This poem was written by Noris Roberts, a Venezuelan poet educated in Commercial Law at the Universidad Santa Maria in Caracas. Her collection The Mirror of the Soul was published in limited edition with proceeds going to a healthcare foundation for at-risk children. You will find her complete bio HERE.
The work is read by Victor David Santiago, poet, writer, musician and founder/editor of Subprimal Poetry Art.
© 2014 portrait, poem and video, Noris Roberts, All rights reserved
Yesterday on our partner blog writers Ruth, Terri, Chrysty, Donna and James shared their memories of the 9/11 tragedy. You may want to read what they each have to say and to add your own voice there as well.
“call me if you need anything,” you say ~
then the sweet swift chatter of the keyboard
birthing words into evergreen poet-trees,
my thoughts and your face, sometimes the
word is love, other times the word is love,
ubiquitous, omnipotent, found in the heart,
in the dictionary, in the mind of the child,
in the child’s mind that lives in the adult,
love everywhere, i see it written on your lips
as we talk of everyday things, i hear the word
with my heart when you say “good bye , Mom~
next week, we’ll go out for lunch…and a drive ~
along the scenic route,” … that says love too
© 2012, poem and photograph, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved
JAMIE DEDES (The Poet by Day)~ I started blogging shortly after I retired as a way to maintain my sanity and to stay connected to the arts and the artful despite being mostly homebound. My Facebook pages are: Jamie Dedes (Arts and Humanities) and Simply Living, Living Simply.
With the help and support of talented bloggers and readers, I founded The Bardo Group because I feel that blogging offers a means to see one another in our simple humanity, as brothers and sisters and not as “other.” I am the poetry liaison and a member of the Core Team. Terri Stewart (Beguine Again) is in the lead position and the Beguine Again collaborative and The Bardo Group are coordinating a consolidation of the two groups.
“Good work, like good talk or any other form of worthwhile human relationship, depends upon being able to assume an extended shared world.” Stefan Collini (b. 1947), English Literary Critic and Professor of English Literature at Cambridge
Images courtesy of Battle for the Net.
Related articles and links:
Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun. And so do we. It was over a hundred degrees, and the sun blazed down from a cloudless sky. The plaza was nearly deserted as we approached Batalha Monastery, and I was wilting. Still, it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and we couldn’t miss it.
Batalha Monastery, the ‘Monastery of Battle’, was begun by King Joao I to commemorate his victory of the Portuguese over the Castilians in the Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385.
I was glad I came.
In the cloisters, time stands still. The view hadn’t changed in six centuries.
Inside the church the stained glass softened the harsh sunlight.
A dramatic tomb for King Joao and Queen Phillipa of Lancaster depicted the royal couple with joined hands, symbolizing the alliance between Portugal and England. Surrounding bays contained the tombs of their four younger sons. I’d already seen so many tombs that week, and couldn’t muster the energy to snap a shot, although I was moved to photograph the stillness of the Royal Cloister.
I found the symmetry soothing.
And then I stepped into The Unfinished Chapel, where rests the tomb of their eldest son, King Duarte and his wife, Leonor of Aragon. Their final resting place was less monumental, and still uncompleted, without even a roof. Their chapel too was designed to house the tombs of their descendants, but that hadn’t happened either. Duarte and Leonor were its sole occupants.
Duarte’s story was also less remarkable than his dad’s. His reign was short, troubled, and plagued by poor choices. He preferred writing to war, and was likely better at it. He began The Art of Riding on Every Saddle, “…in accordance with the saying that writing books is an endless task, which I do for my own relaxation and entertainment…I am going to write…with the objective of improving the riding skills of those who decide to read my writings in good will…”
That book, like his chapel, was also unfinished. Duarte died young, swept away by the plague, leaving his wife to mourn. From that day on, she signed her name “the sad queen.” She lived only a few more years, her short regency also plagued with conflict. Sadly, she died in exile. But she rests beside her husband.
Their tomb, their accomplishments, and their lives might have been less glorious than those of their victorious parents. But their unfinished tomb is open to the sun and the breeze, the infinite sky. The sad queen and her husband, in gentle and loving repose, seem less a statement of diplomatic alliance than a forever snapshot of a loving couple, still tenderly holding hands after all these years.
I think I’d rather be remembered for my pen than my sword, and would rather be successful in love than in war, or even in my writing.
Still, plague notwithstanding, I’m going to finish my damn book.
All words and images copyright 2013 Naomi Baltuck
NAOMI BALTUCK ~ is a Contributing Editor and Resident Storyteller here
at Bardo. She is a world-traveler and an award-winning writer, photographer, and story-teller whose works of fiction and nonfiction are available through Amazon HERE. Naomi presents her wonderful photo-stories – always interesting and rich with meaning and humor – at Writing Between the Lines, Life from the Writer’s POV. She also conducts workshops such as Peace Porridge (multicultural stories to promote cooperation, goodwill, and peaceful coexistence), Whispers in the Graveyard (a spellbinding array of haunting and mysterious stories), Tandem Tales, Traveling Light Around the World, and others. For more on her programs visit Naomi Baltuck.com
Click here for more interpretations of The Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections.
Another gentle lovely from Gretchen Del Rio …
watercolor aceo 8/2014
with hesitating steps
i entered
aunt bea’s home
after weeks
of speculation
and
unwarranted certainty
i had to admit
to her
that i had failed
in my endeavor
but
she smiled
and
said
a dream
isn’t
a lottery ticket
to be drawn
on some
certain date
to declare
the winner
a dream
is a promise
that one makes
to self
to be sought
and
kept
.
CHARLES W. MARTIN (Reading Between the Minds) — earned his Ph.D. in Speech and Language Pathology with an emphasis in statistics. Throughout Charlie’s career, he maintained a devotion to the arts (literature/poetry, the theater, music and photography). Since his retirement in 2010, he has turned his full attention to poetry and photography. He publishes a poem and a photographic art piece each day at Read Between the Minds, Poetry, Photograph and Random Thoughts of Life. He is noted as a poet of social conscience. Charlie has been blogging since January 31, 2010. He has self-
published a book of poetry entitled The Hawk Chronicles and will soon publish another book called A Bea in Your Bonnet: First Sting, featuring the renown Aunt Bea. In The Hawk Chronicles, Charlie provides a personification of his resident hawk with poems and photos taken over a two-year period. The newly published When Spirits Touch recently became available on Amazon.
STATUS ON MERGING Beguine Again and our collective, The Bardo Group, continue with sharing of ideas and some modifications to site links already in progress. At this point the intention is to continue with daily posts. The official transition date is October 1st. On Saturday, October 4, Terri Stewart will post a more complete status report. Jamie Dedes will remain as a part of the core team and as poetry liaison.
When I look at this photo of my oldest son (who is now 21–yikes!), I cannot help but feel pure joy! His joy is so strong that it overlaps out of the photo frame, across time, and into my heart. This tells a story of being present, being fearless, and being immersed.
Being present to the experience allows us to put away all the “what ifs” and “I shoulds.” Leaving the past behind (what if I had…) and leaving the present in the future (I should do…). Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to stay present to what is happening right now. What is happening right now? I hear the rushing wind through the open window of cars rushing along a distant road, the scrape-scrape-scrape of yardwork, indecipherable young voices traveling along buoyant air waves…
Being fearless lets us experience new things, but it also gives us the courage to express ourselves. What you can’t tell about this photo is that this is the waters of the Puget Sound. And the average water temp is 50-55 degrees. In other words, it is cold-a** water! But he is present to the experience and it enables him to let his emotions travel across his entire body! To me, the photo screams joy! Exhilaration! And he doesn’t care if everyone knows it. What feelings need to be expressed that require courage? I have been having real bouts of depression lately. I think it is important that people outside my inner circle know that.
Being immersed in the experience removes the possibility of detachment. Maybe it is just me, but it seems that there is a way to be present, feel your own feelings, but to be detached from All That Is. Detached from creation. Detached from one another. It is almost a selfish experience of religious ecstasy. Now, bear with me for a moment. I have had religious ecstatic experiences. In a certain theological mindset, the experience is all about me & the divine experience. It leads nowhere. To no outside experience of love and service. Then, when the experience abates, there is a seeking out of the next divine experience. Almost like an addiction. Over and over, seeking ecstasy. But there are three parties in the cosmos. Me, All That Is, and You. You is a lot of things.
And all that is in it and outside of it. If we are attached to one another, we will step in to stop injustice. We will work, together, towards a better future, realizing joy in the here in now. In Christian tradition, it is called the Kingdom of God. It is important to me to reach out to the lost, the least, and the lonely. Especially those in the LGBTQ community that have been harmed by religious tradition. It is important to me to also reach out to the least among us that have been affected by incarceration, especially young people whose histories are not yet fully written.
What would our lives be like if we stayed present, fearless, and immersed? Better yet, what would the world be like?
Shalom and Amen!
.
Thank goodness for window screens! But as demonstrated in my last post on the Amazon, screens don’t always keep the wildlife out.
For instance, we shared The Hammock Room at the Research Center with this tarantula. He wasn’t as interested in us as we were in him.
We named him Tomacito, or “Little Tommy.” Tomacito served as a reminder to shake out our shoes each morning before getting dressed. Insects and critters found their way into our little sanctuary, but it was the ones I couldn’t see that bugged me.
That first morning we ventured into the jungle with Orlando, our amazing guide, the Eighth Natural Wonder of the World. (I will tell you more about him later.) In spite of the heat and 90+ percent humidity, we covered as much skin as possible, and sprayed whatever body parts we couldn’t cover with repellant. Nighttime mosquitoes carry malaria, daytime ones dengue fever, and I can’t remember which carry yellow fever, but I didn’t want to be the breakfast special for any of them.
Below are a few of my own unofficial rules of the jungle for the timid traveler.
Rule of the Jungle #1– bring mosquito repellent!
Fallen trees and leaves, mud, and overnight storms in the tropical rainforest made hiking challenging.
We wore rubber boots to keep our feet dry. Bea stepped in a puddle deeper than anticipated, and water poured into her boot.
Rule of the Jungle # 2–Watch your step!
Orlando uprooted several small trees, and cut the trunks off with his machete to make tea from the bark to relieve his mother’s arthritis. He replanted the roots in the fertile soil, so the tree would survive. Maybe the tea really was for his mom, but I believe it was also his tactful way of providing the Gringos with walking sticks to help balance on slippery walkways.
Rule of the Jungle #3–Take the hand extended to you, and be grateful for kindness in any form or guise.
So many trees and leaves were poisonous, covered with harmful insects, or had razor-sharp edges. Another guest at the Research Center slipped and braced herself on a porcupine tree. It left dozens of venomous barbs in in her hand, which swelled up painfully. There was no doctor there–her guide Fernando cut the barbs out of her hand with pins and a knife, and she took a course of anti-biotics.
Rule of the Jungle #4–Don’t touch ANYTHING!
Rule of the Jungle # 5–There are exceptions to any rule.
Orlando saw an Olive Whip Snake, and quickly caught it with his bare hands.
He showed both kids how to handle a snake without getting bitten…
Orlando’s grandfather was a shaman. Orlando said, “My grandfather used to say, if you can get a snake to wrap around you, it will become gentle and give you its energy.” As soon as it wrapped around him, the snake calmed down, and then Orlando released it into a tree.
Rule of the Jungle #6–Be as open to new experiences as you can without endangering yourself or others.
Rule of the Jungle #7–Bring your camera!!
We caught many tantalizing glimpses of wildlife, but by the time I could focus the camera, the creature was almost always natural history.
However, some critters obligingly held still for the camera.
Occasionally I would be rewarded with a shot like this.
Or this….
Or this…
Or this…
Or this…
Rule of the Jungle #8–Only you can know what it requires for you to glean the most meaning and satisfaction out of your jungle experience or your life. Do no harm, but make up your own damn rules, and break them whenever necessary.
All images and words copyright 2013 NaomiBaltuck
NAOMI BALTUCK ~ is a Contributing Editor and Resident Storyteller here at Bardo. She is a world-traveler and an award-winning writer, photographer, and story-teller whose works of fiction and nonfiction are available through Amazon HERE. Naomi presents her wonderful photo-stories – always interesting and rich with meaning and humor – at Writing Between the Lines, Life from the Writer’s POV. She also conducts workshops such as Peace Porridge (multicultural stories to promote cooperation, goodwill, and peaceful coexistence), Whispers in the Graveyard (a spellbinding array of haunting and mysterious stories), Tandem Tales, Traveling Light Around the World, and others. For more on her programs visit Naomi Baltuck.com
Flight Off of Half Dome
An etheree
Walk
alone
in autumn
below the blue
canopy of sky.
Leaves crunch beneath your feet.
Where do crickets go on cold
fall days wrapped up in brilliant hues?
Why do the horses romp in sunlit
fields of green with wind whipping through their manes?
Where do crickets go on chilled winter days?
Yosemite-place of the gaping
mouth-belonged to the Miwok
until the white man came.
“Manifest Destiny”
they called it—God’s will.
The valley was
theirs to romp
in sun-
light.
Mi-
wok fled
in autumn
under the black
night sky in silent
flight off Half-Dome or through
wet leaves that could not crunch. Their
tears fell into the dark chasm
drowning the crickets who hid beneath
scarlet shrouds of all that came before death.
The Miwok Indians, guardians of Yosemite and Tuolome Meadows were driven from their homeland under the guise of “Manifest Destiny.” There was an etching at the Nevada Museum of Art when we had a Yosemite exhibit titled “Flight Off of Half Dome” depicting their “eviction” as falling from the rock.
“Etheree” is a form in which the poet increases from one to ten syllables per line and then in reverse for as many stanzas as desired.
– Victoria Slotto
© 2014, poem and photograph, Victoria C. Slotto, All rights reserved
VICTORIA C. SLOTTO (Victoria C. Slotto, Author: Fiction, Poetry and Writing Prompts) ~ is an accomplished writer and poet. Winter is Past, published by Lucky Bat Books in 2012, is Victoria’s first novel. A second novel is in process. On Amazon and hot-off-the-press nonfiction is Beating the Odds: Support for Persons with Early Stage Dementia. Victoria’s ebooks (poetry and nonfiction) are free to Amazon Prime Members. Link HERE for Victoria’s Amazon page. Victoria’s poetry collection is Jacaranda Rain, Collected Poems, 2012.
White foam rides the churning– Gayle Walters Rose
© 2014, poem, Gayle Walters Rose, All rights reserved; photo credit ~ Florida Scrub Jay by VvAndromedavV under CC BY-SA 3.0
GAYLE WALTERS ROSE (Bodhirose’s Blog) ~ has contributed to The Bardo Group blog several times since its founding in 2011. Gayle has actively blogged since 2010, writing about family life, things of the spirit, and her ashram-life experiences. In this relatively short time, her sincerity and authenticity has earned her quite a large and loyal following. Gayle is a regular participant in d’Verse Poets Pub. This poem was written in response to Victoria’s Wilderness Week writing prompt posted on Wednesday.
Published on Mar 18, 2013
Welcome to the Wilderness Society!! Our valued staff and members share their stories about the Wilderness Society and their reasons for protecting the Australian environment and wilderness.
“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.” Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), leader of Indian Nationalism and promoter of nonviolent civil disobedience
I came of age with Eliot Porter. Not literally of course. Rather, my adolescence and young adulthood were accompanied by his books and photos. He taught me how to look. Even now, his photographs influence my writing and visual work.
A few weeks ago we were in Downeast Maine, north of Bar Harbor. Every few days we drove south, down Penobscot County way. Eliot Porter spent much time in the Penobscot region, as well as out West. Out West, his photos were panoramic. Downeast, they were more intimate, capturing a brook, leaf, or pod of berries. If memory serves me, his iconic book and homage to Thoreau, In Wilderness is the Preservation of the Earth, drew heavily from his Penobscot experience.
People tend to think of wilderness as vast tracks of untouched ecosystems. Yet in our
time, there are few such places. Climate change and other forms of pollution reach the farthermost corners of the earth. Here, in North America, fossil fuel mining takes place in the midst of former wildlands. Our population has grown so large that we fill the back country with people on many weekends.
The elders taught me to treasure wilderness, and to remember there is another wilderness, the one that lies within each of us. Those vast spaces can be imposing, even terrible, in their beauty and harshness. I was taught there is another danger in focusing on the wilderness inside us: we may ignore the needs of the Planet that supports us, and the innumerable beings that accompany us. To successfully journey into wilderness requires forethought and balance.
For many, the inner wilderness seems most inaccessible, even dangerous. There are daemons within, and sea monsters, waiting to devour us. As shamans everywhere have long known, there is also the ever present threat of madness. Yet there is also the promise of renewal.
Shamans journey into this wilderness to seek aid for others, to return souls to their owners, and to accompany the dead to the other world. They travel for visions of the future, to learn where game will be tomorrow, and to correct imbalances in the world, imbalances most often created by people. Sometimes shamans travel and fail to return home; this is a always a risk.
When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they brought imbalance to our people in the form of illness, alcohol, and social chaos. Faced with this, the shamans and Medicine people sought cures in the inner and the everyday worlds. They were resourceful and connected to the spirits of things, and were often successful in finding ways to heal those afflicted. Yet, eventually, the sheer volume on illness overwhelmed many of our cultures, killing great numbers of healers as they cared for others. Much knowledge was lost in those dark days.
Downeast, Eliot Porter focused on the small, the everyday. He reminded us that wilderness is a matter 
of scale and attention, that we can find wilderness wherever we are. We can, in turn, look closely at the minutia of the world around us, journey deep into the forest, or turn inward. Sometimes we do all these, simultaneously. Such moments form a sort of vision quest.
Eliot Porter taught me that as we look through the camera’s lens, we sharpen our attention, and open to the magic of the unexpected. Perhaps, for just a moment, we discover ourselves reflected in the world around us, and are returned to primal wholeness and balance. In such moments we may know that we are the salmon swimming home to reproduce and die, the leaves settling into the litter, preparing to nurture the next generation, or the eagle that flies above the world, capturing visions of wholeness. Then we may understand that wilderness is indeed the preservation of the world, and of the soul.
– Michael Watson
© 2014, essay and photographs, Michael Watson, All rights reserved
MICHAEL WATSON, M.A., Ph.D., LCMHC (Dreaming the World) ~ is a contributing editor to Into the Bardo, an essayist and a practitioner of the Shamanic arts, psychotherapist, educator and artist of Native American and European descent. He lives and works in Burlington, Vermont, where he teaches in undergraduate and graduate programs at Burlington College,. He was once Dean of Students there. Recently Michael has been teaching in India and Hong Kong. His experiences are documented on his blog. In childhood he had polio, an event that taught him much about challenge, struggle, isolation, and healing.Published on Aug 21, 2012
School in the Woods Chief Instructor Doug Getgood spent a year living alone in a cabin in the Northern wilderness of Ontario, Canada. This is his record of that year.
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity…” John Muir (1838-1914), Scottish-American naturalist, writer and environmentalist
If a tree falls in the woods and I don’t photograph it, did I really see it?
Last week, amidst the throes of last-minute packing for spring break in Hawaii, I was mentally outlining the next chapter of my manuscript. That’s the only excuse I can give for walking out of the house and onto an airplane…
Without. My. Camera.
So Thom gave me charge of his new toy, a Pentax underwater camera, for use in or out of the water. My hero!
Its zoom wasn’t as powerful, but I was grateful. As they say, “Any port in a storm!”
I snapped a handful of shots before it died. We changed the battery and…nothing. Arrrrgh! I thought about buying a new camera, but it seemed wasteful; I’m happy with the one at home. Maybe just a one-use camera, a single roll of film in a recycled plastic case? No, those photos always look washed out. Then I thought, I’ve been to Maui, and I’ll be back. How many sunsets do I need in my archives?
I don’t need to chase rainbows
I decided to make a clean break of it, go cold turkey. Perhaps my travel experience might even improve without a lens between me and my world.
Look, Ma! No cams!
I confess, I felt the pangs of withdrawal. My photographs help refresh memories I might otherwise forget.
With my camera, I am never alone.
I anticipate with pleasure the sharing of pictures with friends, family, my blogging community. Even sans camera, I was constantly framing shots in my mind’s eye. Sea turtles gliding in ocean currents. Two hotel maids walking arm-in-arm down a deserted hotel corridor. The underwater service station run by a pair of enterprising Cleaning Wrasse, with bigger fish lined up like cars at a car wash, patiently waiting their turn to be picked clean of parasites.
Oh, yes, and the kid in neon snorkel gear who shouted, “Mom! Dad! I can hear the whales singing!” Eli and I smiled indulgently at his vivid imagination.
The next morning we were snorkeling off that same beach when Eli said, “Mom! Dad! I can hear whales singing!” I thought he was teasing, but I ducked under the waves, held my breath, and listened. And I could hear them too. For an hour or more, we held perfectly still, just letting the whale song wash over us. I’d been coming to Maui for twenty years, but had never heard them. Had they been there all along? I was an astronaut, observing an alien planet from my little floating bubble, and was unexpectedly invited in for tea! And inside my snorkel mask I cried.
When we staggered onto the beach and looked out at the water, we saw them spouting, teasing us with glimpses of their fins and shiny black backs. We also saw the whale watching boat hounding them. Had they been communicating distress or just watching out for each other? Finally the boat left. And the moment it did, the whales began breaching and splashing, showing their big white bellies, time and time again! I suspect they were jumping for joy and shouting,”Woo hoo! We ditched ’em!”
It was like discovering your house is haunted with friendly ghosts going about their business, oblivious to that other world, except on those occasions when your worlds intersect. I decided the rolling ocean is The Poker Face of the World, and just beneath the surface, a swirl of emotions, life and death struggles, joy, pain, drama, and countless stories play themselves out.
There was no way a camera could have recorded that breathtaking experience, and no way I would ever need the help of a camera to recall it. Just when I resolved and resigned myself to a camera-free existence, Eli and I went for an afternoon walk.
And he taught me how to take photos with his Smart Phone.
Okay, forget everything I just told you about a camera-free life. Because then Saint Eli indulged me completely, taking me back to revisit all the beautiful sights I’d admired. We snapped all these pics and more with his Smart Phone.
Pretty pictures of stationary subjects…
…that practically come when you whistle for them.
Other photos depended upon conditions like weather.
Or light.
Or where our feet happened to take us.
My favorite shots are the unexpected ones, that dropped like ripe fruit falling from a tree into my lap.
Sweet.
Sweeter.
Sweetest!
As we sat on the beach watching the sun set, directly ahead of us a whale leapt out of the ocean so close I could see the lines on its belly. It thrust one long fin into the air and waved goodbye. Exhilarating! A flash of wonder! A glimpse of the sacred just for us! It is forever engraved in our memories and upon our hearts.
But I’m THRILLED that Eli caught it on his Smart Phone!
Okay, time to come clean. I ADORE chasing rainbows…
…and I will ALWAYS go for the gold!
WOO HOO!
All images and words copyright Naomi Baltuck (and Eli Garrard!)
NAOMI BALTUCK ~ is a Contributing Editor and Resident Storyteller here at Bardo. She is a world-traveler and an award-winning writer, photographer, and story-teller whose works of fiction and nonfiction are available through Amazon HERE. Naomi presents her wonderful photo-stories – always interesting and rich with meaning and humor – at Writing Between the Lines, Life from the Writer’s POV. She also conducts workshops such as Peace Porridge (multicultural stories to promote cooperation, goodwill, and peaceful coexistence), Whispers in the Graveyard (a spellbinding array of haunting and mysterious stories), Tandem Tales, Traveling Light Around the World, and others. For more on her programs visit Naomi Baltuck.com
The BeZine 