Saorsa

The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.
~Sydney J. Harris

I started knitting last November, not long after the election. I am not expecting to be "good" at it-- I just like to do it because it calms me down. The other day, as I was picking up my "therapy scarf," a video popped up about AOC knitting. [Some people thought she shouldn't be knitting (???) and another person was coming to her defense.]

The name of this post means "Freedom" in Gaidhlig (Scottish Gaelic). Freedom to relax how you want, freedom to think outside the lines.

For Art Thursday, nontraditional knitting:

Social Knitwork
Friedenauer Brücke, Berlin-Schöneberg, Deutschland

Home-knitted protective cover for old tractor
by Beiarn Handicraft Society, Beiarn, Nordland, Norway.
photo by Frankemann

Ik en mijn Brei Art bike Boelenslaan
Baykedevries

Knitted egg cozies in blue and yellow demonstrate for peace in Ukraine
Haeferl

The Swabian Alb as seen across the Wurmlingen Chappel and the Rammert
Heidrun Liegmann (Knitter)
Rainer Halama

Knitted graffiti in Kiryat Hamelacha
by Liza Mamali
photo by Nizzan Cohen

Ain't gonna play

It is not our diversity which divides us; it is not our ethnicity, or religion or culture that divides us. Since we have achieved our freedom, there can only be one division amongst us: between those who cherish democracy and those who do not.
~Nelson Mandela

Apartheid has been coming up more lately because of the influence in our government of a white man from South Africa who grew up under the apartheid system. How was he influenced by apartheid? I don't know, did it give him the urge to remove all mentions of Black people from everything?

Here's a catchy song from the '80s with a truly impressive bunch of folks in it. Pat Benatar! Darlene Love! Miles Davis! See who you spot. (There's a list below.)




"In 1985, Steven Van Zandt, along with Arthur Baker, Hart Perry, and Danny Schechter, formed Artists United Against Apartheid and Van Zandt would write “Sun City,” an anthemic Rock/Hip Hop/R&B song protesting the Apartheid system symbolized by the South African resort, Sun City. Over 50 artists including Gil Scott-Heron, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Grandmaster Melle Mel, George Clinton, Run DMC, Jimmy Cliff, Ruben Blades, Pat Benatar, Herbie Hancock, Lou Reed, Joey Ramone, Peter Gabriel, Bob Geldof, Clarence Clemons, David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks, Darlene Love, Bobby Womack, Afrika Bambaataa, Kurtis Blow, The Fat Boys, Jackson Browne, Peter Wolf, Bonnie Raitt, Hall & Oates, Big Youth, Michael Monroe, Stiv Bators, Peter Garrett, Ron Carter, Ray Barretto, Nona Hendryx, and Miles Davis."

The green fuse

The landscape looks different from every blade of grass.
~Marty Rubin

Happy Poetry Friday! Today I have a poem I read on Grateful Living.

photo by Nicholas A. Tonelli

Belonging
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

And if it’s true we are alone,
we are alone together,
the way blades of grass
are alone, but exist as a field.
Sometimes I feel it,
the green fuse that ignites us,
the wild thrum that unites us,
an inner hum that reminds us
of our shared humanity.
Just as thirty-five trillion
red blood cells join in one body
to become one blood.
Just as one hundred thirty-six thousand
notes make up one symphony.
Alone as we are, our small voices
weave into the one big conversation.
Our actions are essential
to the one infinite story of what it is
to be alive. When we feel alone,
we belong to the grand communion
of those who sometimes feel alone—
we are the dust, the dust that hopes,
a rising of dust, a thrill of dust,
the dust that dances in the light
with all other dust, the dust
that makes the world.

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I'm guessing everyone has heard about the economic boycott tomorrow (Friday)? I'm looking forward to not spending any money.

Dare to Care has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Denise!

P.S. How appalling is it to be allied with Russia? Utterly.

Chess knights

The game is so full of events, there is such a variety of turns in it, the fortune of it is so subject to sudden vicissitudes, and one so frequently, after long contemplation, discovers the means of extricating one's self from a supposed insurmountable difficulty, that one is encouraged to continue the contest to the last, in hopes of victory by our own skill, or, at least, of giving a stalemate, by the negligence of our adversary.
~Benjamin Franklin

For Art Thursday, chess knights. I grew up thinking of them as the horses, but I also like these pieces which include the rider:

The Lewis Chessmen, probably made in Norway, about AD 1150-1200
Found on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland
photo by Rob Roy

Chess Figure, 12th to 16th century
photo by Andreas Praefcke
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My heart's a drummer

It's funny...as I get older, I'm reverting to my roots. I want to plant stuff.
~Melissa McCarthy

Before we have songs for Music Monday, does anybody need emotional care?
Plant Care for Emotional Care: Grounding Techniques for Anxiety Using the Garden from Garden Therapy

Eva Noblezada's voice!



For a more serious song, here are two versions of a catchy anti-Nazi tune from Chumbawamba: an a cappella cover and Chumbawamba live.

Do you hear the people sing, for Ukraine

Visual Communication

Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing.
~Banksy

Graffiti is permitted in the Leake St Tunnel, London.
Photo by Dmitry Djouce

Happy Poetry Friday! I've got two poems for you today. The first one is mine and has a side story. I'm doing a Coursera poetry class with Denise (called Sharpened Visions) and one of the prompts was to take the rhymes from someone else's poem and use them in the same order. I picked Longfellow's The Arrow and the Song.

At first I had trouble coming up with a poem because his was stuck in my head. I had to think of a very different topic to send me off in another direction. I picked graffiti, which must have come to mind because I am going to be making graffiti for my birthday in a couple of weeks. (Although this is a lawless age, mine will be law-abiding, never fear.)

Rap it, as best you can:

GRAFFITI

Spray paint shakes, shoots through the air--
A word from a can freed to go where
It lands on a wall and gives in-sight--
Not every wall catches words in-flight.

Go outside, breathe unplugged air--
What you seek finds you out there.
Start out weak and wrap up strong,
Listen up hard for a skeleton song--

That's all you need to sprout a mighty oak--
The bones, the seeds, your acorn unbroke.
It's not like the end is even the end--
The painted-over wall is still your friend.

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Our second poem is by Sophia Thakur:



Laura Purdie Salas has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Laura!

Holodomor

At that time the punishment for a stolen handful of grain was 5 years of prison. One was not allowed to go into the fields, the sparrows were pecking grain, though people were not allowed.
~Olexandra Rafalska

It's Art Thursday! I started out just wanting to share "Overthrow of Autocracy" by Ukrainian artist Petro Martyniuk. It is circa 1930, so, when I couldn't find out more about the artist, I looked up the time period.

There was a famine in Ukraine (and the greater Soviet Union) during the years 1932-33, which was a Soviet-made disaster. "Holodomor" means "Murder by Starvation."

We Americans often don't know very much about world history (or even our own history), which puts us at a disadvantage when we are trying to understand contemporary events. You don't have to know about the Holodomor to understand why Ukraine would not want to lose its sovereignty to Russia, but learning about it casts light on their fierce determination.

Overthrow of Autocracy
by Petro Martyniuk

Holodomor plaque in Los Angeles

Holodomor Remembrance Day

Uplifting

This is a chance
To dance your way
Out of your constrictions
~Funkadelic

For Music Monday, two songs. First, "One Nation Under a Groove" by George Clinton Jr., Walter Morrison and Garry Shider, performed by The Detroit Academy of Arts & Sciences Choir ft. King Bethel and Anaiya Hall:



Next, a cover of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" performed by Little Big Town:

Smarty Plants

Along with a home-inspection duo, a science writer, and some enterprising scientists at Princeton University, we dig into the work of evolutionary ecologist Monica Gagliano, who turns our brain-centered worldview on its head through a series of clever experiments that show plants doing things we never would've imagined.
~Radiolab

Cacao by Monica Gagliano

Want to be fascinated?
I heard this podcast on a drive today and loved it: Smarty Plants

The howlin' old owl in the woods

I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft.
~John F. Kennedy

Happy Poetry Friday!

I'm going to miss the Kennedy Center! It was a cool place when it was led by someone who loves the arts. I enjoyed seeing Phantom of the Opera, The National Symphony Orchestra, the Chieftains, The Lion King, The King & I, and more.

I didn't see the song below in person, but isn't it stunning?



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I don't know how long this will be available, but currently you can download a Poem Forest Toolkit from The Kennedy Center. They say "Poem Forest is an eco-poetry project that invites students, teachers, and communities to become environmental advocates through connecting with local ecology and the creative power of poetry."

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A poem by IN-Q, who will be at the Kennedy Center on March 16th.

When I think of superheroes I think of super humans.
I think of Superman, Wolverine and Wonder Woman.
Usually they have a cape, or a mask to hide their face just in case.
They have X-ray vision and super-human strength.
Some can even breathe in outer space.
They fly around a while, but always come back to keep our cities safe.
They’re here to save humanity from itself.
It’s a metaphor for how we look outside ourselves for help, and while the fantasies are fun, I choose to look for me and you.

read the rest here

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Happy Valentine's Day!

Little Free Lit Mag, in case you want to put it in a Little Free Library near you.

Free meditation resource: Tara Brach's "How to Meditate"

TeacherDance has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Linda!

P.S. Let me give a shout out to some recent things I've gotten from Etsy: a beautiful phone case from this Ukrainian store, Emily Dickinson pencils, and a "word of the year" mini banner.

P.P.S. I heard the insurrectionist prison choir has been invited to come sing at the Kennedy Center...To quote Liz Cheney: "There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain."

The Cone of Montmorency

We of the United States of America consider ourselves blessed. We have much to give thanks for. But the gift of providence that we really cherish is that we were given as our neighbors on this great, wonderful continent, the people and the nation of Canada.
~Lyndon B. Johnson

Sending love to our neighbors to the north during Art Thursday. I haven't seen it in person, but doesn't Canada's Montmorency Falls in winter (in the 1800s) look fun? I'm also including one from a warmer season because it looks pretty then too.

The Cone of Montmorency, as it appeared in 1829
James Pattison Cockburn

Montmorency Falls in Winter
French-Canadian artist Joseph Légaré, 1850

The Ice Cone, Montmorency Falls, Québec, 1866
Robert Clow Todd

Montmorenci Falls, seen from close by
Coloured engraving by G.K. Richardson, 1840, after W.H. Bartlett

Waking up singing

I'm walking and talking with my mind
stayed on freedom
~Reverend Robert Wesby

So, I got a comment on my last post that was just the word "die!" written three hundred times. Hmm...was it something I said? I didn't expect to hear from the pro-defenestration contingent, but am I like, "Malevolent stranger, what would YOU like for me to say?" Umm, no.

The dust might have to settle before we find out if this is still the land of the free, but at least it can still be the home of the brave.

There aren't too many photos of groups where everyone in it looks good, but this is an exception. "Woke Up This Morning" with The Freedom Singers:

Darkness and strength

The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
~Howard Zinn

Happy Poetry Friday! Glad we can gather together even when things are grim.

Sharing a song by Russian songwriter and guitarist Vadim Stroykin, who did not support the war on Ukraine and "fell" from a window today during a police raid.



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I shared this poem in 2018 but had forgotten about it until I saw Diana Butler Bass post it today. Yes, Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29, perfect.

photo of Glockenbaum sculpture by Symposiarch

Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

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by Shannon Downey

Shannon Downey's Let's Move the Needle: An Activism Handbook for Artists, Crafters, Creatives, and Makers
This is not normal (cross stitch pattern)
When it all feels insurmountable, do something kind for someone (embroidery)

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Beyond Literacy Link has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Carol!

Just the facts

It's like Kremlin Christmas, every day now.
~Rachel Maddow

There are a lot of great protest posters out there. "No one elected Elon" is one I've seen a lot, and I like this colorful one that taps into a meme to cover the salient points:

USAID info from Samantha Power on Stephen Colbert

Protector

There's a long line of hands carryin' your name, mm
Liftin' you up, so you will be raised
~Beyoncé

Congratulations to Beyoncé on winning Album of the Year at the Grammys last night:

Batter our cymbals

When a man starts out to build a world, He starts first with himself.
~Langston Hughes

Midnight Golfer by E. J. Martin

Happy Poetry Friday! It's almost Black History Month, but any time is a good time to celebrate Black excellence. Today we have Langston Hughes and Airea D. Matthews.

To You
by Langston Hughes

To sit and dream, to sit and read,
To sit and learn about the world
Outside our world of here and now—
Our problem world—
To dream of vast horizons of the soul
Through dreams made whole,
Unfettered, free—help me!
All you who are dreamers too,
Help me to make
Our world anew.
I reach out my dreams to you.

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excerpt of Eviction
by Airea D. Matthews
for Wislawa

If one sister is silenced into salt

without body that remembers,

then I will batter my cymbals

bearing witness for us both

with what body still remains.

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excerpt of ‘Black Ecstatic Ode’
by Airea D. Matthews

Praise to that which endures
To old doors, layers of paint
To years of storm beating solid oak
Praise to the gable roof that is a ceiling
coffered ceiling that is also a floor
Praise to open wombs and caskets
To any mother who must decide either
Praise to what shoulders weight
To brackets and load-bearing walls
beams and spindly skeletons
sacred geometry and tangents
To levees and pregnant summers
the bullet-ridden body
To coilspring and wheel

Praise, soon, to the crown and seed lowering
To both the thorny and fertile soil
Praise to the ground unfastening
To every earthworm bristle
and every seraph’s six wings
Interlocked in songdance of welcome

To the body relenting only to dust
the spirit ascending straightway to stars
Praise to all who rejoice in becoming
To all who rejoice in return

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Bookseed Studio has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Jan!

The Brave zine has been updated! We added two poems that came in late.

Sipping Grief by Betsy Kahn ("There is actually a firehose of grief at my disposal, but everybody knows you can’t drink from a firehose. So when these images float up, I just take a little sip of grief, and mourn the loss")

Poetry Temple with Sage Cohen. February 8 from 3-4:30

Kim Tschang-Yeul

It was in Paris, in fact, that [Kim Tschang-Yeul] first embarked on his monumental water drop painting titled Événement de la Nuit (1972), where a single oversized water drop hangs, its shadow projected against the dark ground; within the droplet, a reflection of the window of the artist’s studio. Ever since, for fifty years, he continued to present works featuring water droplets that would transform into his trademark.
~Adam Hencz

For Art Thursday, Kim Tschang-Yeul. More from Artland's Adam Hencz: "The water drop motif straddles the space between the real and the abstract...water’s nature of being transparent while simultaneously having substance has been interpreted as a metaphor of emptiness or peace.

The meticulous practice of producing works, the painting process, and the creative act itself served as a self-healing journey for a generation of Korean artists [the Dansaekhwa movement] that grew up in the midst of the chaos of the Korean war...Creating patterns with the act of repetition is central to the practice of these artists. "

Kim Tschang-Yeul

Kim Tschang-Yeul

Huddled Masses

I lift my lamp beside the golden door
Remember what I stand here for
~Shaina Taub

Shaina Taub:

The Round-Up

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good – in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
~Robert Graves

Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome! It's lovely to have you here.

Sending thanks to participants in Jone's New Year's Postcard Swap. I have enjoyed receiving your warmth and creativity on these cold days.

It's been a transformative week. What are you and I being transformed into? My hope is that we will become more clear-eyed, generous, imaginative, curious, and brave.

I thought about "stiffening the sinews" the other day, so I had to share Shakespeare's Henry V, Act III, Scene I [Once more unto the breach, dear friends]:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man,
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage:
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height.



Thank you to everyone who contributed to my collection of brave poems (and to Elena, who formatted it)! You can read it online here and you can print it here. (Choose "print on both sides" and "short edge." Heidi also says that the print command is in the "little 3-dot dropdown," which is different than printing your own doc from your own Adobe account. If you have trouble printing from Adobe, let me know.)

I had thought I would pick my favorite poem to give the $50 Bookshop gift card to, but when it came down to it, I couldn't decide. Congrats to Irene, who was chosen by the random choice generator. Happy book shopping!

Isn't the image below cool? It's on a Wikipedia tshirt and says (in small letters) Free Knowledge For Everyone! I'm a huge fan of free knowledge in general and Wikipedia in specific, so I bought one of these tees for a family member. It was a hit with my kids and their SOs.

If you'd like to learn about how to keep info/anything on the Web safely archived, check out this DIY Web Archiving zine by Quinn Dombrowski, Tessa Walsh, Anna Kijas, Ilya Kremer, and Amanda Wyatt Visconti.

Time to add your link!

Spirals

Growth is a spiral process, doubling back on itself, reassessing and regrouping.
~Julia Margaret Cameron

I try to draw an animal every day. Yesterday I picked a snail illustration to use as a mentor drawing but ran out of time before I got around to it. Thinking about what to post for Art Thursday, a snail's spiral shell popped into my head.

When I looked up "spiral shells" on Wikipedia, my curiosity was piqued by "spirals in animals" generally. What other spirals do animals have? There are millipedes, ammonites, other sea animal shells, dog tails, chameleon tails...

Woo, chameleons are impressive-looking! (I'm including the Black-headed dwarf babies at the end even though you can't really see their spirals very well because, aah, so cute!)

Blue-legged Chameleon (Calumma crypticum), Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar
Frank Vassen

Eastern Cape Dwarf Chameleon (Bradypodion ventrale)
Marius Burger

Amber Mountain chameleon (Calumma amber) male Montagne d’Ambre, Madagascar
Charles J. Sharp

Female Chamaeleo africanus digging a nest
Benny Trapp

Cryptic Chameleon (Calumma crypticum)
Julien Renoult

Indian chameleon From Kanakpura, Karnataka
Girish Gowda

Black-headed Dwarf Chameleon (Bradypodion melanocephalum)
suncana

I saw my people

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
~Woody Guthrie

photo by Ted Eytan

Am I sad that an arsonist is being put in charge of the fire department? You bet. Am I going to keep walking that freedom highway? Absolutely.

For Music Monday, This Land is Your Land:

The seeds are still growing

Everything we do seeds the future. No action is an empty one.
~Joan D. Chittister

Hi folks! Happy Poetry Friday!

photo by N. Chadwick

I'm not sure where I saw this poem by Leslie J. Anderson (did one of you post it?) but it feels like this is a good time to share it again anyway:

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Thank you to everyone who gave me poems for my Brave compendium. Elena is formatting it and it will be ready by the 20th.

I signed up for Coursera's Sharpened Visions: A Poetry Workshop but I can tell I am going to have a hard time getting myself to follow through. Does anybody else want to do it and hold each other accountable?

The Miss Rumphius Effect has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Tricia!

Harmony

I make collages. I join the shattered world creating a new harmony.
~Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

For Art Thursday, a painting and a collage that go well together and then a self-portrait in stained glass.

Marcel Duchamp trivia:
Upon his return to Paris in 1923, Duchamp was, in essence, no longer a practicing artist. Instead, his main interest was chess, which he studied for the rest of his life to the exclusion of most other activities. (Wikipedia)

La sonate (Sonata)
Marcel Duchamp, 1911

Au Vélodrome, 1912
Jean Metzinger

Self portrait
by Pauline Boty

Coloring

People are visual and hands-on learners.
~Wolfgang Puck

Today for Wellness Wednesday, I'm going to make an unexpected suggestion. If there's something you've been wanting to learn, consider coloring pages.

One of my goals is to learn more about plant identification. I wanted a plant ID quiz app, something like Duolingo, but it doesn't exist. Well, you can make your own if you upload your own quizzes, but that doesn't hold a lot of appeal for me at the moment.

A few days ago I remembered that I'd downloaded a medicinal plants coloring book a while back so I printed it and have been using it. Wow, so helpful! I use photos to make sure I get the colors right. Coloring pages would also work well if you wanted to learn geography or anatomy. Basically, if there's something that requires some visual memorization, you might want to color it.

Why is this a Wellness Wednesday post? Learning is food for the spirit, and so is succeeding at a goal (not to mention coloring!).

The Breaks

And if you deserve a break tonight
Somebody say alright! (All right)

For Music Monday, Kurtis Blow singing "The Breaks" live on Soul Train:

Doing something gorgeous

I am a book of snow,
a spacious palm, a meadow,
a circle that lingers,
I belong to the earth, and to its winter.
~Pablo Neruda

Happy Poetry Friday! Today's poem "I Hope This Email Never Finds You" by Anna Stacy comes from Apricity Magazine, The University of Texas at Austin's lit mag. I heard about the word "Apricity" and that ended up leading me to the magazine. 'Apricity' means the warmth of the sun in winter and comes from the Latin word 'apricitas' (sunny).

photo by unixasket

I HOPE THIS EMAIL NEVER FINDS YOU
by Anna Stacy

I hope this email does not find you well.
I hope this email does not find you
And instead arrives to a desk overgrown with moss,
Lit quietly by a shard of light through your collapsed apartment ceiling
And that the silence that it finds there is simply deafening.

I hope this email does not find you
And that it goes around the corner to your kitchen
Where your discarded dishes stand like lichened towers,

read the rest here

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Kathryn Apel has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Kat!

P.S. Last call for Brave poems! Email me at tabatha(at)tabathayeatts(dot)com with them by the end of the weekend.