"Speak few words, but say them with quietude and sincerity
and they will be long-lasting".
Lao Tzu
"But such is the irrestible nature of truth
that all it asks, all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
The sun neeeds no inscription to
distinguish him from darkness."
Thomas Paine
"Better than a thousand meaningless words is one word of sense
which brings the hearer peace."
The Dhammapada
"A truth that's told with bad intent,
Beats all the lies you can invent."
William Blake
"Deceptions cease in the realm of truth.
There are no boundaries to be seen".
Sosan
"Love truth and pardon error."
Voltaire
"When a great truth once gets abroad in the world,
no power on Earth can imprison it,
or prescribe it's limits, or suppress it".
Frederick Douglass
"The truth is to be lived,
it is not to be merely pronounced with the mouth.
There is nothing to argue about in this teaching".
Hui-Neng
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Sunset Summer Solstice 06/21/07
Sun going down on the Pacific on Summer Solstice between the two Monterey Cypress Trees
Thursday, June 21, 2007
I am having a daily problem of going back to see my blog and seeing that the pictures are not viewable. Being the Luddhite that I am, I don't really have a grasp of the little red x in the top left corner where my picture once was. So I have been going back and re-entering them through Picasa again. If anyone reading this knows what I am doing wrong, please email @ annie.siemer@gmail.com.
Happy Summer Solstice, Y'all!
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Shards and Remnants
This is an old table that (some previous staff person left behind ) 2 years later I go back to insert this picture and the table popped back to the newer post but this is the picture of the austin mosaic i was looking for)and was given
to me last week. I am undertaking the fourth mosaic of my life . The first was a round paver and the third was a hallway floor in the apartment that I lived in on the Hilltop of Columbus, Ohio
for seven years.
I sometimes go to Harvey West Park in Santa Cruz
to swim or walk or look at the historic gravestones and arboretum
in Evergreen Cemetary there. Every time , I drive past this tile
and floor discount place and see a yard of stacks of different
kinds of tiles, all locked up and lonely. I have had the urge to continue
the contemplation involved in undertaking any mosaic for quite a number of years now. The last was the floor project.
During my seven years back in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio my landlord Charlie was going to tear out the hallway that had some tiles that were cracked and put in some gaudy orange shag carpet instead. The tiles he was tearing out were of a beautiful light pink with antique white flecks. I asked him if I could break them up and make a mosaic ( 5'x5' landing on the top of the staircase landing to my second-floor-of-a-house apartment). He said "yes" and was even willing to let me take $60.00 off on my rent to do it. I had been inspired to do large scale mosaics by a couple of beautiful garden- goddess- women, Linda and Marilee who live up in Sonoma County, and of course by every little mosaic book that I scanned in at the library during my short stint there.
The other two completely floored me ( no pun intended) with the transformative powers latent in creatity and the arranging the edges of randomly broken river and ocean wave tumbled shards of somebodies old plate, cup, jug or porcelin toilet. I also spent some time as a gardener in Columbus and worked in one of the old neighborhoods called Italian Village and would find old pieces of Italian pottery in many places. So I have had a stash, but they are in a million boxes stuffed into my vwvan in storage.
So, the other day I stopped in there and was promptly shown "the bone pile" and picked up $9.00 dollars worth to add to the pieces I found by the American River last spring and here by the ocean.
Today is my 1 year anniversary working here at the Lighthouse and I have been working on this mosaic for 3 days. It is being done over someone else's beautiful sun that you see on the western edge. The middle piece is a rectangular tile with what seems like Mayan design done on Italian tile. I just may have to go back and rescue a few more of those. There are a few pieces left over from the floor project that somehow got tossed into the back of my truck back in 2005 as well as some cool other pieces that also made it out here that I had picked up in Florida or German Village( also in Columbus). I have had a couple of extremely trying weeks emotionally ( aside from the seeing friends over past few weeks) and art like this saves me every time.
Hopefully you will come have tea on my backporch when the table is done.
We are all one big random edged mosaic. Someday in my octagon strawbale house, I will have a completely mosaic shower....and garden .
to me last week. I am undertaking the fourth mosaic of my life . The first was a round paver and the third was a hallway floor in the apartment that I lived in on the Hilltop of Columbus, Ohio
for seven years.
I sometimes go to Harvey West Park in Santa Cruz
to swim or walk or look at the historic gravestones and arboretum
in Evergreen Cemetary there. Every time , I drive past this tile
and floor discount place and see a yard of stacks of different
kinds of tiles, all locked up and lonely. I have had the urge to continue
the contemplation involved in undertaking any mosaic for quite a number of years now. The last was the floor project.
During my seven years back in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio my landlord Charlie was going to tear out the hallway that had some tiles that were cracked and put in some gaudy orange shag carpet instead. The tiles he was tearing out were of a beautiful light pink with antique white flecks. I asked him if I could break them up and make a mosaic ( 5'x5' landing on the top of the staircase landing to my second-floor-of-a-house apartment). He said "yes" and was even willing to let me take $60.00 off on my rent to do it. I had been inspired to do large scale mosaics by a couple of beautiful garden- goddess- women, Linda and Marilee who live up in Sonoma County, and of course by every little mosaic book that I scanned in at the library during my short stint there.
The other two completely floored me ( no pun intended) with the transformative powers latent in creatity and the arranging the edges of randomly broken river and ocean wave tumbled shards of somebodies old plate, cup, jug or porcelin toilet. I also spent some time as a gardener in Columbus and worked in one of the old neighborhoods called Italian Village and would find old pieces of Italian pottery in many places. So I have had a stash, but they are in a million boxes stuffed into my vwvan in storage.
So, the other day I stopped in there and was promptly shown "the bone pile" and picked up $9.00 dollars worth to add to the pieces I found by the American River last spring and here by the ocean.
Today is my 1 year anniversary working here at the Lighthouse and I have been working on this mosaic for 3 days. It is being done over someone else's beautiful sun that you see on the western edge. The middle piece is a rectangular tile with what seems like Mayan design done on Italian tile. I just may have to go back and rescue a few more of those. There are a few pieces left over from the floor project that somehow got tossed into the back of my truck back in 2005 as well as some cool other pieces that also made it out here that I had picked up in Florida or German Village( also in Columbus). I have had a couple of extremely trying weeks emotionally ( aside from the seeing friends over past few weeks) and art like this saves me every time.
Hopefully you will come have tea on my backporch when the table is done.
We are all one big random edged mosaic. Someday in my octagon strawbale house, I will have a completely mosaic shower....and garden .
I almost forgot the one I did ( the second) during my attempt to live in Austin, Texas again during 1998. My friend Jodi who lives there knew a place where there were lots of those big beautiful Mexican floor tiles all over the ground in pieces, so we drove there and asked them if we could pick some up...and they said yes, for free. So I hauled a bunch of them into my backyard there in Austin and made a pathway on the Avenue B sandy clay hallowed ground. Grass eventually grew in the cracks during my 3 month stay there. Most of my California seeds collection bolted and died without even going to seed, but the mosaic looked pretty cool and I have pictures of it...somewhere in a box.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Some more timely quotes and poems
Out beyond ideas of
wrong-doing and right-doing
There is a field
I'll meet you there
When the soul lies down in that grass
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase,
each other
doesn't make any sense.
Jelaluddin Rumi translated by Coleman Barks
"Nobody sees a flower , really-
it is so small-
we haven't time,
and to see takes time,
like to have a good friend takes time".
Georgia O'Keeffe
"The secret of making
something work in your lives is,
first of all,
the deep desire to make it work:
then the faith and belief
that it can work:
then to hold that clear definite
vision in your consciousness
and see it working out step by step,
without one thought
of doubt or disbelief".
Eileen Caddy
wrong-doing and right-doing
There is a field
I'll meet you there
When the soul lies down in that grass
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase,
each other
doesn't make any sense.
Jelaluddin Rumi translated by Coleman Barks
"Nobody sees a flower , really-
it is so small-
we haven't time,
and to see takes time,
like to have a good friend takes time".
Georgia O'Keeffe
"The secret of making
something work in your lives is,
first of all,
the deep desire to make it work:
then the faith and belief
that it can work:
then to hold that clear definite
vision in your consciousness
and see it working out step by step,
without one thought
of doubt or disbelief".
Eileen Caddy
Sunny Skies, Good Folks!
This has been a phenomenal few weeks of mostly sunshine and alot of hooking up with good folks that I either just met, or have known for a long tiime and have not seen for a while. This picture is looking off the back side of the hostel towards my favorite "wave splash" rock.
The day that my Uncle Mike and Aunt Nancy came by the Lighthouse while out here for a graduation. 
This is Uncle Mike and Aunt Nancy from Ohio.
These are two of my favorite people in the world, Felicia and Zak. Zak and I were Naturalists together at one of the residential Outdoor Education programs (SMOE in Jones Gulch ) and Felicia came along a few years later to the same program while I was living at the Hiker's Hut and subbing for SMOE. They are a few of the people I have kept in touch with over the past 16-18 years and they are just incredibly wonderful human beings. Trish the Treefrawg was also here on Thursday night, but wasn't around for our morning photoshoot.This past weekend was very social, and social comes in waves for me.
Here's my weekend backwards, or eddy-like...
On Sunday afternoon I got to spend time listening to AMAZING live local music ( THANK YOU to Dave Elias and the Casual Tees, Jeff Ring and the Lighthouse Band , Perry the soundman,Lisa Kelly Band, Gary Gates , Mark Reid Band, Curtis Turner and a band that is new to me that is absolutely amazing---Jerry Logan and Friends). I was blessed to spend the afternoon with Cathy ( now Perry's wife ) and their son Ellis and Michelle, who just returned from a year travelling around the world. After I ask her permission, if possible I will add it to my link favorites column....as her pictures and stories are really amazing. Michelle and Cathy are two other "valley" Naturalists from 14 or so years ago . Kristen and Teresa, friends that I have known for a while, have been reunited with for a year, were there too...so it was really nice for me and alot like "OLD HOME WEEKEND".
I also got to spend some time on Saturday afternoon with some brand new people ( Peter Garrett and family and the folks who built the beautifully placed and artistically done new staircase ,picture posted below) relaxing, eating, playing music and drumming in Whaler's Cove.
I also got to spend some time on Saturday afternoon with some brand new people ( Peter Garrett and family and the folks who built the beautifully placed and artistically done new staircase ,picture posted below) relaxing, eating, playing music and drumming in Whaler's Cove.
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