Friday, January 31, 2025
Thursday, January 30, 2025
poem in progress part 2
Ode to the Rose
Come, let us talk of the
perennial flowering from a family
of thousands of cultivars;
forms and shapes
so strikingly dissimilar
that as we gained
familiarity with its form,
subdivisions were required for
a diversity unparalleled—
where evolutionary biologists
to this day try to answer how
such evolves fruit so contrastingly—
peaches, plums, cherries, berries and more—
all under the name artists know—
the shade and tint
of Aphrodite’s blood;
from the Latin rosa, borrowed from the Persian
and related to the Vedic;
native across the globe,
its cultural significance found in the vast
majority of our societies.
Leaves borne alternately and pinnate—
leaflets and stipules with serrated margin;
mostly five petaled, with some only four;
divided into lobes,
sepals beneath petals,
appearing as green points.
All parts edible raw,
flush with Vitamin C,
sometimes into jellies, jams,
and syrups for tea;
a distinctive flavor used in the world’s cuisine,
candied or turned into creams for confectionery;
used as medicine and in practices of spirituality;
pressed into volatile ingredients for cosmetics;
used for landscape, hedging and utility—
or simply the commercial cut crop, kept cool
until ready for display at point of sale.
Dating to the Late Eocene, earliest known to Mesopotamia,
its hip with its hundred and fifty or so seeds,
eaten by birds and dispersed, where today's
originate from the Old Blush of 18th-century Asia,
thereby patronized by a European empress,
propagating collections numbering in hundreds.
This ancient cultural history now symbol,
where goddesses protect the bodies of heroes
with its immortal oil, sometimes bedding them among blossoms,
or instructing characters transformed to beasts
to eat its petals in order to regain their humanity;
and with advent of Christianity it became identified the Virgin Mary,
leading to the rosary and devotional incantations.
Rose, Rosa, Rosetta, Rosina, Rosita—
beauty, bliss, joy, pleasure, love, life, and elegance;
praise, prayer, pride, secrecy, and silence;
wine, wisdom, woman, and worldly success;
charity, martyrdom, mercy, victory and love divine;
“I am true; love me, and you’ll discover it—
yours, heart and soul,” it says
in St. Valentine’s Day exchanges.
Grace, desire, pure and inclined to love; hope, promise,
reward of virtue, and secret to immortality;
blissful soul, heavenly joy, rejoice of faith;
from the fingers of the dawn goddess
to knowledge and law,
signifying truth to a Buddha.
Window to eternity,
are we worthy of you?
Monday, January 27, 2025
Saturday, January 25, 2025
poem in progress
One day last spring I decided I wanted to write a poem about the Rose. So I gathered all I could off the internet and books and began to work. Here it is today after many passes, with a bulk of raw material still yet to hammered into poetry, that which if spoken can put someone in a momentary trance ending in a subtle moment of awe.
(untitled)
Come, let us talk of the rose,
perennial flowering from a family
of hundreds of species and thousands of cultivars;
erect shrub armed with prickles;
forms and shapes
so strikingly dissimilar
that as humans bloomed
familiarity with its form in the age of science,
subdivisions were required for
a diversity unparalleled,
where evolutionary biologists
are still trying to answer to this day how
such a flower evolves fruit so contrastingly—
providing us with an extraordinary diversity—
apples, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, cherries, and berries.
In colors white to yellow to red,
artists know what shade or tint
of Aphrodite’s blood has its
own spot in the color display;
native across the globe,
cultural significance in a
majority of societies.
Leaves borne alternately and pinnate—leaflets and basal stipules with serrated margin, mostly deciduous yet a few evergreen or nearly so; mostly five petaled, with exception of some with only four; petals divided into lobes, sepals beneath petals, appearing as green points.
Ornamentals or used for perfumery and commercial cut flower crops; for landscape, hedging and utility; refrigerated until ready for display at a point of sale.
From that Latin rosa, from Greek rhódon (Aeolic βρόδον wródon), itself borrowed from Old Persian (wurdi), related to the Vedic varəδa, Sogdian ward, Parthian wâr.
The hip, with its one hundred fifty or so seeds, achenes embedded in fine, stiff, hairs—flush in vitamin C, among the richest source of any. Eaten by thrushes, waxwings, and finches, carrying them to be dispersed. The oldest date from the Late Eocene Florissant Formation of Colorado, yet were only present in Europe by the early Oligocene. Today's garden rose come from 18th-century China, and among their plantings the Old Blush group is most primitive. In the 1800s an empress of western Europe patronized its development breeding collections in her garden numbering hundreds of cultivars, varieties and species became possible when a rosarium was planted by a nursery in a Victorian cemetery; a scented foliage cultivated for millennia, the earliest known at least five-hundred BC in Summer, Persia, and China.
Rose, Rosa, Rosetta, Rosina, Rosita—beauty, bliss, elegance, flame, joy, life, love, pleasure, praise, prayer, pride, secrecy, silence, wine, wisdom, woman, and worldly success; charity, divine love, forgiveness, martyrdom, mercy, victory. Attribute of Christ, Roman symbol of victory. Ambassador of love, rose of paradise. Angels flip in and out of the flower like bees; the souls of beatified children. Pleasure in pain. Divine love. Beauty, engagement. Golden rose. in the language of flowers: I am true; If you love me, you will discover it. Yours, heart and soul. Superior, merit, voluptuous love. birthday flower—in grace. Admiration, blushing, desire, martyrdom, motherhood, emblem of Adonis, Aphrodite, Sappho, Venus. vanities of this world. Rosebud: pure, inclined to love. Black rose, security. Rosebud, hope, promise, youthful beauty. Rose, colored optimistic. Rose crown, reward of virtue. Rose followed by a cross, secret of immortality. Rose garland, blissful soul, heavenly joy, rejoicing in faith. Angel wreath. Attribute of Cupid and arrows. Rose leaf, you may hope. Rose, red. Heroine of German folklore a kin to the mythological dawn goddess compares, Snow White. Rose, rosette, in Buddhism, knowledge, law, together signifying truth. Rosethorn, death, pain. Rose window, eternity, rose wreath, heavenly joy. Rosie fingers, Dawn, EOS. Silver rose, abode of the Hindu Brahma. White rose, abstract, thought, purity, silence, spirituality, virginity. I am worthy of you. White rose, dried, death preferred to loss of innocence.
perfumes from their oil (also called attar of roses), mixture of volatile essential oils obtained by steam distilling its petals. And water used for cooking, cosmetics, medicine and spiritual practices. A technique originated in Persia and then spread through Arabia and India, and more recently into eastern Europe, about two thousand flowers are required to produce one gram of oil.
The main constituents of attar of roses are
edible raw high in vitamin C, occasionally made into jelly, jam, marmalade, and syrup brewed for tea; pressed and filtered to make seed oil for skin and makeup.
Its water distinctive flavor used in Middle East, Persian, and South Asian cuisine—especially in sweets such as Turkish delight, petals or flower buds used to flavor ordinary tea, or combined with other herbs to make tea as singular and beautiful as one might pass on a sidewalk. A sweet preserve of rose petals is common in places.
In France, there is much use of rose syrup, most commonly made from an extract of rose petals. In the Indian subcontinent, Rooh Afza, a concentrated squash made with roses, is popular, as are rose-flavoured frozen desserts
The flower stems and young shoots are edible, as are the petals (sans the white or green bases).[21] The latter are usually used as flavouring or to add their scent to food.[26] Other minor uses include candied rose petals.[27]
Rose creams are a traditional English confectionery widely available from numerous producers in the UK.
Under the American Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act,[28] there are only certain Rosa species, varieti
• Rose absolute: Rosa alba L., Rosa centifolia L., Rosa damascena Mill., Rosa gallica L., and vars. of these spp.
• Rose (otto of roses, attar of roses): Ditto
• Rose buds
• Rose flowers
• Rose fruit (hips)
• Rose leaves: Rosa spp.[29]
As a food ingredient
The rose hip, usually from R. canina, is used as a minor source of vitamin C.[30] Diarrhodon (Gr διάρροδον, "compound of roses", from ῥόδων, "of roses"[31]) is a name given to various compounds in which red roses are an ingredient.
The long cultural history has led to it being used as a symbol. In ancient Greece, the rose was closely associated with the goddess Aphrodite. In the Iliad, Aphrodite protects the body of Hector using the "immortal oil of the rose" and the archaic Greek lyric poet Ibycus praises a beautiful youth saying that Aphrodite nursed him "among rose blossoms"
the rose is red because Aphrodite wounded herself on one of its thorns and stained the flower red with her blood.[36][32] Book Eleven of the ancient Roman novel The Golden Ass by Apuleius contains a scene in which the goddess Isis, who is identified with Venus, instructs the main character, Lucius, who has been transformed into a donkey, to eat rose petals from a crown of roses worn by a priest as part of a religious procession in order to regain his humanity.[33] French writer René Rapin invented a myth in which a beautiful Corinthian queen named Rhodanthe ("she with rose flowers") was besieged inside a temple of Artemis by three ardent suitors who wished to worship her as a goddess; the god Apollo then transformed her into a rosebush.[37]
Following the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the rose became identified with the Virgin Mary. The color of the rose and the number of roses received has symbolic representation.[38][39][33] The rose symbol eventually led to the creation of the rosary and other devotional prayers in Christianity.
Framed print after 1908 painting by Henry Payne of the scene in the Temple Garden, where supporters of the rival factions in the Wars of the Roses pick either red or white roses
Ever since the 1400s, the Franciscans have had a Crown Rosary of the Seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin Mary.[33] In the 1400s and 1500s, the Carthusians promoted the idea of sacred mysteries associated with the rose symbol and rose gardens.[33] Albrecht Dürer's painting The Feast of the Rosary (1506) depicts the Virgin Mary distributing garlands of roses to her devotees.[33]
Roses symbolized the Houses of York and Lancaster in a conflict known as the Wars of the Roses.
Roses are a favored subject in art and appear in portraits, illustrations, on stamps, as ornaments or as architectural elements. The Luxembourg-born Belgian artist and botanist Pierre-Joseph Redouté is known for his detailed watercolours of flowers, particularly roses.
Henri Fantin-Latour was also a prolific painter of still life, particularly flowers including roses. The rose 'Fantin-Latour' was named after the artist.
Other impressionists including Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Pierre-Auguste Renoir have paintings of roses among their works. In the 19th century, for example, artists associated the city of Trieste with a certain rare white rose, and this rose developed as the city's symbol. It was not until 2021 that the rose, which was believed to be extinct, was rediscovered there.[41]
In 1986 President Ronald Reagan signed legislation to make the rose[42] the floral emblem of the United States.[43]
The rose is often exchanged on St. Valentines Day and is used often as a symbol of such.
Thursday, January 23, 2025
poem
(untitled)
Upon viewing clinical photos
of the Elephant Man, one can
see on his left side who he
was meant to be; someone ought
to create a piece of art,
his good eye.
Upon viewing clinical photos
of the Elephant Man, one can
see on his left side who he
was meant to be; someone ought
to create a piece of art,
his good eye.
Check out this title on Audible
Tecumseh and the Prophet
By Peter Cozzens
Narrated by Mark Bramhall
Listen on Audible:
https://www.audible.com/pd/0593292197?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=player_overflow
Sent from my iPhone
By Peter Cozzens
Narrated by Mark Bramhall
Listen on Audible:
https://www.audible.com/pd/0593292197?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=player_overflow
Sent from my iPhone
poem
(untitled)
Views long and vast
create a sense of serenity;
make you feel like a god
on a beautiful planet;
living serene must be
godliness, enlightenment;
or at least what amount
is available.
Views long and vast
create a sense of serenity;
make you feel like a god
on a beautiful planet;
living serene must be
godliness, enlightenment;
or at least what amount
is available.
One might argue,
in regards to American cinema and genre of the Western, One Eyed Jacks is top three, if not best of all.
text to not lose sleep over
When everyone hates you, and you hate that everyone hates you, and all hate has its basis in fear then what is being feared? I have this blog site that I've been posting to for years. I can't remember where the photo mysteriously came from, the rider, horse, and dog, but I know only a couple people follow because I can see if someone’s viewed the latest post. I don't know if I ever told you but in the mid-1990s I was involved in an industrial accident. I was gopher for a start up biotech company that was pulling apart the DNA of various food crops. There were seven wet labs at a research facility, and I checked in millions in equipment and took care of lab ware washing and autoclave disposal. It was a dream job where I got to walk around in flip-flops, shorts and a T-shirt, even got to surf at lunch. I wasn’t careful enough to take precautions washing lab wear with gloves on. Also, because it was a start up with a bunch of young scientists in the lab, and things moving fast, I didn't know the chemicals would affect my memory. It had been about six months in, when I had a moment where there was something I went to recall, and knew I knew the answer, but couldn't retrieve it. Over the next couple months or so, it happened again a handful of times. Then, one day when I was doing lab ware and one of the young scientists saw I did not have gloves on. Dude! You're not wearing gloves?! It's not like it did holes in my memory like holes in Swiss cheese, but then kind of; the thing is, when it happens now, and I'm in a conversation, or composing art, and I need to retrieve something, and there's no transmission, if I am queued to it, I can speak on it at length. I wonder often, where I might be, had I never had that accident. Now today, as I try and salvage whatever I can from an unrecognized life in the arts. This far down the road, and such an unusual past I really am a problematic person in polite society. All I can say is that when I was young, I vowed to change the world for the better. I remember going to sleep one night during the Vietnam war, where I had seen some black-and-white photos from that war on television, and I went to sleep that night, saying to myself that I knew I was too young to do anything at that moment, but I would grow and find out, and make it end. There are some indications, that that vow will be fulfilled, honored, legitimated, authenticated, and in some critical analysis of the situation, it might even be all those things but just in a subtle manner that will never be known, that I have already fulfilled that vow. With all the disappointments in life, how typically an artist in an age of deceit, thinking they can redirect the course of affairs, would naturally live to fight another day, if doing so was how the war could be won. One in fifty are artists, the type that burns for the truth all day and every day, that they would eventually identify and secure the ground to make a stand.
I remember when I did that play at Pepperdine, where, in my pursuit of acting at that time; called A Game of Chess, I played the king who played a game of chess against his assassin, knowing his drink had been spiked; but that he had taken little doses of the poison leading up to the match, so that he was not the one to lose and die. It was a one act play, and I worked with the director and other actor, all three of us late teens/early 20s, in an apartment with little furniture and no food. While we worked on the play, there was a moment where we were all hungry, but had little money, bought some pasta, butter and Parmesan. Of all my struggling artist episodes, one of them was as an actor, and had life unfolded differently, had I decided to suck cock for a part, as I did have that offer a couple times, maybe. I can get on stage and carry an arc to a point of laughing or crying for the audience. Was I always just a revolutionary with an artistic bent, or was I an artist who took himself too seriously in a battle that could never be won; just deluded, thinking I was one to end it all and bring justice to Earth. In my digging as an artist I discovered the legal mechanism in which to honor my vow. Maybe I was just a kid, never had a vow to honor, but had a life to live and enjoy. But I saw it all, and subsequently discovered, and subsequently chose to act, to pursue the one over the other. I saw it from so far away, even on a recent Zoom call with a bunch of people for election integrity, few of them knew Bev Harris whistleblew that twenty years ago.
Two people in their 60s, finding out they're still curious, still principled, and make each other laugh. I’ll do it. If not, as long as two or three people view this blog, I’ll just pretend it’s someone super special. At the very least everyone still has the beauty of Sun and Earth to wake up to.
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Monday, January 20, 2025
Dear Diary
Here in Lone Pine, California at an inexpensive motel. More minor disappointments, so just had to bolt to the desert to reset. Two new bars here in town, so gonna walk down the street, see if I can sell some art or trade for beer/dinner. Tomorrow, up to my writing cave in the high desert near Darwin. Late afternoon sunlight on mountain peaks never fails to make me happy. Driving up was thinking/feeling the need to write to my muse and what I'd want her to know; just to say it.... The website Society 6 seems kind of lame the way it's set up; thought people could just type in ColorfieldArts and see all the colors available. Maybe I need to upgrade? Don't know. Still haven't heard from fineartamerica.com after wasn't sent temp password to set up there.... Looks like I'm back to substitute teaching soon, or maybe I find a pier in the south bay, sell to well-to-do young people. Not sure. Did some good work on the novel. Maybe I should set a date and whatever I have then I have to publish and let it go; or maybe I publish what I got, so it's out there, and hammer away at a finer version.
Sunday, January 19, 2025
Saturday, January 18, 2025
Saturday, January 11, 2025
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