New Moon Solar Eclipse — In The Heart Of Summer

Walking The Labyrinth, Droid Snapshots, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, June 2011, photo © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

The July Sun boils. Tomorrow may hit 100 degrees. It’s the heart of Summer in Minnesota, when deep Winter dwellers finally allow themselves to emerge from their cabin cocoons to frolic in the grass and spend intimate time with family and friends. The shadow of the July Thunder Moon will rise at 3:54am on July 1st. This New Moon Partial Solar Eclipse in the watery depths of Cancer offers an opportunity to enhance and transform relationships, and release outdated emotional patterns that might be holding us back. This is especially true of family relationships, since the sign of Cancer is rooted in home and family ties.

The partial eclipse also opposes the expansiveness of the planet Pluto, emphasizing the need for transformation of old patterns and routines. The Midsummer eclipse is a time of healing wounds, and setting intentions that allow us to work with old habits in new ways. There will be surprises that will jolt us awake and leave an opening for the clarity we need to move forward.

Be safe and have a good July 4th Holiday. Venus transits into the sign of Cancer on July 4th, calling out the feminine. Walk a labyrinth. Pay attention to the Sun, Stars, Moon, and Sky. The Earth will love you for it. Here’s an eclipse ritual I found in Llewellyn’s Sabbats Almanac. I thought it might be a good way to dive into the eclipse of a Midsummer night’s dream.

 ∞ Cancer Eclipse Ritual ∞

Think of a particular relationship or issue from the past that has been lingering or holding you back. Write a letter to the person (or people) involved that relays your honest feelings and emotions. Describe how you would like this situation or issue to change and what you need to feel better about it. Then, on the day of the New Moon, go to the ocean or find a stream, lake, or other body of water where you can be relatively private. Read your letter aloud to the spirit of the water and ask this spirit to help guide your message to the right place to allow you to heal, transform, and be free of these feelings that you have been holding on to.

-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, June 30th, 2011, Eve of a New Moon in Cancer Solar Eclipse

-related to posts: ode to a crab — haiku & mandala, Mandala For The 5th Element — The Role Of Ritual In Our Lives, World Labyrinth Day, Winter Solstice — Total Eclipse Of The Moon, winter haiku trilogy, November Frost BlackBerry Moon, Winding Down — July 4th Mandalas, Squaring The Circle — July Mandalas (Chakras & Color), The Shape Of July — Out Of Darkness Comes Light, Here’s To Rain On The 4th Of July

Read Full Post »

PRACTICE — My First Bicycle – 15min

My first bicycle. Royal blue, silver fenders, metal training wheels bolted on to the frame. Practicing, practicing, practicing until I got it right. Riding a bicycle, my first taste of freedom. My second bicycle, a 26 inch with a wire basket in the front to hold my text books. Books covered in brown paper that was once a bag, drawn on, colored on, with stickers and awkward handwriting. I never had good handwriting. I remember learning to ride a bicycle. The scariest part was the space between the wobble from one training wheel hitting the ground, then the other. Or maybe the scariest part was when the rubber actually hit the sidewalk and it felt off balance, like I was going to tip over, fall to the pavement, scrape my knee.

What I remember about my first bicycle isn’t as much about the object as the person who cared enough to hold the back of the seat until I got my balance, the person who ran along beside me when I teetered, who knew when it was safe to let go after the training wheels were unbolted—let go and let me fly. It’s the memories more than the objects. The objects are triggers. When we moved to Pennsylvania, our breezeway was always full of bicycles. Kids and bicycles. There was always one kid learning to ride a bike. It was the way my brothers roamed the streets with their friends.

I don’t remember riding in a group. It was more of a solitary effort for me. A way to get away and be alone. I clearly remember one ride to elementary school. I was so entranced with the ride, with the process, with looking down and viewing my feet turn the pedals, that I forgot to look up, and ran smack dab into a parked car. It jolted me, my text books flew out of the basket and on to the ground. I caught myself before I fell over but that jolt! when the tire hit the chrome fender, I will never forget it. I was embarrassed and looked around to see if anyone saw me fall. Which matters most? The fall or those who witness the fall.

Now that I think about it, my first bicycle taught me to trust. The second taught me how to fly solo, to be faster than anyone else, to not be afraid. My bicycles taught me independence, to trust myself, how to balance when things were careening out of control, how to stop on a dime right before the pothole swallowed me. My first bike was more than a bicycle. It was the beginning of learning to hold the world in the soles of my feet and the handlebar underneath my palms. It was a way to get away from the crowd, time to think, the feeling I’d later experience again when I learned to ride a motorcycle. There is no freedom like being on a two-wheeler, running under the power of your own two feet.

-related to Topic post: WRITING TOPIC — MY FIRST BICYCLE

Read Full Post »

PRACTICE — MY FIRST BICYCLE — 15 min

By Bob Chrisman

When I was eight, I received a new robin’s egg blue, girl’s bike for my birthday in May. I had selected that particular bike at the shop in the South End where we lived. I wanted a girl’s bicycle so I wouldn’t hurt myself every time I slid off the seat when I stopped. That always happened on boy’s bicycles and kept me from enjoying riding.

My father looked at the price tag and shook his head. “I don’t think we can afford this much. Let me talk with your mother.”

At eight years old, I had already heard that one phrase, “I don’t think we can afford this much” so often that I knew I would never own the bike I wanted. That’s the way things worked in my family: you didn’t get what you couldn’t afford and we couldn’t afford much at all.

On the morning of my birthday I ate my breakfast and opened my birthday cards. When I asked if I had any presents, my mother rolled the bicycle I’d picked out into the kitchen. “Your daddy and I decided that you were old enough to have this, even though it cost more than we would usually spend for a present. You’ve got to take good care of it. Okay?”

I leapt out of my chair and grabbed the bike before it vanished. Only when I held the handlebars in my own hands was it real. I had the bike I wanted.

Later that morning I opened the screen door and made sure to pull the bike out before the door slammed. I took it down all the stairs to the sidewalk and rolled it down the hill until I reached Ozark Street which was flat and graveled. Only then did I climb on my new bike and pedal along the street with the wind in my face. I felt so happy and so proud.

My friends congregated up the street and I rode my new bike up there to visit with them and show them my birthday present.

When I arrived, one of the boys said, “Hey, Bobby, why you got a girl’s bike? You a sissy?”

“No, I wanted a girl’s bike because it’s easier to get on and off. That’s why.”

“No, you’re a sissy. He’s a sissy, isn’t he?”

Everyone laughed.

Then the kid said, “I want to ride your sissy bike.”

“No, you can’t. It’s brand new. I just got it and I want to ride it for awhile before anyone else does.” I held on tight to the handlebars.

“Hey, sissy, that’s not very nice. But, I don’t want to ride a blue girl’s bike anyway.”

I turned around to ride home. The kids screamed names at me as I rode away. I’d reached the end of the block when a clunk sounded on my rear fender. A cheer went up from the kids. I crossed the intersection and started pushing the bicycle up the hill. When I was out of sight of my friends, I looked at the rear fender. Someone had thrown a big rock and dented and scraped a place on my new bike. I lost it. I couldn’t stop shaking and crying, but I pushed the bike up the hill, up the stairs and parked it on the porch.

My mother came running out of the house. “What’s wrong? Did you fall?”

I couldn’t speak so I pointed at the rear fender. My mother looked at the damage. “So that’s what you’re crying about? For heaven’s sake, it’s only a bicycle.”

No, it was so much more than that.

NOTE: WRITING TOPIC — MY FIRST BICYCLE is the latest Writing Topic on red Ravine. Frequent guest writer Bob Chrisman joined QuoinMonkey in doing a Writing Practice on the topic.

Read Full Post »

Under The Rainbow — Twin Cities Pride

Under The Rainbow – 24/52, BlackBerry 52 — Week 24, Minneapolis,
Minnesota, June 24th 2011, photo © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights
reserved. Medium: Droid snapshot of the new I-35 Bridge on Pride
weekend, June 2011 in response to Lotus Jump-Off – The Biggest Heart.

Compassion —
learning to accept
what we don’t understand;
a city with a big heart
knows how to hold its differences.

-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, June 26th, 2011

Lotus and I will continue to respond to each other’s BlackBerry Jump-Off photos with text, photography, poetry (however we are inspired) for the 52 weeks of 2011. You can read more at BlackBerry 52 Collaboration. If you are inspired to join us, send us a link to your images, poetry, or prose and we’ll add them to our posts.

-related to posts:  haiku 4 (one-a-day) Meets renga 52, Berth Of The Night Owl haiku, Marriage Equality In Maine & The Catholic Church

-related links: I-35W Bridge To Glow In Rainbow Colors For Pride Festival, NY Becomes 6th State to Legalize Gay Marriage, NY Birthplace of Gay Rights Movement Fetes New Law, Pride Parade Celebrates Passage Of Gay Marriage

Photos: Bridge Light, I-35 Bridge In Rainbow Colors For Pride – 24/52, BlackBerry 52 — Week 24, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 24th 2011, photo © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved. Medium: Droid snapshots of the new I-35 Bridge on Pride weekend, June 2011 in response to Lotus Jump-Off – The Biggest Heart.

Read Full Post »

first dragonfly

First Dragonfly – 25/52, BlackBerry 52 — Week 25 Jump-Off, Golden Valley, Minnesota, June 20th 2011, photo © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved. Medium: Droid snapshot of the first dragonfly in our garden, June 2011.

camouflaged
in the jungle that is our garden —
first dragonfly

-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

Lotus and I will continue to respond to each other’s BlackBerry Jump-Off photos with text, photography, poetry (however we are inspired) for the 52 weeks of 2011. You can read more at BlackBerry 52 Collaboration. If you are inspired to join us, send us a link to your images, poetry, or prose and we’ll add them to our posts.

-related to posts: Flying Solo — Dragonfly In Yellow Rain, Shadow Of A Dragonfly, Dragonfly Wings — It Is Written In The Wind, Dragon Fight — June Mandalas, The Sketchbook Project, haiku 4 (one-a-day) Meets renga 52

Read Full Post »

Moments Of Flowering — The Last Peony

Moments Of Flowering – 22/52, BlackBerry 52, Golden Valley, Minnesota, June 2011, photo © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved. Medium: original Droid snapshot of the last peony in our garden, June 2011. Polaroid effect and text added with Little Photo. Jump-Off from Lotus: Not Even Deep Into The Summer, a haiga collaboration with Robin from Life In The Bogs.

Dark clouds pile high over the hill, whipped cream on dirty snow. The sky smells like damp moss and rotting leaves. I squat in a swarm of rain-ready mosquitoes, and aim the camera toward the one surviving peony not browning at the edges. Though strong, she will falter under the weight of the next crack of thunder, pregnant with hard rain. Aching knees. I swat away a bead of sweat, listen to the pretend shutter click.

The pink peony lures me in, along with a lonely ant crawling toward the vortex of petals, sucked in like the prey of a Venus Flytrap. I think of a page from May Sarton’s journal—Journal of a Solitude, the entry from June 23rd. Summer in New Hampshire could be Summer in Minnesota. The humidity feels heavy. The world has gone mad. Too much happens these days. But the peony rises every year from buried piles of January snow, from the trampling of the mailman over her Winter stalks, from under the tire tracks of the neighbor’s SUV the night it drifted off the pitched driveway and on to the muddy grass.

It takes a whole year of work to bloom. I pay attention to the garden. My whole life comes alive there.

_____________________________

June 23rd

Almost too much happens these days. How can I be enough aware of all that opens and dies so quickly in the garden? It takes a whole year of work and waiting for this supreme moment of the great snow-white peonies—and then they are gone! I was thinking about it as I lay in bed this morning, and also of Mildred’s wise remark, “The roots of love need watering or it dies.” When she leaves, the house is at peace. Beauty and order have returned, and always she has left behind a drop of balm, such as that phrase; so her work here is a work of art. There is a mystical rite under the material act of cleaning and tidying, for what is done with love is always more than itself and partakes of the celestial orders.

It does not astonish or make us angry that it takes a whole year to bring into the house three great white peonies and two pale blue iris. It seems altogether right and appropriate that these glories are earned with long patience and faith (how many times this late spring I have feared the lilacs had been frost-killed, but in the end they were as glorious as ever before), and also that it is altogether right and appropriate that they cannot last. Yet in our human relations we are outraged when the supreme moments, the moments of flowering, must be waited for…and then cannot last. We reach a summit, and then have to go down again.

   —May Sarton from Journal of a Solitude. First Published 1973, by W.W. Norton & Company.

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, June 17th, 2011

-related to posts: The Ant & The Peony, WRITING TOPIC — NAMES OF FLOWERS, Secrets of the Passion Flower, WRITING TOPIC — SPRING CLEANING — (HOMEMADE CLEANING REMEDIES)

Read Full Post »

To Be Reborn

By Teresa Williams

What if rebirth
is like stepping into a room,
something ordinary, then
              Surprise!
Giant crimson tree, temple of hexagons,
a magic cup of moon-tea.

                          Rebirth.
Incited by luminescence, light chaser, Isis.
Through layers of ancient skin you came
from black to red to breathing center.
Now here, you are the shimmering one
the one who ripples and shines
glittering the air, gold and bright. You
shooting star of a songbird light.

Once again,
feel your freshly found face
flooding the room with new freedom,
star nectar, white queen, gleaming.

And again,
savor this renewal this taste of dawn
as you swallow death's end,
from bitter and night, bitter
then sweet
             holy crescent,

oracle of brilliance

you

stepping into

       a new room.

Nacer de nuevo (To Be Reborn) by Remedios Varo,
oil on Masonite, 1960, 31 7/8 x 18 1/2 in. From
The Magic of Remedios Varo by Luis-Martin Lozano.
Translated by Elizabeth Goldson Nicholson and
Liliana Valenzuela.

_________________________

About Teresa: Teresa Williams is a psychotherapist, poet and translator in Seattle, Washington. She has been writing and trying to live poetry for as long as she can remember. Her love for travel and the Spanish language has called her into translation work. She is also an active member of Grupo Cervantes, a bilingual writer’s group and literary community in Seattle.

Teresa’s poetry has been featured at births, weddings, funerals and several talent shows held by the closest of friends. Her first piece on red Ravine, Sound Falling From One World Into Another, was published in August 2010 and featured the poems: Swans, Two Coyotes at Dawn, and Tarot. It was followed by The Devil’s Bridge, a poem that speaks to the legends and mythology surrounding bridges throughout the British Isles, Scandinavia, and continental Europe. Her last piece for red Ravine featured the poem Tortoise Highway.

Read Full Post »

Flight Of The Spirit

Flight Of The Spirit – 20/52, BlackBerry 52, Wabasha, Minnesota, May 2011, photo © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved. Medium: original RAW file from April 2010 shot with a Canon Powershot G6, posterized and text added in Franklin Gothic Book font with Photoshop Elements. Jump-Off from Lotus: Spirit Bird.

The first time I stood under the boulder-sized bowl that is an eagle’s nest, I was 22 and living in Montana. Several years ago, friends in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota walked me to a nest on a lake near their home. After years of adapting to erratic human behavior, eagles can be happy urban dwellers.

In 2010, I visited the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota with the Midwest Writing Group. It would be the second time I had the pleasure. On my original visit, the Eagle Center was housed in a meager, cramped facility in the middle of Wabasha. These days rescued eagles Harriet, Angel, Columbia, Wasaka and Donald live in a beautiful 14,000 foot interpretative center overlooking the Mississippi River on 1000 feet of Wabasha shoreline.

When I saw that BlackBerry 52 Jump-Off from Lotus for Week 20 was Spirit Bird, I remembered all the eagles I had met and started searching my photo archives. Eagles are majestic and powerful with a wingspan of 80 to 90 inches, and in every manner spiritual sentient beings. The original photograph of the image above is a RAW file of a park bench outside the National Eagle Center. I pulled the photo into Photoshop Elements to alter it and add the text.

According to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, when the bald eagle was adopted as the national symbol of the United States in 1782, there were between 25,000 and 75,000 birds nesting in the lower 48 states. Illegal shooting, habitat destruction, lead poisoning, and the catastrophic effects of DDT contamination in their prey base reduced eagle numbers to 417 pairs by 1963. Legal protection began with the Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940 and continued with the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966 and the 1978 listing under the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

The single-most important regulation affecting bald eagle recovery may have been the banning of DDT for most uses in the United States in 1972. Thanks to organizations that protect and rehabilitate eagles, there are now 4,450 occupied nesting territories, a ten-fold increase from the 1963 low. If you ever get the chance to drive to Wabasha, Minnesota don’t miss the opportunity to tour the National Eagle Center. If you are ever in Montana, it doesn’t require a long drive before you are out in the wilderness. Hike the trails, sit like the mountain.

Lotus and I will respond to each other’s BlackBerry Jump-Off photos with text, photography, poetry (however we are inspired) for the 52 weeks of 2011. You can read more at BlackBerry 52 Collaboration. If you are inspired to join us, send us a link to your images, poetry, or prose and we’ll add them to our posts.

-posted on red Ravine, Monday, June 6th, 2011

-related to posts: Baby Eagles At Summer Solstice, BlackBerry 365 Project — White Winter Squirrel, Flying Solo — Dragonfly In Yellow Rain, Searching For Stillness, icicle tumbleweed (haiga) — 2/52, The Mirado Black Warrior, Waning Moon (Haiga), Alter-Ego Mandala: Dreaming Of The Albatross (For Bukowski), EarthHealer — Mandala For The Tortoise, haiku 4 (one-a-day) Meets renga 52

Read Full Post »

Northern Spark — Twin Cities Nuit Blanche

Northern Spark Installation by Roman Verostko, Three-Story Drawing Machine, Minneapolis College of Art & Design, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2011, photo © Creative Commons by Northern Spark. Some rights reserved.

I walk in the tradition of the Night Owl, and revel in the sleepless rituals of nuit blanche. Tonight from 9pm to 6am, Liz and I will be traversing the Mississippi River (from Minneapolis to St. Paul and back!) to visit the art installations of Northern Spark. Various corners of the Twins Cities will be lit up from dusk until dawn with venues that include: the Mill City Silos, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, poetry at All My Relations Arts, the GLOW-a-BOUT at Loring Park near the Walker Art Center (open all night and featuring the Lullaby Experiment by Marcus Young, creator of Everyday Poems For City Sidewalk), and four site specific installations (see Three-Story Drawing Machine by Roman Verostko above) at my alma mater, the Minneapolis College of Art & Design.

The information below is from the Northern Spark Media Kit. The Northern Spark website includes a complete list of events that you can add to your own interactive map that charts your night’s events. You can also download and print this PDF of the Northern Spark Guide listing the details of each installation across the Twin Cities. Hope to see you at this community event for the Arts, public art at its best!

The Nuit Blanche Movement

The idea of a nuit blanche (translated as “white night” or “sleepless night”) is an art event/tradition first seen in St. Petersburg, Russia and Berlin, Germany in the mid 1990s and first named “nuit blanche” in Paris in 2002. Since that time, the idea of the nuit blanche has expanded dramatically becoming a popular art event in cities throughout the world.

Today, a Nuit Blanche event consists of art installations and events in public spaces and museums, art galleries, and other cultural institutions opening their doors free of charge to the public from dusk till dawn. In effect, the host city itself is turned into a de facto art gallery, providing space for art installations, performances (music, film, dance, performance art), social gatherings, and other activities.

Besides St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Paris, nuit blanche events have taken place in Toronto, New York City, Tel Aviv, Santa Monica, and Montreal.

Northern Spark 2011

Spearheaded by Northern Lights.mn, Northern Spark is the first ever nuit blanche event in the Midwest. Northern Lights.mn is a roving, collaborative, interactive media-oriented, arts agency from the Twin Cities but for the world. It presents innovative art in the public sphere, both physical and virtual, focusing on artists creatively using technology, both old and new, to engender new relations between audiences and artwork and more broadly between people and their built environments.

Northern Spark will take place from June 4 (sundown ~8:55 p.m.) to June 5, 2011 (sunrise ~5:28 a.m.) at various locations along the Mississippi River and surrounding areas in Minneapolis and St. Paul. More than 60 artists from Minnesota, the surrounding area, and select locations across the country will be represented at the event.

Northern Spark Installation by Deborah Miller, Mill City Silos, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2011, photo © Creative Commons by Northern Spark. Some rights reserved.

Northern Spark:

First All Night Take Over Of The Twin Cities

MINNEAPOLIS, May 3, 2011 – It’s no secret Minneapolis St Paul is one of the leading centers of art in the United States. But on June 4 this year, the Twin Cities will join for the first time, the worldwide Nuit Blanche arts movement by hosting “Northern Spark,” the area’s first ever, all-night long arts festival.

For one night only, more than 60 regional and national artists together with the Twin Cities’ arts community will display new art installations at public places and unexpected locations throughout the city. Directed and produced by Northern Lights.mn and funded by the MN State Arts Board, Northern Spark takes place this summer from sunset on June 4 (8:55 p.m.) until the morning of June 5, 2011 (sunrise 5:28 a.m.).

“The Twin Cities has an amazing art culture and reputation,” says Northern Lights director, Steve Dietz. “Our aim is to really showcase that artistic excellence in a way never quite seen before by transforming the cities’ urban landscapes into a Twin Cites-wide art gallery for one special night.” The Northern Spark event will include a wide diversity of art forms and projects including multi-story projections, audio environments with vistas, installations traveling down the Mississippi on barges, houseboats and paddleboats, headphone concerts, and the use of everything from bioluminescent algae and sewer pipes for organs to more traditional media such as banjos and puppets.

One of the most highly anticipated installations is Jim Campbell’s “Scattered Light” from New York’s Madison Square Park, in which LED light bulbs suspended in a cube-shape on high tensile wire blink on and off to recreate the forms of pedestrians’ movements in three dimensions. Other artists involved in the nuit blanche include Christopher Baker, Phillip Blackburn, Body Cartography, Bart Buch, Barbara Claussen, Wing Young Huie, Debora Miller, Minneapolis Art on Wheels, Ali Momeni, Janaki Ranpura, Red76, Rigo 23, Jenny Schmid, Andréa Stanislav, Piotr Szyhalski, Diane Willow, Roman Verostko, Liu Xuguang, Marcus Young, and others.

The event is a collaboration — rarely seen on this kind of scale — of more than 40 partners each of which will sponsor one or more projects for the duration of the night. The goal is to showcase the urban splendor of the Twin Cities in a unique way, introducing a broad and diverse audience to innovative local and national talent in an inspiring journey through the night.

Northern Spark Installations: Wing Young Huie (TOP) by Nomad World Pub, St. Paul, Minnesota, Deborah Miller (BOTTOM) at Mill City Silos, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2011, © Creative Commons by Northern Spark. Some rights reserved.

-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, June 4th, 2011

Read Full Post »