ha. you know a book is

good when you suddenly realize you've underlined almost every line and have a plethora of words circled and the margins begin filling up with notes!

this book is more useful for living but I recall my Debord's Spectacle text, which I read in 2005 while traveling in Europe, a gift from and with my mother-in-law* (the travel not the text), had every margin filled.

needless to say, I am no good with library books and don't know yet if I could adjust to a kindle. I remember things by their physical locations within the text, even the size, weight and shape influence my memory. my memory, cognitive and emotional knowledge, processing, etc are definitely stored and utilized via my physical body. hmmm even my capacity to express affection needs the vehicle of my body to realize and transport my connection to another.

some experience life through the mind, vision, sound, for me it comes through the tactile.

or even how I experience love--some experience it through gifts, sex, financial security, words of kindness, which are all good and helpful. me I need that pat on the head or ruffle of hair.

I think this is why moving away from graphic design (largely developed mentally and virtually) towards a very physical art making has always felt like coming home to who I am.

well and I love reading and learning but I still need to physically interact with the text.

*perhaps i am "suppose" to say "former," but tis the only one i've ever had so i don't think i have to qualify it because everyone else does it that way. kind of like when your mom used to say, "if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?" "yes mom..." most do. but i've never liked the herd even though i still do herd stuff--some herd patterns can't be avoided. some are actually good, keeps one from getting singled out and eaten. in this case, no one will be eaten if i don't follow the herd pattern by using stupid qualifier, "former."

Location: Westheimer Rd,Houston,United States

hmmm

how long will a woodpecker continue to work at the urban metal tree that we experience as a street light? how long til they dull or chip their beaks? or get really hungry? how long? or my friend Cynthia has a male bird that continues to fly into her window? smack, flutter, ouchy, and then again for months on end. is it simply from the male that looks back at him that he rebuffs the pane? in certain arenas, I've found humans to quite frequently be as repetitive. why? are these no longer functional defense or survival mechanisms? ingrained habits? I don't think these behaviors cause the birds to suffer for they seem only temporally located in that now. on the other hand, because our minds are not temporally bound in the present moment, we suffer as we understand these things as nonfunctional, even damaging, defense and survival mechanisms. we are such amazing but odd creatures that we can stand outside of the now and watch ourselves. there are definite gifts with this capacity and absolutely the potential to suffer because of it. perhaps this temporal fluidity of thought and heart is one smidgen of how we may a be like our maker. perhaps?

---

the wind is just amazing in a good way today.

Location:Pine Valley Dr,College Station,United States

they aren't very big but pretty they are

thought I would test a couple of freshly harvested red onions in an arugula salad today. I've grown several varieties of cherry tomatoes and the best tasting ones so far are the husky's I picked up at home depot. they are also prolific. the banana peppers are pretty good grilled and I haven't yet figure what to do with my other peppers yet. need to cause bush is full. pablano pepper bushes keep flowering yet I haven't seen even a remote beginning of a pepper. I've cross pollinated them with my fingers but don't see that as necessary as this gardening season I have attracted the usual pollinators.

---

it is just simple attention that allows us to truly listen to the sound of the bird, to see the deep glory of an autumn leaf, to touch the heart of another and be touched." -- Feldman and Kornfield

yes. if you or i work to exhaustion for money, identity, sense of power, even an internal chaos reduction, or work in the name of God, over extending self, working outside or beyond true self, the capacity to listen, see and touch is diminished. or if the heart and mind closes to listening and seeing because of wounds and fear, one cannot touch or be touched.

attention is possible when one does not over extend, getting mired down in ongoing exhaustion, even in doing good.

the need to listen, see, and touch as well as to be heard, seen and allowed to touch are real.

is it possible to hide in only one of these three arenas of attention? can I so focus my ear to the bird, that all else recedes? can I so focus my eyes to the leaf, that all else slips away? can I so focus my touch to the essence, that all else is lost?

it is the combination of the attentions that allows me to wake up in this moment. it is interesting how my how my body refuses to move back or forward in time but can only be right here, right now. my mind, on the other hand, flutters forward and back, temporally lost from the now. it is when I ask my temporally lost self to listen to the body that my mind and soul can come to presence. is this why god put us in sensory bodies so as to anchor us in the only space that is home, to teach us that only in presence can love and mercy have it's way with you and I?

www.kathrynkelley.blogspot.com

Location:Villa De Matel Rd,Houston,United States

the digital age is an amazing gift

I find it quite awe inspiring in the digitized intricacies, adaptabilities, maneuverabilities, down right beauty and the oppositional forces at play. wow. I am thankful I live in a digitized body

i couldn't help myself. sorry. I just think fingers and fingerprints are so beautiful and interesting.
---
separate contemplation from Parker Palmer

"as often happens on a spiritual journey, we have arrived at the heart of paradox: each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens up. all we need to do is stop ponding on the door that just closed, turn around--which puts the door behind us--and welcome the largeness of life that now lies open to our souls. the door that closed kept us from entering a room, but what now lies before us is the rest of reality."

i quit pounding on the door literally a bit ago with my last burger. I suppose my burger was a way of at least leaving my side of the door unbarred. obviously I have inwardly continued pounding the mental imaginings of the door; i did this in a way only heard by those with which i am close; knuckles still a bit bloody; yet, i was trying to not disturb the other room; repeatedly I've turned my back on that locked door but I've hovered in a weird preparation of it being opened. I just kind of thought it was what God wanted me to do, i think i misunderstood and my hovering must be a deep fear (?) and grief. of course nothing is that simple. Needless to say I've pressed my back into the door and stayed close, rightly or wrongly, but of late I've been venturing out in little bits from the locked door. each time I become lighter, and stay away a bit longer--coming to accept barred doors as simply barred doors. it doesn't even matter why they are barred at this point. they are what they are, no more no less. they are ways closed to me.

acceptance does not really diminish my grief but it let's me step away.

i find it interesting, moving, that in the spacious giftedness of the other-side of reality I now face, are many things, opportunities, I've longed for--building furniture, dwelling in the pine, the scent of starry nights, forming cement (oops, concrete) counter tops, rocking on my front porch. sure there are ways I imagined this occurring differently for always in the other dream were components that are now missing.

the ruminations of being forest and star bound, manifest. it is a gift on loan to me for while I am able and has come to me at a far younger age than i could have imagined. no human had to literally die for this to take place; in my old dream, I dreaded that someone would probable have to pass for the eventual dream fruition. now they don't. that gives me a comfort.

i will get my rocker, set out my compound miter saw, lift my gaze, and begin stitch stitching with my tie wire in this place. and I will be lighter in what lays on this side of the rest of reality.

all this may require me to take my bike down the gravel road a ways and enter the forest for rides under the canopies as well as plop a kayak into the fluid fingerlings dancing at the forests edge! a new way opens; i will take it and am grateful. don't think you'll find me gutting deer in the grassy culvert though, NO; i prefer cow, medium rare please!

www.kathrynkelley.blogspot.com

the unmendables

regularly, daily, by the moment
and then again
must i re-release
the unmendables
the ununderstandables
the unrelationships
the unundones
from that which lingers
within my inner flows
of heart and mind

I re-untwist the way
they weave and braid
through my soul

these fibers
really aren't undoable unravelable
they are to twined to my being
to who I am
to resist this is to unaccept
what is just so

so i learn to hold loosely the
compulsion to un the unnings
i open my grip
let them hold their own course
leave them as they are
embedded in who i am
they are now simply
a part of the myriad
from which I am made

to tug on the fibers of the uns
undoes me
unlives me

---

perhaps this is what John Middleton Murry meant when he said, "for a good man to realize that it is better to be whole than to be good is to enter on a strait and narrow path compared to which his previous rectitude was flowery license."

perhaps? I still must think on this one because used as license, it seems flawed; used purely, it seems truth and sometimes even stumbled upon erroneously, it can mend.

Location:Villa De Matel Rd, Houston, Harris, Texas 77023

rumble

will miss the water fowl, hidden greenspace, and such from the eastend hood, but probably not the continuous 24-7 rumble of I45

drove by the property the other day and meandered about a bit. I saw there was a four wheeler alongside the dirt road, as I drove up this young woman's head popped up guilty-like from within the culvert's thick grasses. with a sheepish smile, she held a bloody knife in one hand and a deer's haunches pulled up in the other. a whole new meaning to fresh road kill. guess she bumped it earlier in the day and decided not to waste it. what was really entertaining is she had that affluent look (with nice four wheel) westend look of my old hood.

as the bird flies, moments, merely a mile from pine needle floored national forest; worth the guilty grin of deer harvesting human along the rumbly ride sans the mumble of the byways.

Location:S Wayside Dr,Houston,United States

testing testing 1, 2, 3

three pieces of rough hewn 4x4 scavenged oak--left, stained with opaque white, middle, translucent cape cod gray, right, raw. though I like raw, it is to similar to floor color. plus top is going to be made from dark gray/slate like concrete. combining old/rustic with urban modern sort of... think I like middle cape cod gray best. it is similar to what restoration hardware is cranking out now. I can always give it and sanding to change it in future as color becomes too dated. plan on making dining table, end tables, maybe funky chair, bed boards/frame, structure to replace bathroom counter which is so low it his me mid thigh. bathroom still with concrete counter top but with sit on top bowl like sink. plus other weird stuff. free wood is free wood and it's a big plus it is beautiful. but art making first (in theory).

on a separate note:
the opposite of acceptance is resistance. -- Christopher Germer, The mindful path to...

this certainly seems/feels accurate.

on the other hand, I will have to ponder the following with it's weird sense of truth and awkwardness:

for a good man to realize that it is better to be whole than to be good is to enter on a strait and narrow path compared to which his previous rectitude was flowery license. -- John Middleton Murry

which Parker Palmer kind of toys with in a weird parallel...when moses asks god who is he, god replied, "I am who I am;" not "I am good."

spiritual fortune cookie

kind of interesting, I get this thing I call my enneagram fortune cookie each day by email from enneagram institute. the fortune (advice/suggestion) is specifically chosen base on personality(5)/type/nature.

this morning my fortune read, The three elements of spiritual practice are becoming present and aware throughout the day, seeing your personality in action, and not acting on your impulses. As a Five, observe your tendency to be cynical. Breathe and relax until something shifts and your state changes—do you still feel the need to be cynical? (The Wisdom of the Enneagram, 343)

i needed to hear that, I found this applicable and useful today.

you know it's been a warm and humid day

when you take your easy bake oven (toaster oven) outside to cook chocolate chip cookies so you won't overheat your studio! ha. though it's cooled off a good bit and the moon hides. must be my easy bake oven.

Location:S Wayside Dr,Houston,United States

the seagull voices

I think I will miss their dialog...

but there will be new sounds and songs heard, new bugs to slap, bambis to keep clear of my arugula, and sweaty work to be done in the shade of my micro forest. I look forward to hearing, slapping, clearing, and working. but mostly I look forward to being amongst the trees and moon light where I can actually smell the stars, see the drift of earthen sounds, and hear the green of the meadow's ripple.

nicely mooned

Thank you Sarah Fisch. I am flattered!

excerpt from “Texas Biennial” at 816 Congress: Office Space by Sarah Fisch posted on Glasstire.com.

"...I’ve visited lots of art in corporate spaces, but this was a freaky li’l experience, somewhere between gallery visit and Being John Malkovich. I went on a Saturday, and was let into the locked building, eventually, by security guards who talked at me through an unseen speaker.

“The door to your right, ma’am. TO YOUR RIGHT. No, not the revolving ones.”

Once in, I was directed to two floors, the 5th and the 14th, I think. There were signs. The building’s elevator was really plush, and played actual elevator music. Upon arrival at one, then the other floor, I had to sort of look around to find the unfinished offices/exhibition spaces, each of which contained multiple works of art, as well as a young woman acting as host/guard. And in each elevator ride, each floor search and each show room, I was the only viewer, which felt both focus-enhancing and a little surreal.

The set-up is odd, but the search is worth it.

As you can see, the space is far from overstuffed. There’s space for art and viewer to breathe — and for to you approach each piece largely without distraction from the others. This careful footprint allows for a wide range of media, scale, palette, site-specific installation and smaller wall work. The Rutledge Biennial show takes on an impressive magnitude via relatively few works; the ones she chose are doozies.

In the first gallery I visited, I was drawn into an ambitious, immersive, slightly menacing room transformed into a cramped, dystopic interior architecture. It was Kathryn Kelley‘s without your forgiveness I am still bound to what happened between us. only you can set me free.

I didn’t know the title until just now, I looked it up. I’m surprised by the call for forgiveness, but the “stuck” aspect comes at you as both straightforward and arresting; we’re looking at rubber, wood — an aftermath of something ripped asunder. My mind went immediately to post-terrorist sites and other monstrous un-buildings. But Kelley’s assertion of personal narrative, of Kelley/the narrator mired in these drooping outsize hoses and wooden remnants, makes for an explosively potent disaster area of the heart. I find I don’t need to know “what happened between us,” but can reflect on all the battlefields we all live in, still hoping for release, still depending on the actions of an Other who may or may not be amenable, or alive, or comprehending.

I saw some small lights interwoven into the construction, but unfortunately, they weren’t on. Lit up at night, the piece must be particularly wrenching. ..."

By Sarah Fisch, out of San Antonio and beyond.

Now that is mark making (Tony Orrico: Penwald)

found on web; but of interest.

hmmm. have to contemplate this one

"When we undervalue ourselves, we literally bury ourselves in lives not our own." -- Julia Cameron

hmmm...
so to value oneself leaves room to discover and live a life that is ours. and if we live out of our own life does not that really make room for others in it, to come along side.

what does it mean to live a life that is ours?

don't think this is a selfish idea. often selflessness is not selfless at all but driven by old unhealthy coping mechanisms and actually becomes a way to distance oneself from having the life we were actually given.

so now I dream about and think about what actually is my life, what do I value, and accepting the ways in which I am valuable.

I value
the thrill of being lazy under a canopy of trees
the scent of pine and cedar drifting across the breeze
the gust rippling graciously the flavor of yet to come rain
the lush meadow of knee high grasses with their undulating waves
the sounds of the wind, the creak of an old wooden house, the song of an unnamed bird, rain splattering rhythmically cross a tin roof,
the gravel lane crunching under foot
the trickle of sweat matting my hairline
the exhaustion of a hard days work
the moon casting itself across the late night glade
the turn off the boat with the twist of the blade

not done with my list

maybe?