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astonishment

My friend, Tiramit at Dhamma Footsteps, says it better than I ever could, so immersed in shock, fear and grief are we, obviously the minority here in the U.S….

dhamma footsteps

POSTCARD #231: New Delhi: Trumpets blare, the sharp impact of it hits immediately, a cloud of birds fly up in a flutter of uncertainty. Trees splash outwards in branches, twigs, leaves, blossom and seed. Astonishment… how could this have happened? Eyes open wider and wider, like a camera aperture opening so far it exceeds structural integrity, implodes, buildings collapse in controlled demolition made to seem like a natural disaster, the ground beneath us opens up in sinkholes. Words explode into fragments of meaning… thus, the un-expect-ed-ness of this unnerving turn of events.

Curtains open on the First Act. Enter, stage right, the President of the Disunited States, Hollywood version of narcissistic Third World dictator, well-dressed gangster with his carefully balanced coiffure and infrastructure of war, catastrophe, greed, hatred and delusion – a victorious returning to power, with paid-for breathless wave of applause. Financial Advisors grab all the wealth stolen by…

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Posted by stockdalewolfe | November 11, 2016 | Categories: Loss, Uncategorized | Tags: Enticement of wealth, Greed, Politics, Rural America, Trump, United States elections | Leave a comment

Death of Fear and the Beauty of Death

Tears
over fears
of what’s to come
Husband such a
precious soul…
Stay in the present
Enjoy every moment
of together
It is fleeting…

Bipolar mind
medications
fight living
in the present

So unZen
Why can’t I
just be
like before
breakdown and
before medications

Why can’t I
be jolly with he
whom I worship

Why the constant
chatter of
loud thoughts
Would that I could
go with him
when it comes time

And if not
hope that I can
help with his
last breath
Secretly
I want to
be the first
to go
quite selfishly
He who cared
for so many
deserves that I
care from me
for him
and more

Would that
each moment
were not filled
with looking
at Illness
Old age
and Death
and the fragility
Of having a body.

Posted by stockdalewolfe | November 7, 2016 | Categories: Animal & Landscape Photographs, Asperger's and Love, Bipolar art, Bipolar Disorder, Depression and Mania, Environment, Nature Photography, Poetry, Spirituality | Tags: Anxiety, Autumn, Bipolar Art, Death, Fall, Fear of Death, Fear of loss, Illness, Landscapes, Nature photographs, Old Age, Spirituality in nature | 7 Comments

artifact

dhamma footsteps

POSTCARD #230: New Delhi: From somewhere deep in Antiquity (2nd-1st century BC) the Indo-Greek created a likeness of the Buddha saying, okay, this is who he was, and this is what he was like. Before that there was nothing; a stupa marked a place where he had been and what he had said there (supposedly), but no actual identity, no story of how it began, what the cause of it was – always the echo of ‘and what was the cause of that?’ (repeated endlessly) prevented the writer from saying, ‘it was something like this, you know?’ because, even before it begins, the story requires the listener to gently comply with the constraints of a starting point… “Once upon a time” (and this is as good a place to begin as any), so we fall into the story, become the story – we believe in the story because we are…

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Posted by stockdalewolfe | November 4, 2016 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Fall Teardrops

Posted by stockdalewolfe | October 25, 2016 | Categories: Animal & Landscape Photographs, Loss, Music of Nature, Nature Photography, Uncategorized, Videos | Tags: Autumn, Fall, Fall colors, Fall Rain, Mood, Raindrops | 4 Comments

passing away

Now THIS man is a true leader!

dhamma footsteps

POSTCARD #226: New Delhi: October 13 2016, at the end of that day, I came downstairs and Jiab looked up from her Thai friends fb page and said: the king is dead. Jiab has this minimalist way of communicating. I checked on the internet and got the necessary information and for the rest of the evening there was no discussion, silence, clink of cutlery on dinner plate.

Next morning a Thai friend came to see us and she was wearing black. All through the weekend I could hear Jiab’s fb videos of the mourning, I looked from time to time and people were distressed, in tears, the entire population wearing black now for one year, newsreaders on TV wear black, any unnecessary colour is avoided. Many Thais change their fb profile image to black and white for the duration of breavement.

I’ve seen it before when Galyani Vadhana, Princess…

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Posted by stockdalewolfe | October 17, 2016 | Categories: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

A Slow Crescendo

With each gust of wind yellow finger-like walnut leaves shower down on our heads– like large, yellow snowflakes– a foretaste of snowfalls to come. The sun’s shadows grow long as twilight nears. Soon the white cloud “lions and tigers and bears” will arise in the black of night. The summer has died, and in dying, gave birth to fall. The comfortable rhythm of the changing season beats in our sometimes unhearing hearts.

(Play music with video)

Posted by stockdalewolfe | October 10, 2016 | Categories: Animal & Landscape Photographs, Nature Photography, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Videos | Tags: Autumn, Autumn Leaves, Bartok, Fall, Video, Walnut leaves, Wind | 16 Comments

Late Summer Visions

Poetry is gone, visions my only words.

Posted by stockdalewolfe | September 8, 2016 | Categories: Animal & Landscape Photographs, Nature Photography, Videos | Tags: Barns, Ducks, End of Summer, Herons, Horses, Lake, Marshes, Videos, Wild flowers | 22 Comments

In My Own Voice

My dear friend, Kitt, is a natural public speaker and a wonderful advocate for the mentally ill. She and I are both Bipolar. She is Bipolar 2 and I am Bipolar 1. In this post she successfully achieves what I was trying to do in my book, “Eye-locks and Other Fearsome Things.”

Posted by stockdalewolfe | September 5, 2016 | Categories: Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Night Visions

I look up and
my head swims
with delight
making me giddy
with awe.
So humbled
one being
like all others
on this earth
gazing heaven toward
under a canopy
of stars.
Diamonds
with infinitesimal degrees
of infinite distance.
Each a quiet distant world
in one of endless galaxies
in one of endless universes
in one of untold possibilities.

Posted by stockdalewolfe | August 29, 2016 | Categories: Mysticisms of Science, Nature Photography, Night Photograpjy, Poetry, Spirituality, Uncategorized | Tags: Galaxies, Moonlight, Night, Night Photography, Night sky, Poetry, Spirituality and nature, Stars, Universes | 12 Comments

Street Life in New York City

Inspired by a post by Tiramit at Dhamma Footsteps…

Have seen the plight of the working poor in India, especially working women in films like Ankur,” and in many other Indian films. But it is not just India. It is everywhere. And it is not just the working poor.

The belongings of the first resident to set up camp near a seminary and a church

A block away from our apartment in New York City is a tiny campsite of homeless people. I think of them every morning at prayer. I wonder should I bring them food? Coffee? Meantime, in shame and shamefully, I cross the street to avoid walking into their bedroom. I feel for them especially when I am sick and think how horrible to be homeless when sick. But actually it is a daily horror. Only a scaffolding protects against the elements, the heat of summer and the bitter cold of winter. And know I could be there, too, if not for the grace of God. For these people are most likely unemployable. Most likely they are mentally ill, like me, only unlike me, unable to work because they are untreated and homeless. My husband, a retired psychiatric social worker had many homeless clients who could not work and could not get it together to get disability. These clients spoke of the horrors of homeless shelters and explained how living in the streets is preferable.

The residents of this little homeless camp seek refuge and food in the church across the street. As they huddle in comforters in winter and on the sidewalk in summer, I ponder their lot in life while we have our little lives, wrapped in middle class comforts.

And in the United States we have a candidate who speaks to the rascist and xenophobic of our country. To our shame to have even running. But he also speaks to the working poor who are failing despite working one, two and three jobs, to the people who would despise the people down the block because the residents are not working. And he promises his followers a better life. And they believe his fantastic lies. Such are among the many problems of having an underclass of the working poor.