Ralegh’s Prizes - Robert Pinsky

And Summer turns her head with its dark tangle

All the way toward us....

Sand Mandalas

"Of all the traditional Tibetan tantric practices, the art of painting with colored sand is one of the most unique and exquisite. In Tibetan language, this art is called dul-tson-kyil-khor, which literally means "mandala of colored powders."

"Millions of grains of sand are painstakingly laid into place on a flat platform over a period of days or weeks before ultimately being dismantled in order to release and disseminate the deity's blessings into the world to benefit all sentient beings.















Formed into traditionally prescribed Tibetan iconography that includes geometric shapes and a multitude of historical Buddhist spiritual symbols, the sand-painted mandala is used as a tool for consecrating, or blessing, the earth and its inhabitants, and provides for the practitioner a visual framework for establishing the enlightened mind of the Buddha."

Quote source
Picture source

Andy Griffith: June 1, 1926 - July 3, 2012

Biography

Pamela Tiffin

Info at IMDB

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

The Rodin Museum

"...More than any other sculptor since Michelangelo, Rodin changed the face of figurative sculpture and ushered in a whole new era of artistic expression..."

The Kiss



















Kissers



















Spirit



















The Eternal Idol














Thought

June 21 -- Summer Solstice -- Litha

Also known as: Alban Heruin (Druidic)

The artist

June 20th-23rd is the celebration of Summer Solstice, also known as Litha. The Summer Solstice marks the longest day and shortest night of the year. The night of Summer Solstice has long been revered as a time of magic and manifestation, when the sun is at the height of its power in the shadow of the waxing Moon.

In old Celtic traditions, the Summer Solstice festival usually spanned several days and focused on outdoor events under the open sun by day, and ’round a large bonfire by night. Solstice marked the official start of Summer when crops were ripening, and trees and bushes were starting to produce fruit. It was a time of giving thanks to the Gods & Goddesses of the Sun, Fire, Fertility, & Abundance.

Source for above




















Although the name Litha is not well attested, it may come from Saxon tradition -- the opposite of Yule. On this longest day of the year, light and life are abundant. At mid-summer, the Sun God has reached the moment of his greatest strength. Seated on his greenwood throne, he is also lord of the forests, and his face is seen in church architecture peering from countless foliate masks.

The Christian religion converted this day of Jack-in-the-Green to the Feast of St. John the Baptist, often portraying him in rustic attire, sometimes with horns and cloven feet (like the Greek Demi-God Pan)

Midsummer Night's Eve is also special for adherents of the Faerie faith. The alternative fixed calendar date of June 25 (Old Litha) is sometimes employed by Covens. The name Beltane is sometimes incorrectly assigned to this holiday by some modern traditions of Wicca, even though Beltane is the Gaelic word for May.

Source for above

Islands - Yusef Komunyakaa

An island is one great eye

gazing out, a beckoning lighthouse,

searchlight, a wishbone compass,

or counterweight to the stars.

When it comes to outlook & point

of view, a figure stands on a rocky ledge

peering out toward an archipelago

of glass on the mainland, a seagull’s

wings touching the tip of a high wave,

out to where the brain may stumble.

But when a mind climbs down

from its high craggy lookout

we know it is truly a stubborn thing,

& has to leaf through pages of dust

& light, through pre-memory & folklore,

remembering fires roared down there

till they pushed up through the seafloor

& plumes of ash covered the dead

shaken awake worlds away, & silence

filled up with centuries of waiting.

Sea urchin, turtle, & crab

came with earthly know-how,

& one bird arrived with a sprig in its beak,

before everything clouded with cries,

a millennium of small deaths now topsoil

& seasons of blossoms in a single seed.

Light edged along salt-crusted stones,

across a cataract of blue water,

& lost sailors’ parrots spoke of sirens,

the last words of men buried at sea.

Someone could stand here

contemplating the future, leafing

through torn pages of St. Augustine

or the prophecies by fishermen,

translating spore & folly down to taproot.

The dreamy-eyed boy still in the man,

the girl in the woman, a sunny forecast

behind today, but tomorrow’s beyond

words. To behold a body of water

is to know pig iron & mother wit.

Whoever this figure is,

he will soon return to dancing

through the aroma of dagger’s log,

ginger lily, & bougainvillea,

between chants & strings struck

till gourds rally the healing air,

& till the church-steeple birds

fly sweet darkness home.

Whoever this friend or lover is,

he intones redemptive harmonies.

To lie down in remembrance

is to know each of us is a prodigal

son or daughter, looking out beyond land

& sky, the chemical & metaphysical

beyond falling & turning waterwheels

in the colossal brain of damnable gods,

a Eureka held up to the sun’s blinding eye,

born to gaze into fire. After conquering

frontiers, the mind comes back to rest,

stretching out over the white sand.

About the author

Bob Kindred Quartet - Moon and Sand

Rainer Maria Rilke - You Who Never Arrived

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and
unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods--
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house-- , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...

Carol Bruce

Patty Loveless

Her website

Coleman Hawkins - My Love and I (Theme from Apache)

A hauntingly beautiful ballad by a jazz giant:

Lucian Blaga: The Light

The light I feel
streaming in my breast when I see you,
is that not a drop of the light
created on the first day,
that light which thirsts for life?

Nothingness lay dying,
as the impenetrable one, hovering alone in the dark,
gave a sign:
Let there be light!

An ocean
and a raging storm of light
arose in an instant:
a thirst for sins, desires, longings, passions
a thirst for light and sun.

But where did it go, that blinding
first light – who knows?
The light I feel
streaming in my breast when I see you – wondrous one,
may be the last drop
of the light made on that first day.

Richard Hall - Gathering at Church Entrance

Richard Hall was a naturalized French citizen, born in Finland of Swedish parents. His late academic style of painting includes landscapes, portraits, and genre scenes.

This large canvas depicts French parishioners outside the abbey church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris. Painted in the era’s prevailing naturalistic style, the scene is a quiet confirmation of 19th-century class distinctions evident through costume and subtle gesture. Fur-trimmed coats, feathered hats, and the large stiff winged headdress of a nun contrast with the coarse clothing of the poor who huddle on the church steps. The two women at left attend to a baby whose elegant clothing suggest the infant’s baptism; their finery is contrasted with a working class mother standing nearby, who holds her baby wrapped in a heavy brown blanket.

Link to source

Secrets of the Little Devil - Django Mango

Very cool tunes