Nazca, Peru. Chichen Itza, Mexico. Mont Saint Michel, France.
Listening to Will Hornyak’s great storytelling performance of his year in Peru as a journalist in his early twenties got me thinking of the wonders of the world. Will’s experiences, people he met as well as befriended, events he witnessed and his wondering wanderings were remarkable.
These three places are only three of the stunning, amazing, magnificent wonders in the world that call to me.
The Nazca lines are incredible. Approximately 2,000 years old. How were these huge designs, some miles in size, created so perfectly so long ago? No one knows. Will reported underground irrigation systems have also been discovered!
The Pyramids at Chichen Itza are approximately 1,200 years old. To walk around them, to touch them was amazing. How were these huge structures built with the enormous blocks of rock? No one knows.
Photo MDessein 2002
Mont Saint Michel. The abbey was begun approximately a thousand years ago. The island itself has a long history. I am now thinking I want to go back and spend a week or so on Mont Saint Michel, walk where the builders and designers and centuries of people have walked, worked, prayed, wondered, lived.
Inner courtyard of Mont Saint Michel Abbey. Photo MDessein 2002
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Lest I go on too long, you get the drift. Amazing things are built and created each day now. Yet the wonders created millenia ago still seem far advanced of us in many ways.
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The creativity, imagination, and ability of humans is humbling. However, human’s capacity for harm is stunning. That dichotomy is also millenia old.
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When I have some answers, you can be sure I’ll let you know.
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(Yup, my book, When I Was a Rock Star is available on Amazon in paperback and e-book. And! getting closer to finishing my novel!)
When I was in mid-Oregon recently, in the high desert, I discovered some of the plants there have such deep roots. When it goes over a hundred days without rain and is above 100F degrees, that makes sense. I was weeding an area there at my daughter’s family’s home when I decided to take out this ragweed type plant, that was covering a gorgeous volcanic rock. I tried to pull it up with my hands. Yeah, right! So I went and got a shovel. I dug and dug, all around it. Five minutes later, I got it out. The root turned out to be over a foot and a half long, very thick at the top.
Then I noticed all the sagebrush blown everywhere. No way was the wind going to get this ragweed up either.
How far? A few miles? Another state? Another continent?
Fascinating as we review our choices, isn’t it? When and where were we rooted deeply, then again, when and where were our roots slim and ready for transplanting? For me, there were times I did not understand what was going on around me, why people were doing what they were doing. Which way the winds were blowing.
Right now, I am firmly rooted, yet not deeply. Where will I be in five years? I don’t know. Yet I don’t lose any sleep over it. Learning to sense when my roots are deeply implanted and when they are not has helped me a great deal in the last few years. When to let go and move on has taken me a long time to understand and then give myself permission to do so.
My, oh my.
Thanks for reading. Merci beaucoup. Let me know about your roots~
Yup, my book, When I Was a Rock Star is on Amazon in paperback and ebook.
Dave Grusin’s stellar career in musicianship and composition from television to movies to rock stars to his over 70 CDs and so many other accomplishments is stunning. He’s won an Oscar, ten Grammys, and written scads of soundtracks.
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And here he is at 90 years old touring with Lee Ritenour (an accomplished musician, composer, jazz guitarist himself!) through California and then on to Japan! Remarkable!
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grusinfilm.com
Buddy Guy at 88 is also performing and touring. A pivot and ground-breaking blues musician since he started playing at clubs as a teen-ager. Also a multi Grammy-winner and a Kennedy Center honoree. Eric Clapton credits Buddy Guy with helping him shape his music.
To know one’s passion, be compelled to follow it, to live it in everything one does. To inspire others.
We each do our best at the time, respond to what calls us. Right? Rockin’ and rollin’ at age 90 and touring the world? Oh yeah!
Django Reinhardt. Harlan Ellison. Virginia Wolf. Toni Morrison. Whitney Houston. Frida Kahlo. Stieg Larssen. Billie Holiday. Margaret Atwood. Did they set out to change the world? I can’t answer that, yet I can say that they sure did.
There was once a young captain of the guard. He had successfully risen through the ranks, achieved goals, and proven himself to be intelligent and capable. Yet the king was concerned about his arrogance and seeming to think he was superior to others. The king wanted the young captain to continue in his career yet learn that he was not superior to everyone else. A lesson in humility, thought the king, was needed. He thought, and thought, what task could he assign to the young captain that could not be achieved that might enlighten him? Then one day, he thought of one and summoned the young captain. “Captain,” began the king, “I have a task for you.” “At your service,” replied the young captain enthusiastically. “Bring to me something that makes a happy man sad, and a sad man happy.” “Yes Sir!” “You have one year to find this and return it to me.” “I will be done much sooner than that,” the captain nodded and saluted the king. He bowed and left the king’s chamber. The captain began his search that very day. What would make a happy man sad and a sad man happy? He went to the town’s market, the nearby ports, neighboring villages’ vendors. Nothing the vendors or merchants offered him matched the task. Over the next months, he traveled near and far, up the coast of the Mediterranean, northern coast of Africa, even to the island of Cyprus. He was nearing the end of the year given him, his horse was thin and tired, when one day he crossed paths with a traveling merchant, whose wagon was filled with pots and pans and tools. As tired as he was, the captain chatted with the merchant and asked him, “Do you have something that would make a happy man sad and a sad man happy?” The merchant tipped his head in thought, then said, “No, yet come have dinner with my father and I. He has done many, many things over the years. We’ll ask him. So the captain went home with the merchant. After the first meal he had had in many days, he thanked the father, who then asked him, “What is it that you are seeking, young traveler?” The captain shook his head, “My task is to bring the king something that will make a happy man sad and a sad man happy.” “Ah,” said the father. He sat back in thought for a while, then said, “I have an idea. Give me a few minutes.” Off he went into his workshop. The captain and the young vendor heard scraping and hammering from the father’s workshop. Sometime later, the father came out and opened his hand. “What do you think of this?” The captain looked at the steel ring in the father’s hand a long moment. “That’s it!” he said. “How can I thank you?” The father smiled. “You go back to your king and live a good life.” At the first light of day the next morning, the captain set out for his home. When he arrived at the king’s castle, there was a great celebration in progress. The king was celebrating 25 years of his reign, a time of peace as well as growth in the kingdom. The king was happy and exuberant. When the young captain entered the celebration, the king smiled anticipating the captain’s humility as he admitted his defeat. The king was surprised as the captain knelt before him, held his open hand out to the king, and said, “Your majesty, I believe I have accomplished the task.” The king reached forward to take the simple steel ring from the captain’s hand. As he looked at it, his expression went from a celebratory, smiling expression to one of dismay as he read the inscription on the ring. “This too shall pass.”
bookstore in Paris! (c) MDessein
Do we each change the world? Probably. Is that our intention? Who knows, as we truly can’t be sure. We do our best writing, painting, singing, drawing, whatever impels us, right? What others think is up to them. Harlan was pretty clear on that! How do we get through whatever is going on for each of us? The good, the not so good, the amazing, the sad? Ah, This too shall pass.
Thank you for reading. If you are so inclined, let your friends know about my site. And of course, my book!
Life and Death walk hand in hand. There are many folktales filled with wisdom and insights about this relationship, and our relationship to it. From Nepal, Greece, Turkey, Canada, Africa, China, Mexico and beyond are these tales of tricking Death, making deals with Death, hiding from Death, befriending Death.
A Mexican tale about an old woman who tricks Death to climb up into a tree, a tree with a magic spell which holds him captive in the tree. Over time, no one dies. The world becomes over-crowded, people suffering do not die and so on. Things start to way back up, so the old woman makes a deal with Death, if he doesn’t take her, she’ll let him down. He agrees, and life goes on. There is a Greek version of this tale as well.
In 1939, the movie, “On Borrowed Time” was made, starring Lionel Barrymore as Gramps. He tricks Death into climbing up an enchanted fruit tree, from which no one can escape. Death is trapped up there. Over time, negative consequences accumulate when no one can die, including Gramps’ suffering grandson. So Death is released.
Another folktale about Luck and Death walking along. They come across a farmer working his field. The farmer recognizes them. Luck says “Let’s see who he trusts the most,” thinking this was a trick on Death, he’d show Death who was the coolest. When they ask the farmer, he looks straight at them and says, “I trust Death. He treats everyone the same.”
We each have lost people and pets and relationships we love: parents, siblings, a child, a spouse, pups, cats, gerbils, a best friend, the list goes on. For me, I have learned it always contains gratitude. Yes, gratitude for all the warm, rewarding, loving times. Endings tend to be difficult.
Many of you know the tough decisions that often are required: when to end life support measures, when to remove apparatus, to decide when to put down a beloved pet. A lovely friend who recently lost her husband sent me this song as I am preparing to put down my kitty, who is purring on my chest. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have: Tell Your Heart to Beat Again by Dan Gokey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F77v41jbOYs
