notes on Ulysses:
Sylvia Beach found Joyce a series of typists to finish the Circe episode, but for one reason or another they dropped out in quick succession. 'Circe herself is punishing me for having written it,' he told Miss Beach. ----At last he found a Mrs. Harrison, whose husband had a post at the British Embassy. She made good progress until on April 8 her husband glanced at the manuscript, and, scandalized, threw it into the fire.
~Richard Ellmann
James Joyce
Sylvia Beach found Joyce a series of typists to finish the Circe episode, but for one reason or another they dropped out in quick succession. 'Circe herself is punishing me for having written it,' he told Miss Beach. ----At last he found a Mrs. Harrison, whose husband had a post at the British Embassy. She made good progress until on April 8 her husband glanced at the manuscript, and, scandalized, threw it into the fire.
~Richard Ellmann
James Joyce
"Far in the grey a bell chimed."
Ulysses
~ James Joyce
Ulysses
~ James Joyce
Night: Four Songs
Night of the two moons
And the seventeen stars,
Night of the day before yesterday
And the day after tomorrow,
Night of the four songs unsung:
Sorrow! Sorrow!
Sorrow! Sorrow!
~Langston Hughes
Night of the two moons
And the seventeen stars,
Night of the day before yesterday
And the day after tomorrow,
Night of the four songs unsung:
Sorrow! Sorrow!
Sorrow! Sorrow!
~Langston Hughes
-Still heading to Ireland Saturday, as of today, Tuesday. Ulysses is 100! I have sore throat and feel like I am turning 100! No COVID tho. (I sort of live part time at Urgent Care now. I should be paying rent)
I will see how Dublin airport is coming along today. --that shouldn't be hard since it has definitely made the world news lately.
I have had a lot of health challenges in past 3 months. (It is just resistance. My 'being' is not a person who presents papers at international symposia). I do not know this 'person'. I am getting to know her though!
I think I have liked meeting this dimension of me! -but it has occurred pushing aside veils, and some drywall ........of getting repeatedly and uncharacteristically sick, airport crises, tech- steep- learning- curve, COVID-19 issues re: travel, etc. This new part of myself has not been easy to integrate into Elizabeth.
- the Dublin airport is having a meltdown, but Ulysses is still turning 100! I have to show my vaccination status to change planes in Amsterdam, but I will still be there to celebrate! I have to get a negative COVID test before leaving to get back in the US. ---but time hasteneth ever onward and it looks like I will be flying June 11 from San Francisco to give my paper and show my paintings! I am over my fear of the tech part. And thanks to friends and family (Andrea, Bridey and David and Les) I am guardedly prepared...or soon will be.
June 16 (?) 2021
"From before the ages. He willed me and now may not will me away or ever."
~ Ulysses
"From before the ages. He willed me and now may not will me away or ever."
~ Ulysses
O ye whales and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord;; praise him, and magnify him forever.
It is June 10, 2021
As it happened last Spring, James Joyce has come back into my life. We have worked several weeks to make plans and decisions for a painting to become a book cover, for a wonderful upcoming book on Joyce. I am not an illustrator and have zero experience with the publishing world. I thought it was best that David Rando give the painting its title. He had to work on several factors to help prepare it to comply with Bloomsbury's specifications. (all my paintings have working titles, which are mostly descriptive, for me). Nearly all of the paintings are painted from quotations, including this one from Ulysses. -and this website has always been for me, just a portfolio. Otherwise I would use a more professional format and the writing would not disappear, change size, change its composition on the digital page, etc. completely on its own. Or if I used a more professional site, it would not now be continually addressing me in Norwegian, for which I have not the faintest glimmer of an explanation. But some folks have found their way around those incredibly baffling quirks of Weebly.com and contacted me, which has been full of surprises.
As it happened last Spring, James Joyce has come back into my life. We have worked several weeks to make plans and decisions for a painting to become a book cover, for a wonderful upcoming book on Joyce. I am not an illustrator and have zero experience with the publishing world. I thought it was best that David Rando give the painting its title. He had to work on several factors to help prepare it to comply with Bloomsbury's specifications. (all my paintings have working titles, which are mostly descriptive, for me). Nearly all of the paintings are painted from quotations, including this one from Ulysses. -and this website has always been for me, just a portfolio. Otherwise I would use a more professional format and the writing would not disappear, change size, change its composition on the digital page, etc. completely on its own. Or if I used a more professional site, it would not now be continually addressing me in Norwegian, for which I have not the faintest glimmer of an explanation. But some folks have found their way around those incredibly baffling quirks of Weebly.com and contacted me, which has been full of surprises.
On May 17, 2021, as the pandemic was loosening its hold around the world slowly:
"I am a professor of English at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. In November, I have a book coming out with Bloomsbury Press entitled Hope, Form and the Future in the Work of James Joyce. I am interested in the possibility of reproducing one of your artworks as a cover image."
I received an email with the above opening lines. (Please see the image under category, James Joyce on this site.) With assistance from James Reichmuth and Vince Bohner and Steve Hauk, the author, David Rando and I collaborated on a final image for the cover. ( My original painting was painted from a quote from Ulysses.)
"I am a professor of English at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. In November, I have a book coming out with Bloomsbury Press entitled Hope, Form and the Future in the Work of James Joyce. I am interested in the possibility of reproducing one of your artworks as a cover image."
I received an email with the above opening lines. (Please see the image under category, James Joyce on this site.) With assistance from James Reichmuth and Vince Bohner and Steve Hauk, the author, David Rando and I collaborated on a final image for the cover. ( My original painting was painted from a quote from Ulysses.)
Corona virus chronicles, Monday March 16, 2020
I decided to do one thing for the next 2 or 3 months. Not that I don't plan to do more also, as it is a great time for new patterns and learning and disciplines. It will come either way...the time will pass. The events will unspool. But one I am beginning. I learned how much planting something counters the dread of what we may hear or experience or witness. So I will plant a flower each day to begin with ,through May. Each one will be a prayer; for the health care workers, for those on the streets and in shelters, for those in prisons, for those in camps on borders..possibly separated from their parents, for school children who got their main meal in some cases at school, for those at most risk, for those who worked in restaurants or on cruise ships, for those who work in the fields growing our food, for those with no health insurance.......Today I bought pansies. It was a 6-pack and cost 3.00. Many grocery stores even sell flowers and seeds, so one does not need to add to contact with other people more than is necessary.
I decided to do one thing for the next 2 or 3 months. Not that I don't plan to do more also, as it is a great time for new patterns and learning and disciplines. It will come either way...the time will pass. The events will unspool. But one I am beginning. I learned how much planting something counters the dread of what we may hear or experience or witness. So I will plant a flower each day to begin with ,through May. Each one will be a prayer; for the health care workers, for those on the streets and in shelters, for those in prisons, for those in camps on borders..possibly separated from their parents, for school children who got their main meal in some cases at school, for those at most risk, for those who worked in restaurants or on cruise ships, for those who work in the fields growing our food, for those with no health insurance.......Today I bought pansies. It was a 6-pack and cost 3.00. Many grocery stores even sell flowers and seeds, so one does not need to add to contact with other people more than is necessary.
Tuesday, March 10.........Out this morning doing errands; wearing surgical gloves in Fed ex and all the stores. Our daughter cancelled her trip to come down over Spring Break with the family. Driving up a back road I saw a very young buck and his sister in a field. He had 2 prongs on each antler, small and sort of fuzzy. He was tossing his head around playfully and bucking a little like a kid or lamb. He was tormenting her a little running up fast and crowding her a little, and she was just ignoring him and trotting in the sun. They were not watching the news or checking the internet. They had no security for tomorrow though. They were not stockpiling anything or stressed out, even though they are defenseless and gentle and cannot protect themselves in many ways from the predator. The beauty was all in the moment. No promises. -but life.
Monday morning, date: ordinary life........Very tired at night and wake up early, but slowly getting adjusted to California time vs Norway time. The congregation gathered for regular weekly service yesterday. Everyone seemed so happy to be together and we got to sing a wonderful 'round' of spirituals. Rounds are not so easy to do! Folks kept a distance, which was difficult and counterintuitive..... and observed good precautions, and discussed plans for 'good practice' to be employed going forward, so we can hopefully continue to gather.......
I wake up now feeling optimistic about showing up for my life, surprisingly. Not getting over Holmes....but living more accustomed to not-getting-overed-ness. I want to keep up routines that are comforting and ordinary; send a pewter squirrel today to a family member who had recently lost her son. (I had bought it to wear to his memorial service, which I couldn't attend in the Bay Area). He had written a beautiful long essay on the squirrels in their yard. I sent a donation to a squirrel rescue organization as a celebration of his life, as this essay was the way I knew most of who he is and how sensitive and creative he is. The squirrel rescue organization had photos of people feeding infant squirrels with tiny baby bottles. A lot of people care about tiny and seemingly insignificant, humble and easily passed over things in the world. And this is one of the things we call love. So I will mail her the squirrel pin. I will take a check down to CCMP for Javier who I hired to water at the manse while we were gone. I will put up the new bird feeder. I got a big tomato plant. Life goes on amid troubling news and the far more mystifying certainty of hope. "All that I know of tomorrow is that Providence will rise before the sun."
I wake up now feeling optimistic about showing up for my life, surprisingly. Not getting over Holmes....but living more accustomed to not-getting-overed-ness. I want to keep up routines that are comforting and ordinary; send a pewter squirrel today to a family member who had recently lost her son. (I had bought it to wear to his memorial service, which I couldn't attend in the Bay Area). He had written a beautiful long essay on the squirrels in their yard. I sent a donation to a squirrel rescue organization as a celebration of his life, as this essay was the way I knew most of who he is and how sensitive and creative he is. The squirrel rescue organization had photos of people feeding infant squirrels with tiny baby bottles. A lot of people care about tiny and seemingly insignificant, humble and easily passed over things in the world. And this is one of the things we call love. So I will mail her the squirrel pin. I will take a check down to CCMP for Javier who I hired to water at the manse while we were gone. I will put up the new bird feeder. I got a big tomato plant. Life goes on amid troubling news and the far more mystifying certainty of hope. "All that I know of tomorrow is that Providence will rise before the sun."
Friday night, March 6. I did a lot of heavy gardening (for me) before we left. I moved a little apple tree I had on the front deck in a pot and planted it in the ground! It was hard to find a space. There is very hard earth or even a layer of rock under some of the front yard but I was able to do it. It is all covered with blossoms now! It looks so happy! I hired someone to water while we were gone ,close to 3 weeks so everything is OK. It is sort of surreal to suddenly be not in Norway; I feel like I am walking on the ship especially when I wake up at night. And everything here is so much more green and textured. Well it's not winter here! There, especially up North we were driving in areas where there was concern for avalanches!
I bought birdseed today and a new feeder. The Corona virus news makes you think the world as we know it is coming to an end. ----remember that does sell newspapers and TV ads. Not to say there isn't much caution to enact. I know the facts are very serious and there will be a lot of social disruption especially. But I don't want it to define my life. I even went and looked at a cat at a rescue outlet. She had been feral a long time and she....well I am not ready to enter into a new animal relationship. but life without one is not us at all. It will work out.
I bought birdseed today and a new feeder. The Corona virus news makes you think the world as we know it is coming to an end. ----remember that does sell newspapers and TV ads. Not to say there isn't much caution to enact. I know the facts are very serious and there will be a lot of social disruption especially. But I don't want it to define my life. I even went and looked at a cat at a rescue outlet. She had been feral a long time and she....well I am not ready to enter into a new animal relationship. but life without one is not us at all. It will work out.
We're back! My seeds I planted just before we left are coming up at the manse; nasturtiums and California poppy. Hope the lone rabbit I have seen several times does not get them.
It is Tuesday! -going up to the cabin now to do last minute touches to packing; disembarking in several hours in Bergen, where we started..... flying back to SF tomorrow. It is 8:15 am here. Sad to leave the ship but way more than ready to go home...... sounds a b-i-t w-i-l-d back there. (?)
Mysterious, eerie, unearthly weather and in many cases sights, which have been disorienting, coupled as they are with global news and Holmes dying. Looking forward to some plain old normal time. Is any of that going on back there? Or are the stores completely empty of water and toilet paper?! (So hard to tell reality from media hype.) . -can't wait to see everybody! Thank u for traveling along with us!
Mysterious, eerie, unearthly weather and in many cases sights, which have been disorienting, coupled as they are with global news and Holmes dying. Looking forward to some plain old normal time. Is any of that going on back there? Or are the stores completely empty of water and toilet paper?! (So hard to tell reality from media hype.) . -can't wait to see everybody! Thank u for traveling along with us!
Got up on the deck just in time.....(much warmer today!) so now drinking a 1/4 glass of champagne , which everyone got to toast crossing the Arctic Circle and most important of all..........got Cindi a postcard with the official stamp!
Paul gets up later; he's soon going to breakfast now, basically. { I go at 7:00 am as I begin to wake up on this trip about 6:00.} . Reading Gone With the Wind of course at breakfast and watching as we weave in and out of multiple islands with their snowy small and large peaks. It is now 9:15 am here and just past midnight in Carmel...... very sunny. People in a jubilant mood; probably glad to be homeward bound, but also to have seen the lights often, punchy from getting up over and over in some cases at night to view them------- and for people who like taking pictures..... I suspect great photos. It's amazing to be out there on the very icy deck late at night, with everyone milling around, completely unrecognizable from piled up clothing and covered faces..... extremely slowly (to keep from falling down!) moving from one handrail to the next, and many of them well up in years, frequently carrying a sizable tripod and camera!
Starting to think about buying or not buying gifts which will make our luggage very heavy and end up in backs of drawers. Many images of reindeer and trolls abound. -and of the noble Trollfjord of course, our trusty , merry seagoing ship.
Paul gets up later; he's soon going to breakfast now, basically. { I go at 7:00 am as I begin to wake up on this trip about 6:00.} . Reading Gone With the Wind of course at breakfast and watching as we weave in and out of multiple islands with their snowy small and large peaks. It is now 9:15 am here and just past midnight in Carmel...... very sunny. People in a jubilant mood; probably glad to be homeward bound, but also to have seen the lights often, punchy from getting up over and over in some cases at night to view them------- and for people who like taking pictures..... I suspect great photos. It's amazing to be out there on the very icy deck late at night, with everyone milling around, completely unrecognizable from piled up clothing and covered faces..... extremely slowly (to keep from falling down!) moving from one handrail to the next, and many of them well up in years, frequently carrying a sizable tripod and camera!
Starting to think about buying or not buying gifts which will make our luggage very heavy and end up in backs of drawers. Many images of reindeer and trolls abound. -and of the noble Trollfjord of course, our trusty , merry seagoing ship.
Sunday morning here; going upstairs soon to pack on layers and go out on Deck 9 to see the line when we cross the Arctic Circle (now coming down the other way!) . (I only want to go to the ceremony so I can buy grandchildren postcards stamped with the seal of the Arctic Circle......which will end up in Berkeley and Oregon toy boxes surrounded by tiny Lego men on giant warlike Lego ships, wearing tiny Lego helmets).......and of course hopefully for Cindi Daniel who specifically ASKED for postcards.
Saw a lot of THE LIGHTS last night about ,and leading up to, 10:00. Paul getting reconciled to their pearly grey color plus he looked over someone's shoulder as they were taking a video and he saw that indeed, for a camera, they are very bright colors. ---so he is gradually integrating these two facts and coming to peace with what they are, how they appear, and the fact that we are really seeing them...and really rather predictably and clearly. They are, just as one would imagine, very mysterious looking and have an eerie presence as much of the majesty seen in nature has. We are quite well. Still no masks being glimpsed on board;[ the airports were quiet different and probably will be even more so this week. ] I know the service this morning will be a blessed time . We fly home Wed. and are plenty glad to be doing so.
Saw a lot of THE LIGHTS last night about ,and leading up to, 10:00. Paul getting reconciled to their pearly grey color plus he looked over someone's shoulder as they were taking a video and he saw that indeed, for a camera, they are very bright colors. ---so he is gradually integrating these two facts and coming to peace with what they are, how they appear, and the fact that we are really seeing them...and really rather predictably and clearly. They are, just as one would imagine, very mysterious looking and have an eerie presence as much of the majesty seen in nature has. We are quite well. Still no masks being glimpsed on board;[ the airports were quiet different and probably will be even more so this week. ] I know the service this morning will be a blessed time . We fly home Wed. and are plenty glad to be doing so.
It's Friday! Going south! Yesterday we saw a large 'field' of hundreds of dolphins leaping alongside of our ship. We were at the astronomy lecture, obediently trying to understand the electromagnetic fields of the sun and diagrams showing how it all leads to the Aurora Borealis, when the speaker began to hear an announcement outside in the hall, and he said ,"Whales! Whales! On the starboard side!....everyone rushed to the side of the lecture hall. But soon the murmurs became, "Dolphins...not whales...it's dolphins" . We are above them. {Not like when Holmes and I saw them once on a walk of ours, in Monterey Bay, playing at following a troupe of kayakers.} .......these we are some stories above, so you can see a whole expanse of sea water, filled with the shining leaping folk.
We also saw the lights last night; greenish, in moving curtain like forms. Cool! Paul is relenting some on his being mad at the Northern Lights {as portrayed in books}. -these were quite characteristic looking. And he is starting to sleep better so is more forgiving of them......
We also saw the lights last night; greenish, in moving curtain like forms. Cool! Paul is relenting some on his being mad at the Northern Lights {as portrayed in books}. -these were quite characteristic looking. And he is starting to sleep better so is more forgiving of them......
~beautiful bright sun although it is 12:30 pm and it is only at the level it would be at 10:00 am. Two months of the year here it never gets about the horizon at all! In these arctic towns. Our guide yesterday said they let school out and everybody celebrates the day the sun first rises. -so there is a first sunrise, but then followed immediately by a sunset. I believe he said November and December. The street signs here in Kirkenes are in both Russian and Norwegian. Yesterday we heard that in the summer , on the island where we were yesterday, where North Cape is, reindeer walk right down the main streets of town.
Paul is having a fight with the Northern Lights. They broke up. We are learning, (and I am not sure this is universally true), but that to the naked eye they are not bright purple, red, green, etc. but more ghostly, hazy swirling greyish white lights. He is coming to terms with that. Apparently (and I am not sure we have the whole story for all places and all times) the camera is far more sensitive so all images taken by camera look quite different from what one sees. I with hold judgement. You can ask him about that when you see him.........
Paul is having a fight with the Northern Lights. They broke up. We are learning, (and I am not sure this is universally true), but that to the naked eye they are not bright purple, red, green, etc. but more ghostly, hazy swirling greyish white lights. He is coming to terms with that. Apparently (and I am not sure we have the whole story for all places and all times) the camera is far more sensitive so all images taken by camera look quite different from what one sees. I with hold judgement. You can ask him about that when you see him.........
Thursday; top before we turn around and go South again (Kirkenes). Russia very nearby. Going into town just on our own this morning and we hear we will hear Russian spoken and see a lot of crafts for sale in the stores from there. cold but clear. Maybe can dispense with spikes on shoes and my balaklava today, but weather changes constantly all day. Snow covered peaks line the water as usual now. Wonderful but sad long lecture yesterday on the Sami peoples; executed as witches worshipping the devil, then eventually allowed to not be killed if they would convert. 10% of them still make living as reindeer herders, but the reindeer are now domesticated. -they were nomadic herders so they would get heavily taxed in each country they 'herded through' and had to learn to domesticate the beautiful caribou. got to go; back later!
We left SF airport 10 days ago; got on the MSS Trollfjord 6 days ago. Today we take a bus ride to the North Cape, northernmost point in Europe. We are sleeping better as jet lag (and even more so the long morning and evening twilights) slowly become the new normal. Nice friends every evening at our assigned dinner table, a UK couple and a Florida couple. I am reading Jane Eyre (and of course Kristin Lavransdatter) and we go off our ship every day for a little adventure. We skipped dog sledding for which I was grateful. .... someday maybe-------not now. I literally brought extra books and embroidery thread in case we got quarantined. I am making a fibre arts piece of the Tree of Life; super slow, but not slow enough should another month get added on if even one person on board got the Coronavirus (!) which won't happen. I haven't kept up with news on it, once we made up our minds to go, but I gather it will make an increasingly big name for itself media-wise. Lot's of required precautions. on board.... WE ARE TROLLFJORD PROUD . Hear us roar! Happy and healthy, and still going North. Coast 100% snowy now.
Yesterday all of us on the 'astronomy' classes group went to a planetarium which was great. Many of us fell promptly asleep in the dark dome topped with stars and mega-reclining chairs. Everyone is a bit off snooze-wise. The man next to me began unabashedly to snore minutes from lights out. We saw the Viking constellations and the Sami constellations. Want to learn more about the Sami culture. The Sami sky had a giant enormous reindeer, and in another part of the sky, a bow hunter pursuing him through the heavens every night. If the hunter ever catches the 'reindeer' constellation, the world would end. So.....
Yesterday all of us on the 'astronomy' classes group went to a planetarium which was great. Many of us fell promptly asleep in the dark dome topped with stars and mega-reclining chairs. Everyone is a bit off snooze-wise. The man next to me began unabashedly to snore minutes from lights out. We saw the Viking constellations and the Sami constellations. Want to learn more about the Sami culture. The Sami sky had a giant enormous reindeer, and in another part of the sky, a bow hunter pursuing him through the heavens every night. If the hunter ever catches the 'reindeer' constellation, the world would end. So.....
(Saltstraumen at Bodo is the tidal current phenomenon.) Going dog sledding today which I do not want to do but I accept adventure itself as a 'friend on the journey' and one not to be readily door-closed-on-ish-ness. Anyway , last night......you would see this long hazy sort of arc and think, it is ...what the heck is it?! Is is the Milky Way? Down there?! Is it a little dawn, all on its own? While you pondered this it might go away and a whole mountain would be slightly but distinctly backlit somewhere else; not green, but just lit. and I'm gong, "Is that just the moon behind it?" and gradually you realize it is pitch dark and there is no moon. At least not one that bright! and while you're thinking, "That's not green and pink!" they will go away and another long slender arc is forming somewhere else! Like little mornings.....but it is midnight. So hmmm.....
I gradually (and many other people I imagine) stopped saying "Is it green yet?" and just started doing what is written in large script on the stairwell leading upward inside.......hunting the light.
I gradually (and many other people I imagine) stopped saying "Is it green yet?" and just started doing what is written in large script on the stairwell leading upward inside.......hunting the light.
tuesday am
Went to see a little family of roiling whirlpools yesterday; I need to look at a map to explain it better, but 2 fjords come together and they are different heights ,and when the tide changes super picturesque and very dangerous things happen! We wore our spikes on our shoes for the first time ,which helped to practice, and we could have walked up walls like Spiderman in them. -wore them last night then too as we got THE CALL that Northern Lights were visible and had to rush up (we thought) to see them.
Vast snowy peaks line the coast now. It looks like you are in the top of an alpine range but they are just rising straight up from the sea, something like Big Sur cliffs do. Last night we got to the upper deck and strayed out there packed with clothes and trying to remain standing (as the ship rolled and as we had to walk on some bare wood with the spikes on) . I didn't put my balaklava on because I look like I am going to hold up a 7-eleven when I do, but all those niceties are long over now. I will put anything on I can attach to any part of myself.
First I thought it was like the Emperor's New clothes. Everyone standing around saying "I think I do see something..."
Went to see a little family of roiling whirlpools yesterday; I need to look at a map to explain it better, but 2 fjords come together and they are different heights ,and when the tide changes super picturesque and very dangerous things happen! We wore our spikes on our shoes for the first time ,which helped to practice, and we could have walked up walls like Spiderman in them. -wore them last night then too as we got THE CALL that Northern Lights were visible and had to rush up (we thought) to see them.
Vast snowy peaks line the coast now. It looks like you are in the top of an alpine range but they are just rising straight up from the sea, something like Big Sur cliffs do. Last night we got to the upper deck and strayed out there packed with clothes and trying to remain standing (as the ship rolled and as we had to walk on some bare wood with the spikes on) . I didn't put my balaklava on because I look like I am going to hold up a 7-eleven when I do, but all those niceties are long over now. I will put anything on I can attach to any part of myself.
First I thought it was like the Emperor's New clothes. Everyone standing around saying "I think I do see something..."
Bergen was so windy one day I could hardly stand up. Baby carriages were frequent (everyone just goes about all their life completely of course) but the strollers and baby carriages resembled molded sleeping bags ,they were so massively insulated....plastic rain, sleet, snow guards over top. Umbrellas filled the garbage cans with their spidery spines broken and their black forms inside out, having lasted 3 minutes at best from whatever shop they were sold in. Dogs were looking up at all the humans walking them as if to say, if I lived in the US now people would have the sense to put sweaters on us!!!
Super heavy swells again last night; all social life divided between those of us who do, and those of us who do not, get seasick. Today is calm. We are going North. Will reach the Russian border even eventually.
Super heavy swells again last night; all social life divided between those of us who do, and those of us who do not, get seasick. Today is calm. We are going North. Will reach the Russian border even eventually.
Day 8
We just entered the Arctic Circle; now snowy peaks outside the porthole instead of the greeny-brown lower coastal range look. Tonight is when the Northern Lights could begin to be seen. We have to keep all our layers of clothes out ready to throw on quickly and then run up 2 decks when we get the 'phone call' in the night; this means sweaters, then the ski jacket, balaklava, waterproof pants, a waterproof windbreaker over ski jacket, hat and scarf and waterproof gloves. Spikes fitted to boots. run upstairs in bare feet or slippers then put on your spiked boots and go out on the frozen deck by which time they may well have disappeared.
Our great lecturer said this is the warmest year since he has done this for 14 years which makes it more unlikely. -they are always there. But visible in darkness only, and best on very cold clear nights. As it warms the air is not clear, but filled with clouds; rain ,sleet, snow. The nights are not super dark long. There is the night.....then two long 'twilights'. ...morning and evening. The sea, very dark grey always as light is low all round.
We just entered the Arctic Circle; now snowy peaks outside the porthole instead of the greeny-brown lower coastal range look. Tonight is when the Northern Lights could begin to be seen. We have to keep all our layers of clothes out ready to throw on quickly and then run up 2 decks when we get the 'phone call' in the night; this means sweaters, then the ski jacket, balaklava, waterproof pants, a waterproof windbreaker over ski jacket, hat and scarf and waterproof gloves. Spikes fitted to boots. run upstairs in bare feet or slippers then put on your spiked boots and go out on the frozen deck by which time they may well have disappeared.
Our great lecturer said this is the warmest year since he has done this for 14 years which makes it more unlikely. -they are always there. But visible in darkness only, and best on very cold clear nights. As it warms the air is not clear, but filled with clouds; rain ,sleet, snow. The nights are not super dark long. There is the night.....then two long 'twilights'. ...morning and evening. The sea, very dark grey always as light is low all round.
We left for Norway Monday Feb. 17 so we are now on Day 7 of our journey up the cost on the Trollfjord ( a Hurtigruten ferry and cruise ship). We had strong rolling swells the other night and everything was sliding around. It was like Peter Pan in captain Hook's cabin on the pirate ship. But calm seas today. Getting off today in Trondheim. 30 some degrees but soon to commence ever-present rain (which means sleet, and winds where you can hardly keep on your feet.) We plan to walk to the cathedral. { For Kristin Lavransdatter fans it is where Kristin walked on her pilgrimage carrying Naakve on her back as a repentance for being involved in manslaughter. Of course I do realize Kristin is fictional but to me she is a major part of my life. I feel I may see her and Naakve arriving hungry and footsore at Trondheim Cathedral Close!
-seeing the Northern Lights was initially Paul's dream more so than for me. but I am getting interested. We are part of a sub group which Paul joined for us, on the ship taking an astronomy 'class' and are learning a
lot
lot about the stars!
-seeing the Northern Lights was initially Paul's dream more so than for me. but I am getting interested. We are part of a sub group which Paul joined for us, on the ship taking an astronomy 'class' and are learning a
lot
lot about the stars!
We lost our beloved dog Holmes around a month ago. He is in a number of the paintings; a golden, whirling, leaping, nearly airborne standard poodle. Now we are in Norway. Arrived yesterday. Paul wanted to see the Northern Lights so we have saved up and are taking a long-planned ferry/mail boat cruise up coast of Norway! It is helping a little with our deep feelings of mourning and 'lostness'. I don't even know if I can keep up painting. My studio was at home, and he and I were rarely more than 20' apart for the past 10 years. He was a puppy when we moved to Carmel and that was when I began to paint full time professionally. He and I walked miles and miles in the woods and on the beaches near Carmel. The studio and Holmes are all of a piece for me! .....but I am aware that things are rarely what they seem to be and that as the Sisters of Providence taught me long ago, "All that I know of tomorrow is that Providence will rise before the sun." He had a sudden death from anemia due to an immune illness. We got to be with him a lot even though he was in a dog ICU and we even got to walk him a little during the 3 day period where we tried treatment which had a chance of working. I could sit over there on the floor on a quilt with Holmes for restricted time periods and knit.
But I have 2 more exhibits to manage this Spring including Mercy Center in Burlingame. May and June......and some works at the Carl Cherry Center also as part of the Home Studio Tour. (I chose to use that venue rather than use the house as I did last time just to reduce the stress on myself, plus I love that gallery in the woods of upper Carmel.) I am so used to having his consciousness alongside of mine as I painted. {very few people I have met who do not know that feeling.......re: the 4-leggeds}. right?
But I have 2 more exhibits to manage this Spring including Mercy Center in Burlingame. May and June......and some works at the Carl Cherry Center also as part of the Home Studio Tour. (I chose to use that venue rather than use the house as I did last time just to reduce the stress on myself, plus I love that gallery in the woods of upper Carmel.) I am so used to having his consciousness alongside of mine as I painted. {very few people I have met who do not know that feeling.......re: the 4-leggeds}. right?
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"He saw that the Basque interpreter had done the whole thing. And by that he knew also that powers more than human had come down to destroy Belbury.; only one in the saddle of whose soul rode Mercury himself could thus have unmade language."
~C.S. Lewis
That Hideous Strength
~C.S. Lewis
That Hideous Strength
" The change from the road to the field was as if one had passed from a waking to a phantasmal world. Everything became darker, wetter, more incalculable [ ] Whenever Denniston used his torch, the things which appeared within the circle of its light---tufts of grass, ruts filled with water, draggled yellow leaves clinging to the wet blackness of many- angled twigs, and once the two greenish yellow fires in the eyes of some small animal---had the air of being more commonplace than they ought to have been; as if for that moments exposure, they had assumed a disguise which they would shuffle off again the moment they were left alone."
~C.S. Lewis
That Hideous Strength
~C.S. Lewis
That Hideous Strength
August, 2019
"The shadow of that hyddeous strength sax myle and more it length."
~Sir David Lyndsay
Ane Dialog
If I met you at Pacific Grove Art Center, the River Night and Mourning, I am happy I got to do so. I will be showing some more of my paintings and drawings at the Home Studio Tour Sept. 28 and 29. Please join me and say 'hello' again. I paint in our home which is the parsonage (or manse) of the Community Church of the Monterey Peninsula. I will have cookies. Or if you want me to serve something else call me up or email me. Elizabeth@wrightman.us. and tell me and I will buy it just for you!
"The young Mr. Yeats, searching for his country and his own consciousness along all the boreens of folktale and fairytale, found that Crofton Coker, who had stumbled through some of those ways and crossways before him, had been guilty of that 'great sin against art-----the sin of rationalism. He tried to take away from his stories the impossibility that makes them dear to us.' "
~Foreword to Fairy and Folktales of Ireland
~Foreword to Fairy and Folktales of Ireland
"No you're not hard core, unless you live hard core." ~ School of Rock
Pacific Grove Art Center
solo exhibit
the River; Night and Mourning
Sept 7-Oct. 25
Reception for artists 7-9 pm, Sept. 7,2018
{See my work from this site presently at the Sargent House in Salinas, CA
Episcopal Diocese of el Camino Real and at the Mercy Retreat Center, Burlingame, CA}
solo exhibit
the River; Night and Mourning
Sept 7-Oct. 25
Reception for artists 7-9 pm, Sept. 7,2018
{See my work from this site presently at the Sargent House in Salinas, CA
Episcopal Diocese of el Camino Real and at the Mercy Retreat Center, Burlingame, CA}
It's Saturday night. July is drawing to a close. Today I bought all the display easels I will need for the Home Studio Tour / Arts Habitat. I was very relieved to tackle it and it worked out! I had no idea how to get that piece! I looked up making them myself and decided I did not want to spend 3 hours an easel woodworking which is not one of my gifts. I went into Amazon and found a group of six and got them..... then I went to Michael's and they were having a half-off sale on easels! I got about 16 easels today for about $10 each!!!! The Home Studio Tour is Sept. 29 and 30. We will just be back from our backpacking trip.
The exhibit at Pacific Grove will have already started. The one at Mercy will have ended. The Pacific Grove Art Center exhibit is entitled the River; Night and Mourning. It is all paintings from the last year and that is when I was losing and had 'lost' my only sister. I was not aware of it all year but it was permeating every painting, and in a very beautiful way. I seemed to meet her in them, although I was not consciously doing that in any way. It is only by looking at month after month of them that this unmistakable 'footprint' of my feelings, and of the Spirit accompanying me showing up on canvas.....became visible. Good night, not-a-blog.
The exhibit at Pacific Grove will have already started. The one at Mercy will have ended. The Pacific Grove Art Center exhibit is entitled the River; Night and Mourning. It is all paintings from the last year and that is when I was losing and had 'lost' my only sister. I was not aware of it all year but it was permeating every painting, and in a very beautiful way. I seemed to meet her in them, although I was not consciously doing that in any way. It is only by looking at month after month of them that this unmistakable 'footprint' of my feelings, and of the Spirit accompanying me showing up on canvas.....became visible. Good night, not-a-blog.
Two person exhibit June, July and August 2018
Mercy Center, Burlingame, CA
Creation; peace, play and majesty
Solo exhibit Pacific Grove Art Center
Sept. 2018
4 paintings in exhibit at Sargent House in Salinas, CA
Opening June 24, 2018 3:00pm
Mercy Center, Burlingame, CA
Creation; peace, play and majesty
Solo exhibit Pacific Grove Art Center
Sept. 2018
4 paintings in exhibit at Sargent House in Salinas, CA
Opening June 24, 2018 3:00pm
"...and no woman minding a house but should put a couple of the first of the potatoes aside on the dresser, for there's no house but they'l visit it..."
~from interviews by Lady Gregory
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland
~from interviews by Lady Gregory
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland
"I see them in all places---and there's no man mowing a meadow that doesn't see them at one time or another."
~ Lady Gregory
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland
~ Lady Gregory
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland
|
"I have been a hazel tree and they hung the Pilot star and the Crooked Plough among my leaves in time out of mind..."
W.B. Yeats Early Poems |
"Sometimes Mr. Yeats was with me at the telling; or I would take him to hear for himself something I had been told."
Lady Gregory Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland |
"Near my own house by the sea there was a girl went out one day to get nuts near the wood, and she heard music inside the wood."
Lady Gregory
visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland
Lady Gregory
visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland
"Hence we always have to overcome a certain resistance before we can seriously set about disentangling the intricate web through patient work. But when at last we penetrate its real meaning, we find ourselves deep in the dreamer's secrets and discover with astonishment that the apparently quite senseless dream is in the highest degree significant, and that in reality it speaks only of important and serious matters. This discovery compels rather more respect for the so-called superstition that dreams have a meaning, to which the rationalistic temper of our age has hitherto given short shrift."
~ C.G. Jung
~ C.G. Jung
"Give to these children, new from the world
Silence and love
And the long dew-dripping hours of the night
And the stars above."
W.B. Yeats
Early Poems
Silence and love
And the long dew-dripping hours of the night
And the stars above."
W.B. Yeats
Early Poems
Jung and dreams:
"No amount of skepticism and criticism has yet enabled me to regard dreams as negligible occurrences. Often enough they appear senseless, but it is obviously we who lack the sense and ingenuity to read the enigmatic message from the nocturnal realm of the psyche. seeing that at least half our psychic existence is passed in that realm, and that consciousness acts upon our nightly life, just as much as the unconscious overshadows our daily life, it would seem all the more incumbent on medical psychology to sharpen its senses by a systematic study of dreams. Nobody doubts the importance of conscious experience: why then should we doubt the significance of unconscious happenings?"
~ C.G. Jung
"No amount of skepticism and criticism has yet enabled me to regard dreams as negligible occurrences. Often enough they appear senseless, but it is obviously we who lack the sense and ingenuity to read the enigmatic message from the nocturnal realm of the psyche. seeing that at least half our psychic existence is passed in that realm, and that consciousness acts upon our nightly life, just as much as the unconscious overshadows our daily life, it would seem all the more incumbent on medical psychology to sharpen its senses by a systematic study of dreams. Nobody doubts the importance of conscious experience: why then should we doubt the significance of unconscious happenings?"
~ C.G. Jung