Laura's Blog "The Spectrum"

One of the most entertaining, funny, sad, real, gotcha kind of blog writers I have found is Laura Astoria at her blog http://www.thespectrum.org/blogger.html Wide-eyed in Manhattan as she pursues her acting and musical theatre career, she makes great prose out of a subway ride, a trip to her shrink, a rant on ole boyfriends, or her Catholic roots. She's thoroughly pleasurable to read and her charm and intelligence is palpable. Keep it up, girl!!

First Day of August

Yeah, it's hot. Yeah, it's humid. Yeah, it's August in Kansas. As in "...I'm as corny as ...yada yada." There IS a lotta corn out there, by the way.

So how 'bout a cool, ice-clinky, glass of ice tea, or maybe a gin and tonic, and this lime-cool poem by Neruda:

"In Praise of Ironing"

Poetry is pure white.
It emerges from water covered in drops,
is wrinkled, all in a heap.
It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet,
has to be ironed out, the sea's whiteness;
and the hands keep moving, moving,
the holy surfaces are smoothed out,
and that is how things are accomplished.
Every day, hands are creating the world,
fire is married to steel,
and canvas, linen, and cotton come back
from skirmishings of the laundries,
and out of light a dove is born--
pure innocence returns out of the swirl.

Pablo Neruda, from Plenos Poderes

"Desire itself is movement/ Not in itself desirable;

Love is itself unmoving,/ Only the cause and end of movement,

Timeless, and undesiring/ Except in the aspect of time

Caught in the form of limitation/ Between un-being and being.

Sudden in a shaft of sunlight/ Even while the dust moves

There rises the hidden laughter/ Of children in the foliage

Quick now, here, now, always-- ...

(from Burnt Norton, T. S. Eliot)

Li'l Nipper

Here she is, blew in last week during the gale. Winds so strong it blew bricks out of our neighbor's chimney, blew best-laid plans of woman and man totally out the window--there is a message there, seems like, and hence a messenger. hmmmmm

Here's "No More Sad"

I don’t need
no more sad
life is miraculous
and short—
too full and too empty—
I don’t need
No more sad.

The silhouette of Satan’s face
long-nosed, pensive
in the bright sun’s shadow—
He don’t need
no more sad, neither—
He done made
his bed, in hell,
wherever.

And that grad student
pluggin in her laptop
suckin all her frap up
tappin into coffee house juice--
She don’t need
no more sad
neither.

Her frim-fram latte floats a silhouette—
a crane at sunset?
a dagger drippin blood?
a dead sister’s cigarette?
She don’t need
no more sad, never.

Yellow gleaming fireplug,
mound of snow,
cars passin slow
on main street,
Lunchers walkin fast
to strains of Johnny Cash
in bitin cold—
They don’t need
no more sad, neither.

(St. Anthony, Abbot day, 2007; copyright Hal Sears)

Motherwort

Leonuris cardiaca This was taken in our alley as the sun was setting (f3.2 @ 1/25 sec 400sp). I love how the flowering plant seems to glow despite the lowering light.

Dr. Culpepper (1653) says "There is no better herb to take melancholy vapors from the heart, and to strengthen it... it makes mothers joyful and settles the womb, therefore it is called Motherwort." Since it bloomed in England in late July and early August, and since good doctor Culpepper's 17th c. medical science also encompassed astrological influences, he puts the plant "under Leo" but "Venus owns the herb." Also, he claimed "It grows only in gardens with us in England."

Glad it made its move to Kansas, where it blooms in spring here. A good bitter tonic, particularly for women's issues. But if some of you men need a dose of Venus influence, here's your herb. Dar

Blue Flax

Got out in the garden before the sun fully rose and snapped these beauties. There is something about these flowers, called linum at the nurseries, that make my heart sing. They are partial to the cool part of the day. When it gets hot they set their energies on making their wonderful seeds which are high in Omega 3, 6, and 9 fatty acids. Even your doctor or your pharmacist these days can tell you the benefits for your heart, brain, joints, and skin of these natural oils. Flaxseed husks have high fiber content and anti-oxidant lignans. For a digestive tune-up, add a spoonful of ground flaxseed to plain yogurt as part of your breakfast. Add a little maple syrup and yummmm. Dar

HELLO ALOE & LAUGHING SARAH

Herb of the Day, Aloe Vera, gets a whole column today, recognizing its importance in the repertory of healing herbs. It will heal just by gazing at it, I sometimes feel, with that life-giving viriditas . I have seen it dry up and begin healing diaper rash almost as soon as the juice was applied--Wooo! Use clear juice only for this, since the sort of orangy color sap which comes from cutting leaf too close to stem may burn baby's skin.

Aloe has a great sense of humor. Stroke the nice turgid leaves between your fingers and feel the bumpy, benign prickles pass through. They go "Isaac, Isaac, Isaac" meaning "he laughs." And the image that comes to my mind is a happy baby. (See the story in Genesis 17 and 21 of Sarah laughing at God's "joke" that she would bear a son at age 90.) Thanks to friend Sara (no 'h') for inspiring this tack on the emotional value of the herb.

I once traded in live aloe v. when I lived in Santa Cruz. They came by truck from Arizona to a local herb broker, FMALI, run by friends Ben and Lou, now famous for Good Earth Teas. I would pot them in my garage using cans from the dining halls at UCSC and good ole Watsonville loam I cadged wherever I could. After a few weeks of settling in, I sold them wholesale and retail wherever I could peddle them, me in my '67 VW "Herbie" bus. I gotta say they sold themselves. Later a local production potter made cool little pots for the baby aloes and they sold well too.

Got a story about aloe vera? Write it to "comments". Happy Mother's Day to all mothers and mothers-to0-be (yay, Ro-Ro).

Graham Greene Paragraph of the Day

(from The Heart of the Matter)
"Round the corner, in front of the old cotton tree, where the earliest settlers had gathered their first day on the unfriendly shore, stood the law courts and police station, a great stone building like the grandiloquent boast of weak men. Inside that massive frame the human being rattled in the corridors like a dry kernel. No one could have been adequate to so rhetorical a conception. But the idea in any case was only one room deep. In the dark narrow passage behind, in the charge-room and the cells, Scobie could always detect the odour of human meanness and injustice--it was the smell of a zoo, of sawdust, excrement, ammonia, and lack of liberty. The place was scrubbed daily, but you could never eliminate the smell. Prisoners and policemen carried it in their clothing like cigarette smoke."
...this is why I read Greene--he sees directly through the social construct; but to be able to say "No one could have been adequate to so rhetorical a conception" is crystalline genius. dar...

Woops--forgot The Power and the Glory

Ole P&G, probably the most famous of G. Greene's Catholic novels. I have to say I tried to read it once, after a diet of about 3 of his novels, and I just couldn't read more than a few pages. That's a sign to give an author a rest, I think.
Well, seems I've rested. After finishing (thankfully) grim Brighton Rock, I started Greene's The Heart of the Matter today, and I love the tired colonial 1940's atmosphere. The intro essay by James Wood in the 2004 ed. of this book fails to take into account the change in the Church's teaching on suicide--a crux of the book-- since Vatican II (1962-65). The Church now holds "We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentence." CCC2283
Seems that Greene did have a prophetic voice.

OH OW OH

This morning I was writing a poem for my daughter's baby shower using the Compose feature on Hotmail, and I stupidly clicked away to find another feature--and, of course if you have Hotmail, you know what happened. I LOST EVERYTHING I had written. I quickly jotted down whatever I could remember in my notebook, but, you know- -that magic part where something happens in there I just couldn't somehow retrieve. So, straining to stay positive, I put the thing away till tomorrow. And this time I'll use Word.

Later that same morning...

Just finished reading Graham Greene's Brighton Rock, a 1938 read noir if there ever was one. Would only suggest it if you're into the good and evil thing and didn't mind hanging with a truly evil protagonist (o.k., he gets his in the end). It's one of his 3 "Catholic novels"; the other ones: The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair. The latter recently made into an opera by Jake Heggie, which has played in Seattle, and this April in Kansas City.

You know, Carl Jung said you should write or study Evil only if you have a "strong tower" to work from--in other words the Protection. The code that works for me is 9 1 1 or for Psalm readers, Psalm 91-1. I once wrote a book length ms. on the Antichrist, and before it was done, had re-linked to my Christian roots. So I think ole Graham G. had his strong tower--very strong, to write inside the head of the stupendously evil 17 year old kid mobster of the Brighton book.

STOCKS: Sold 100 sh. of Aetna (AET) this morning, with some profits, and added to position in S.L.Green (SLG) (no relation to Graham Greene), the NYC office REIT.

POETRY: Love the blog Absolutely Plum. She loves poetry, it's easy to see. I'm trying to write a poem for my oldest daughter's Baby Shower this Sunday. Have you ever written a poem, or written about, such a thing?? Just wondering. Let me know.