CAT TAILS

THIS IS THE NEWEST IN A SERIES OF MY MOBILES THAT WOULD BE CLASSED AS KINETIC SCULPTURE. MADE FROM AFRICAN WENGE WOOD, BRONZE ROD AND IRONWOOD DRIFT.

I'VE BEEN TAGGED!

I have been tagged by my friend and fellow ZNE artist and member, Cathy Minerva from http://www.minervamadness.com/

To be tagged means that I am oblighed to reveal 6 random little know facts.


1. I'sana is my Hindu name given to me by a Vishnauve Guru. My Christian name is Gordon Sherman.

2. Lived and thrived in a remote north shore Molokai jungle valley without electricity for six years in the '70's, living basically self- sufficiently.

3. Smoked cigarettes for 35 years and live to tell of it. Dropped it 15 years ago.

4. I have never had a doctors physical examination.

5. I love to cook and would like to add chef to my professions.

6. Worked in Scottsdale, AZ for 7 years as a full time yoga teacher and have taught yoga for 14 years in numerous venues.

For the first 6 ZNE members who read this blog, consider yourself TAGGED!

MOVE TO MAKAWAO

THE ROSE (continued)

SELF-PORTRAIT

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others,
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God
---David Whyte, from Fire in the Earth

The Rose,from "Women in Praise of the Sacred"

The treasure at the heart of the rose

is your own heart's treasure.

Scatter it as the rose does;

your pain becomes hers to measure.

Scatter it in a song,

or in one great love's desire.

Do not resist the rose

lest you burn in its fire.

~Gabriela Mistral

"In ancient dark times yoga flourished

as the means by which ordinary folk

absorb the nuturing force of Life.

Yoga is strength receiving,

the male surrender to the feminine".

~Mark Whitwell

Sri Yantra depicts the fundamental feeling of

the upward- moving strength of our own life

merging with the downward, receptive quality from above.

Without any action we can contimplate and feel

this movement and relationships of Life.

Sri Yantra is therefore very worthy of this relaxed attention,

particularly before and after asana and pranayama

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

Love what it loves.

Mary Oliver,

from "Wild Geese"

If the sight of the blue skies

fills you with JOY, if a blade of grass

springing up in the fields has power

to move you, if the simple things

in nature have a message you understand,

rejoice, for your soul is alive.

~ Eleanora Duse

BEAUTY

There is beauty of the moment and of the moment gone.

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections,

Or the beauty of innuendos,

The Blackbird whistling

Or just after.

-- Wallace Stevens

Ulapalakua Storm

What's Not Here

I start out on this road, call it

love or emptiness. I only know what's

not here: resentment seeds, back-

scratching greed, worrying about out-

come, fear of people. When a bird gets

free, it doesn't go back for remnants

left on the bottom of the cage! Close

by, I'm the rain. Far off, a cloud of fire.

I seem restless, but I am deeply at ease.

Branches tremble; the roots are still.

I am a universe in a handful of dirt,

whole when totally demolished. Talk

about choices does not apply to me.

While intelligence considers options,

I am somewhat lost in the wind.

by Rumi

Spring Previews

MAUI's January Contrasts

Ryoanji: An Essay

Wherever a person stands in the garden of Ryoanji, there is always a stone that cannot be seen. It is like the sliver of absence found on the face of a man who has glimpsed in himself a thing until then unknown. Inside the silence, just before he begins to weep. Not because of the thing he has learned---monstrous or saintly, it was always within him---but for the amplitude he hadn't believed was there.

- Jane Hirshfield, "After"

Now is when the universe

is taking care of things

providing you with the needs to

help you overcome self doubt.

To submerge you in love

to flow with life

without fear or concerns.

M