Posted in Art of Rebellion, Bones, Culture, Death, Essay, Family, Gratitude, Love, Memoir, Photography, Place, Relationships, Spirituality, Travel, tagged Beverly Donofrio, Catholicism, cemeteries, grandmothers, honoring the dead, honoring the past, Looking for Mary, mothers, New Mexico, Raton, religion, Virgen Maria, Virgin Mary, visiting graveyards on May 3, 2008 | 35 Comments »
Mother Mary as in a Dream, Raton, NM, photos © 2008 by
ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Last Wednesday afternoon I found myself in one of the best spots I could imagine, with my parents and oldest sister, and in the company of my beloved grandparents and best-ever uncle. We were in the cemetery in Raton, New Mexico, [...]
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Posted in Art of Rebellion, Culture, Death, Family, Gratitude, Memoir, Obituaries & Epitaphs, Place, Poetry, Relationships, Skies, tagged Bear, Bearhug, Cielito Lindo, death of an uncle, honoring death, Mary Oliver, Michael Ondaatje, The Cinnamon Peeler, Why I Wake Early on April 28, 2008 | 12 Comments »
In Bloom, wisteria blooming in the mid-April spring before
the hard freeze, photos © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
My Uncle Bear died yesterday. I was at my daughter’s horse show when I got the call from Mom. Dad was crying too much to tell me himself.
I wonder what it’s like to lose a younger sibling. [...]
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Posted in Art of Rebellion, Culture, Family, Personal, Practice, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged confessional, confessions, motherhood, the Catholic church's view on birth control, writing about sins on April 22, 2008 | 6 Comments »
All day long I put off writing about sin. I wonder, would I think more about sin if I were sinning? I’m not kidding. I believe that if I were plotting to murder, sin and sin’s consequences would be on my mind.
I wonder if murderers really do confess to priests. And if they do, if [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Art of Rebellion, Bones, Culture, Film / TV / Video, Life, Photography, Practice, Relationships, Secrets, Spirituality, Structure, Writing Topics, tagged 7 Deadly Sins, 7 Holy Virtues, 7 New Deadly Sins, Gandhi, Gandhi's Seven Deadly Sins, Hieronymus Bosch, Se7en, the practice of writing, The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things, Vatican, writing about the 7 Deadly Sins on April 15, 2008 | 18 Comments »
7, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Can you list the 7 Deadly Sins? I usually get to number 6 and fade out. I can never remember all 7. The 7 Deadly Sins began with Evagrius Ponticus as a list of 8 capital vices. A condensed version of the list [...]
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Posted in Art of Rebellion, Bones, Film / TV / Video, Gratitude, Photography, Poetry, Practice, Reading, Structure, Wake Up, Writers, Writing, tagged celebrate poetry, giving back, Jim Walsh, Mary Oliver, Maya Angelou, National Poem In Your Pocket Day, National Poetry Month, New York City 6th Annual Poem In Your Pocket Day, Phoebe Snow, poet as rock star, poetry groups, Poetry Man, Queen Latifah, Ted Kooser, the power of poetry, the practice of poetry on April 13, 2008 | 57 Comments »
Pocket Poetry, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
April 17th is the first national Poem In Your Pocket Day. It’s part of the wider celebration of National Poetry Month. I went to my monthly poetry group last Friday. We talked about the life of Maya Angelou, read her poetry, sat [...]
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Posted in Art of Rebellion, Authors, Bones, Books, Death, Love, Memoir, Obituaries & Epitaphs, Photography, Place, Quotes, Relationships, Silence, Taos, Writers, Writing, tagged Angelo Ravagli, D. H. Lawrence, epitaphs, Frieda Lawrence, Kiowa Ranch, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Not I But The Wind, relatives of the Red Baron, Til Death Do Us Part on March 16, 2008 | 10 Comments »
Not I, But The Wind, tombstone of Frieda Lawrence, near Taos, New Mexico, February 2007, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Emma Maria Frieda Johanna Freiin
(Baroness) von Richthofen
In Memory of twenty five years of incomparable companionship - Angie
Emma Maria Frieda Johanna Freiin (Baroness) von Richthofen was a distant relative of the “Red Baron” [...]
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Posted in Art of Rebellion, Body, Culture, Dreams, Growing Older, Practice, Recall, Secrets, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged body piercings, writing about tattoos on March 10, 2008 | 15 Comments »
What I know about tattoos I learned from D___. His entire right leg was tattooed, and most of his left leg. Both shoulders, all around his neck, most of both arms. His tattoos were serpents and Japanese letters and blues and purples, some red, beautiful tattoos, and I would examine them, lifting his leg while [...]
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Posted in Art of Rebellion, Body, Culture, Growing Older, Labyrinths, Life, Personal, Practice, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged mandalas, memories, Tattoo You, writing about tattoos on March 10, 2008 | 12 Comments »
I thought about getting a tattoo. In my 40’s. I changed my mind at the last minute. It was going to be a lynx. Yeah, the puffy jowls that look like Kiev’s. When you brush her hair back, her face is thin and pointy like Chaco’s. But naturally, it’s wider at the edges than it [...]
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Posted in Art, Art of Rebellion, Body, Culture, Maps, Photography, Practice, Relationships, Writing Topics, tagged body art, history of tattoos, Otzi the IceMan, Tattoo You, tattoos, writing about tattoos on March 3, 2008 | 15 Comments »
Do you have a tattoo? Otzi the IceMan has 57 of them. His 5000-year-old body was discovered in 1991, on a mountain between Austria and Italy, by German tourists trekking the Oetz Valley. The IceMan is one of the best preserved Neolithic corpses ever found.
He was still wearing goatskin leggings and a grass [...]
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Posted in Art, Art of Rebellion, Doodling, Jugular, Writers, Writing, Writing Topics, tagged Alma Lopez, controversy in art, Go for the jugular, Madonna in a Bikini, Natalie Goldberg, taking a risk through writing on February 19, 2008 | 31 Comments »
For anyone who lived in New Mexico in 2001, you will remember the “Madonna in a Bikini” controversy. Artist Alma Lopez depicted the Virgen de Guadalupe as a real woman wearing a bikini of flowers.
Many Catholics were offended, and even the Catholic Church protested, claiming that Lopez had turned the Holy Mother into “a tart.” [...]
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Posted in Animals & Critters, Art of Rebellion, Haiku, Holidays, Laughing, Photography, Place, Politics, tagged famous Pennsylvanians, get out and vote, Groundhog Day, Punxsutawney Phil, Smith Lake Jake, the politics of groundhogs on February 2, 2008 | 94 Comments »
Walking The Susquehanna River, Central Pennsylvania, taking a walk with Mom on on her 70th birthday weekend, November 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
forget politics
cast your vote for the real deal
Punxsutawney Phil
-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, February 2nd, 2008, Groundhog Day
-related to posts, haiku (one-a-day) and The Politics Of Primary Season 2008 [...]
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Posted in Art of Rebellion, Culture, Dreams, Gratitude, I Don't Remember, Jugular, Personal, Politics, Practice, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged discrimination, finding your voice, Martin Luther King, memories, self-discrimination, the 1960's on January 25, 2008 | 15 Comments »
I don’t remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., not like Jim remembers. Jim was in 4th grade when Martin Luther King was assassinated. He says he remembers Walter Cronkite cackling over a black-and-white TV tube. I can picture the television, set in a blond wood console with long spindly legs. I can picture Jim’s dad [...]
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Posted in Art of Rebellion, Authors, Bones, Books, Culture, Dreams, Gratitude, Growing Older, I Don't Remember, Life, Personal, Politics, Practice, Silence, Topic Writing, Wake Up, Writing Practices, tagged Enrique Rivera, fighting the good fight, finding your voice, Human Rights, John Lewis, Martin Luther King, memories, Shirley Chisholm, stepping out of silence, Temple Grandin, the 1960's, Walking with the Wind on January 25, 2008 | 12 Comments »
I don’t remember Martin Luther King in 1962 or ‘63 when I was 8 or 9 or 10. I don’t remember him when I lived in the South. I must have been sheltered from all the strife and unrest that was going on during those years. I would not have understood.
I do remember him in [...]
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Posted in Art of Rebellion, Bones, Culture, Death, Dreams, Gratitude, Holidays, I Don't Remember, Life, Photography, Vision, Wake Up, Writing Topics, tagged American history, Civil Rights, Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial, creating change, Emma Lazarus, Enrique Rivera, Harvey Milk, honoring the past, Human Rights, Mankato 38, Martin Luther King, memories, planting seeds, Stonewall on January 21, 2008 | 15 Comments »
Planting The Seed, Lightpainting Series, stained glass window, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
When I walked out into the sub-zero temperatures yesterday to warm up my car, a piece by NPR’s Enrique Rivera poured out of the Alpine radio speakers. Rubbing my hands together, and pulling the end of [...]
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Posted in Art of Rebellion, Authors, Bones, Creative Nonfiction, Death, Dreams, Essay, Practice, Quotes, Vision, Writers, Writing, tagged following your dreams, kids & creativity, living as a writer, Monkey Mind, Ray Bradbury, writing practice, Zen In the Art of Writing on January 13, 2008 | 15 Comments »
I wonder if the 8-year-old girl, who was sketching at the Frida Kahlo exhibit a few weeks ago, will someday look back with wonder like Ray Bradbury. It could happen.
Sometimes I am stunned at my capacity as a nine-year-old, to understand my entrapment and escape it.
How is it that the boy I was in October, [...]
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Posted in Art, Art of Rebellion, Culture, Dreams, Essay, Fotoblog, Jugular, Life, On the Road, Personal, Photography, Place, Spirituality, Travel, Vision, Wake Up, tagged Art, Casa Azul, Culture, Frida Kahlo, Frida Kahlo Centennial Celebration, Laura Stokes, Mexico, Mexico City, painting, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Photography, pilgrimage, red Ravine Guests, social justice on July 30, 2007 | 14 Comments »
By Laura Stokes
Casa Azul, the home where Frida Kahlo was born, lived, and died; July 2007, photo © 2007 by Laura Stokes, all rights reserved.
Acting on dream and impulse, we found ourselves in Mexico City last weekend at the Frida Kahlo Centennial Celebration at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. I had read [...]
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Posted in Architecture, Art, Art of Rebellion, Bones, Culture, Dreams, Fotoblog, Photography, Place, Practice, Spirituality, Structure, Vision, Wake Up, tagged artists, Casket Arts Building, history of St. Mary's, iconography, making space to create, Northeast Minneapolis, Northwestern Casket Company, Rev. Alexis Toth, St. Mary's Russian Greek Orthodox Catholic Church on May 26, 2007 | 7 Comments »
-Icon Painting, May 19th, 2007, all photos © 2007 by QuoinMonkey, all rights reserved
A week ago, I was at Art-A-Whirl in Northeast Minneapolis, where I spent most of the time in the Casket Arts Building (see Casket Arts Photoblog). ybonesy asked in a comment if the building had a funeral home during the time it was [...]
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Posted in Architecture, Art, Art of Rebellion, Culture, Death, Dreams, Fotoblog, Photography, Place, Practice, Relationships, Structure, Vision, Work, Writing, tagged Architecture, Art, Art-A-Whirl, artists, Casket Arts Building, caskets, Emily's Lebanese Deli, making space to create, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Northeast, Northrup King, Northwestern Casket Company, painters, painting, photoblog, Robert Berny, The Rain Collective, vintage on May 19, 2007 | 12 Comments »
-The Northwestern Casket Company, May 17th 2007, all photos © 2007 by QuoinMonkey, all rights reserved
I went over to the Casket Arts Building on Thursday to help my friend, Gail, hang her show. She recently joined the rain collective, a confluence of artists who moved into the building this week.
I took my camera along and [...]
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Posted in Art of Rebellion, Family, Food, Growing Older, Holidays, Laughing, Life, Memoir, Money, Personal, Relationships, Secrets, Topic Writing, tagged barter is better, barter system & money, candy cravings, Lifesavers, smelling like Peeps, vintage candy, writing about candy on April 27, 2007 | 16 Comments »
-image by SCEhardt, released to public domain
When I was a kid, I collected things. This is no surprise to anyone who knows me. Stashing is cumbersome in adulthood. But as a kid, it was a goldmine.
I tended to be the slow, silent type who savored and squirreled things away. I cached items like carefully folded [...]
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