Have you ever got stuck playing with rubber stamps?
My hand these days may not be as reliable for sketching or painting as it once was, but my eyes are still alert. In our downsizing on our remote island in Maine, as I chanced upon our collected rubber stamps and inks, I started playing. Add to that some related artistry.
Do take a look for the results at my free digital bookstore, Thistle Finch editions.
The albums are Inked. Stamped, Pressed, Visual Twists, and Shore Things (collages arising from beachcombing findings).
You might even what to download and print some of the images. I humbly think they’re great.
Slant shots with a cosmic ricochet or two
When you sit for Meeting and see only chessmen on a board around you, you’ve lost touch with yourself.
Who knows whose game has you trapped, much less in what game.
Example of miscommunication:
“Are you Saved?”
“Are you Self-Realized?”
“Are you Yielded?”
Before Self-Realization, my belief that truth or the mystery could be found and answered in a woman’s love, classical music or jazz, a fine set of books. And thus the constant sorrow interspersed with flashes of delight. Now, further along, a taste of energy that goes so far beyond as well as a dryness of what’s been lost.
As for the girls I desired in high school? How common! [Sex and spirituality are closer and more essential than is often acknowledged. My, this could fill volumes!]
3 July, ’77 … evening Quaker Mtg at Dory Matson’s, the Wilkenings were there … Ellensburg?
First Mtg after summer: 20 adults, five children.
Me, thinking of the Mountains and Rivers sutra
and our Meeting’s love of hiking-skiing-camping
3:X: Been wondering about the break with the ashram, whether it even still exists …
What is the role of religion in a “man’s world”?
To give death meaning?
To uphold what’s good, noble, heroic?
To overcome the Little I?
Meeting last Sunday was at Michael and Tarn’s …
My first Quaker memorial service was Ken Scott’s …
The difficulty most had with the silence, women whispering (gossiping?) to husbands, etc., a packed room — having many standing didn’t help. The service began with the family singing songs informally …
He was 31 …
~*~
JESUS APOLLONIUS
Did Christianity change the Romans?
Or did they change Christianity?
Their vestal virgins redressed as nuns?
Thus, the Reformation
as another uprising of Germanic tribes
against Roman tribute
The mafia
supports its church
~*~
ARE WE GETTING CLOSER TO QUAKERS OR ZEN?
“There were no representatives of the gods inside; the place was empty, and the secret shrine contained nothing” — Pompey, on the Second Temple of Jerusalem
“They worship on the clouds and the Spirit of the heavens” — popular saying of the Jews, recorded in Juvenal.
Geeze, is that all it takes to confound Empire?
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
A guy in the cafeteria, well-read, bald head
Said he: “We’re descended from lower-level gods
who mated with apes outraging the other deities.
It’s like putting human brains in tigers
walking down the street.”
The kicker?
“We can do it in fifteen years.”
~*~
Way back in my past
when I was lamenting
not having profound revelations
any more.
PS, those tigers still aren’t on our streets.
As my world turned
So we were settling in.
our orchard tenant shack here
like Snyder’s place in Dharma Bums
out back of a holy family’s
out toward the birds
and simple
like the long-legged house
of Wendell Berry’s uncle
close to nature
beside the river
Noz [our black cat, half-Siamese] goes berserk when we’re not home: rolled a geode across the floor and ripping caulking from the windows …
Noted on 15:VIII:77: Kitty received notice of her in-state status today. Next up, $50 in the mail to Central.
A week later: With Celeste over Saturday night.
And then we to Seattle Sunday: dinner at Costas [my delight at souvlaki?}, then a movie house of 99 seats, lobby three times larger than the viewing room …
In the morning, my wishing Kitty would say something profound rather than weeping over a slender girl or some fine threads …
Back in our desert orchard:
Tarts baked in stars
So hot that apples sunburn
and I’d thought Ivar’ was joking
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
Mention ‘The County’ in Maine, and everyone knows what you mean
The Pine Tree State has 16 counties, but only one is recognized as The County, a place also known as “the crown of Maine” or even the most northeastern point of the USA.
It’s Aroostook County, set right along the border with Quebec and New Brunswick, Canada, with a population of 67,000 people and who knows how many moose.
It’s also the largest county by landmass east of the Mississippi, though
St. Louis County, Minnesota, is larger though much of it is waters of Lake Superior. With more than 6,800 square miles, Aroostook is larger than the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.
Now, for ten more considerations.
- It’s famed for potatoes, which are being harvested about now. In the 1940s Maine topped the nation in potato production but by 1994 had fallen to the eighth-place in production and the seventh in the number of acres devoted to potato cultivation in the United States. In 2024, Maine grew 54,000 acres of potatoes (behind Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Colorado, and Michigan) and nearly 90 percent of that was in Aroostook County. Potatoes are still far and away the state’s largest (legal) crop.
- When the county was created in 1839, border conflicts with Canada threatened to erupt into the “Aroostook War,” explaining the town names of Fort Kent and Fort Fairfield.
- It’s hard to spell, but not nearly as much as the Wolastokwey (or Maliseet) language that originated it. It means “beautiful river” and refers to the St. John River. The Maliseet, still present in the county, are affiliated with the Wabanaki Alliance that includes the Mi’kmaq, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy tribes.
- The county was a stop on the Underground Railroad carrying fugitive slaves to freedom in Canada. The secret network carried freedom seekers from ports around Bangor to wilderness waterways, where Natives canoed them to havens like the Quaker community in Fort Fairfield, one of the last safe places before reaching Canada.
- During the Cold War, Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, vital because of its location close to Europe, had a major impact on the county’s economy. Its closure in 1994 is still deeply felt.
- The county is becoming a major producer of wind power.
- Many people in the northern part of the county speak both English and Acadian French (which is different from Quebecois).
- As the agricultural activity changes, Amish are moving in and establishing communities. Somehow, the county does feel a lot like Pennsylvania to me, so it seems fitting to see horse-drawn carriages (they don’t call them buggies) on the roads, dark blue and green laundry on the lines outside plain farmhouses, and lively one-room schoolhouses as you drive through.
- Much of the county is forest, including a significant moose population. Drivers, beware.
- A stretch along U.S. 1 presents the measured-to-scale solar system. Created with high school and college students plus adult volunteers, it really is mind-boggling. The results can be viewed in the October 2023 archives of this blog, should you wish to explore more.
Exploring the psyche, as well
Churches can tell you a lot about a town. It’s ethnic components, first and foremost.
In the Valley we had Buddhist churches as well as Indian Shaker
The Indian Shaker church, as described by Elizabeth Colson in The Makah Indians:
People come and go, without waiting for the end of the service; participants and onlookers; no hymn books; praying not in unison; simultaneous performance, with each participant voicing their own prayers; shaking comes at the end, as participants stand shaking violently or circle the room as they go … during the shaking, several men ring handbells — “Dear Lord, send us your holy power!”
POWER SONGS
Also: “You’ll be a great doctor. You’ll see a hand sticking out of the ground. When you see that, you go put your hand close to that so that power will get in your hand. That’s the best you can get if you become a doctor, that hand sticking out of the ground …”
A map allows you to go back through places you’ve been while also looking ahead.
The topographical maps of the valley, especially.
Trail maps, too. The Cascadia books!
As I noted: Several times last week, in conversation someone got too close physically or gave a look that broke through the façade — my reaction of quick fear, a fleeting impulse to run — how far I’ve come from yogic self-clearness …
Reactions to Carlos Castenada’s Journey to IxHaMm:
- Laugh! Lightning!
- Reverse all assumptions.
- “Everything agrees with me!”
- Create a fog around yourself so others cannot manipulate you by their preconceptions.
- No need to explain to others, your action becomes false in the telling.
- Caw like a crow, like an omen
Early July: Tuesday, went to town, looked at new cars — torn between the class and comfort of Audi Fox, the rugged opportunities (high country) of Toyota Land Cruiser … $7,000 either way … Land Cruiser eats the gas …
I had never even considered I could afford a new car before that.
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
Kinisi 260
death as a cave in the woods
sinkhole filled with trash
Happy Crab
The late Kate Devonshire created this mural for a dive about three blocks down the street from us. I still miss Dungeness crab, a local delicacy when I lived in the Pacific Northwest, although lately I’ve been enjoying picked meat from the smaller Jonah and rock crab varieties, which proves just as sweet and tender. The Chesapeake traditions that I encountered in Baltimore will await a post for the future. The deck of the Happy Crab, do note, is usually packed all summer.
Fit for flight
As seen at our local airport.
Jnana's Red Barn 