Dreams and Imagination in the Year of Wood Dragon

with Sun in its crown

to outshine fear and hatred - 

the Dragon rises

The year 2024 is the year of Wood Dragon in Chinese Zodiac. Wood is associated with strength, warmth, generosity, flexibility, while dragon, the most powerful symbolic animal of China, meaning strength, health, prosperity, wisdom, power and good luck. In ancient China dragons were associated with emperors, where phoenixes were assigned to empresses. Interesting combination... For the annual Haiku Party of the Southern California Haiku Study Group we make our haiku gifts, so I wrote some about the Dragon Year and here they are;

bend, willow-like

stand firm, with diamond strength -

Wood Dragon Lessons

courage, prosperity,

kindness, generosity -

Wood Dragon Blessings

The images are from various free sites, noted on each card, but they are processed with some graphic filters, to add interesting textures to them and to make the sun in the last one more impressive.  

So we will start the Wood Dragon Year in February with confidence that it is and will be a very good year. The time of prosperity and strength.  How do I know? Because what we intend to, if we put our heart into, is what will be. 

If we do not, our dreams will warn us of being on the wrong path, spiritually. When I have repeated dreams of losing my ticket, purse, suitcase, missing my train, bus, plane, or losing my keys or being unable to quickly stuff all the clothes in the suitcase while I have to leave I know I must leave - I know when I wake up so stressed out from all this rush and anxiety, that I'm on the wrong track in my "awake" life - and the "dream" life is telling me to change the direction, pattern, plans, actions, so I stop running after planes, or realizing I lost the car keys, or seeing the train leave the station...

In contrast, being on the right track spiritually - doing the right things, what I'm supposed to do  is rewarded with a "graduation-type" dream.  Someone once told me "your trouble is that you know what you must do but you do not listen to your angels and do not do it" - so I'm extremely grateful for these "graduation" dreams when I finally succeed and complete the task and feel gladness and relief that everything is done and is done right so I can go on and start a new chapter. Alas, too often I'm pointlessly rushing and forgetting or losing everything in my dreams. But still, the rare moments of gladness are so rewarding. 

I've had a huge problem with my mother (my father was silent and practically absent from parenting, except for telling me to be always honest and hard-working for these traits are rewarded in life and if not, they are their own reward). My mom loved me and hurt me the most of all people, abandoned me many times when I needed her the most. She praised me as a princess when I did not need it, and took me apart or left me embittered when I needed her the most. So, finally after years of prayer and meditation I was able to finally let go of my resentment and pain. The childhood trauma disappeared. This was done in stages over several years, and I'll skip the process here.  

Ocean of Air, Cloud Islands - by Maja Trochimczyk

. 

This monumental achievement on my spiritual path was rewarded with a long, complex and very rewarding dream.

I jumped off the sailing boat into the water, with a rope to swim and pull it. There was no wind. The boat was full of people, and I was the only one in the water, I pulled the boat through dark, crystal-clear, smooth, and very deep water, without any waves, completely still and smooth, unfathomably deep, and very pleasant to swim in. I had to navigate between small islands of rushes and trees, and pull the sailboat to safety. The journey was long, I kept swimming and swimming, it became dark, with starry skies reflected in the water, and the islands changing into dark shadows I had to avoid and steer clear of. I swam through the whole night and finally saw the shore, there was a sandy beach and a pier,

I swam close to the pier so people in the boat could disembark and walked from the water onto the golden, smooth sandy beach. There were people waiting for me there - dressed in long capes and robes of pure white, silky, shimmering in the slight breeze. They had tall wide collars and huge stars on their chests and foreheads, shining really bright white light, like a picture of a diamond with rays stretching straight into all directions. They dressed me in this white comfortable warm silky robe-cape and put a star on my chest and a star on my forehead. That's when I realized my Mom was on this boat and was now standing right next to me, and she also got her white silky robe-cape and the two bright stars, one for the chest and one for the forehead.

After this welcome ceremony we were led to the left side to rest on two white chairs that were placed on the sand facing the ocean. What was before a huge expanse of smooth navy-blue, dark translucent glass-like water with dangerous islands, now became a peaceful ocean with the sunlight on the soap-bubble horizon, pink to gold to blue, to periwinkle. We sat on these chairs, they were like the Adirondack wooden chairs in shape but very soft and comfortable to sit on. We did not say a word, there was no need to talk, no need for words. Everything was perfect, serene, tranquil, beautiful, complete bliss.  Then i realized that my nine-tailed fox (silver white, with blue eyes, very lively) was asleep on the left side of my chair. My Mom was on the right. I covered the fox with another white cape, wrapped her tightly so she could sleep with the nose on her paws, and the tips of the tails moving at the edge of the blanket.  

Sea of Clouds - photo from a plane window by Maja Trochimczyk

Then, I woke up... It is pretty obvious what the dream meant. I took care of a boat-full of my ancestors, clearing ancient traumas, and my own pain, letting go of suffering, anger, resentment and instead taking care of everyone. Swimming in the dark, clear of the unknown is the immersion in Divine Wisdom, that only I could do and did not need any help from anyone.  Getting to the shore and receiving the rewards - toe white coat of pure conscience, regained innocence, the bright shining stars for the mind and heart - does not need any explanation. 

The fox is a seductive, dangerous demon in ancient mythologies of the East. Somehow, I know that I was such a nine-tailed fox long ago and it accompanied me even in this life, still pulling me her way, into mischief and seduction. It was so satisfying to see that it went to sleep and rested on the endless, peaceful ocean of pinkish-golden waves under blue-violet sky . This meant that I was able to conquer that side of my "Shadow." Jung wrote about the importance of integrating the Shadow, the unconscious hidden darkness we all have within, into awareness. Only then, will it go to sleep as my Foksik did on the the shore of the ocean of tranquility. 

I kept reflecting on this dream for a long time. I wrote it down right as I woke up, that's why I could recall it here. If I do not write down the dreams as they end and I am disoriented for I do not know where I am and where I should be. And why am I on this bed and in this life, and what's wrong?  So if I write the dream down then, I can learn from it, and follow the right path, "listen to my angels" or to the "divine whisper" and do the right things for a change... 

Winter Trees, Sapphire Skies - by Maja Trochimczyk

Two days ago I had a short, but detailed dream on the amount of work it takes to learn lessons in this School of the Earth. 

I planted an acorn to grow an oak tree before me. It grew very fast and when it was up to my shoulders, I broke some branches off to plant in the ground to have more trees. I did not see any landscape, there were no other people, there was nothing seen around except each individual tree in the ground. After planting the branches, which were all the same size about two feet tall and then looked at what happened to my branches.

The first one was charred in fire, the ground was charred too. The second one was broken in half by the wind. The third one was all muddy with rotten leaves and dead of the rot - it was flooded and died of overabundance of water. The fourth one was a stick in parched dried, cracked ground with no water at all. It dried out.

Finally, the fifth one was growing through the seasons. I planted it with green oak leaves (there were large rounded oak leaves as on Polish white oak, not curly evergreen leaves of California). So first the leaves turned golden, reddish brown, and fell off. Then snow fell and covered the ground and the tree, then it sprouted more branches and was covered with leaves.  So I woke up, happy that I was finally able to grow a healthy tree. It was not taller than my waist at that time, but it did start to grow. 

Gold Oak in Warsaw - By Maja Trochimczyk 

So these four damaged and one good tree, parts of the original larger oak grown from the acorn, could mean successive incarnations and lives with parts of the Higher Self that was my original tree grown from an acorn. These went through different lives and tribulations and finally, the fifth one was good. I passed my exam of the ages.  Alternatively, these could be experiences and tests in one life, five tests in all, of which I passed the last one after failing four times in a row. The failures were interesting too. These damages were by the various elements - fire, air, water, earth. These are "our" elements in the West, and in totality they mean living in the material world. Here, on Earth. The successful tree that started to grown ever more beautiful with the changes of days, nights and seasons (very fast, as in fast-forward rewinding of a tape) was the element of "spirit."  Or maybe not.  The beauty of dreams is that they are so open to interpretation. I wrote a poem with lessons and an acorn in it, several years ago. That poem was a retelling of a different, but related dream.

Winter in Tujunga Wash - by Maja Trochimczyk 

On Landscapes: A Guidebook

First you cross the Salt Plains of Rejection

into the Desert of Abandonment.

Mount Disappointment lies just beyond

The Valley of Regret. This is a huge country.

You lived there for decades. You explored

every nook and cranny; path, boulder, crevice.

Ever since your mother disappeared

for five months and a year. Ever since

you learned to write at six to send her

your desperate pleas: “Mommy, come back.

Mommy, I love you. Mommy, why don’t you

love me, any more?” You re-lived this story

time and time again. In every marriage, romance. 

Now you know too well how it feels.

Now you can open the enchanted book

and say the words of magic.

You pour out a River of Molten Light –

dazzling, white hot, yet cool to touch –

over the chaff of broken feelings, the dust

of memories you wish were not yours

to keep and gather for the Ancient One.

The chaff burns.

The shadows flee.

You find a grain of gold

Under your feet.

Smooth, shiny, polished,

It is yours to keep.

Is it a grain? Look closer, a golden acorn

rests in the palm of your hand. Plant it

in Guilt Valleys. Plant it in the Deserts 

of Despair. plant on Fear Mountain slopes.

Plant on wind-swept Plains of Sorrow.

It grows so fast. Soon, a magnificent oak tree

spreads out its gold leaves and boughs.

New life in your Landscape of Desolation. 

Look through its branches. Be mindful, 

attentive. What do you see?

Here: the Fertile Fields of Bonding.

There: the Rainbow Meadows of Connection.

Look carefully now. See the Pristine Peaks 

of Fulfillment, the Sun Garden of of Gratitude? 

Filled with every kind of fragrant blossoms, 

the heady perfume of rose and jasmine, 

delicate scent of lavender and forget-me-nots, 

liquid melodies of birdsong in the air.

This is not a mirage.  

This is your own world 

to conjure up, delight in.

Here. This gold grain is for you. 

Will it become an acorn or 

a pine cone in your hand? 

Come. Let's plant it 
and watch it grow.

an acorn

into an oak tree - 

nature's way

In these two dreams, we had the oak tree, the sacred Oak of the Druids, worshiped across all of Europe by my ancient Slavic ancestors.  According to the Druid calendar "my trees" are White Birch, and Apple Tree - I'm both delicate, sensitive, beautiful, and fruitful...  It is interesting that in the following exercise I did once long ago, what I saw as "my" tree was neither an oak nor birch nor apple. It was a tangle of conifers, fir trees "swierk" or "jodla" in Polish - with a mass of interlocked, dead branches all mixed up, dead needles on the ground. It was hideous and dead thicket and I did not want to even look at it. Only when I turned my gaze up, along the trunk of "my" tree in this infernal thicket -  was I able to see how tall and lovely and beautiful it was, spreading its branches in the clear blue sky. The other tops of trees were lower, mine was the most beautiful and imposing. But I had to look up to the sky to see its beauty.... Amazing.  I will not tell you what the "tree" was supposed to mean in terms of Jungian archetypes of the subconscious - but it was quite a self-revelation at the time.  I was told by instructor that only severely traumatized people, and many inmates, see dead or broken trees as "their trees" on this grand adventure through their subconscious. 

Loneliness - by Maja Trochimczyk 

Here's The Forest Game, a visualization exercise I did during my training to serve as a volunteer for the LASD and teach inmates in Pitchess Detention Center my class that I called EVA - Ethics and Values in Art.  The class was running for a whole year, weekly, until I got tired of repeating the same thing in each cycle of 12 classes... I lost the paper somewhere with the text I got at the end of the training, after the instructor walked us through the stages of this spiritual, enlightening journey.

 The Forest

Close your eyes. Sit comfortably. Imagine you are walking outdoors in a forest: one you have seen in a movie, read about in a book, visited or created in your own imagination. You are alone and as you proceed through the forest the first thing to catch your attention is a tree. Take a picture. Describe this tree. Are you doing anything to or with the tree? What type of a tree it is, where does it grow, how does it look like? Remember it, go on.

You continue to walk on the path, when you suddenly see a key. Take a picture, described your key and answer the question: What does the key look like? Do you do anything with this key?  You look at the key, remember it and go on.

You continue on your path. Suddenly you see a drinking vessel, any kind of vessel that you can drink from. Take a picture. Do you drink out of this vessel? Yes or No? Remember what you found and did. Go on. 

Now you came across a body of water. Any kind, any shape, anywhere. It could be a river, pond, lake, ocean, waterfall, any type of water. Take a picture, what kind of water, is it moving, is it still? What do you do with the water?  Remember, and go on.

You continue to walk along the path, next you come across a bear. Take a picture. Do you do anything to or with the bear? What does the bear do? What do you do when you see the bear? Remember and go on.  

The path takes you next to the edge of the forest and there is a barrier. What kind of a barrier is it? What is it made of? Describe this barrier. Does the barrier prevent you from leaving the forste or are you able to get to the other side? Remember, rest. Your journey is done. Open your eyes.  

Winter Palms in the Azure - by Maja Trochimczyk

I found the key to the game, and the categories are as follows:

• Tree = self esteem, self-worth, "how you feel abut yourself" , do you love, like, or hate yourself
• Key = school, job, career, knowledge, wisdom
• Drinking Vessel = love for family, siblings, and friends
• Body of Water = sexuality, intimacy
• Bear = ear and problems in our lives and how we deal with them
• Barrier = overcoming fear of death, finding purpose in life, past lives and future lives

 

To Be the Editor or Author, That is the Question! California Quarterly 49:4

California Quarterly Vol. 49, No. 4, Winter 2023. Cover Art: Popocatepetl, Spirited Morning—Mexico by Marsden Hartley (1877-1943). Oil on board, 25x29 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Sam Rose and Julie Walters, 1932

I recently had the pleasure of editing the California Quarterly, Volume 49, Number 4, Winter 2023,  and selecting work by 42 poets. I found 58 poems that fit on the allotted pages of the journal and selected a classic American painting by Marsden Hartley for the cover. The full table of contents is posted on CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety.com blog:

 https://www.californiastatepoetrysociety.com/2023/11/contents-of-california-quarterly-vol-49.html

In my list of publications the majority of books are edited, I like reading work by others and juxtaposing their insights into a rich tapestry of voices, a counterpoint of humanity as it were. I could write more by myself, but seldom have the motivation to do so. Among my music history books, only three were written entirely by me: my doctoral dissertation on space in music, a study of Polish Folk Dance in California (by Columbia University Press) and a history of the Modjeska Club that I preside upon and that recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. The rest are collected or co-authored volumes. 

Among my poetry books also there are quite a few anthologies with contributions by up to 90+ poets. The most recent book, Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom, had 12 contributors. It is nice to put the insights by different people side by side to see the threads that join their work, and note the differences. When working with poems for anthologies I ask for more submissions than could be published and select what I like the best. The choice is simple: I like it or I do not like it. It is not a value judgment of the quality of the poem or the poet. It is my own taste that comes into play. 

If I like too many poems by one poet, I try to publish more than one, or select what fits what the emergent, overall theme of the issue. In the Winter 2023 issue of the California Quarterly the obvious theme of winter, snow, cold, farewells, was juxtaposed with the theme of rain, because there were so many "rain" poems among the submissions.  So in my editor's note, reprinted below, I start from a quote from a "rain" poem by Leopold Staff that also imitates the regular pattern of raindrops in its rhythm.

In English, the most common Greek meters are iamb (short-long), trochee (long-short), dactyl (long-short-short) and anapest (short-short-long). In Polish with its preferred penultimate-syllable accent, the most common is amphibrach (short-long-short), with a name that means "short-on-both-sides."  Leopold Staff uses this meter throughout his "rain" poem - and its repetitiveness serves as an illustration of the noise of the rain in a beautiful example of onomatopoeia, but also captures the endless dreariness and melancholy of loneliness. I'm often alone but very seldom lonely, so to me it is a very distant poem. I do not cite it as a whole... In the reprinted note below, I marked up the accents that align themselves into a regular pattern, repeating throughout.

Popocatepetl, Spirited Morning—Mexico by Marsden Hartley (1877-1943). Oil on board, 25x29 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Sam Rose and Julie Walters, 1932

 EDITOR'S NOTE

“O szyby deszcz dzwoni, 

deszcz dzwoni jesienny 

 I pluszcze jednaki, 

miarowy niezmienny...” 

                                                                                                    (Leopold Staff, Deszcz Jesienny)

In Leopold Staff’s poem I memorized at school, the onomatopoeia of “sh” and “ch” sounds (“sz” and “cz” in Polish) illustrates the sound of rain. I do not know how to translate it into English while keeping the sound, the rhythm, and the meaning intact. It is difficult to make transition from one language to the next… 

Why do we love or hate rain? There are several rain poems in this issue—by serendipity, perhaps. In northern countries, when drizzle falls too often from gray, overcast skies, rain is associated with melancholy, sorrow, and depression (O’Sullivan, Sapp, and Beynon). It became a stereotype. Just think of Disney movies, when the heroine starts to cry… 

In hot, desert countries, rain brings with it blessings of food, life, and love (Rosenheim, Skaldetvind, Stuart). What about snow, then? A blessing or a curse, depending on how much snow falls, for how long. Under the northern lights, it is a view to behold (Luisi). In Chinese movies snowflakes caught in lovers’ hands signify the abundance of affection. In northern countries, we have the “White Christmas” – though the event giving rise to this holiday took place in the desert, under a palm tree. 

What matters is the celebration of “now” – as in the poem by W.C. Gosnell, or The Night Heron by Jennifer M Phillips: “Open your fist. There is nothing to grasp.” Phillip Jason wisely advises the reader that all experiences are meant to “turn you into good.” Yes, we should cherish our days “without thorns” (Jane Stuart), when stars blink in Morse Code that “nothing is over” (Zanelli) and angels make “you sing / And sing and sing / Like a joyful child.” 

During winter holidays, whether skiing, cooking, or wrapping gifts, we become like children, engrossed in the moment, watching a blue balloon, “rising into a sky” (Machan). If we cannot let go of sorrow, we may find solace in dreams (Hitt, Fraley), or prayer (Silberstein, DiOrio). Per Quantum Entanglement (Hammerschick), we are all One, anyway…

In addition to poems that moved me, this issue presents the winners of the 36th Annual Poetry Contest. It is clear that the taste of the Contest Judge, Anna Maria Mickiewicz, is markedly different from mine. This diversity is a gift to be cherished.

Maja Trochimczyk California Quarterly

Los Angeles, California  Volume 49, Number 4

Marsden Hartley, Yliaster (Paracelsus), 1932, oil on paperboard mounted on particleboard, 25 1⁄4 x 28 1⁄2 in. (64.1 x 72.4 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program and by George Frederick Watts and Mrs. James Lowndes, 1988.53

 

OUTSIDE, TONIGHT

A cold evening rain—
wind-soaked shadows, purple pine
clumps of clinging moss

...invisible wind
warmed by sparkles of sunlight,
cooled by winter's rain

A soft fallen snow
drifting over evergreen
floating through the night

 ~ Jane Stuart, Flatwoods, Kentucky

Just like Leopold Staff, Jane Stuart looked out the window and saw a rainy landscape, slowly turning into one of snow, I like poems that capture the moment, the lyrical "now" in few words evoking an image that carries in it its own emotion. 

My own poem, written specifically for the California Quarterly, was inspired by a photograph I saw somewhere of a snow lotus, that looked quite bizarre and otherworldly to me, so I wondered if it would be worth my time to travel to the Himalayas to see these rare blossoms with my own eyes. In a stream of consciousness, I then thought about traveling to all the other countries, and being faithful just to one, or two, and of course back to the flowering meadows of my childhood and the inevitable skylark above. This is what the engineers of our fate want to deprive us of, the wide open spaces of fertile fields, the peaceful meadows, life in the countryside.

A garden filled with birdsong is a great substitute for a childhood meadow, so I love my life in California. Why should I travel then? If all I love is right there? When the plandemic started and injections became mandatory I decided I'd rather not go anywhere ever again. It was my own choice so I did not travel for quite a while, I can drive around LA, go to the ocean, go to a concert, and I tend to leave my phone at home, with humorous conversations with my car, yes car, that puts messages on its screen telling me to not forget my phone, and frantically trying to connect to other phones it detects nearby... So funny. The car that talks.  So weird. The car that keeps track of what I do and what I carry with me. Welcome to the dystopia of electronic leashes, smart 15-minute cities, and totalitarian control. 

San Gabriel Mountains, California. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

THE SNOW LOTUS

White, like starfish skeletons
deep in the ocean, snow lotus blooms
in a barren Himalayan valley.
Do I have to touch its smooth petals
to live my life to the full? Do I have to
learn 200 anthems of 200 nations,
celebrate their independence 200 times?
Countries I'd never visit, even in my dreams.

It is good enough to learn just one valiant
anthem, a “call to arms” mazurka—or maybe
two—in my case of abandoned childhood
meadows, sprinkled with stokrotki daisies,
maki, chabry i rumianki—I was lured away
by exotic beauty, the bright bougainvillea,
with her myriad butterfly eyes. Too late I saw—
though different, it was still the same.
 
I sing a new anthem among strangers
at a concert—words flicker in darkness
on the screen of my phone—I am supposed
to take it everywhere with me—my car said so,
and keeps looking for it, when I go out
without my electronic leash. So, I'll leave
alone cold, limp petals of the snow lotus,
bewilderingly alien on its gravel plane.

I'll dream of watching clouds float by—
scoops of meringue in the pristine blue,
pierced by skylark's song cascading
onto fields of May-green barley. There is
no reason to go anywhere but inwards—
on the one journey into the silent glow
of stokrotki meadows within my heart.

 ~ Maja Trochimczyk, Los Angeles, California

"Stokrotki" are small white daisies scattered over Polish lawn and meadows; white with gold center, they are lovely, and make the grass more interesting; white clover does the same, but stokrotki are prettier. "Maki, chabry, i rumanki" - poppies, cornflower, and chamomile daisies are three common field flowers from Polish countryside, often depicted together as an unofficial symbol of the Polish nation in red, blue and white.  Are they prettier than the rare and exquisite snow lotus? Depends who's looking... 

Rumianki in a Polish field, Trzebieszow, photo by Maja Trochimczyk, May 2023

Maki, or wild poppies in a field of rye. Trzebieszow, May 2023, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Chabry, or cornflowers in a field of wheat, Trzebieszow, May 2023, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Jayne Jaudon Ferrer wrote an exquisite simple poem to all her readers asking them to do what I used to do so often during my Polish childhood: go outside, for a walk, stroll, or hike. Enjoy being close to nature, to what's real and what's around you.

PETITION


Morning comes and,
with it, headlines
blaring hate and carnage
and suffering and sadness
and depravity and duplicity
and defeat.

Turn off the TV.
Put down the paper.
Walk outside.
Give yourself up
to fresh air and sunlight,
to butterflies and birdsong,
to growing things and
grazing things and
hope.
Rise above,
be lifted up,
inhale
and hold on,
hold on.

Jayne Jaudon Ferrer

Greenville, South Carolina

Clouds in a Polish countryside. Trzebieszow, May 2023. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

What's So Rewarding About Being Creative?

Selfie with the snow, January 2023, Los Angeles National Forest

I recently wrote answers to a set of questions for a Canvas Rebel Interview, posted in October 2023.  Here's the answer to one question. The rest can be found on their website:

https://canvasrebel.com/meet-maja-trochimczyk/

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

My small publishing house, Moonrise Press, is an outgrowth of my own creative activities. I did not think of myself as a poet or photographer, when still living in Poland, I was a listener, an audience member, a scholar… Then, after moving to America, after losing the ground under my feet, my native culture, language, land, family, friends – I had to re-create myself to survive, So the first benefit of being a poet was creating and asserting my own identity as “me” through my art. Finally, I was not writing about what others thought and did, I was writing about what I felt, what I thought. 

While this “poetry as self-expression” is at the root of so many bad books, so many failed artistic efforts, it is also healing, it is also empowering. It gives you the strength to survive and go on. These aspects of creativity should never be discounted or ignored… Artistic criteria and “taste” change in time, evolve with shifting fashions – but being true to yourself in your words, expressing the deepest emotions and the most personal thoughts will never go out of fashion! 

The joy of being creative is in the very act of creation. Someone said that when creating we become truly Divine, we are the Divine co-creators of this beautiful world. Therefore, we are responsible for the worlds we conjure up with our words and images. Are these worlds dystopian, hideous? Are these worlds full of light, joy, laughter, beauty?

Cloudscape on the Way to Chicago, October 2023

When I was studying music history, I was told to never write about “beauty” in music, only about “know-how” of compositional techniques and the mechanism of the artwork taken apart in analysis like a clockwork… I never fully agreed with that, so in my own poetry and photography I happily capture and share with others what I find beautiful, inspirational, good, true…

 I still believe in Platonian trinity of beauty=goodness=truth. Also in the Three L trinity of Life=Love=Light. Creating beauty, building new, fantastic worlds – what could be better than that? Self-expression is good, but my advice to poets is borrowed from Clancy Imislund of the Midnight Mission (where I worked on grant proposals for a while): “Absolutely No Whining!”

A Way Not to Be - A Chemtrail Landscape, Sunland, October 2023

The photo above is something to "whine" about - chemtrails, made deliberately by planes in the past, drones or planes more recently. What for? Who knows? Dimming to sun because of, gasp, OMG, climate change"?  Or increasing the amount of metal nanoparticles in the atmosphere and organic matter to make it all more visible to the machines? Or changing the weather, so we get rain or no rain, drought or floods, depending on the "weather-controllers"' whimsy? There are plenty of patents and plenty of proof worldwide. But no "official" acknowledgement. Event a White House petition I signed many years ago failed to reach 10,000 signatures. ... Oh, well, what can I do? 

Instead, let's read two different "whining" poems just for fun; since the time of the great contradiction comes, the time that somehow impresses shopkeepers and shoppers so much they want to recreate cemeteries and skeletons to scare us at Halloween. Another reason to go on a shopping spree and buy imitations of severed hands and bloody eyeballs. Sick. 

But what if we are not afraid of death at all? What if all we want is to celebrate life? In the material world death is inevitable and necessary; otherwise there would be not enough room for all of us. Imagine living along with all the dinosaurs that ever lived, in forests forever full of gigantic mushrooms and ferns... trying to run away from pterodactyls, and the dreaded T-rex teeth... 

Well, it is much better to live, make the best of this life, make all the right choices, create and share joy and learn the most important lessons, primarily of gratitude, wonder, love... Sometimes these lessons are very tricky, too tricky... We do not even pay attention when too busy with our gadgets: Roku, Xumo, X-Box, iPhone... They capture our attention, suck us into a black hole of absence from reality. So we do not look up, do not see the striped skies of chemtrails, do not pay attention to the birds flying by...

Take, for instance, the crow, a "failed primadonna" and an enemy of my beloved songbirds. How happy I was when watching a mockingbird couple take upon four crows that tried to get into the bushes to eat their babies. Their heroism dedicated to protecting their children knew no bounds.  It is easy to protect your children when you are a mockingbird fighting with crows. It is much harder when surrounded by so much propaganda with so many institutions trying to take away your parental rights. Maybe it is time to exit all these institutions, move somewhere to a homestead in the middle of nowhere, to raise children close to nature, in peace.... 

Cloudscape II. The Way to Chicago

No, there are no crows here, I dislike them so sincerely I never take photos of them.

What Do I Know About a Crow

 

This crow has ambitions of a diva,

in her shiny black dress of smooth feathers

bejeweled by jets of black beak and eyes

She wants to sing in the opera, bask in

the applause of an enraptured audience

 

This crow years to be a primadonna

on the stage, yet her beak emits

rough squacks and grating kra – kra – kra

not enchanting in the least.

 

There is a note of exasperation in her voice:

“Why me? Why can’t I sing? Why this voice?” 

Who knows. We need crows and nightingales.

 

Light and darkness. The fluted polished

Melodies. That thrill of electric current

down the spine and the harsh warnings

“Go, go, go, time to go,

it is over.”

Published in Zwierzenia Zwierza anthology

 in Poland (Bezkres, 2020) 

 

Sunrise with Palm Trees on my Street

No crows here either. And no chemtrails, the sunrise beam points upwards... 

 Crows are the Messengers

Of fate, their harsh voices carry far through the valley

Go, go, go it is over, it is time, go.

They fly through blue skies like smudges of wood smoke

A warning. Think what you do and why.

They announce the verdict. They invade your space

in the black hour of retribution. 

You do not believe me? When you locked yourself 

in my house, and suddenly homeless I stood outside, calling 911,

 at least twenty crows paraded on the street, screeching.  

Why? Crows are the messengers. They come back 

if you do not heed their warnings. Remember when 

you knocked at my door, on the run again, seeking shelter? 

Ready to take over my life, as if I owed you? 

I half-listened to your pleading and watched 

two crows on the pine branch behind you

passing morsels of bread to each other. A warning?

A lesson of what to do? Of what not to do? Should I forget

that my mom's jewels had disappeared with you 

like smoke from last year’s fires? 

Did two crows in the pine tree tell me

to turn you away? Did they ask me to care? 

I’m not skilled in reading signs. I followed my heart, 

the fortune cookie said so. Always walk in the path of your heart. 

So I said no to you and yes to my children. And that’s all 

for today, the end of the crows and of you.

Published in Zwierzenia Zwierza 

anthology in Poland (Bezkres, 2020)

Pure Gold in Sunlight

Some people never learn, am I one of them? Or am I just inching forward and upward so slowly it seems to impartial observers I'm sliding back? Well, if I keep my eyes firmly on my goal and if I do not swerve from the straight and narrow, and if, after failing, I pick up the pieces and return to my straight and narrow of doing what's right, what's the best possible option for the largest possible number of people and other sentient beings around me... then I just float upward, into the light. 

The Egyptian Book of the Dead said that after death the heart is weighed on a scale against a single feather. If the heart is lighter than a feather, the soul can float up into the realm of bliss, if the heart is heavy with fear, worry, hate, anger, resentment, dislike - the soul has to come back and redo the lessons again and again. So let's try to be light as a feather. The first step: "absolutely no whining!"