Saturday, November 29, 2008

SoCoCo At the Toad/Bill Edelen Column/Oz



(P1) Poetical

SoCoCo Resumes as "SoCoCo At the Toad" Sunday, January 11th at 2PM

<(Click on SoCoCo image to enlarge)

Very good news! After learning that Sonoma Coffee Company had closed, I began scouting for new venues for the popular SoCoCo Readings. I found several, but my first choice was the wonderful English pub in Railroad Square called Toad In the Hole. Paul Stokeld at Toad In the Hole is excited about our using the Toad for SoCoCo. I'm going to call it "SoCoCo At the Toad." Because they cannot infringe on their nighttime dinner crowd, we're going to move it to Sunday afternoons at 2 PM and advertise, "Come and either have late lunch during or early dinner after, or both. Great pub food and drink!" See menu and other info at

www.thetoadpub.com

Come early and have lunch. Or come later for snack, a beer, or soft drinks. Stay afterwards for early dinner. We won't have to seek out a location to which to repair after the reading!

Richard Denner's Berkeley "mentor Lu Garcia will be reading along with Gwynn O'Gara, Ed Coletti, Mark Eckert, David Madgalene, and Centa Theresa.
The pub is at 116 5th Street between Wilson Avenue and Davis Street in the Old Railroad Square area of Santa Rosa.

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(P2) Political
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(P3) Philosophical

Joy-filled column by a great and valuable friend, Bill Edelen who I believe to be young-in-his-eighties!


MY FAVORITE THINGS



William Edelen
November 23, 2008


One of my all time favorite songs is from "The Sound of Music". It is "My Favorite Things". I never listen to that without feeling joyful. It always brings forth a smile. As I write these words at the beginning of the month for Thanksgiving I let my calendar of the soul take over and my head and heart are filled with gratitude for so many of my favorite things...that make life so good and the days so sparkling.

# Great hugs from those you love...and who love you. (this also lowers cholesterol we are told. It beats Oak Bran).

# The wild flowers of a rainy Spring...and the grasses of a showery summer. The solitude and silence of the winter months when the mountains are covered with snow...and our Mother Earth sleeps a while.

# Choosing a great book for morning reading with the winter rain falling outside my study window...and a hush covers the earth.

# Sitting mesmerized at night in our living room before a wood burning fire that draws me like in the days of the Cro Magnon caves when the fire kept us secure and safe...I have never understood how anyone can have an artificial fire with fake logs.

# A freshly opened bag of Peets coffee in the morning to start the day on a high and noble plane.

# Or a freshly opened bag of pipe tobacco to follow the coffee and fill my study with aromas that are simply beyond description.

# The Bougainvilleas outside our home...in full and spectacular bloom.

# The Desert rains when the fragrant odors...the rich aromas of an earth moist and alive. The rolling sounds of thunder waking the earth from its restful slumber, as they say in the Taos Pueblo.

# Dazzling rainbows receiving a standing ovation from the little red flames on the tips of the ocotillos.

# The Candle of the Lord, the eloquent creamy white blossoms shooting up high on their great spike of the Yucca.

# Turning the stereo up and flooding my study, or the house, with Bach or Brubeck....or Count Basie...or Kiri Te Kanawa....or Barry Manilow with the "big bands".

# Being a member of the loving...caring...extended family of my Sunday Symposium...a family that extends into dozens of other states when the winter people are here. for their 4 months in the sun.

# Freshly baked bread.

# A world class, medium rare, hamburger...smothered with onions...tomatoes...pickles...mustard...and "pardon me...but would you have any Grey Poupon?" My love for Julia Childs who also said this was her favorite meal.

# Returning home and being greeted with pure...non-judgmental...love and tails wagging like pom-poms from dancing dogs...who are always dancing with the joy of the cosmic dancer, Shiva.

# The Mourning Doves and Quail that fill my backyard for breakfast.

# Turning back again and again , day after day, month after month and year after year to enrich my spirit with the brilliance of Thomas Jefferson....Robert Ingersoll...Carl Jung...Learned Hand...Bertrand Russell...Joseph Campbell...Frank Waters...Octavio Paz...Voltaire...Erasmus...and all the giants of human thought and the free mind that fill the four walls of my study with this inexhaustible legacy...knowing that it is our nourishing mother and our lasting life.

# The joy of the dawn hours of first light for quiet thought and meditation, remembering that it was Erasmus who reminded us that "The dawn is always a friend to the muses."

# Experiencing the Mystery that moves and flows within relationships and events and destinies...and "shoes and ships and sealing wax...and cabbages and Kings..." or in the words of Wordsworth..."In the blush of every dawn...in the evening breeze...in the leafs low murmur...in the swell of the ocean and seas...the rising and ebbing of tide...the mote of the sunbeam...rest here, I whisper to the atom...I call to the orb...roll on...the link...the chain of existence..."Artist of the solar spaces...and of human faces...though all human races claim Thee...thought and language fail to name Thee...mortal lips are dumb before Thee...Silence...only silence...can stand in awe before Thee..."

To leave the Mystery alone and un-named is not to lose...for silence names as well as sound...and it is enough...

It is this Mystery that fills my days and nights with joy and reminds me that all of my "favorite things" are a revelation of that same Mystery.

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Sunday, November 09, 2008

Cogratulations/Bird//We/Prop 8/


(P1) Poetical

Rare Bird (water color by Ed Coletti)




(P2) Political

Congratulations America!

There is a saying widely attributed to Winston Churchill that "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities." We arrived at a moment when change was the most conservative option. The 47-year-old president-elect came to represent the belief that Americans had to embrace change

- Ellen Goodman

On Proposition 8

In response to the above political cartoon which depicts the ratification of equality for all as of November 4, 2008, Katherine Hastings reminds us of the despicable passing of Proposition 8 which amended the State Constitution so that gays and lesbians no longer have the right to marry -- a right the California Supreme Court put into law earlier this year. As a reminder to those who voted Yes on this proposition, she shares the following poem by Walt Whitman:


Thought:
Of Equality --

as if harm'd me, giving others the same

chances and rights as myself -- as if it were not

indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same.



-- Walt Whitman

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(P3) Philosophical



First Person Plural

(On Barrack Obama’s Election)

We join hands
We rejoice
We can
We did
We build
We people
We nations
We friends
We who disagree
We voices
We sacrifice
We love
We make music
We write poems
We read the constitution
We open minds
We raise hearts
We commune
We forget
We forgive
We hope
We expect
We realize
We won’t always
We thank
We praise
We help
We feast
We celebrate
We cry
We lift
We soothe
We unite
We become
We melt
We blend
We elevate
We fly
We become us
We

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Sunday, November 02, 2008

Dresden/ Swaney/Pronouncing Iraq/What It's All About


(P1) Political

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(P2) Poetical

Art Work by Ray Swaney (Santa Rosa, CA)

While listening to Sarah Palin constantly mispronounce words like "nuclear" and "Iraq" during her debate with Joe Biden, I was reminded of my 2006 poem

Pronouncing “Iraq”

Ear Rack or Ear Rock?
What implications?
(dismiss all Eye Rackers
for just who they are)

Ear Ack
Ear Ock
each tick
each tock

air attack
must whack
political hack
wolf pack
kick back
data track
pitch black
media claque
all those youngsters
ripped by flak
yack yack
spore sac

voting flock
cuckoo clock
where’s John Locke
in dry dock
mental block
preening cock
full of schlock
writ in chalk
for mock and hock
loss of freedom block on block
despairing race against the clock.

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(P3) Philosophical

Just Thinking Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window. No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held for awhile. Some dove somewhere. Been on probation most of my life. And the rest of my life been condemned. So these moments count for a lot--peace, you know. Let the bucket of memory down into the well, bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one stirring, no plans. Just being there. This is what the whole thing is about.
- William Stafford

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