Shadows

Shadows, I have a problem with shadows, they bring things that don't exist, taking us from children throughout our lives afraid that there may be things hiding in the dark that we cannot and do not want to see. And shadows allow ones that do exist to become invisible. Invisible places to the eye, but not the heart and soul, especially the deepest shadowy places of the mind and soul...

September does that. Letting shadows grow longer and nights stretch into eternity. As we remember times, we can never live again. Except in shadows reflected off the wall of our minds, and as our minds set the soul free to wander back and forth safely through shadows, from past to future and back again, images of a conscious dream world, conscious "Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives." (—Schneider and Velmans, 2007) this link in many ways is and is not what I am finding in my shadows .

But sometimes in the middle of the night, a face appears, a voice heard, perhaps a touch startles, and then is gone.

September steals summer the way time steals youth, hopes and dreams, some came to be and some not. Dreams of what a summer could be. Just given a little more time, we could squeeze in that barbeque, the trip to the beach, a day trip to anywhere, if only given just a little more time. But September comes; the sea breeze has more bite to it now, heralding the bone numbing winds that will come to this small New England town, when January freezes the harbor and the soul alike.

I think I am mad at summer for what I could not make it.

Shadows smother day's light like fingers pinch flame, shadows grow darker, and we melt into darkness, lost in memories of summer. The way the old still run, running fast and faster in the shadows of yesterday.

Mad at summer for what they did not do.

I have a problem with shadows; I have a problem with September shadows in particular. September brings to a close so many things, things you can only do on warm summer days in New England, like talking to my neighbors on the sidewalk, I actually like talking on a sidewalk that runs by all the houses on the block, walking by and taking the time to rub the head of the neighborhood pug puppy and dancing a few rounds with the 80 pound and growing boxer next door. Hearing sea gulls and the wind.

People can talk on sidewalks, it is a neutral meeting place and there is something warm about a good sidewalk chat. As humans we live in vacuums ,existing in a world of our own make believe, playing with our shadows attempting to keep them away as long as possible, or at least until the shadows of Fall make it impossible to run from them any longer. We have to do this, it is in its way survival, we must out wit and outlive the shadows...

I know my neighbors are there I see a light, go on, go off, I will not think of a timer and I’m living next door to a robot!

More shadows.

Occasionally though an escaping blur flees car to house, unrecognizable bundle against the January winds, that September had warned us about. I know my friends have their own shadows to deal with, but at least they are my neighbors, or do robots get cold?

More shadows.

My cats have shadows also; of course, they probably have a better reason, certainly better instincts. Starting in mid September (though they live indoors) to stake out their mid winter shelters. Visiting their winter hangouts. Chloe, the girl, likes the carpet in the living room, not a sheltered corner of the room, but often directly in the middle of the room. The draftiest room in the house. A beautiful old house overlooking a beautiful old harbor, but when the " nor' easter" blows, reversing the natural flow of things, the old houses timbers do truly shiver. But Perhaps Chloe loves this room because the windows look out over the harbor, and in the summer, it’s from this room that she surveys her kingdom. And everyone knows that for a cat all that they can see from their window is their world, their Kingdom. Perhaps that room in the winter makes her shadows and waiting for summer a little easier. Pericles, The Maine Coon cat, I must always capitalize those words “Maine Coon Cat” or so Pericles who is now 17, sweet, and gentle as ever, and so proud of himself tells me. Pericles prefers the bedroom; he is completely deaf and knows that one place his people will always end up is in this room. They will find him. It’s a reality that makes the shadows easier, shadows he can count on. Pericles and I have one of those very uncommon almost cosmic bonds that sometimes happen between Human and Animal. And it must make him feel safe from his shadows to have me nearby, and he does the same for me. We have comforted each other in so many ways for so many long winter nights and sunny summer days. Each winter I pray he will last another season to make it to a sunny window again.

So in this small New England seacoast village, my neighbors and I will bunker down, add the storm windows, seal up a few more cracks. And prepare to deal with a few more shadows. At sunsets, we peek to see a light from nearby houses feeling assured that our friends are safe and warm and waiting for the sidewalk chats again. It gives us strength, if not a reason, to deal with the shadows that creep across our gardens and our minds...

We content ourselves by finding safe places in the shadows, the places where a little sun sneaks through, and we remember that first teenage summer on the beach, We a twinkling brief promise, that shadows never win.

What we could have done with summer, just given a little more time.

I have a problem with shadows.

Ads, War And Politicians

Ads, War and Politicans





I’m upset, gee what about now Dan Is the red-toed tree ant in trouble again? By the way, I am sure there is no such Red-Toed Tree Ant, at least not on this planet. I’m upset about ads on blog sites, especially on my blog site. Yes, I do run ads, because after 14 years of paying for the CEO’s salaries at major hospitals and health care companies, even making a small fortune on the ads that run on my website helps. And if anyone thinks, I have earned a small fortune doing this, “Please allow me to introduce myself I’m a man of wealth and taste” From The Rolling Stones, Sympathy For the Devil.

I have no control, over what ads are appearing, when, where etc.... I can write and anti war piece and find an Army recruitment ad next to it, in some way I am able to live with that “The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars. “
William Westmoreland

So unfortunately, I guess we need an Army, it is the number of losable wars we do not need at the expense of young lives. “I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. “It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.”
William Tecumseh Sherman

So today, I was happily checking my website and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a little politician, on my website so clear. And It does not not matter his or her name or wither I would otherwise support them. They were not invited on to my website. Furthermore I am sure that with all the TV, Radio, and news paper ads Politicians do not need to take up space in my website and especially in my brain and obviously they are doing both right now. If I sound like I think that politics and politicians are the root of all evil, I don’t mean to, because I do not think politics and politicians are the root of all evil, just in most cases a strong contributor to it.

I love the travel ads, that appear, and in fact, I would say that I have no problem with 90% of the ads that run. Of course, now I want to lose sleep watching the ads appear because who knows what they may try to sneak by me in the middle of the night.

Bring on the Army, I will deal with them later and the ads for the snake oil that will do everything from grow hair to other body parts, thank God, I haven’t seen any of those yet.

But please leave the Politicians on their own stump somewhere. Somewhere far away and have them speak so low, I’ll read about a list of names find out what their political views are and probably write in George McGovern .

It’s going to be interesting what ads may appear here. Political ads are a lot like the new super drug resistant germ that is starting to spread. Now I’m off to see how one removes a delete resistant politician from a website.

A Tail Of Trash

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creative-treehouse.com | All Things Creative, Blogs, Photography, Music And More. Creativity Is The Breath And Soul Of Life.

creative-treehouse.com | All Things Creative, Blogs, Photography, Music And More. Creativity Is The Breath And Soul Of Life.

A Small Cabin On A Mountaintop- Part One

It was May when I first drove the winding country road through the deepest parts of one of the most beautiful States in our country; West Virginia. The year was 1966: The Vietnam war was raging, young men and women were dying, protesters were marching and going to jail and some of them were dying as well. It was a time of almost diabolical contrast. The killing fields of Vietnam vs the loving fields of San Francisco, and other places. Woodstock was yet to be. United States president Lyndon Johnson was saying that we should stay in Vietnam until Communist aggression was stopped there. US troops now totalities, 385,000, and 20,000 Buddhists marched in demonstrations against the policies of the military Government in South Vietnam.

Driving that back country road as the beauty of Spring was coming to life, I was feeling far removed from all that was going on in "the outside world." And yet, I was about as non removed as a person could be. My father was Government. I was, in the words of John Fogerty; "a fortunate one." And yet, I had already refused to take part in the safe life, having publicly burned my draft card, refused induction into the Vietnam War after forcing the Selective Service to reclassify me from"fortunate" ( otherwise known as 3-A, that is a family hardship deferment ( What Hardship ?) and a college deferment to boot meant I was never going to Vietnam. Except I was not going to sit silently and watch others die while I took the easy road out. So as I drove that beautiful country road, I was remembering the day I was supposed to step forward and accept enlistment, but instead stepped backward and said " No Thank You," I laughed as I remembered the Sargent's face looking like it was about to explode.

So Prison was no doubt in my future. It was part of my plan to accept nothing that "they" would offer, but first I was going to have a little fun and lead them,the FBI, and a few others on a merry chase for awhile. There will be more on those adventures in the future, but this is about the wonder and beauty of aloneness and the ability to sink into one's mind with the sounds of the City and the normal rush and noise of the day to day world left behind.

So driving on, I finally entered Alderson, West Virginia, but to get to where I was going would be a few more miles on paved road, then 2 miles up what amounted to little more than a trail. and the last two miles would be on foot. And as yet,there was no cabin, That would need to be built before the first cold began on my mountain top.Walking up the last few hundred yards to where I would spend the next year of my life, I could see smoke.Were the woods on fire? The nearest cabin was about 3 miles on the other side of the mountain, so it could not be a fireplace. But it was.The friend that I would spend the next year with-a very self-efficient and capable woman had already built a fireplace of rock. In fact, it was one wall of what would be the cabin. Having no other heat or electricity, this fireplace would be used not only for heating the cabin but heating hot water and cooking. It was large enough to heat a very large kettle of water or food, with a side stove for baking. Other walls had been started, with the help of the nearest neighbors, as well as a garden begun. Emily, who owned the property, was also a military brat. But very against the war, her Father was a General in the Army,she was not just going to sit around and wait for me to arrive. Her abilities were made even more remarkable by her small delicate looking frame and pretty face. Not the type of look you would expect on a woman who would carry rocks and wood and begin the building of such a place.

When the cabin was finished, we tended the garden, grew sunflowers, and took long hikes either together or alone. A stream ran through the property about fifty yards from the cabin, from the top of the mountain where there was a medium size waterfall and I spent many hours alone there thinking of the future, the past, and mostly the beauty of the present.I heard birds singing, and occasionally the sound of something in the woods, could be a bear, wolf, or deer....this was true wilderness. It was not unusual to wake in the morning to see a deer or a few wolves playing in the yard, or a bear trying to get over the fence that protected the garden, or into the small barn built for one goat for milk. Goats milk, by the way, in my opinion is very good. And we had a few chickens for eggs. Fish came from the stream and meat was never eaten. We had beans, rice, plenty of vegetables, and fish. The diet was sound and healthy and provided by us for us, and not by the local Stop and Spend.

The mornings, even in the summertime, can be a little chilly and a fog will add an even deeper mystery to the world. Forms move across in the distance almost like spirits, and the Cardinal, the state bird of West Virginia, will begin to sing the sun awake while the soul seems to have found its place on this earth.

After a year I left Emily and that mountain. I never saw her or the mountain again. I often wonder, is she still living there, or if she also returned to a city somewhere remembering the mountain top days. Even if that is so, I like to think that there is still an old stone fireplace standing and reverberating the memories of long ago, and maybe the great grandson of that old bear still rubs against the garden fence, and the wolves welcome the moon at night and the Cardinal sings to the morning sun. It can take my soul back to that place of peace, believing that is true....