Monday, June 25, 2012

Mattise, The Flying Cat and the Fat Buddha

Our little world at sixes and sevens this morning.  The bed has been dismantled and reassembled in the living room which is also crammed with the other bedroom furniture.  The chap was supposed to come sand and polish the wood floor today but is suffering, along with his wife, from vertigo (isn't that interesting?  So it was something 'going around' and not the scary disease I suspected.  How readily am I willing to scare myself nigh to death with very little evidence?).

The cats are distressed.  No one slept wth us last night even though we didn't have the fire going and the house was cold and bleak.  Either we were being punished by their absence or they felt they had to keep watch in case something else changed in the house.  Matisse is kneeling near the keyboard.  He keeps climbing on and off my lap and although I love him it is quite distracting so I have pushed the chair well under the desk so he can't climb on anymore.  Reminds me of Garrison Keilor's song about the cat that wants in, no, he wants out, no, he MUST come back in, no wait!  I HAVE to go out RIGHT NOW!  That's Matisse.  On my lap, off my lap, on, off, on, off and then really off.  I think it hurts his feeling though.  He is the most uncertain cat I've ever met.  Natalia's boldness and self assurance is refreshing.  She looks me straight in the eye and holds my stare.  She is not trying to intimidate nor is she intimidated.  She is comfortable with us and with herself.  Matisse, in comparison, is Woody Allen in fur.   Perhaps that's not quite a fair comparison but his lack of self confidence is staggering.  He is, after nine years with us, still unsure of our committment.  If  I've fed him breakfast but go into the living room to put a log in the woodheater or retrieve a pair of shoes, he follows.  I can't go to the loo on my own.  I used to think it was that Siamese characteristic, which supposedly makes them the dogs of the cat world - as if that was a compliment!, to want to be where you are and do what you're doing.  With my previous two Siamese that was true.  But not Matisse.  I think he suspects that if he doesn't keep us under surveillance we'll disappear.

It is sad because, and I suspect I've written of this before, he rarely looks me in the eye.  What cat doesn't naturally outstare any human unless the cat is feral, sick or frightened?  It's almost as if he's afraid to reveal his true self, his true nature.  What dire secrets fester away behind those clear blue eyes?

When he is paid special attention he blooms, as if he didn't think he was deserving.  When all my focus is upon him, when I am petting him firmly and rhythmically and I croon to him how special, beautiful and loved he is, he still doesn't look me in the eye but his tail is up and 'happy' and he rubs himself against me with considerable force (and he is a big solid cat).   Matisse has a habit of greeting me in passing with his tail.  Often I'm in some one legged standing yoga pose and Matisse will pass by on his way to the window seat.  He'll push his tail against my leg as he walks past and it's all I can do not to fall over. 

Finished that pastel drawing I wrote about.  Of course it's not nearly as good as I'd like it to be, nor is it photographed as well as it could be, very grainy and dull.  My signature shows how bad it is. 

Here's a photo of Fat Buddha with Cat that I did a few months ago.  Guess I'll have to learn how to take better pictures.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Found this website through wordpress called American Gallery,   http://americangallery.wordpress.com.  Suzay Lamb, the creator of AG, is passionate about finding and posting for all the world to enjoy, the works of artists from the 1700's up to the present day.  There is such a wide sampling that there is something for everyone.  I've been working my way through the artists alphabetically, starting with the letter H - just to be different. 

Perhaps it's not entirely ethical but when I find a painting I like I use it as a desktop for a day or two so that I may study it.  Don't save them for it is the unauthorized use of someone else's work but I don't think any artist would mind someone adimiring their creation for a few hours or a few days.  The problem is I always find something more beautiful than the last which I must have as a desktop.  

Since writing I've completed a pencil sketch of a galah and have amost finished a pastel drawing of a tiger cat leaping.  It's drawn in such a way that it is as though one was lying on the grass looking at the sky when this cat jumped through your field of vision.  There is nothing but cat, blue sky and a few clouds.  I'm okay with the drawing but am disappointed with my use of colour.  When I look at the Navajo Indian chief I drew back in the 70's I am amazed that I so obviously seemed to know what I was doing.  The nap of his heavy winter coat looks real.  His skin looks like skin.  Granted I was copying from a photo (Natinal Geographic?) but I still had to have some skill in order to pull it off.  This cat I'm drawing from memory and the help of Natalia who can't understand why I keep turning her over to have a look at her abdomen, although she graciously purrs and allows me a quick peek, it being too cold to remain stretched out for more than a minute.  The problem is I've overloaded the paper with pastel.  The real problem is, as usual, I changed my mind partway through.  I painted a brilliant sky using the entire paper.  Perfect gradation of shading from the darkest blue at the top to the paler blue at the bottom.  Then I started to draw the cat on top of the blue thinking the blue would come in handy as shadows on the dark side of the cat.  And it does but the tooth is already so full that any thought of drawing lifelike fur is out of the question.  Even with sharp pastel pencils.

 And that's another thing.  I'm quite disappointed with the Faber Castel pastel pencils.  Compared to the cheap Montmarte they are difficult to apply and the colours are insipid.  Perhaps the Montmarte pastels show up their inferior quality by not staying fresh, by losing their colour over time.  I don't know but I know when I want vivid true pigment that goes on even over pastel sticks, hard and soft, I reach for a Montmarte.  I should send this blurb to their advertising department.  I paid big bucks for the Faber Castel and don't like them.  Paid $24 for 36 Montmarte colours and enjoy using them.   Maybe I'm just a victim of artist snobbery. 

Took the cat outside yesterday afternoon and 'fixed' hell out of it.  I like the way fixative makes the colours darker.  Haven't done anything to it today except look as I go past.  If I'm very careful I may be able to salvage it.  If not I've even thought of having another go.  I never do a picture more than once.  Succeed or fail, once I've had a go it's lost its allure.  But the cat?  I like the whimsy of it (isn't whimsy just a wonderful word?).  To pull it off really well would be lovely. 

In other news - haven't had a trace of dizziness or vertigo for over a week now.  I breathed  through it.  Breath has become of vital importance since I quit smoking.  I'm frequently filling my lungs as full as they can get and giving thanks for that breath.  Sounds funky but there you go.  Without breath, we're dead.  Probably one of the most substantial gifts one can give thanks for.  Naturally after 44 years of smoking my lungs are not instantly restored but I do notice a micromillimeter of improvemet week by week.  And breathing through things, breathing to heal, breathing to calm, breathing to love.  It's all one and the same.  Breathing to remember who I am.  I had reason to write to someone this week who is going through emotional hell.  I asked that he remember who he was, who he really was.  We teach best that which we most need to learn - or relearn.  I need to remember who I am too.  I get caught up in the trivia of day to day living and forget that I'm here because of a divine spark animating this collection of proteins - and that divine spark is renewed every time I breathe. 

When I take that huge breath, especially during a section of my yoga practice which is devoted to breath, I sometimes feel that connection, that divinity.  So what happens when we die?  I think we take that final breath, which is both physical and metaphysical, and it feels that we keep taking it, that we become so imbued with breath that there is finally no separation between the inhale and exhale but the breath is All.  Physically we take that final breath and the breath leaves the body taking the divine spark with it.   Well, that's my guess for today.  Tomorrow I may have another theory.



Sunday, June 10, 2012

Sunday morning of the Queen's birthday long weekend. I swear the local wallabies know when it's the weekend. They are more numerous on the road during the day. We've had five killed on our short 6km dead end street already this season. Have a suspicion who is the culprit but of course it can't be proven. Desire to erect a large billboard saying Humans 5, Wallabies 0. But that would only inflame those who didn't give a damn before into upping the score. In favour of humans.

We have a new bird hanging around. A scarlet robin. The first year we moved here we saw a rose robin. Once. Like the Regent's bowerbird. Don't know what changed in the environment to make them disappear but disappear they did. So it's a real buzz to see a brand new (for us) bird in the center round garden. And he's very beautiful. Scarlet and black. Bold too, not very shy of me and I was only 4 or 5 feet away from him.

Another snippet in our wildlife scene. It's winter here yet we have a very determined frog calling Tok Tok Tok through the night and sometimes through the day. He lives in the fernery. When it is very cold his call is slow. I counted 23 to 36 seconds between Toks. When it is warmer, it's anything from 2 to 6 seconds. His Tok sounds like a mallet gently tapped against a hollow log. Have no idea what kind of frog (or toad for that matter) he is but admire his tenacity - and am a little alarmed that he's working so hard at a time when he should be taking it easy.

My dizziness has not disappeared yet. Because I think that dis-ease can reflect what's going on subconsciously, I wondered what the spinning out represented. The description 'spinning out' describes it; a mind out of control. My attempts at meditation, while regular are sporadic. Might start and find that Richard has returned or is banging about inside. Was going to close the wooden external door as a message that I was meditating but just can't be that cruel to confine him to the cold while I'm in the (relative) warmth. And that's another problem. It's too cold in this house, even with the heater going, to sit still for any length of time without getting chilled. So at any rate, while I do try and meditate it's not as regular or as long a session as I'd like. But there is an unlooked for side effect of meditation, even if the meditation is unsuccessful: awareness of thought. What's come to my attention are the layers which operate at the same time. I've never noticed before that there is the topmost layer which is the layer I'm writing this blog with. Beneath that might be a snatch of a song on an endless repeating loop and beneath that is a word or phrase. The other day it was Sam Stosur the tennis player, her name repeating like a mantra beneath the few notes of some old song (which always comes to the fore during the white noise of vacuuming). I had no idea so much mindless activity was going on with my mind's desperate bid to be kept busy. Why? Why must the mind always be kept busy? What's so scary about silence?

So that was a revelation, that my mind could and did work on many levels. At the same time I realized I was having these flashes of silence, when all the layers were quiet and still. Perhaps that was always happening but I hadn't noticed it. Those brief respites from chatter stand out by their sheer peacefulness, so much so that I start thinking about what's happening and lose it!

What has that to do with dizziness? I'm not sure. It has improved. I've managed to do backbends during yoga again although I must do it in stages. I've also managed to look up towards my outstretched hand during half moon and triangle poses. I notice the dizziness is worse when I look up over my left shoulder. I cannot quite look at my hand, only toward it but figure I am retraining myself so that is only a matter of time. I do a lot of deep breathing, hoping to breathe through this little health hiccup. Having always had low blood pressure I don't believe it is high blood pressure nor do I think I have an inner ear infection or a tumour or some such thing. The vertigo is an anomaly which is a helpful guidepost to illustrate something I need to bring into awareness. At least that's what I tell myself and mostly believe. The alternative is not a pleasant prospect.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Inexplicable Joy with Vertigo

Yes, it's true. During the most mundane of tasks I suddenly am overwhelmed with this wave of happiness. Walking the dogs and I notice the shape of a tree - joy, feeding the cats and seeing Natalia's wide green eyes and happy upright tail and I smile, making the bed and I recall with what relief I sank into it the night before - bliss. This contentment is not the matter of a moment or a day, it bursts forth frequently and has done for the past month. I think much of it has to do with quitting cigarettes, that I have aligned myself more with my Self so do not feel so alienated and discombobulated.

Then when I think life can't get any better than this I am reminded of its fragility. A couple of nights ago when I lay my head on the pillow the room swam. Isn't that the term? It spun and sang and quivered and I shot bolt upright until it stopped. Lay down again, much more slowly and went to sleep. Woke up in the night to go to the loo, sat up and clung to handfuls of sheets until the world stopped spinning. The next morning, not good. Spinning out if I did anything other than hold my head straight with eyes front. Wrote an email and had to type it without looking at the monitor. When you see a computer monitor on television it flickers, something we don't notice when we're sitting in front of it. That part of me that was experimenting with barrel rolls and loop de loops noticed however. I didn't do yoga for two days for other reasons so didn't have to test the theory that I would be unable to swan dive into a sun salutation or heft myself into a headstand. I was scared enough as it was.

In case you didn't know, I am a coward. The idea of doctors, needles, oh my god drawing blood, fills me with Fear in bold underlined italics. The image of being punctured...makes me dizzy thinking of it. That and small spaces and things around my neck which leads me to believe that in a previous life I was hung in a closet while being stabbed with a stiletto. Anyway, so here I am scared witless because I am having dizzy spells. Don't even tell Richard because I know what he'll do - nag me to go see a doctor. Don't tell anyone but then I have a little 'turn' at a friend's house so I tell them. With what relief do I hear these wise people say, among other things, that perhaps it's a virus. Of course! A virus! I can live with that. I'm not going to die a horrible death after all (amazing how the mind works and what morbid scenarios one creates for oneself). I"m just sick.

So here it is a few days later. I still spin out if I look up at my hand during Half Moon pose or try a backbend but other than that I'm good. I lay down with caution and get up with same but not with excruciating slowness like a few days ago. But as a token to my moment of fear I am wearing my mother's deep blue sapphire ring. I've never worn it before because it was the 'good' ring, it's fragile and what if it was damaged? Well, if it was, who cares but me and what am I waiting for anyway. If there was something terribly wrong with me and I died without wearing Mom's ring or using the good perfume or any of a number of other things that are put off waiting for that perfect day when one deserves that special treat it would be a waste. And a bit of an insult too. Here we are gifted with this miracle called Being Alive and we hold back, weigh up our options, assess, scrutinize and, perhaps worst of all, Bargain. Instead Life is to be embraced and regarded with Inexplicable Joy mixed with the Vertiginous Miracle of Being.