Happy Birthday Running Redbud!

With apologies to my sibs Di & Aaron,
who were already in their pjs when this picture was taken.
Kimberling City, Missouri ~ Summer 1973

My friend Joni and I know just what
Walt Whitman means when he says:

This hour I tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.

These words from Song of Myself have always
been true for us, confidants since girlhood.

J for Joni ~ K for Kit

For more about Joni & more about Walt Whitman
see my recent posts

When Women Wore Names

&

The Common Air that Bathes the Globe

For some additional
summertime coincidences & connections,
ranging from Peanuts to Cracker Jacks,
from Portugal to the Outer Banks,
see my previous posts:

Given Life by an Intimate Sun

Every This and That

OBX

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks

@The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

Thanks to my brother - in - law Tom Burrows
for his beautiful photograph of this late summer blossom!

No Quandary

Wearing my sterling silver "Duke" earrings,
except today they stand for "Democrat." Thanks Ben

On "America's Choosing Day,"
everyone should read Walt Whitman & Robert Frost.
How to decide?

First of all, I do not think of Hillary Clinton as the "lesser of two evils." I think Donald Trump is vile (an anagram of evil). Hillary Clinton is neither of those things. No contest in my mind. However, even if one is of the "lesser of two evils" position, what is the quandary? Has there ever been any nobility in choosing the greater of two evils?

Second, as adults, every day, our lives are filled with a series of choices for lesser evil. (E.g., killing all the ants on the kitchen floor feels kind of evil, but allowing them to continue living there seems even worse.) Many of our beloved and well respected Presidents have made choices for lesser evil when presented with two or more imperfect choices.

Except in the world of cartoons, we are rarely granted the luxury of a choice for perfectly good vs pure evil. In real life, and even in good fiction, the choices and conflicts are always more complicated and problematic than that.

My well - respected brother,
The Rev. Bruce Carriker, agrees:
So, here's the decision some people are still wrestling with:

A distrusted, dislikable individual who, despite some really questionable judgment, has been cleared not once but twice of wrongdoing by the FBI; and has been investigated eight times by her political opponents in Congress for her actions as Secretary of State, without a single charge being filed;

or

A serial adulterer; racist, misogynist bully who threatens to jail his opponents; banishes the press from his campaign events if he doesn't like their coverage; admires political despots in other countries; says he may turn his back on our allies; wants to cut taxes for his rich friends; doesn't pay taxes himself; boasts about what certainly sounds like sexual assault; mocks the disabled; operates a fraudulent "charitable foundation" for his own personal gain; bribes at least two states attorneys general to drop investigations of his fraudulent "university"; says the judge in his "university" fraud case is unqualified simply because of his race; questions the patriotism of Gold Star parents because of their religious faith; calls Latinos rapists and murderers; and wonders, if we have nuclear weapons, why don't we use them?

How this is even a decision seemingly reasonable people have to think about is simply beyond me. [Click for further thoughts]

And if you don't believe us,
how about Hadley Freeman,
writing for the Guardian:
" . . . the media promoted false equivalencies throughout this campaign to a degree never before seen.

On Tuesday, the Times headlined its editorial about the election “Tough Choice”, as if the decision between a woman who used the wrong email server and a racist, sexist, tax-dodging bully wasn’t, in fact, the easiest choice in the world. Clinton’s private email server was covered more ferociously than Trump’s misogyny. That Clinton had talked at Goldman Sachs was reported as a financial flaw somehow analogous to his non-payment of tax. However much people want to blame the Democrats, their voters or Clinton herself, the result of this election is due at least as much to anyone who pushed the narrative that Clinton and Trump were equally or even similarly “bad”.

Shame on them. The most qualified candidate in a generation was defeated by the least qualified of all time. That is what misogyny looks like, and, like all bigotries, it will end up dragging us all down."

A Vision for Election Day!

Thanks for the bulletin page Good Shepherd ~
Chapel of the Good Shepherd!

"And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision,
and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it."

Habakkuk 2:2, KJV

Pride was not made for men, nor furious anger for them that are born of a woman. They that fear the Lord are a sure seed, and they that love him an honourable plant: they that regard not the law are a dishonourable seed; they that transgress the commandments are a deceivable seed. Among brethren he that is chief is honorable; so are they that fear the Lord in his eyes. The fear of the Lord goeth before the obtaining of authority: but roughness and pride is the losing thereof.

Ecclesiasticus 10: 18 - 21, KJV

Staying Alive

“Peace. It does not mean to be in a place
where there is no noise, trouble or hard work.
It means to be in the midst of those things
and still be calm in your heart.”
~ Anonymous ~

No one seems to know who said those words,
but they remind me of something that
Walt Whitman says in Leaves of Grass:

"Allons! we must not stop here,
However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here,
However shelter’d this port and however calm these waters we must not anchor here,
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it but a little while."

from "The Song of the Open Road," #9 (112)
In very simple terms:
"A ship in the harbor is safe,
but that is not what ships are made for."
~ John Augustus Shedd ~

Or as succintly, existentially expressed
by David Wagoner, profound American poet (b 1926)
in one of my all - time favorite poems, entitled Staying Alive:

"This is called staying alive. It's temporary."

To read the entire poem ~ long but worth it!~ check out my current post:

~ "Staying Alive, Temporarily" ~

@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker:
A Fortnightly [every 14th & 28th] Literary Blog of
Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony

Camerado

Amy & Matt

I was honored to give the following reading today
at my niece Amy's wedding:

Union

You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making promises and agreements in an informal way. All those conversations that were held riding in a car or over a meal or during long walks — all those sentences that began with “When we’re married” and continued with “I will” and “you will” and “we will” — those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe” — and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart. All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding.

The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things we’ve promised and hoped and dreamed — well, I meant it all, every word.”

Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another — acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, and even teacher, for you have learned much from one another in these last few years. Now you shall say a few words that take you across a threshold of life, and things will never quite be the same between you. For after these vows, you shall say to the world, this is my husband, this is my wife.

by Robert Fulghum

****************

Allons! the road is before us . . .
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?
from Part #15 of Walt Whitman's
Song of the Open Road

Reduced Whitman

Whitman Lite

from Whitman's facebook page
Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
Whitman RegularOnce I pass’d through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for future use,
with its shows, architecture, customs, and traditions;
Yet now, of all that city, I remember only a woman I casually met there,
who detain’d me for love of me;
Day by day and night by night we were together,
-- All else has long been forgotten by me;
I remember, I say, only that woman who passionately clung to me;
Again we wander — we love — we separate again;
Again she holds me by the hand — I must not go!
I see her close beside me, with silent lips, sad and tremulous.

~ from "Children of Adam," in Leaves of Grass

Whitman HeavyThis is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

~ Preface, 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass (see paragraph #7)

House With a Past

Thank you old house for imparting your secrets!
I'm sure you remember Robin William, in Dead Poets Society, telling the students to listen closely to what the old photographs are whispering:

"But if you listen real close,
you can hear them whisper their legacy to you.
Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - -
Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day!"
That's exactly the same feeling I get when browsing through all the old papers that came with the house.

As Walt Whitman writes in "Song of the Open Road":

You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs!
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!
You doors and ascending steps! you arches!
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!
From all that has touch’d you I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me,
From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me. . . .

Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth!
You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though you built it, or though it has been built for you.
~ Selected lines from Parts 3 and 13 ~
These and more can be found on my
NEW FORTNIGHTLY BLOG POST
~ House With a Past ~

The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker:
A Fortnightly [every 14th & 28th] Literary Blog of
Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony

P.S. Related post on my book blog

8 June 2007

A Thousand Globes

“Each friend represents a world in us,
a world possibly not born until they arrive,
and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
~ Anaïs Nin ~
The Diary of Anaïs Nin
Vol. 1: 1931-1934


. . . even snow globes . . .

. . . other side . . .
see the Philadelphia Mummers?!

Len says:
When I see a snowglobe, I always recall Citizen Kane

. . . and that reminded me of this scene
from one of my favorite movies,
an incredible faithful adaptation
of one of my favorite stories . . .

"The human heart is vast enough
to contain all the world."
~ Joseph Conrad ~

Choosing Day ~ The Hour is Real

Taking His Time!
~ Great Grandfather Benjamin Franklin Relaxing ~
Whimsical statue on the campus of
The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Those Elders of the Great Tradition & the Rest of Us
It's as if they dreamed their knowledge
and what they dreamed is what we know.
Who can blame them? They could hardly
have believed this sequel to themselves,
that all their wisdom is really happening.

Yet how can we endure these great grandfathers
of the best we know, who still must sit on every
committee of our thought, who interrupt
our counsels with their wise irrelevancies?
They take their time too, having at their leisure
all history while for us the hour is real. [emphasis added]

Notre Dame Professor and Poet
Ernest Sandeen (1908 - 1997)
from the Collected Poems

~ More Great Grandfathers ~
Sitting on Every Committee!
Washington, Jefferson, T. Roosevelt, Lincoln

Mount Rushmore, Keystone, South Dakota

Election Day, November 1884If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
’Twould not be you, Niagara—nor you, ye limitless prairies—nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite—nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon’s white cones—nor Huron’s belt of mighty lakes—nor Mississippi’s stream:

—This seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now, I’d name—the still small voice vibrating — America’s choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen — the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous’d-sea-board and inland-Texas to Maine — the Prairie States — Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West — the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling — (a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern Napoleon’s:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity—welcoming the darker odds, the dross:

— Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify—while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell’d Washington’s, Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s sails. [emphasis added]

Renowned American Poet
Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)
from Leaves of Grass (first published in 1891 - 92 edition)

The Countless Snow - Flakes Falling!

[well, actually, countable!]

Loos'd of Limits: The Open Road

One of Uncle Gene's
Amazing Travel Pics, October 2005
Here's the story behind it, in his words:

May 2006
Dear Friends and Relatives,

In the Sunday Wichita Eagle there is a "Travel Section." On the front page of this section there is a feature called, "Best Shot." Each Sunday a picture sent in by an amateur is printed with a short blurb concerning the shot and the person's name. The attached photo is the one used this Sunday and . . . ta da! . . . it's one I took & submitted!

At the roadside turnout above Lake Mono last October on our trip from Davis to Las Vegas, John, Marla, Elaine & I stopped for our first look at the lake down in the basin several miles and about 1,500 feet below us. It was a spectacular view with Highway 395 winding sinuously down the mountain and across the basin, miles away in the hazy distance.

After ohhing and ahhing for awhile we were ready to load up and go on. I took one last shot of the panoramic view spread out in front and below us. It was a magic moment for I truly caught lightening in a bottle and the picture I got is a really neat one, I think. I've never been the "shutter-bug" in the family so I consider this shot to fall in the "blind sow" category (taken with my Canon PowerShot A520 digital).

Strangely enough we didn't see the picture in the paper yesterday; I forgot to look. Someone told us at AARP today that it was in there. I'd submitted it months ago and had looked occasionally but gave up on its ever being used.

Technology is wonderful . . . Aim and shoot . . .

Love, Gene aka Bill

*************************************************

Wow! What a fabulous photograph, and what a great surprise to learn inadvertently that it had finally appeared in the paper!

And to go along with Uncle Gene's stunning panorama
what could be more fitting than . . .
. . . a few lines from Walt Whitman's visionary Song of the Open Road:

Part 5
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.

I inhale great draughts of space;
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought;
I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me;
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me,
I would do the same to you.

I will recruit for myself and you as I go;
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go;
I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them;
Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.


from Part #13
Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless,
To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,
To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to,
Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys;
To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,
To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it,
To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you, however long but it stretches and waits for you . . .
To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them behind you,
To know the universe itself as a road - as many roads - as roads for traveling souls.

by Walt Whitman, 1819 - 1892
American poet, essayist, journalist, humanist


. . . or this parable from Franzlations [the imaginary Kafka parables]
by Gary Barwin, Craig Conley, Hugh Thomas:

"If you were walking across a barren plain and had an honest intention of walking on, then it would be a desperate matter, but you are flying, gliding and diving, SOARING and swooping, high above the plain, which, seen from above, is a tiny blot on a vast and various landscape."

P.S. Rest in Peace
Uncle Gene ~ 20 October 1926 - 21 July 2011
Aunt Elaine ~ 27 July 1929 - 23 July 2015

"What is the grass?"

A child said, What is the grass?
fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?
I do not know what it is any more than she.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition,
out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners,
that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child,
the produced babe of the vegetation. . . .

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life,
and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

by Walt Whitman, 1819 - 1892
American poet, essayist, journalist, humanist
from Song of Myself ~ Part 6
P.S.
Click to see Autumn Gossamer!

Amelioration: Earth Day

Hail Thee, Festival Day!
Amelioration [to make better, to improve upon]
is one of the earth's words,
The earth neither lags nor hastens . . .

The earth does not withhold, it is generous enough,
The truths of the earth continually wait,
they are not so conceal'd either,
They are calm, subtle . . .
conveying themselves willingly . . .

The earth does not argue,
Is not pathetic, has no arrangements,
Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise,
Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures,
Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out . . .

~ from A Song of the Rolling Earth ~
~ by Walt Whitman ~

Elaine and Gene Carriker
Two years ago ~ on Earth Day 2009 ~ my Uncle Gene sent the following announcement about the dedication of a new building at the neighborhood school in Wichita, Kansas, where he worked for 16 years.

As he is a most engaging guest blogger, I will let him speak for himself:

"In recognition of Earth Day . . . listen up, Earthling!

Tonight at 6:30 Elaine & I are going to the dedication of the new $8,000,000.00 Amelia Earhart Environmental Magnet Elementary School in Wichita. Just so happens yours truly was the principal of this school back in the 1960’s when my faculty and I received a $250,000.00 grant from the Feds to start an environmental school. The building was located on an 11 acre tract which gave us ample room to lay out an exemplary environmental school that used environmental issues in all phases of curriculum where it was feasible to do so.

We planned the site as 4 distinct and different entities. One was the experimental area, one the “back to nature” area where we never had it mowed, one was the formal & ornamental area where there was a pond, benches and tables to have lunch for classes using the site. The 4th site was the wooded area where we planted trees of all kind.

I was principal there from 1960 to 1973 when I was asked to open a different school for kids with special talents, abilities and interests and in the upper quartile in “smarts.”

I spent 9 years at that program and then returned to Earhart in 1984 and spent the last 3 years of my career polishing up the Environmental Complex, retiring in June, 1987.

When the citizens of Wichita passed a bond issue a couple of years ago the above amount was spent on a new building for Earhart. It is built as totally “green” as it was architecturally possible working with the contractor. I’m anxious to see what they were able to do with it. I’ve seen the outside and now will get to see the inside.

Several years ago they named and dedicated a pond out in the complex the Bill Carriker Pond. How’s that for an ego trip. Not many people get a slimy pond full of cattails and bulrushes in it named after them. There’s even a large rock by the pond with my name on it. Looks like my tombstone.

PS. I’ve asked my son to take some of my ashes and throw them up into the wind so they will blow over the complex.

Is that enough “green” for you, Earthling???"

~ Bill (aka Gene) ~
Uncle Gene has also appeared here as a guest blogger
on the Third Sunday of Advent, 2010
and on My Father's Birthday, 2010

Gene's memoirs available on amazon:
Tiger Creek Tales: Memories of an Oil Patch Kid
by Billy Gene Carriker

Uncle Gene and Aunt Elaine
With their new great - grandson ~ May 2010

Unforgettable Uncle Gene

Loos'd of Limits

Full Wolf Moon

The New Basic Readers by Scott, Forseman and Company
Are you familiar with this reading series from grade school? I well remember Vistas in 5th grade and Cavalcades in 6th. I would occupy myself for long stretches of time by thumbing through the pages and copying out by hand all the poems that I liked best. I painstakingly entered into my scrapbook favorites by Elizabeth Coatsworth, Eleanor Farjeon, and Walt Whitman.

One of my top choices in Cavalcades was "Lone Dog," by Irene Rutherford McLeod:
Lone Dog
I'm a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog, and lone;
I'm a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own;
I'm a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;
I love to sit and bay the moon, to keep fat souls from sleep.

I'll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet,
A sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat,
Not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate,
But shut door, and sharp stone, and cuff and kick, and hate.

Not for me the other dogs, running by my side,
Some have run a short while, but none of them would bide.
O mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,
Wide wind, and wild stars, and hunger of the quest!

by Australian (?) poet, Irene Rutherford McLeod, 1891 - 1968
from her collection, Songs to Save a Soul, 1915


*************************************
Tonight, before you go to bed, be sure to take a look out the window at the snowy, icy Full Wolf Moon, the First Moon After Yule. Listen for a moment until you hear the ghostly howl of the lone dog and the long gone wolf packs for whom the January moon is named: "Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages."

Similarly, the month we call January was known to the the ancient Angles and Saxons as Wolf - Month: Wulfmonath, since it was the time of year when the wolves were unable to find food, and their hunger made them bold enough to come into the villages.

A couple of nights ago, I managed to capture this rather unique perspective of the Full Wolf Moon of January:

This photo was taken, at Gerry's suggestion, from inside the house, where we have two of these hexagonal windows -- perfect for looking out at the moon. Photographing from the inside looking out appears to have been successful, judging by all the fun comments I received on facebook:

1. Mia: I saw the moon tonight at 8pm -- huge above the horizon! I guess that awestruck feeling it gave me must have been an urge to howl!

2. Eileen: What is it about moons? SO compelling/ hinting of worlds beyond...

3. Paula: Eeeeeerie...It always is, to me!

4. Karen: That is beautiful! Add noticed it on his way out the door this morning. Even after the sun came up, it was HUGE in the west.

5. Cheryl: I woke up about 4 this morning and the full moon was shining across the new snowfall. It was breathtaking, but I couldn't get my camera to capture it very well.

[I was just like Cheryl, outside first thing in the morning trying to get more pictures; probably the same view Karen had]

Whitman for the Weekend

"Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me
and you shall possess the origin of all poems . . ."
from Song of Myself #2
Decorative Placard, New York City
For Mother's Day:
"BEAUTIFUL WOMEN
Women sit or move to and fro, some old, some young.
The young are beautiful
-- but the old are more beautiful than the young."
from By the Roadside
For Now:
"I have heard what the talkers were talking,
the talk of the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is now.

Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now."
from Song of Myself #3
All passages from Leaves Of Grass by Walt Whitman, 1819 - 1892
American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist

So Placid and Self - Contained

Josef In The Windowsill: So Placid and Self - Contained!

"I think I could turn and live with animals,
they're so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied,
not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another,
nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth."
(from Song of Myself, #32)

I loved this stanza as a student and for a very long time afterward, even now I guess. Yet I have to agree with the critic who said that Whitman probably didn't mean it -- maybe about the animals he did; but surely not about himself. After all, he lived a life of highly refined intellect, not possible (as far as we know) for cows or cats.

When reading Hugh Prather's book, I couldn't help but notice how often his examples were about puppies. Very appealing and touching, but hello we are not dogs or cats or cows. We are humans with baggage and memory and very complicated brains and the need for discourse.

FOR MORE ON PRATHER & LETTING GO
SEE MY FORTNIGHTLY BLOG
NOVEMBER 28; "Letting Go"

KITTI CARRIKER: A FORTNIGHTLY LITERARY BLOG
OF CONNECTION & COINCIDENCE
www.kitticarriker.blogspot.com