And then there were flowers

My grandma (mother of my mother) was born in 1900 and died more than 90 years later. She raised her five children more or less alone and was an independent and strong woman. She got furious about politics sometimes when she got older, fantasizing about shooting them all with a laser gun. I liked her.

Aunt Lori, grandma Charlotte, and my mother (also called Charlotte)

She was a gifted painter (I would say) but apparently she only painted flowers.

When I emptied my parents' house after they had died, there were a number of flower paintings hanging on the wall, and several jugs, jars, trays, boxes and such everywhere over the house, all covered with flowers. I don't want to keep it all (not sure who would want to have this stuff) but I took it home with me, and took photographs (or scans) of everything. Then I uploaded them all to flickr, a popular photo community that has lots of groups, some of them about flower painting. My grandma's work will get a little bit of digital immortality.

Here are some of her pictures. Go to flickr if you want to see them all.

(This is the writing on the back side of one of the postcard sized paintings, from the 1960s like most of her work. Funny how the writing style has changed - I have a hard time deciphering this)

The Berry Feast (for Gary Snyder)

October 23, a few warm days, almost like summer. I stopped working in the afternoon to drive up one of my favorite hills near my house, took a few photos, and spent half an hour lying on the meadow under the deep blue sky, visited by this summer's last crickets

Paper Crane

let us meet again
in this secret world
that our minds will never know

we can open the windows
and let silence in,
bird calls and wind in the grass

let us align ourselves with this
it has been patiently waiting
while we were dreaming





the autumn wind caresses the lake,
making little ripples of tenderness
birds swoop down, shouting with joy,
reeds and trees are swaying

wind, lake, birds, reeds
are all in love with you
and dance to remind you
to drop your imaginary baggage

and end your imaginary travels!
you have been home all the time
please be here with us
and dance with us again!





a dark pond in the woods -
over the years I've found out how to
still its ripples until
I can see the moon's reflection:
by not doing anything.

Today I find myself
about to jump right in,
knowing I will dissolve
in the depth
where all knowing ends






tonight I dreamed
I was in love with a beautiful lion.
I knew I should be very afraid
but I decided to trust.

We lied in the dark and held each other very close.
In the morning she ran and turned
into a beautiful and dangerous creature again





jump into the endless glistening blue
sink beyond the multitudes of sunlit
movements and colors and forms.
In an ordinary ocean you'd now disappear
in a cold dark mostly lifeless abyss,

But in this kind of depth,
the deeper you sink, the more wonderful it gets -
it will be beyond your wildest dreams,
because this abyss is lit up by
something brighter than all suns





step aside and become quiet,
let this cat's purr fill the universe
like each of these dew drops mirrors all creation

afterwards, you are free to resume your dream of self.
you are sitting in God's lap and all is well,
even if you walk away from it,
but then it might be difficult to notice

 

Drone

Maybe it was the last warm summer day of 2012. I took a longer walk up and around my favorite hill, enjoying the warmth and the silence - nobody was around and sometimes I need to be completely alone to find myself.

There was no wind and it was very quiet, except for some faraway birds and some crickets. I stood and scanned the far horizon when I became aware of a very quiet, almost inaudible high drone - and of a cloud of several dozen tiny insects that circled around and above my head.

I don't know why these insects flew around me - they didn't settle on my skin and they seemed completely harmless. They liked me for some reason, and they stayed with me for about 15 minutes. They were very small and very fast, tiny dots, barely visible against the blue sky. I couldn't believe my ears - I don't think I have ever heard something like this before. Unexpected and magical!

I found that the swarm of insects reacted to my movements - I could raise a hand, and they would back up a little bit. For some reason, the pitch was higher when they were close, and it went down immediately when they went further away. Eventually, they flew away, and the sound vanished into silence.




I did not have a recorder with me to record the sound, and the insects were very quiet, almost inaudible, the recorder wouldn't have recorded much. Here is a recording of a swarm of insects inside of a hedge behind my house, recorded in 2007. I sped the recording up to give it a pitch that was like what I heard today. It sounds a bit different (that sound was much more steady and quiet), but you can get an idea.

Past and Present

that year, August afternoon,
car trunk full of my
distant past, amazing how distant

a walk around my past
dusty hands teary eyes
amazing how many tears

music of perotin while
driving away from my past
amazing how far away

on the old streets,
different people
amazing how different

whatever this was and is
body and mind and heart
amazing

Firefly Season

a sip of wine from my wife's glass
late evening at the pond with the neighbours.
they are back, the tiny wandering lights
of pure magic. bats whizzing by very closely.
between the clouds: summer stars

fireflies stay home on the next night
they couldn't compete with that
fantastic moon rising, almost full
outshining everything
making moon shadows

early sunday morning, sun and
warm enough for a breakfast outside.
It is quiet first, then it gets even quieter.
The stillness is palpable, a dense presence
underlying everything.

sparrows chirping, emphasizing the silence
stars twinkling, emphasizing the black velvet emptiness
thoughts thinking, emphasizing this presence.
a quiet fire of happiness
our birthright, our natural state

Good Advice

when I was a kid, it was customary to have a special kind of book (called "Poesiealbum"), empty at first, that was given to parents and teachers and school friends, and everyone wrote some sort of inspiration quote, small poem, or short text into it, meant as an advice for life. Is this a phenomenon specific for Germany or do other cultures have this as well?

I recently found my own Poesiealbum - apparently I got it in 1964 when I was ten. The first four pages were autographed by my parents and my grandparents (mother's parents). Later, after some empty pages, they are followed by pages by two or three teachers and just two or three friends, but their quotes aren't really interesting. I am surprised to what degree I can agree today with what my parents wrote, even if the whole thing seems pretentious, even kitschy to me today.


"Who relies on others will live in a shaky world. Who relies on himself, stands well"
This sentence, written (as I googled) by Paul Heyse, was actually my father's own motto for life I think. He hated to be dependent on others. During most of his working life, he was the boss of a small print shop, and he managed to keep the family alive and fed.




"Don't destroy your peace of mind by looking back, worrying about the past. Live in the present; enjoy the present"
This one, contributed by my mother, really surprised me - I googled it and it turned out to be by Henry David Thoreau. I don't believe she was actually familiar with Thoreau's work, she probably found it in some collection of dictums, but nonetheless a remarkable choice - the modern mystics such as Eckhart Tolle couldn't have put it better (although there is far more to living in the moment than most people realize).




"Let yourself be guided - but not in your feeling and your thinking"
This one, suggested by my grandma (who had a rebellious spirit and raised her five children without religion), was originally written by Friedrich von Sallet, a German writer from the early 19th century who was critical of religion and the military. Not bad, grandma!


"Making others happy makes you happy"
Don't remember much of my grandpa. And I don't know who wrote this line - but the German wording can be found back into the mid-19th century, according to Google. Not sure what to think of this but I see the source of happiness somewhere else. Too bad I can't discuss this with my grandpa! he died when I was a child.

What would I write in a boy's Poesiealbum book? something like a motto of my life? What is that motto? I can't seem to put it into words at the moment. The simple insight into reality can't be put into words.

White Light

Charlotte Peters 1921 - 2012

THE UNIVERSE IS AN OCEAN OF WHITE LIGHT,
AND ON IT DANCE THE WAVES OF LIFE AND DEATH

It was no surprise to us that my mother left her body last Sunday - she was 91, had struggled with dementia for 10 years (since my father had died), and more and more severe health problems added to her suffering. Besides the obvious feelings of loss, we are glad that she finally made it, it must have felt like an enormous relief to her.



Sitting in the grass
on top of the hill
where I sat when my father had died.

Now both are gone
but both are inside of me,
father in the belly, mother in the heart

a quiet double presence of support
and strength and love
allowing sadness and joy to coexist.

What holds me, when I look closer,
actually extends to the horizon
and further than that.

The wind blows eternally
over the hill, bending the grass,
a few raindrops like kisses.

Yes, they are gone, and I'll be gone
eventually, as will everyone else,
but that what is here will always be here

And always is now