TRIUMPH OF SPIRIT IN LOVE, NATURE & ART

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Interview with Slade Suiter of Authenticity Radio on Being Bipolar and Asperger’s


“http://www.spreaker.com/embed/player/standard?autoplay=false&episode_id=3642270”


Failure!


Such beautiful,giving loving animals–friends to man. But man kills his friends!! And let us not forget, many horses were veterans, too.

Gator Woman's avatarWalking with the Alligators

helicopterstampede
A BLM roundup in Nevada
Kindly permitted by:  American Wild Horse Preservation 

 

By now you may or may not be, tired of reading about this vile issue here, but it is here again,  nonetheless.

Once again, the courts have ceased for the moment,  the despicable practice of horse slaughter in this country.

So, is this a reprieve, hardly!

Those at the forefront of this  ” murder  for money “  business have fought too long and hard to give up.

Despite the total outrage and hostility from every corner of this country and many  others,  two facilities are on the

brink of opening up their shops for  business and that business is the killing of horses.

Regardless of which side of the fence you may  sit on in this issue, the problem is that we should not be eating wild

horses,  or any horses,  for that matter.

It’s not like our country is in immediate danger of running out of meat for sale, the stores are packed…

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Veterans Day Tribute


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A humble tribute and thank you to all those of you who served or are serving now.

 No words adequately THANK YOU for the ultimate sacrifice.

Can not convey my deep admiration for your courage.

(One of our finest, a serviceman, shared his poem about being in the service with me in commenting on this post and I want to share it with you.  It is as beautiful as its author.  Please read and have tissues in hand.)

http://www.jasonbladd.com/2013/11/07/while-hes-away-a-poem-about-being-gone


Euthanized and Harvested


This hurts…

Gator Woman's avatarWalking with the Alligators

mycirlclegator

A Florida Alligator sunning itself on shore.
Picture credit: John White

 

Recently someone asked me how I choose the subjects of the Blogs posted here.

My answer to him/her,  made perfect sense,  to me at least.

I said that if something makes me cry or very angry, it is going to be passed along to all of you.

What was on our news here this week  is not a new story, which is part of the reason that it must be shared, it is an ever repeating tragedy.

There are two animals in Florida that are constantly making the news, black bears and  alligators.

When either of these two animals  wander out of the safety of their worlds, into the dangerous one that Humans occupy,  the outcome is frequently not good.

If a black bear behaves well, meaning,  it goes back where it came from without any human contact, the bear lives, when it does not, the result…

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They understand kindness. Don’t lie to yourself and say they have no emotions.



Dark Clouds Overhead


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Things have spiraled out of control.  I am following far too many blogs and comments and finding it hard to keep up with all the new posts I want to read.  I am on too many animal rights, environmental and political lists.  Right now I have had a few weeks of migraines nearly everyday and am finding it hard to get myself to Physical Therapy to treat some problems that need addressing.   I am losing my temper at my loving husband and he, in turn, is under so much pressure at his clinical social worker job that he is losing his as well.  Clearly something has to be done.  I cannot stand the person I have become.

This means I will not be posting for awhile and I am not sure how long, or, if this is turning into a bad thing altogether.  I will not give up the animal activism and environmental lists because this is one of the few ways I can give to the world.  There is a reason I have been on disability for the last 13 years.  I have a major mental illness, Bipolar Disorder, and Asperger’s and these take their toll on my life and those around me.  So please forgive me if I don’t read all your posts, or read them and don’t respond.  I love some of you, and care for many of you, but now have to get my life back.  This means more meditation, more Reiki, possibly learning Qi Gong and lots of prayer.  It feels too bad right now to stay on the road I am on.  

Good-bye for awhile and my warmest regards,

Ellen

 


Money For Murder


Gator Woman's avatarWalking with the Alligators

Feral_horse_and_foal_-_Pryor_Mountain_Wild_Horse_Range_-_Montana

This is the life they are supposed to have~

 

To all of you dear devoted,  caring readers, please help to stop this monster.

This will be very short, but most definitely,  not sweet !

This was just received and it must be addressed immediately.

I do not even know where to start.

But I know that all of you will, so this is in  your very capable hands now.

Adam and  Eric are you listening?

Please, please, sign it, share it , reblog it, post this story anywhere and  everywhere that you write.

Do  whatever you can, get on the phone, call anyone that you think will listen, do not let this man continue this.

They have no one to speak for them, no one to fight for them,  but you and me, we must answer their cries.

Despite Shutdown Horses Are Being Slaughtered

American Wild Horse Preservation News and Alerts

 

 

 

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For the Love of a Horse


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Oh to be one with you,

White-marked Third Eye,

to mount you

and ride you into forever

to nuzzle my nose

in your silky mane

to smell your hot breath

upon my face

and feel your tongue

upon my cheek

to smell the sweetness

of your leavings

and

hear your hoofs

against the road

and your snorts

as you run

*

my love for you

is from a distance

though once

we danced together

and

 you nuzzled

me out of depression

and into bliss

oh how I miss

those magic moments

when we were one.


An Insecure Security


Gemutlichkeit* of

a rainy October morning

dry chilly warmth

in our little barn

*

downstairs

you perusing the paper

 upstairs

me pumping poetry

*

rain tip-toeing

on the metal roof

a tymphanic symphony

outside the window

a masterpiece of color

yellow walnut leaves

and red sugar maple

the steady drip-drop of water

*

what bliss is this

precious moments of Now

a heavenly haven

from a frightening, tipsy-turvy world

*

I wish to always be

in your aura of calm

and the beauteous bounty of Nature

but

for sure

death will come

*

 please take us together

and

find us in each other’s arms

*

blessed bliss

pure peace

and

true security

the everlasting Now

only exist

in the presence of God.

*German word meaning “coziness”.


Angelic Choirs of…. Crickets


The Angelic Secret of Crickets


Homefulness


Sheltered from the rain

our house in view

how lucky we

to have a home

a shelter

 blues harmonica

sheets of rain

storm

blurring October

but focusing on gratitude

for a home to go to

when the rain lets up

a shelter

our nest

an illusion of security

I’ll welcome

in my world of delusions.


One Hundred Doors


Nigel Carter's avatarJust a Thought . . .

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.”

(Psalm 22:1-2 NRSV)

Don’t answer the phone,
don’t go to the door,
don’t draw back the blinds
don’t hoover the floor.

Don’t talk to the boss,
don’t go to find hope.
He’ll only get cross,
it’s the weak who can’t cope.

Don’t speak to your friends;
they’ve enough on their plate
without you complaining,
bemoaning your fate.

Don’t go to the doctor,
to get some support.
You know there’s no help,
she’ll make a report.

Don’t mix with those people;
they’re better than you.
Remember your status;
get back in the queue.

Don’t go to bed early;
you know you won’t sleep.
Your failures I’ll show you;
a…

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Whirling October


Fleet-footed October

with

leaves floating down

swirling

in

whirlwinds

while days dance away

as the last leaf-colored

butterflies

flutter by

before you know

 turtles

 will bury  deep

 for a long winter’s sleep


Animal friends…


lijiun's avatarlijiun

During our daily conversation with others, we can do our part to share on meat free diet, not using leather products, no animal testing, no shark fin…..

Whenever, I’ve a chance and the audience is ready, I’ll share on how much suffering that animals need to go through due to our desire.

Normally, half way of my verbal sharing, people already saying, “Please stop it, it’s unbearable!”

Whenever, I want to borrow them the DVD on ” how suffering are animals?”

The chances people want to pick up the DVD is so slim.

Its mean that most of us understood the suffering from our animal friends but we just can’t control our desire…

Whenever, people talk about nice meat cuisine, they are just focus on their own desire, own happiness and to satisfy their senses. They called this as “Enjoyment in life”

People just can’t imagine what type of “Hell” that…

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White Flowers in Blue Trees


White flowers in Blue Trees

My husband pronounces this a cow

standing among greens

well if it is a cow

don’t eat him

he is a sacred cow

as we all are sacred

I see him standing among the brush triumphant

for no one has turned him into hamburger

but

I say they are blue trees

at twilight

filled with white blossoms

well if they are blossoms

don’t pick them

and extinguish their life of beauty

grabbing Nature

as if She were our own

meant to serve us

when She is there to teach us

about the Great Being

benevolent with His gifts

such as blue cows

or blue trees with white flowers

as Nature whispers in our ears

as She manifests the gifts of the Great Being

and we boorishly

 cut them down

and put them in vases

(if I am right and they are blue trees with white flowers)

where in a day or so they die

having given their lives

for the mundane, bourgeois folly

of decorating our homes

or

(if my husband is right and they are cows)

 we boorishly eat them

despite the disgust of eating flesh

at the expense of deaths by extreme cruelty

a travesty of justice

crimes against Nature

when She is to be untouched

and admired

just as She is

for She is the perfect

creation of our Heavenly Father.


Stages of Being


P1120427 copy

Beauty in Life

September 1

In denial

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Death in Life

October 1

Forboding

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Beauty in Death

November 1

Acceptance

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Afterlife

December 1

SILENCE


Tempus Fugit


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Poof!

After awaiting September all summer, the month of the Autumnal Equinox came and is almost gone.  I try desperately to stop time, clinging to each day, to no avail.  These next few months, my favorite time of year, go by in a flash, like sand sifting through my fingers.  Poof!  In a flash the trees turn beauteous, with variegated flames of color.  Poof!  The leaves are gone.

First, there is the change in light.  The sun, still hot in mid-September, does not pack the punch it did in July, when one could be outdoors for an hour and come in with a change in skin color. Temperatures cool.  The grass starts to stop growing.  The “blood” of the trees starts to flow back into the trunk, causing leaves to change color. Walnuts, acorns and apples fall.   Butterflies, so rampant outdoors in August, have gone inside the stomach of many a child as they go back to school. Even adults are not immune.  Many feel the flutter of “back-to-school” anxiety come Fall.  Summer vacations are a memory and it is time to “honker down” at work.  Fall offers a new beginning but there is a tinge of anxiety in facing some thing new.

And most of all, Fall is a time of riotous color, when a walk in the woods finds one reveling like a drunk, besotted by the yellow, orange, crimson, russet world which our eyes imbibe like a hefty cocktail.  It is a time when Italian comes to the lips in a loud “Que bella!!”  The green of summer is bucolic and raises the spirit, but the many colors of fall intoxicate.  People start talking of peak color, and leafing becomes the pastime of many.  It is the time to plant bulbs and endlessly rake blowing leaves.

But Fall is a time of melancholia, too. Flowers die.  Reptiles go into hibernation.  Insects die or overwinter.  Songbirds migrate.  Trees eventually loose their leaves.  And the end of the lazy days of summer brings with it shorter days, longer nights, and concomitant depression for those with Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Moments of sobriety seep into intoxication with the new world of color as we may remember loved ones who can no longer share the beauty–who can no longer enjoy those coveted, cooler, crisp days of September when coolness kisses the cheeks.  For autumn is a celebration of endings, too, perhaps best described by the French poet, Guillaume Appollinaire, in his poem Autumn:

“A bowlegged peasant and his ox receding

through the mist slowly through the mist of autumn…

Oh the autumn the autumn has been the death of summer

In the mist there are two gray shapes receding.”

(Click http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html  for information on, and to purchase my Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir.


An Overdue Thank You!


DSCN1840_edited-2“Love cannot be had for the asking; it comes only as a gift from the heart of another”

~ Paramahansa Yogananda

And so I am sending my love to you whoever YOU are reading this right this moment.   More than a year has gone by that I have had this blog and I am only just now thanking you all for reading my posts.  If they have touched you I am grateful.  And I am grateful for all the “likes” and comments– but mostly for just reading my thoughts.  It is humbling.  Indeed this whole process has been humbling.  Not in the way one might expect, reading other people’s blogs and  finding people far more talented in writing, photography and painting, though that is certainly the case.  I was and am humbled by finding people who have a closer relationship to God, more faith than I probably ever will know.  I am humbled by finding people who are more giving than I, despite often challenging circumstances.  I am humbled by finding people who are seriously physically ill and yet full of more courage than I will ever feel- people who are handicapped and in pain yet vibrant and alive and more full of beauteous poetry, song, art.  I have found poets, healers, shamans, photographers, writers, artists, philosophers, teachers, animal activists, homeless advocates, and preachers.  I would list the people but I don’t want to cause embarrassment or an invasion of privacy.  You know who you are.  We have exchanged words.

I started this blog to showcase my book on how I found love despite being Bipolar and having  Asperger’s— it was written to offer hope to those who are loveless and have given up on finding the right someone.  But this blog took on a life of its own, viewed 9,031 times with 1,301 comments.  It allowed me to showcase my photography and write about, yes, mental illness, but also animal rights and the nature and wildlife preservation, and it brought forth hundreds of poems as I prayed to God to use my fingers.  But most of all, it brought YOU into my life and in so doing enriched me.  And for that I thank you, all of you, for all of you have been great teachers in the lessons of life.


Supposed Indifference in Asperger’s


P1100160_edited-1-1

I climbed down

from the tangled branches

of my thoughts

to greet you

but it was too late

you were gone.

Don’t give up on me

I love you can’t you see

but there is such difficulty

all because I am Aspie.

(Click http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html  for information on, and to purchase my Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir.)

 


Animal Families



Just Renters


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The house that we think of as “our” house does not belong to us.  Not because we are still paying the mortgage on it. Not because it, like so many others, is in foreclosure.  No, though it is still “our” house, we are just renters.

This becomes evident one morning while sitting in a moment of calm before the day has begun, watching the bird feeder which my husband is lovingly filling.  He has dumped out the seeds too big to fit through the wire mesh of the feeder.  About 10 little birds, sparrows and juncos and sometimes a dashing male cardinal, are feeding on the seeds on the leaf-covered ground.  They are not scared off by the lone squirrel who comes to eat the peanuts from the mix.  Larger birds flock to the now-full feeder. The largest birds, too big to land on the feeder, sometime take over the small bird territory, eating seeds on the ground.

Rain is falling as we prepare to go to work, cleaning up the kitchen and locking up the house.  The birds fly around in my mind.  So vulnerable they seem yet so brave, so tiny yet enormous in their freedom to take to the air.  I want to hold them in my hand and stroke their soft, downy feathers, give them love.  But truth is, this is purely a selfish wish on my part for they don’t need my love.  They don’t really even need the bird seed my husband religiously puts in the feeder.  There are bushes out back with berries which they love.  It is we who need them, to make us feel happy, to make us feel loving, to make us feel alive and connected to something larger than ourselves.

As we pull out of the driveway I take another lingering look at the birds in the brightening light.   And then it hits me.  They get to stay there all day as we drive off through the rain to our respective jobs in the cement jungle of a nearby city.  We drive past horses, grazing in a neighboring meadow.  They get to stay home, too.  Often I make an effort to remember the birds and the squirrels and the horses to bring calm to a fraught work day.  Yet I usually get so caught up in my frenetic, little life that I forget to think of them.  Or if I manage to conjure them up, the image of them in my mind is thin, pale and lacking in substance.

I imagine the animals laughing at us as we have to drive off to go to work.  Our house belongs to THEM.  Sometimes they even invade our living quarters.  When we first bought the house, it had 50 or so little brown bats in the attic who would occasionally fly around the bedroom at night.  One year we had a pair of squirrels.  We even had the company of a milk snake one afternoon.  And every fall as the weather turns frigid, the field mice run in.

A little more thought on the subject reveals to me that in actuality we own nothing.  Not our house, our spouse, our children, our pets, nor even the body we inhabit.  All of these things are on loan to us, rented to us if you will, by the Maker of the sun and the moon and the stars.  Such a wealth of beauteous bounty is there for us, ours to enjoy for the mere act of attention.  The trees, the summer breeze, the blanket of snow in winter, the flowers of summer, the butterflies, the deer who eat our lilies, the possums and ground-hogs, the ever-changing species of birds, the occasional coyote and the thousands, if not millions, of insects underfoot in a terrestrial universe.  And the universe above our heads with the planets, the sun, the moon and its trillions, gazillions of stars and whispers of other universes beyond what we can see.  And yet we are so caught up in the dramas of our mundane lives that we fail to duly honor the ever-present gifts except in periodic snatches, when we turn our attention outside ourselves and our little lives.  We may pay a sum to rent a piece of the earth but that piece contains a seemingly infinite multitude of gifts given just for the taking.  Or rather, I should say, for the renting.


The Universe Within


 

Psychiatrist, Stanislov Grof, writes that there is such thing as cellular memory.  Not only that but he says that all the universe is encoded in some way in the sperm and ovum.  We walk around each day in our little lives unaware of the universe within.

All limited edition original photographs available in different sizes and formats.


The Web of Fears


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Caught in a web of fears

full of wet tangled tears

been this way for years

of course there are triggers

that make fears look bigger

but it is hard to figure

a way out of negativity

a way back to levity

and to my old productivity

it is hard enough to fight

the dramas of mind with my might

without succumbing to fright

about losing you

tis true

fighting at once the physical and the mental

is far too much for a mind balanced so gentle.


My Former Life


P1120102

In my former life I was a bee.

Why else would I keep sticking my nose

into the private, pollinated parts of flowers?

In my former life I was a turtle.

Why else would I hunch my shoulders

into a seeming shell, my back a carapace

to shield me from a sometimes dangerous world?

In my former life I loved thee.

How else could I account for my “knowing” you

from before the first time we met,

 for “seeing” the you in your inner depths?

Some would say  I risk damnation

for a belief in reincarnation.

Yet this answer satisfies me on so many levels

and requities my thirst, quieting my myriad of questions

that the old belief system did not.

Unpopular in the west,

woven into the fabric of life in the east

in which I clothe myself,  sewn by a strong affinity,

a strange familiarity,

attraction mystifies.

Most of us cannot remember

the details of the other lives,

and are left with fractured fragments of the past

glistening like sea glass in our hands, on the seashores of our minds,

trying to piece together a picture

of a previous existence.

Love is timeless and mysterious

and though I dread the inevitable,

the loss of our life together

in this life,

I know we will be together again in the next and the next

ad infinitium

for something as sacrosanct as our love

is eternal.

Welcome to samples of my work in various art forms showcasing “Eye-locks and Other Fearsome Things.”  “Eye-locks” is a Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir in narrative form that describes the triumph of love over mental illness.