Dark Skies (Danny Schmidt)

"when the stars did guide us" by Ezra Berger, original oil on canvas*

Yesterday (August 26) was eleven months since Eric's death.  Crazy.  September will find me one big fat f*cking mess; it will almost be a relief to hit the one-year mark, the countdown to which has been excruciatingly painful, yet educational (if that makes a bit of sense).

Details soon of a potluck Breakfast Club get-together on a Sunday morning in early- to mid-October, in Ashley W. Hale Park, Pembroke Pines (our former neighborhood).  We are having a tree planted (and a plaque made) in E's memory, and would love to gather whatever friends and family are able to attend... 🌳

*As soon as I saw Ezra's painting posted online, I could envision it in my house.  I am a Leo (in my mind the one Dar Williams met in Mercy of the Fallen - ha!)  Crazy synchronicity... or meant-to-be?:

first verse: 

"I had asked you to steer me

To one cloud scattered night

I got lost and in my travels

I met Leo the Lion

last verse:

"There's the weak and the strong

And the many stars that guide us

We have some of them inside us"

Yes, I bought this stunning work of art... 🌃🦁

SONG:  Dark Skies by Danny Schmidt

BOOK:  Joy Rides through the Tunnel of Grief: A Memoir by Jessica Hendry Nelson (a birthday present from my friend Judi... 💖)

POEM:  changed by Ullie Kaye

yes I have changed. you may not recognize me anymore. the new me does not pretend to be anything other than who I really am. you may not recognize the kind of strength that courses through my veins. it is rich with suffering. and believing. and overcoming. I no longer crave the things that I thought made me beautiful. but rather, i am delicious now in spirit. in choosing tenderness. and deliberate breaths. and a longing to be to others what I always wished them to be to me. I no longer have eyes that search for approval. but my vision is on whatever brings grace and healing and growth. I am full of love. and empty of being consumed by things that really do not matter. don't get me wrong. I am still filled with a thousand, broken pieces - I've just rearranged them all.

QUOTE:  "We are travelers on a cosmic journey; stardust swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to Love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity." ~ Paulo Coelho

So Many Stars (Friction Farm)

Lovely but busy afternoon!  Rob ended up having today off (he almost always works Fridays) and Chico wanted to take him out to breakfast or lunch... while I hoped he would accompany me to see Waitress: The Musical in the movie theater (truly excellent!)... so we combined plans and went to our friendly neighborhood Cinemark, followed by linner (what is a 4 p.m. meal called, anyway?) at a new-to-us Peruvian restaurant (so many Yums... 😛)

The next New Moon is Tuesday, December 12.  Hoping I can find someplace dark, so I can view as many stars as possible.. 🌟

I originally made this mix *tape* in 1996, then recycled on CD in 2015, now taking on a new life as a Spotify playlist in 2023. I assure you that, although the mood starts out bleak, it actually was made very thoughtfully and deliberately, following an arc of melancholy to hope to redemption.  Had to substitute a few songs that weren't available from the original playlist 30 years ago, but it retains the intent.  I'm going to curl up on the couch and test-drive it now.  Hope you enjoy and, if you listen, let me know what you think...💔💖

SONG:  So Many Stars by Friction Farm

BOOK:  A Million Little Stars: A Kids’ Book about Loss, Love, and Healing by Amanda Loraine Lynch, Candice Davis (Editor), Bonnie Lemaire (Illustrator)

POEM:  Advent by Heather Christle

It's hopeless, the stars, the books 

about stars, they can't help themselves 

and how could you not love them for it 

here in the new week with animals 

burying food and everything outlined 

in cold and even friends, it's hopeless, 

this mess, this season, all that 

is lost and tickets and strangers, 

what can I say, only sitting here 

on this dark bench waiting for what 

I don't know, I want this world 

to remain with me, this holy tumult, 

which does not know it loves me 

and you, friends, spectacular driveways, 

an orange, the vanishing year.

Sincerely, the Sky by David Hernandez

Yes, I see you down there

looking up into my vastness.

What are you hoping

to find on my vacant face,

there within the margins

of telephone wires?

You should know I am only

bright blue now because of physics:

molecules break and scatter

my light from the sun

more than any other color.

You know my variations—

azure at noon, navy by midnight.

How often I find you

then on your patio, pajamaed

and distressed, head thrown

back so your eyes can pick apart

not the darker version of myself

but the carousel of stars.

To you I am merely background.

You barely hear my voice.

Remember I am most vibrant

when air breaks my light.

Do something with your brokenness.

The Silence of the Stars by David Wagoner

When Laurens van der Post one night

In the Kalihari Desert told the Bushmen

He couldn't hear the stars

Singing, they didn't believe him.  They looked at him,

Half-smiling.  They examined his face

To see whether he was joking

Or deceiving them.  Then two of those small men

Who plant nothing, who have almost

Nothing to hunt, who live

On almost nothing, and with no one

But themselves, led him away

From the crackling thorn-scrub fire

And stood with him under the night sky

And listened.  One of them whispered,

Do you not hear them now?

And van der Post listened, not wanting

To disbelieve, but had to answer,

No.  They walked him slowly

Like a sick man to the small dim

Circle of firelight and told him

They were terribly sorry,

And he felt even sorrier

For himself and blamed his ancestors

For their strange loss of hearing,

Which was his loss now.  On some clear nights

When nearby houses have turned off their televisions,

When the traffic dwindles, when through streets

Are between sirens and the jets overhead

Are between crossings, when the wind

Is hanging fire in the fir trees,

And the long-eared owl in the neighboring grove

Between calls is regarding his own darkness,

I look at the stars again as I first did

To school myself in the names of constellations

And remember my first sense of their terrible distance,

I can still hear what I thought

At the edge of silence were the inside jokes

Of my heartbeat, my arterial traffic,

The C above high C of my inner ear, myself

Tunelessly humming, but now I know what they are:

My fair share of the music of the spheres

And clusters of ripening stars,

Of the songs from the throats of the old gods

Still tending even tone-deaf creatures

Through their exiles in the desert.

QUOTE:  “Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives is but a mote suspended in a sunbeam... a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.” ~ Carl Sagan

“When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.” ~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

"The Moon.  Pause here.  You are deep in the heart of the darkest nights. The world is hushed.  The trees are dwelling in their roots, and the earth's small creatures have gone to ground.  Turn inward and listen to the stories of your deepest self, allowing The Moon to illuminate your hidden spaces." ~ Wild Wisdom calendar, December, The Moon

Our Lady of the Shooting Stars (Mary Gauthier)

A friend (thanks, FM) sent me the following - sounds like a good reason/excuse (as if I need one... :-) for a late-night/early-morning jacuzzi soak!

Next Saturday night/Sunday morning, November 17th, we may have a very rare event occurring in the night sky. The Leonid Meteor Shower will return, as it does each year, when the earth passes through the dust trail of the Comet Temel-Tuttle. However, this year it will be a meteor storm. When this happened in 1833, people thought it was the end of the world. You can count on 1000 per hour, but astronomers think the stars are right for a repeat of the 1966 event when at one point 40,000 meteors per hour lit up the night sky.

SONG: Our Lady of the Shooting Stars by Mary Gauthier

BOOK: The 50 Best Sights in Astronomy and How to See Them: Observing Eclipses, Bright Comets, Meteor Showers and Other Celestial Wonders by Fred Schaaf

POEM: The Mystery of Meteors by Eleanor Lerman

I am out before dawn, marching a small dog through a meager park
Boulevards angle away, newspapers fly around like blind white birds
Two days in a row I have not seen the meteors
though the radio news says they are overhead
Leonid's brimstones are barred by clouds; I cannot read
the signs in heaven, I cannot see night rendered into fire

And yet I do believe a net of glitter is above me
You would not think I still knew these things:
I get on the train, I buy the food, I sweep, discuss,
consider gloves or boots, and in the summer,
open windows, find beads to string with pearls
You would not think that I had survived
anything but the life you see me living now

In the darkness, the dog stops and sniffs the air
She has been alone, she has known danger,
and so now she watches for it always
and I agree, with the conviction of my mistakes.
But in the second part of my life, slowly, slowly,
I begin to counsel bravery. Slowly, slowly,
I begin to feel the planets turning, and I am turning
toward the crackling shower of their sparks

These are the mysteries I could not approach when I was younger:
the boulevards, the meteors, the deep desires that split the sky
Walking down the paths of the cold park
I remember myself, the one who can wait out anything
So I caution the dog to go silently, to bear with me
the burden of knowing what spins on and on above our heads

For this is our reward: Come Armageddon, come fire or flood,
come love, not love, millennia of portents--
there is a future in which the dog and I are laughing
Born into it, the mystery, I know we will be saved

QUOTE: "It takes solitude under the stars for us to be reminded of our eternal origin and our far destiny." ~ Archibald Rutledge