The Trees of Winter
Every year what starts as a budding romance in autumn blossoms into a full-blown love affair in winter– my pitter-patter passion for trees. Trees that were drop-dead-gorgeous in their fall colors are now bare, with the exception of evergreens and a few stray deciduous trees that refuse to relinquish their leaves. Stripped down to their souls and the trees sing a siren song to the universe.
The tops of trees lift my spirit; brush-like they paint the sky with the baby pinks and blues of mornings, and the majestic magentas and violets of day’s end. Each tree has its signature shape against the sky, like a fingerprint or a snowflake– similar yet each unique. In their bare state, some treetops are shaped into fancy coiffures– others into wrought iron filigree. On distant mountains, against the snowy ground, still others assume the image of stubble on an old man’s unshaven face.
It is the colorful winter sky showing through, and showing off, the bare branches that woos me. The bare, curvaceous branches are stark, dark lines against the bright of day and the inky sky of night. These resplendent creatures are living lines that explode. Branches tangle like the lines in a Jackson Pollock painting. Others curve with the sensuous lines of a Brancusi sculpture. Buxom tree trunks stand strong surrounded by their dead blossoms and their burgeoning offspring like a Renaissance Madonna. In truth these trees are not like art at all. Rather art imitates them– their beauty provides the timeless inspiration for artists, writers and poets of all ages and styles.
Trees not only inspire, they are paragons of diversity. One look out of a car window while driving on the Taconic and one can see squat pines beside towering majestic firs, birches interspersed with maple and oak. And together the different brown and tan barks interspersed with evergreens create not only a mosaic of contrasting colors, but display an example to inspire humans to live together in peaceful unity.
These beneficent beings carry the heavy, dark grey clouds of winter. When it snows the tree trunks become canvases for the abstract patterns of windblown-snow, while the serpentine branches are outlined in white. In ice storms their branches become chandeliers, each with glassine ice crystals tinkling in the wind. In the melancholy of a winter rain, the branches become oiled skins of snakes weeping to the ground below. And finally, in the night sky, the branches hold the stars in their arms, those with leaves, in their hands, as they nurse the moon.
All trees, no matter what their species, age or height, stand tall in proud humility, their arms reaching up to the Heavens to our Creator in prayer– soft-spoken beings of peace and tranquility towering over us, while we, wee, little creatures race around distractedly in a dither below.
Transformations
“As the solid substance we call ice appears from water, steam, or hydrogen-oxygen gas, so the solid earth with its oceans and vapors appears out of the universe of Cosmic Energy” ~ Paramahansa Yogananda
Layers of Light
Layers of light refers to the layers of light in nature, specifically in the natural landscape and that is what I have tried to capture in the above photograph. It is also what I try to capture over and over again in my paintings as in the one below.
But there are layers to our personalities, too. And, of late, I have been very disturbed by the many negative aspects of my own personality appearing before my eyes. Being disturbed by the negatives is a form of egoism but it can propel one towards change. It was a post by Bert at http://whoisbert.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/meditation-as-a-screen-saver/ that really helped me understand what I think is going on. Now I am not sure if I am correctly interpreting what he wrote but perhaps it was what I needed to hear and therefore, read into it. I have been meditating on and off for a long time and have been critical at the quality and quantity of my meditations. Bert seemed to be saying that meditation is a sort of purification process whereby we can examine our faults and do something to rectify them. So this was hopeful to me. First of all, it meant that perhaps my meditations were “working” after all, and, secondly, it meant that perhaps all the negative aspects of my personality I was seeing meant not that I am some sort of arch fiend, but, rather that I am undergoing a purification process, calling for me to change the many negatives I see. Meditation brings out the layers of our personalities that lie lurking in the dark so they can be exposed, thereby altering them in the process, as they are exposed to the Light.
All paintings for sale and photographs available in all sizes and formats.
Descent of Night
8×12 Watercolor for sale
The descent into darkness
after the blinding bliss of mania
is as inevitable as the fall of night
after the blissful bright of day.
La Bella Luna
Dedicated to my brother and his favorite, and now my favorite, musician, Cat Stevens/Jusuf, and his song “Moonshadow,” a gift to me from my brother after he passed. The song meant so much to him, and now, with him, to me.
Cow Communication
All limited edition original photographs available in different sizes and formats.
Iced Berries no. 2
All limited edition original photographs available in different sizes and formats.
Winter Tree Filigree
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formats.
Playful Innocence
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formats.
Reaching for the Stars
“I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree… a tree that looks at God all day and lifts her leafy arms to pray.” The opening lines of the poem,“Trees,” by Joyce Kilmer. Indigenous peoples through the ages have talked of tree spirits and trees as wise ones. Trees are striking as they lift their arms to the Heavens in seemingly permanent prayer, day and night in communication with the Creator, their outstretched arms reaching for the stars.
Reaching for the stars. The image calls to mind a dance of the Kalahari Bushmen who were featured in the movie “The Gods They Must be Crazy.” The Kalahari, the last men born of the Stone Age culture according to Laurens Van Der Post, have no sense of individuality and share all they have. They have a dance of gratitude which Van Der Post describes in his book entitled “A Mantis Carol”: “I never see their dancing without feeling deeply moved and utterly irreverent and blasphemous because of our own incapacity for acknowledging what life will give if only we will let it in.” And then there is their dance of the “great hunger,” a dance that says we do not live by bread alone, a dance at life’s end fraught with longing, with arms outstretched taughtly towards the Heavens as they reach for the stars.
My grandfather reached for the stars. He came here, a 16-year-old peasant stonecutter from the mountains of Sicily, knowing no English. He wound up carving the Lincoln Gettysburg address at the Lincoln Memorial in DC. While working on the Gettysburg Address he studied English at night school. I remember him telling me how he was the laughing-stock of his fellow stone cutters because, inspired by Lincoln’s words, he carved his initials at the top of the monument, “A.L.” for Anthony LaManna (and, of course, for Abraham Lincoln), followed by: “Attorney at Law.” Working his way through school, he actually did eventually become a VA lawyer. He reached for the stars and touched them without ever forgetting where he came from. And he was childlike as he took care of me, as we danced to records on the victrola, or as he played the mandolin and sang to me. I always think of him with a tinge of sadness, for more than anyone, he taught me to reach for the stars.
Reach for the Creator– that is what the trees say. At this time of year I yearn for the days of childhood in which God seemed close. This yearning fully ripens each year at Christmas/Hanukkah when the people brighten their houses with festive lights. It is a time of year in which we light up our hearts and look to the heavens and sing songs of love to a babe born not so very long ago, or in which we give thanks for the oil to light the lights of the temple for eight days. We are all really seeking the love that motivated the Kalahari Bushmen to do their dance. We are seeking a savior, and yearning for the Light in this overlit, commercialized, complicated world in which the inspiring simplicity of the Bushmen, the peasant, is rapidly disappearing. And the trees touch my heart in their upward reach for the Heavens. For at this time so many millions of them are sacrificed as they become our Christmas trees and Hanukkah bushes, to be discarded after the holidays are over.
May we enter this holy season with a simpler yearning, not for presents and parties and hoopla, but with our hearts full of gratitude, taking lessons from the trees, from the Kalahari Bushmen, from our ancestors, and seek the Light, in whatever form it takes in our souls.
Mourning Mania and the Only Path to Take
I once had the fire, raging within, unchecked and veering out of control. Now it glows like a pile of burning embers I sift through periodically, as if panning for gold. Once a cauldron of creativity, ideas bubbled around inside my head at break-neck speed, spinning like a troop of whirling dervishes. But far more valuable, the flames fueled what can only be called the presence of God within, being at one with Jesus. Such beautiful states were sparked by the same fire that also torched a living hell within—for such were the cycles of my mania and depression.
The danger of mania drew nigh when the flames scorched what was left of my reason and my perception of the world, sending me into a morphing reality where I could no longer tell what was real and what wasn’t. This alternative/alternating consciousness clouded my vision as I ran up against the walls of mania and depression, like a little girl, lost in a house of mirrors, not knowing how far she was from the light of day.
To say I could not function is a huge understatement and was a by-product of my living in another dimension. I remember once not being able to respond to a store clerk simply asking if he could help me. That question had always been troublesome for my Aspie nature, but in a Bipolar mania I was unable to open my mouth to speak, and this sent me running out the doors of the store, seeking a hiding place for my tears. One of the many times I lost my speech.
To make matters worse the fire would rage and then die out suddenly and completely, leaving me like a trapeze artist suddenly finding there was no safety net below. Despair was total—no creative juices, no God and a mind replete with self-loathing in a totally black, bleak void. I was a dead tree in the depths of winter, with decaying stumps where branches used to be. There was no future and I had no access to any of the goodness of things past.
Alternating between these two ways of being in the world was exhausting, confusing and totally disorienting. And then I had a breakdown and psychosis spewed forth from the detritus of my mind. I was reborn into a the world that was totally overwhelming and hellishly over-stimulating. I had to learn the lessons of childhood all over again, starting from square one. This time with professional help and MEDICATION! Not the self-medication of alcohol. Psych meds. Heavy duty ones of the Thorazine variety. Anti-psychotics.
At first, it seemed I was now wrapped the “cotton-wool” Virginia Woolf described as her moments of “non-being.” My cotton-wool was more of a mental straight-jacket. The medication had toned down the world outside and inside as if I were under water in John Lilly’s immersion tank. Clearly medication adjustments had to be made and they continued to be made over and over again until my doc and I found a balance—the Golden Mean of medication, with me as a willing patient since I could no longer function at all without it. Medication meant that I didn’t have to go to hospital. Medication meant that I didn’t have to kill myself. Medication meant that therapy could now teach me how to live and, more importantly, how to love. I had been seeking love all my life but was too dazed by the blaze within me to see it, feel it or return it when given. Now, at long last I could.
Most Bipolars are not med-compliant and go off their meds when things get better. And then they veer into the vertiginous descent to hell once more and wind up in hospital/jail/homeless/dead. There is no virtue in my med compliance. I have tried stopping the meds a few times resulting in a reality so painful, that, humbled, I go crawling back to them. Life events have necessitated raising the dosage now and then. Like when my father was dying of cancer and later my mother and, just a year and a half ago, my brother.
Every so often I lament the loss of the raging fire of creativity and the burning desire for communion with God but now my thoughts are slowed down enough that I can sift through the embers and find little sparks which inspire poetry/prose/paintings/photographs/prayer. I find smoldering embers of religious feeling and have to work hard to fan the fire, it’s true. But now I can channel the creativity and religious feeling into works of art that I can be shared with others. Not torn up, destroyed or desecrated in a sudden descent into depression. Now I have to work harder to pray and have practiced meditation to find real religious feeling. Despite the loss of mystical states, I find myself more motivated to become a better person in God’s eyes without the former pseudo-spiritual feeling possessing me and my ego. Most importantly now I can love: people, God, and even myself at times.
Slowing down is not boring. It enables one to function/produce/LOVE. I have accomplished more in every facet of my life after being medicated and treated than I ever did before my breakdown. The same ideas are there but now I can use them as building blocks of art/faith/relationships. I think myself more materialistic and self-seeking than I was when I was totally out of my mind. Yes, it is true that I am, but paradoxically that makes me better able to try to give something back to the world, to love others and to pray harder to God. I have lost the effortlessness of it all and I have to pedal harder to get somewhere where treasured feelings are deeper, and more lasting. I could not love before—not myself, not others.
Sometimes I mourn the manias, until I am reminded of their undesirable attributes as they occasionally race through my mind scaling the protective walls of medication. Now I finally know them for what they are. Dangerous. Scary. Out of control. And I now know they will be followed by a crash. When I mourn the days of raging fire, others remind me that the middle road is far better. I remember my Sicilian grandfather whom I adored, preaching the “Middle Path,” which I think he got from reading Marcus Aurelius. And I wonder if he said this from his own experience of some sort of psychological problems he may have had. His daughter, my Mom, certainly had a mood disorder, if not Bipolar Disorder itself. Maybe he did, too.
My husband is my biggest reminder of the importance of medication. A clinical social worker, he knows well of what he speaks, the bulk of his knowledge coming from 23 years of living with, and loving me through my suicidal depressions and my florid manias. And these days, he is the man I adore. I am still constantly amazed that I am able to give love to a real other, another human being, however imperfectly. In the days when passion fanned the terrifying, tumultuous flames of phantasms of love built upon superficial desire, I could not. Nor did I think I would ever be able to love or be loved.
Medication, therapy and my husband have helped me stay sane and walk the middle road. And the middle road is the only path to take.
Lamb in a Manger
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formats.
Moonrise Filigree
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formats.
Compassionate Communicator, One Lovely Blog, Reality Blog Awards
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About a month ago I received The One Lovely Blog Award from Kathy at BipolarandBreastless.wordpress.com. I was ill and had just received the Compassionate Communicator Award from Kevin at VoicesofGlass.com (see above) so am only now getting to thanking Kathy, a courageous writer and new friend and passing it on.
Here are the rules:
1. Thank the person who nominated you and link back to their blog.
2. List seven random things about yourself.
3. Nominate other bloggers for the award.
7 random things:
1. I am Bipolar.
2. I have Asperger’s.
3. I have written a memoir about finding love with both of the above disorders called, “Eye-locks and Other Fearsome Things: learning to love as a Bipolar Aspie.”
4. Animals and nature are a passion of mine and I do animal activism online.
5. I do animal and nature photography and writing.
6. I write about being Bipolar and Aspie.
7. I do abstract photography and painting.
Here are my nominations for the One Lovely Blog award:
Genie at APlaceCalledLove.wordpress.com
Bert at WhoisBert.wordpress.com
Mike at Mike585.wordpress.com
Rob at RobSalem.wordpress.com
Blue Girl at BlueGirlPoems.wordpress.com
Tripper at Tripperspot.com
and dear Kevin at Voices of Glass nominated me for the Reality Blog Award which I have yet to formally acknowledge and pass on it though it means the world to me… I, who have been delusional and lived in a different reality and at times in two realities at once find it ironic to be nominated for this award and do not feel able to accept it. And although I wrote a memoir about my experiences I find it near impossible to answer the questions one has to answer to accept this award. But I will in time pass it on to others and I THANK YOU, DEAR KEVIN for awarding it to me.
Bipolar Reflections
All limited edition original photographs available in different sizes and formats.
The Poetry of Autumn
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Glowing Reflections
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Humbling and Beyond Our Comprehension
Astronomers decided to point the Hubble Telescope at
a dark spot out in space and they left it there for 10 days. The
results encouraged them to try again for 11 days.
Turn up your sound while you look at the 3-D presentation the astronomers
made:
http://tinyurl.com/rdzpzu
It’s almost more than we can comprehend….
Daubs of Color and Skeleton Trees
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Omens and Miracles
It was a beautiful autumn day. The air was the lovely cool that October brings and the birds and the squirrels were in a feeding frenzy. I barely noticed though because all morning was spent cleaning resistant rust stains with some horrid acid cleaner with all kinds of warnings on it. And I had a low fever and was feeling kind of lousy. A phone call set the afternoon on a downward spiral. It had been an angry phone call. I had called my husband at lunch time and he was showing all the signs of extreme job stress. He is a psychiatric social worker and at times it seems all of his clients act out at once and intakes happen and hospitalizations happen and whatever can go wrong, does. It was one of those kind of days. He proceeded to yell at me, for what seemed like fifteen minutes but was probably only five, about all that went wrong that day. Then suddenly the phone went dead. I called back immediately and got a fast busy signal. I tried again with the same result. And again. I tried the cell but, as usual, his cell was turned off. So there was no getting through. And he had a long commute home and considering his mood and all, I was totally alarmed. I tried him on and off all afternoon and finally left a message on his cell asking him to call me. He didn’t. Until well after the time he should have left work.
“Are you still speaking to me?” he asked right away. “Yes, of course, why do you ask?” “Because I was yelling at you at lunch time.” “I know and I was wondering why but I didn’t hang up. The phone went dead.” “Okay, I am on my way home. It will take some time because I was delayed and traffic is worse at this time.” “Okay,” I said. I didn’t say my usual “Be careful!” or other worried dictums. I was just happy he had called. When I hung up the phone I thanked God he had called and he seemed to have calmed down some since lunchtime. Things were looking better than they had at midday.
And then there was the unmistakable thud on the window. I hoped in vain it was a falling walnut since they bounce off the roof and such at this time of year. But two feathers on the window pane left telltale marks. I was felt ill. We had just put up a wooden bird house with suction cups in the window above to prevent bird collisions (according to the advertisement). I looked out the window on the deck for a body. None. I went outside. No bird. Such a loud thud though was unmistakable. When I turned the corner of the deck on to the lawn, sure enough, I saw the bird. He saw me and seemed too stunned to be afraid so I did a quick form of Japanese energy healing technique known as Reiki on him. Deciding my gigantic presence was probably stressing him out further I went inside. I could see him from the window. I did the symbols for distant healing and sent him the animal healing symbol. He sat there with his head resting on the ground. At least he did not have his beak open in a screech like a wounded blue jay a few months ago but things did not look good.
Now half of me comes from a Sicilian background and it is a strong strain in my psyche. My maternal grandfather was a peasant working in the stone quarries of Sicily when, at 16, he fulfilled his dream of coming to the United States. Here he wound up becoming a lawyer but only after first doing stone work to finance his night schooling. Among his carving work was the Lincoln Gettysburg address at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. He was an exceptional man and I was very close to him as a little girl. His peasant background never left him. This was both good and bad. The bad, he and his wife and my mother were very superstitious. They believed in omens and signs. And this was instilled in me. Now to have this bird fly into the window just after talking to my husband about his long commute home was all too much. I argued in my mind against omens and superstitions but in my gut I was sick.
I kept checking on the bird, wondering if he was dead yet and if I should go bury him so he wouldn’t get eaten. I did more Reiki. I cried. It was not only that this poor little bird was hurt and probably going to die but what he represented. The birds had been in a feeding frenzy these past few days. I had just refilled the bird feeder yesterday and it was half empty not even 24 hours later. And it was bird central. Birds flying like kamikaze planes all over the front yard. When I went to fill the bird feeder a bird stayed on eating to the very last minute, unafraid of my approach. And as soon as I put the feeder back up in the tree he was back, not even waiting for me to leave. In this frantic feeding no wonder there was an accident.
I went back to the window to check the bird again. His head had been resting on the ground and things definitely did not look good! But, did I see his head up now? Yes, he had lifted up his head and he was moving his head right and left and up and down. I prayed in desperation. And I kept watching feeling guardedly hopeful. And next thing I knew he took to the air and flew to the swamp somewhere lost to my eyes. I was ecstatic. I got down on my knees and thanked God. This was truly a miracle. In my pessimism and superstition that I must battle with daily I have lost all faith in miracles. But miracles do happen. The guy at work who was on death’s door after collapsing outside the library and wound up having cancer, was now fully tumor free and working out at the gym. Another miracle. People and birds don’t always die even when things look their bleakest. Sometimes there are miracles. And my husband came home safe and sound and apologized to me and was happy to be home. Sometimes, too, there are happy endings.
Fall Grasses and Trees
All limited edition original photographs available in different sizes and formats.
Animal and Landscape Photographs
No.6
Horses and Watercolor Trees
Autumn, the “second spring, where every leaf is a flower.” ~ Albert Camus
No.5 Landscape in a Window
No. 4 Melancholia
No. 3 Fall Reflections
No. 2 Chagall Lambs
No. 1 Lace Highlights
All limited edition original photographs available in different sizes and formats.
Mood Photographs
No. 5 Homage to Rothko
No. 4 Soul Gathering
No. 3 “Moonshadow” no. 2
(Photograph after Cat Stevens/Yusuf)
No. 2 The Rush of Feeling
No. 1 “Moonshadow” (Photograph after Cat Stevens/Jusuf)
All limited edition original photographs available in different sizes and formats.
MOONSIDE 
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