - there's flooding across the world. India, China, Japan, last month Italy, the list is long and very particular. I had to stop searching for specific places as the details of water coming down, overwhelming rivers and streams, bringing mountains and bridges with them was an inundation in itself. Compound that with the heat on land, and the heating up of oceans -- think of the bleaching of coral reefs between the coast of Florida and Cuba, or the undermining of the Antarctic Ice sheet.
According to the 2021 Gund Institute for the Environment, University of Vermont, publication Vermont Climate Assessment: Climate Change is Here the Northeast is experiencing some of the most pronounced weather changes of any region on Earth due to global warming.
The historic 2°F increase in temperature is acting like a meteorological engine whose heat energy is driving us toward a climate that frequently generates extreme weather phenomena, both wet and dry. On average, Vermont now receives 7.5 inches more rain each year than it was receiving in 1900. Vermont’s storms and weather patterns are ranging from this week’s historical rainfall and flooding and the 2011 two-month long Champlain Basin floods which were followed by Tropical Storm Irene in the fall (dropping 11 inches of rain in some areas) to prolonged dry spells such as we had in 2020-2021.
These new weather patterns and extreme meteorological events are impacting everything from public health, energy use and tourism, to water quality, agriculture and ground water supplies [re. www.sustainablewoodstock.org].
We're not alone in this changing condition -- the devastation is not just to humans, but the trees, animals, birds, insects are all losing their normal habitat and way of life. And yet we persist. We are the strength of spirit which transcends. Our changing conditions surround us, perhaps as they always have... but still I watch the swampy snapping turtle walk its heavy body with prehistoric tail thru the culvert, up the incline, into the field to lay her many eggs.
We seek comfort in stability, in that which is unchanging and everlasting, in that which is beyond climate, and beyond our aging bodies. In that which is forever is the ultimate reality.
न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्
नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः ।
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो
न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे
"The soul is unborn and eternal, everlasting and primeval. It is not slain by the slaying of the body."
— Bhagavad Gita 2.20, "[2]: 225
Of course, there's Gallery news too. But not much, please check the website. This seems to be a quiet time to reflect on what matters, where we've come from, and how to keep our hearts whole. Thinking of the flow of life as it shines through us each day. Beauty is.
So hot today, but the sedums on the green roof continue to thrive these seven years later; the red currants are abundant and gorgeous in a tart; the walls are clean except for an heirloom linen & indigo dyed wool tapestry — which was given to my grandmother EEG by a cousin Angie — who was cousin Angie ? I can’t find this person in her family tree… This brings me back to my ongoing direction now that the months of work on the two Cuban photography exhibitions are winding down.
I am opening the collection of family scrapbooks and the letters, photos, and writings only to rediscover the layers of stories, the iconic images, and the intensity of history. The collected documents are volumes to read and contemplate; the travels and associated diaries extensive; and the course of political history more than I ever knew. No wonder I have been moving them around so much without opening a thing.
I will add this one quote however — it is from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) centennial publications From Semaphore to Satellite, Genève, CH 1965 where my father worked for 14 years. As I read about the first cable linkages connecting continents (UK to America in the 1850s and Europe with Africa in the 1960s) I think about our currents uses of these initial communication lines and now the development of AI interfaces. How hot is our world?
Le câblier Long Lines, mis en service au milieu de l’année 1963 pour contribuer au developpement du réseau de câbles télèphoniques transocéaniques. Cette unité appartient à la Transoceanic Cable Ship Company, filiale de l’American Telephone and Telegraph Company.
‘Tis done ! the angry sea consents, the nations stand no more apart.
With clasped hands the continents feel throbbings of each others hearts.
Speed, speed the cable ; let it run a living girdle round the earth,
Till all the nations ‘neath the sun shall be as brothers of one hearth.
Tiré d’une ode laudative publiée au Canada en 1859, au moment où le câble de 1858 était provisoirement en service.
Thanks to Jane and Jay for help in hanging the Cuban photographic images at the Darkroom Gallery… And thanks to all the Vermont photographers for lending their images of travel for the show at the Pickering Room.
Darkroom Gallery is OPEN F/S 11am - 4pm. Show runs till July 1, 2023.
Pickering Room, Fletcher Free Library, Burlington is OPEN during library hours by asking at the Front Desk. Show runs till July 6, 2023.
Thanks also to: Ken Signorelli at the Darkroom Gallery, Barbara Shattara at FFL, and folks at Green Mountain Camera, South Burlington.
Cuban Images by Cuban and Vermont artists abound! Such talent surrounds us as we strive for beauty in our world. Please join us at these two events to celebrate coming together again. The exhibition FOUR CUBAN PHOTOGRAPHERS is at the Darkroom Gallery, Essex Junction, VT and the VERMONTERS’ VIEWS OF CUBA is being held in the Pickering Room, Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, VT.
As of today, we are still unsure of whether the Cubans will be able to get US visas in time for these events, but we are very priviledged to have their photos and the exhibition of 50 images is going up as you read this.
Plus we are delighted with the availability of the FFL Pickering Room to show off the images of Cuba that have been taken by Vermonters traveling to Cuba. The number of Vermonters traveling and photographing Cuba is impressive.
Other notes: We have a beautiful poster and Exhibition Book for sale. Of course the Images are for sale — with the money going to support the Cuban artist…. We also plan on videotaping the shows in order to create a media exchange if the in person exchange doesn’t quite happen… stay tuned!
And thank you to Green Mountain Camera for the printing!!!
Dark inky sky
three stars and a crescent moon
pure Joy!
Green Tara // Green Terra // Terra Firma // Firmament // Earth Goddess // Gaia // Goddess of Enlightenment