Portland

Foggy morning
Crow conversations

I try joining in

But end up coughing

Midwinter's eve

Sunday, December 22 at 04:19 UTC, is the exact moment of winter solstice this year in the Northern Hemisphere. Adjusted to my local time this means the winter solstice is tonight, Saturday night, at 20:19 UTC (8:19 PM PST). This longest night of the year is my favorite winter celebration. I see this moment of suspension before the North Pole begins turning again towards the sun, is a moment of quiet amidst the ever-grinding gears of time. It is a time to rest, reflect and re-calibrate before beginning the next cycle.

But already it is past time. This solstice offers a stark view of where we are and where we're doing to the planet we live on. Now, either we change or be changed forever.

Street art in Rome and counsel from the I Ching

"Gentle words are worthless if spoken with trepidation."

Street art in Rome
2018

"This is a time of connection with another or others -- not just an alliance, but a melding of parts into a new whole."

These are excerpts from the I Ching reading I did this morning. I shall do my best to keep them in mind today.

The photo I took last December. I'm not sure of the meaning of the hand gesture. It may be the classic Greek orator's call for silence. In any case, I do think this odd, hooded fellow emerging from a pool of water in the sidewalk and today's counsel go well together. I also like they both came to me in December a year apart.

This detail is from huge wall panel of street art in this style is a mere 0.43 km from the Lupercale Shrine. According to legend, the Lupercale Shrine is the sacred place where "a she-wolf nursed Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome and where the city itself was born".

Sailors take warning
then on with the morning

Granada check-in

I'm writing this from Granada (Spain) and can see the Alhambra (castle complex) from where I'm sitting. Like nearly all the historic sites in Europe, it was built, rebuilt, deconstructed, reconstructed, destroyed, remodeled, updated and expanded upon for centuries, then abandoned.

The Moors ruled from the Alhambra for 500 years and Spanish kings another several centuries after that but the site itself is much older, dating back to Roman times. It's the Moorish influence I find most interesting. Today it's a tourist trap that is, yes, worth seeing anyway.

Poor Barkie

She lives behind walls. Does she ever leave the compound? Does she ever see her own kind or does she only hear them passing or from afar? During the day she is mostly quiet but when night comes she begins barking at the dark. They are inside and oblivious ... eating and socializing. Do they ever glance down at her through the window? Are they are all deaf, even the children, or is her voice and her life nothing to them, no more than background movement like wind in the trees or passing cars ... something to be ignored?

About 20:00 hours she starts barking in her oddly deep voice. By 22:00 she is barking in earnest. Every night without exception she looks into the hedge wall, which is about 14 feet or 4 meters high, and barkbarkbarkbarkbarks then, still barking, walks to the other side of the compound and barkbarkbarkbarkbarks into the hedge wall there then back barkbarkbarkbarkbarking and forth barkbarkbarkbarkbarking, sometimes stopping to barkbarkbarkbarkbark in the middle facing our bedroom window, barkbarkbarkbarkbark...barkbarkbarkbarkbarking back and forth barkbarkbark...barkbarkbarking...barely pausing until at least 02:00 hours and then gradually barkbarkbark slows bark bark down bark ... bark until early dawn.

I don't hate her. I feel very sorry for her. It's her indifferent humans I resent. She is prisoner of their selfishness ... their twisted sense of what ... security, prestige, paranoia? He conducts some kind of isolation therapy in his pool in the summer. People come. He gives them an inflatable wet suit complete with isolation head gear and a breathing apparatus then, as they float on their backs in the middle of his pool, he stands beside them probably crooning some kind of relaxation meditation but, at night, his freaked out, lonely, desperate little dog barkbarkbarks and he offers no comfort at all. He's an asshole and his wife is an asshole and their children will likely grow up to be heartless assholes just like them.

When I complain to my Portuguese friends they just laugh. "Ah Portugal. This is just that way it is." Fuck that. It's animal abuse. It's anti-social. It's fucking stupid. When we first got here I thought I'd never sleep again. Now even I sleep but, for me, it will never be "ah Portugal". I don't see animals as tools and food. I respect them as sentient beings, non-human persons as so many do today. My friends tell me I can report the noise that, if enough people complain, perhaps the town will do something about it. I haven't done that yet but this story is not over.

History Lesson - Welcome to the Anthropocene

I just added a new poem to AnnaSadhorse, my poetry blog. It's called History Lesson. It was recently published in a bi-lingual (French/English) anthology called, "300K - A Poetry Anthology about the Human Race".  The editor, Walter Ruhlmann, writes that he wanted to publish something, "as a mark, a sign, a trace of our - yours and mine - passage on this planet". Monsieur Ruhlmann describes himself as a pessimist. It's a view I don't entirely share however, History Lesson, being a reflection on the Anthropocene, fits right in.




You can purchase 300K here.

Rainy night, Portugal

The view from my office window tonight.

Had a hell of a time focusing on writing today. My end goal is to get a few more things submitted for publication but I tend to get lost in the details. The last batch of poems I sent out was rejected but with a personal letter from the editor inviting me to submit something again for their following issue. I probably will. In the meantime, I'm looking for other journals that sound interesting but what usually happens, and it did again today, is that I end up muddling around with edits instead. At least today it lead me to finally making peace with a poem I wrote some years ago and have been arguing with ever since. It was always my idea to squeeze it into a haiku but it was never right. Finally, today, I surrendered to the fact that it is just not willing to cooperate. Words have a mind of their own.

Dear Signore Robot,

01000100 01100101 01100001 01110010 00100000 01010011 01101001 01100111 01101110 01101111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100100 01100001 00100000 01010110 01101001 01101110 01100011 01101001 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01101110 01101011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01100100 01100101 01101100 01101001 01100011 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110101 01110010 01100111 01100101 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100010 01101100 01100101 00101110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110111 01100101 01101100 01101100 00101110 00100000 01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110100 01110010 01110101 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100001 01100101 01110011 01110100 01110010 01101111 00101110 00100000 01000010 01100101 01110011 01110100 00101100 00100000 01100001 01110011 01101000 01100001

Translate here

Halloween with Henri, Le Chat Noir

Halloween and I'm celebrating by watching Henri 4, L'Haunting.

Timeline

For my future reference, what follows is the timeline regarding
my diagnosis and treatment for Myoepithelial Carcinoma
----------------------------------

On 25 Jan. 2019, during a yearly physical in Nevada, I mentioned it felt like I had a sea serpent in my belly. Ok, it was a wild exaggeration, but in the US most doctor's attention span is controlled by insurance companies, not people's concerns. My old doctor spent about five minutes per patient. After the allotted time, if I had a question, I had to physically plant myself in front of the door to block his exit. This was a new doctor so I wasn't sure she'd listen but she did and was very gracious about it.

Yes, gracious as in "pleasantly kind, benevolent, courteous". Dr. Nguyen was seven when she came to America from Vietnam. "We were boat people", she said in an interview for Carson Now. Her father was a doctor but, with the fall of Saigon, her parents had to leave the maternity hospital behind they'd opened together and were able to do so because of the sponsorship of a gracious church in Michigan.

Anyway, Dr. Nguyen scheduled an ultrasound for Feb. 15. I got the results on Feb. 27. They indicated a mass on my kidney so she scheduled further tests. On the 7th of March I had a second ultrasound followed by a CT scan with dye. Those tests clearly showed an 8 cm mass on my kidney. I met with a Nevada urologist on March 18. He wanted to do a biopsy.

However, at the same time, we were nearly done sorting through, tossing, donating, giving away or selling most of our possessions, selling our house, and relocating near family and friends in Oregon. Furthermore, we had plans brewing well over a year to move to Europe part time. We had to go.

The Nevada doctor gave me a referral to one in Oregon. I met with him on 8 April. Our flight to London was on 14 April. He tried to schedule the procedure before that but couldn't until 17 April. M. Lee and I decided he should still leave as planned. The plane fare and lodging was already paid. I had the biopsy on 17 April and two days later left for Europe.

I was told I'd get the results in five to seven days. After a week, I called them but they could tell me nothing. Another week went by but still no word so I called again. The receptionist didn't know anything and seemed irritated by my question. A third week passed and still no report—so I called again. This time she said the Oregon lab couldn't identify the mass and sent it to a lab in Indiana which hadn't finished their analysis yet. On 9 May, the Oregon doctor called me in Portugal with results, myoepithelial carcinoma, a very rare form of cancer generally occurring in a salivary gland. We discussed me returning to the US for surgery as it is currently the only known treatment for this form of cancer.

On 10 May, as we were in Portugal, M. Lee emailed the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown, a private biomedical research foundation here in Lisbon. They immediately assigned us a personal representative we could contact at anytime and made an appointment with Dr. Miguel Almeida for 13 May. On that day, Dr. Almeida scheduled five tests, all completed the following week.

Not wanting to do a second biopsy, Dr. Almeida wanted the slides from Indiana. In Europe your body parts belong to you. You want them, no problem. In America, no. I called the lab several times, signed and sent various requests to no avail. Even Dr. Almeida personally called and spoke to the head of the lab and sent signed forms requesting samples. By the time he finally received the biopsy we had returned to the US to apply for a Portuguese visa.

The process of applying for Portuguese citizenship is many stages, very backed up, and incredibly tedious. We had an appointment in San Francisco on 10 June. It required delivering a massive amount of paperwork, including an FBI background check, Portuguese tax number, bank account, and residence address in person. We had to go.



July 1 we returned to Portugal. While we were gone, Dr. Almeida put together a "dream team" including Dr. Christophe Assenmacher who flew in from Brussels. The surgery was 12 July and was done using Champalimaud's da Vinci robot which the surgeon controls from a console. This is a minimally invasive form of surgery, capable of greater accuracy and, if all goes well, reduces recovery time. The da Vinci made six small incisions in my abdomen for its "hands". One held the kidney while another carefully cut off the infected part and, before removing it from my body, still others slipped the tumor into a plastic bag, sealed and compressed it and yet another hand pulled the bag out through the largest incision which was about an inch and a half or some 4 cm long. They also removed a second tumor from the back of my neck which appeared last year. I remained in ICU for three days as bleeding can be a problem. It wasn't. I was discharged on the fourth day and have been feeling fine.

Oct. 8 I had a follow up CT scan of my entire body and tomorrow, Oct. 24, I will find out if I am, at this time, cancer free or not.

Oct 24 met with Dr. Almeida. The CT scan did not detect any cancer at this time. I didn't get elated when he told me. I felt grateful and have had moments of well-being and belonging, rare anytime for me and very welcome.

Cnoc a' Cairn

Last October we visited a few of Ireland's famine graveyards. The first was in the town of Dingle. Our host encouraged us to visit the town's famine graveyard, Cnoc a' Cairn (Carin Hill). It's one of several such cemeteries in the country. A million to a million and a half people died in Ireland between 1845 and 1852 during what I grew up hearing was the Great Potato Famine. I have since learned it wasn't the loss of the potato crops that killed them. It was England's colonial indifference and greed.

Even in a small town like Dingle, so many people died in a day that there was no time or room to make coffins or dig individual graves. Over 3,000 men, women, and children are buried on Cnoc a' Cairn. There are no tombstones, no names—bodies were laid one on top of another in long trenches and covered with dirt. Only an occasional unmarked stone stands watch along the way. It is an incredibly lonely place.

That evening I wrote a poem about the place. It was published, with little editing, in Dingle's hometown magazine, the West & Mid Kerry Live (pg. 24).

The impeachment circus comes to town

Ivanka waving to delegates at the UN General Assembly
September 23, 2019

 
I haven't spent much time here on American fascism these last two years. I wrote plenty of political blog posts during the Bush-Cheney-Rove era but at that time, I at least, failed to notice the fascism just below the surface. Now it defines the Republican party and Twitter has been the outlet for my rage against it, Trump, FOX not News, climate deniers, both-sides-ism, nutjob evangelicals, white supremacists and all the other throwbacks, like radicalized incels, the NRA and its minions, go-along-to-get-along Americans, Repub or Dem, who remain silent as the sewer of fascism rises in America and around the world.

Silence is compliance.

So I tweeted an offhand comment about Ivanka Trump being a bimbo at the UN General Assembly in NYC yesterday and got banned for six days. OK. It's a public space and it's not the first time. I'll dial it back but damn . . .  today the impeachment circus came to town.

Actual quote from Donald J. Trump

 
Nancy Pelosi finally launched a formal impeachment inquiry into this ham-fisted mobster trying to install himself as King of America for life. It's going to be fun on Twitter the next few days and I'm locked out. Oh well. It won't be over in six days, six weeks or probably six years. The Republican Party serves the same entrenched international oligarchy the late Jeffrey Epstein served. It supports abhorrent things like baby jails, environmental destruction, and the retooling of America into a Christian theocracy, genocide. Time it implodes and goes away or, at least, vomits out the fascism and joins the 21st century. As for Trump, his cronies, and spawn . . . I hope they spend rest of their days in court fighting criminal charges like flies caught in a web from which there is no escape then, dare I hope, in jail for the rest of their miserable lives.

Equinox 2019 - The Balance

I'm mostly ignorant of the solstice and equinox mysteries and rituals through the millennia. I haven't even watched the sun rise on Stonehenge, the most famous and popular of the prehistoric stone circles, though I have, on ordinary days, stood in the middle of a few in Ireland that were maybe three or four thousand years old and I am known to burn a candle in the dark of a solstice eve.

View from here - Autumn Equinox 2019

Today I read up on the difference between the meteorological and astronomical beginnings of the seasons. According to the meteorological calculation, each season always begins on the same calendar day. For example, in the northern hemisphere, autumn always begins on September 1.

OTOH, the astronomical calculation marks the beginning of the seasons by the relationship of the earth to the sun. There are spring and fall equinoxes (equal night/day) and the winter and summer solstices (longest/shortest night/day).

So today, 23 September at 07:50 UTC, the sun was directly over earth's equator. In the northern hemisphere this is the astronomical autumn equinox and beginning of Fall. In my current time zone that means the moment when light/dark were equal the world over occurred at 12:50 AM PST. I was asleep.

So . . . Happy Equinox 2019. Enjoy the balance. Let go. Rest a moment as the gears change. Now spring begins in the Southern Hemisphere and Autumn here in the north.

Autumn Equinox and already
Alley's special morning sunny spot is not lasting as long.

Dear Aliens

If any of those supposed UFO sightings are real, seems it couldn't hurt to send send them this note:
 

Deal Aliens,

Please come and save us. We are not evil, just stupid, too stupid to not destroy our house and home and everything beautiful in it. Oh, and yeah, we're violent but mostly because we're so fucking stupid. A lot of us are trying to do better but we're feeble and inconsistent. I know we're just a speck and don't matter to anyone but ourselves but we'd appreciate a hand and will try to do better if we survive long enough to sort that out.

Hoping to hear from you soon. please read before it's too late.

Best regards,
An Earthling

August update

I mentioned earlier that this May I was diagnosed with cancer. It's a very rare type, myoepithelial carcinoma. Less than 600 cases have been reported since its discovery in 1972. MC usually occurs in a salivary gland but was on my kidney. The thing is, about 15 years ago I did have an enlarged salivary gland removed but, at the time, it was considered benign. Now we're not so sure. Most likely, the Nevada lab doing the biopsy had never heard of myoepithelial carcinoma.

Even this spring, after weeks of trying and being unable to determine exactly what it was, the Oregon lab had to send the kidney biopsy to a bigger, better equipped facility in Indiana for identification. In July, I had surgery at the Champalimaud in Portugal. An 8 cm (3.14 in) kidney tumor and a second smaller one on my neck were removed. Both were MC. At least for now there is nothing more to do. With MC, surgery is not generally followed with any other treatment though that may change as more becomes known about it. All I know at this point is that I'm tumor free. I'll be having initial follow-up tests in October to see what's up.

Note in a bottle

Hi world. What are you doing today? It's evening here where I am. I know. It's every time of day and night for you but where I am the sky is still blue and there are voices off in the distance and the sound of cars. Always the sound of cars. A vine is growing up the window screen. It's a beautiful thing to watch . . . strands winding around each other, their tips fragile and moist. I haven't got much else to say really.

Summer solistice 2019

In the southern hemisphere this is the shortest day of the year, the longest night, the pause, the time of in-going and renewal, the beginning of winter. Here in the northern hemisphere this is the longest day of the year, the beginning of summer, the dance, the lingering and going about. Wherever you are, whatever species you encounter as you go along your way today, be kind.

Unfortunately, the Summer Solstice is also the beginning of the 10 day Yulin dog meat "festival" during which thousands of dogs and cats are bludgeoned, blow-torched, skinned, and boiled alive for a 10 day drunken "feast".

Please help shut down the Yulin!

Sign the HSI petition and pass the link around. Thank you.

Can't See Me

Several years ago I went through a very bad time. I was living in the hills of West Virginia and would come into town now and then to open my then husband's tiny electronic repair shop. He was a whiz that way. When I got to town the first thing I'd do was buy a bag short dogs, sit in the alley beside the shop and drink a couple. Then I'd open the shop. I didn't go in very often but as I recall we never had any customers when I was there. I played a lot of country music real loud those days. It helped. Marshal Tucker's "Can't You See" was a special comfort. I'm listening to it tonight as I write this. I don't live in West Virginia anymore. I don't even live in America anymore but it's another bad time and that song is still a comfort. This coming week I start a round a tests to determine if I have cancer.

German cornflakes in Portugal

It's been 17 days since leaving Nevada. So much has gone on. This morning my breakfast is German cornflakes in Portugal, but to recap . . . before we left Nevada Penny (the) Robin came by. Nice to see her in the Bird Park one last time. Also I went to Comma Coffee one last time, the scene of several poetry reading with Ash Canyon Poets though, ultimately that scene dried up and I lost contact with them.

The morning we left I hosted a giant feast in the Bird Park. In true crow fashion, Minerva put out the word and news spread fast. Literally in minutes more crows showed up than ever dropped by one time, even in winter. And, of course, Maggie, her magpie friends, and all the other birds also attended but it was the crows who made the biggest splash. For a brief while they flooded the place. It was wonderful. Of course I took a lot of photos but most didn't record. I don't know what exactly I did wrong but something. My favorite, that didn't take, was of a crow who landed very close, probably Charlie or Minerva. I'm sure it was to say thank you and good-bye. Crows are, after all, known for their willingness to befriend individuals of other species and their sense of fair play.

No way to say goodbye

Packing, sorting, pruning and letting go of almost two decades of my life has been overwhelming but mostly it's done now and what's left tucked in boxes and ready to go. We move at the beginning of next week and then what? A new phase of my life? The last phase? I'm saying good-bye to friends. We assure one another we'll meet again but will we? Every door closes for the last time.

And then there are my beloved friends in the Bird Park. They made Nevada livable for me, even delightful . . . Maggie the 7 o'clock Magpie (7 o'clock because in the beginning she always came at 7 AM, before everyone else) and her tiding . . . the charmer Chatterbox Charlie along with beautiful Minerva and the rest of the crow congress . . . Plonk, his girlfriend, and the ensuing band of pigeons who followed them here . . . the bevy of doves with their screechy, forever melancholy call . . . the drifts of quail, generations now . . . the hilarious, head-banging quarrel of finches with their ridiculously comical, but oh yes, very serious fights . . . the tiny, mild-mannered sparrows . . . the flock of grackles with their most mellifluous song . . . Babette and Mr. Fancy Pants . . . the pool parties and dust baths . . . Old Man pigeon who came and stayed to spend his last days here and after whom we named the pile of torn out lawn turf where he rested Old Man Hills . . . Penny Robin who came for her apples so many springs, even this one . . . I will miss them all terribly but always and especially—Maggie.

Maggie and a bit of apple

There is no way I can tell them that I love them but I'm going anyway, no way to say goodbye other than remove the little white table where, every morning I've been here for the past seventeen years, they have come for breakfast. The Bird Park was a haven most of that time, until the hawks showed up. At least that part will also end.

Moving update

Today is the Equinox, the beginning of spring here in the northern hemisphere, autumn in the south. May we all enjoy, if only briefly, this moment when light and dark are in balance.

I'm finally on the downside of packing. We move at the end of the month. It feels like a death, but not just because we've been in Nevada for 17 years. It's something deeper. Sorting through the memories, stones, and mementos I've collected along the way . . . the skull of a horse I found near a dry water hole, a horse killed in a brawl with another, head kicked in, jaw broken in several places . . . a whole mummified eagle's body . . . the half-billion-year-old trilobites I found in the Great Basin left from when this now desert was a vast, warm inland sea under the equator . . . the night coyotes sniffed our feet as we lay naked on our makeshift bed in back of the truck . . . the petroglyph of a pony express stop carved in nearby stone sometime in the previous two centuries . . . this is not just the end of a chapter, it is the end of a journey that is now a time gone by.

April 14 we leave for Portugal to apply to their residence program. This, of course, if I get my passport back in time. I forgot to sign the renewal application. When I realized this and called they assured me I'll get the new one before April 14. We shall see.

In more soothing news, the magpies, crows, and starlings have devoured their breakfast and moved on with their day. The little birds and quail are strolling around nibbling seed. Even Jimmy the squirrel put in an appearance.

Empathetic Dog Reacts to Emotional Scene in The Lion King

RIP Word Jazz Guy

Ken Nordine died yesterday, Mr. Word Jazz. I found one of his albums when I was a schoolkid. Along with Kafka and Rimbaud, he made sense at a time when not much else did, the '50s. I loved the bizarre conversations he had with his inner self . . . just him . . . just them . . . echoing in the mind . . . twisting, echoing, changing . . . free in lateral space.  He/they were wonderful, true artists. Bon voyage, guys.

There comes a time . . .

When it's over, when the next change changes everything, we call it death. Short of that, the end is often only realized it hindsight. Not so with this one. In April I will begin the process of becoming a resident and, eventually, a Portuguese citizen

I am writing this in a room converted from an outside deck which will become my office/studio base in Oregon. Half the ceiling is curved glass that comes down nearly to the floor and comprises 2/3s of the long wall facing east. The surface of the remaining portion of that wall and its opposite, were formerly the outside of the house. Boxes of collectables, not mine, are stacked to my left, marked and ready to be moved to storage until they are sold. In the north, the figure of a contemplative sits in meditation. Wooden beads hang from his neck and drape over the table along with a second necklace, a Chinese prayer card with a long gold tassel. Behind him are four Chinese small reddish clay tea pots of varying shapes and sizes. All sit on a small deep red rug with an intricate design. They too will be packed, moved, and eventually sold.

I will miss my birds in the Bird Park. Maggie the Seven O'clock Magpie still looks for me. She knows I will always return. Last week, after being gone six months and back one day, I put some peanuts out and she showed up. I will miss her. I will always miss her, especially in the morning, and the others . . . beautiful Minerva the crow, the quail clan, the little birds, the spring robins coming for their apples, Plonk and the rest of the pigeons, charming chatterbox Charlie and the rest of the crow clan, but especially and always my Maggie.

Straigue Stone Fort 1700 years later

For years I stuck to a timeline, ever running to keep up with the present but that is changing. Perhaps traveling has helped move me off the stuck point. The past is ever with us, not only in memory and dream but effect and also quite physically. But enough rhapsodizing.

Me, Swami, and Juan Carlos
Staigue, Kerry, Ireland

Straigue stone fort in Co. Kerry Ireland was built during the late Iron Age making it about 1,700 years old. No adhesive of any kind has held it together for the last almost 2000 years. It still stands because it was built right and no hotshot developer has come in with a bulldozer to clear the land for yet another soulless shopping center, condo project, freeway etc.