Younger and Older

That thing you do
with your eyes
the edges crinkle and hold
a smile your mouth attempts
to deny.

I feel the warmth of you
and bask sunning
my own soul.

-By the Corbyhawk herself

Broad-billed Hummingbird

Young Gray Hawks

Last night
I dreamed I became myself
I dreamed I became a bird
I dreamed I became a dream

From Lam Thi My Da -Dedicated to a Dream (translated by Martha Collins and Linh To)

THE HAWTHORN TREE

by: Willa Cather (1873-1947)

CROSS the shimmering meadows--

Ah, when he came to me!

In the spring-time,

In the night-time,

In the starlight,

Beneath the hawthorn tree.

Up from the misty marsh-land--

Ah, when he climbed to me!

To my white bower,

To my sweet rest,

To my warm breast,

Beneath the hawthorn tree.

Ask of me what the birds sang,

High in the hawthorn tree;

What the breeze tells,

What the rose smells,

What the stars shine--

Not what he said to me!

Burned

violet

it flowered again
despite the recent death
of the old violet blossoms
they hang curled up edges
of black debris
laying waste on cushioned velvet
out of no where a burst of color
a brief interlude of hope
in each chunky blossom
burnished a purple blue
I care for it as if it were the last
such ordinary flower
as if leaf edged in gilded carat gold
because of who picked its perfect color

I recognized for the first time in my life there is a mystery in the transmission of feeling across wide space; the fact that individual essence may be poured out of one and carried on a sheet a paper faithfully to its goal, may run through the living fingers, a stream of vital energy, possibly ponderable, anyway effectual, speaking to one of what it will, and that one receives messages with some receptive organ besides the elementary ones of eye and ear. Every written word is embued with a portion of the writer's total being; the properties of the blood, bones and nerves have flowed into the electrical stream that charges the page.

-Mabel Dodge Luhan - Edge of Taos Desert

There is always a little let-down after a show. It was a good mix and the work looked nice. It is still up, hanging, waiting for the right viewer to find it. That is hope right? That a certain person will find it and your communication will vibrate in them, sending them some impression of why the work was created. Maybe it will stay with them like a melody that repeats over and over, causing them to look differently at the world, maybe for a moment. Then are you less alone as the creator, your vision is picked up and lives on. Ah, hope when I am feeling rather low tonight.

Chihuahuan Raven

Me and My Canoe

Landfall

Come with me, there. The River winds itself around the islands placed randomly along its path. They glow pink granite among the steely blue water. The water always moves, running with hidden currents that ripple the surface. Grip your paddle as we go in my red canoe. Be careful it tips easily, so try to stay in the middle. It is calm out now, and everything glows from the rain droplets. The thunderstorm was short but intense and now the air is crisper, almost like fall. It reminds me of you. Four minks swim up to us. Their dark molten brown fur shows on their little heads as they come closer. A mom and her three babies. They don't see us until they are right up to us. Mom startles and quickly turns around. She raises her tail in alarm and it sticks out of the water like a wet whip. The crow family is in the trees above us. The youngsters are constantly cawing for food. The parents silently keep about the hunt as the young follow with demanding cries. One of them has white-tipped feathers. You can see their pink mouths as they yell.
The sun is setting as we go, following the line of the islands. The cottages mostly stand empty but a few people watch us as we pass. My hair is blowing out around me and my arms are strong as I pull the paddle in a rhythm. Don't worry I will steer us. We can weave in and out of rocky shores watching the spotted sandpiper dance on the edges of the rocks. The trees and brush reach into the water. They are hiding huge water snakes and a small yellow warbler who looks rather ragged.
We turn around the longest island to meet the sunset head on. A loon stretches its wings in the sunlight and calls its lonely cry. It echoes through us as we go. I turn and spot a heron, who is waiting in perfect stillness for his next meal. Suddenly as we reach home the sun dips below the tall white pines across the river, casting its orange and pink light to the waiting clouds above.

D.H. Tree

" A bird is not finished until it can fly" -William Morris Hunt

I will be away for a few days. I have a painting in a show that opens tomorrow night and I will be traveling to get there.

Cassin's Kingbirds (immature)

I really should be working. I am taking a brief damn it's hot and the humidity is killing me break. I generally do not like making frames but it is a necessary evil. I have to get to my painting and have a great idea for my new blank canvas that is patiently waiting for me in my boiling studio. I found out I am in another show (yes I know I should not be complaining it is a GOOD problem) which has sent me into a panic mode that I am responding to with an odd melancholy lethargy. Perhaps I am about to change my work dramatically in response to what I was seeing out west. This is a good thing?? One never knows. Only I must go now and really pull myself up out of the funk I am in and get something done. I make my own self crazy, off I go after I put a picture on here...

With him, life flooded back into the room, into every corner of it, into the chairs and tables, into the bowl of wild roses, and into me, too.

Mabel Dodge Luhan -Edge of Taos Desert
(longing)

From the sunrise

I snapped this on my way to some great birding in Madera Canyon. (great minds think alike :-)

1. All right, here are the rules.

2. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.

3. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

4. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight
things and post these rules.

5. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged
and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re
tagged, and to read your blog.

1. Fact: I hate being tall, it implies so much in and of itself and I would rather be less visible. It is also difficult to find clothes to fit since the "ideal" female is a size 1 and has a much smaller body frame. (I am 6ft and a size 11) Men also tend to prefer smaller women.
2. Fact: I can have a sharp tongue and a wicked humor (I generally do not do this in public, but I can be really sarcastic)
3. Habit: I have the habit of spotting and taking notice of all of the living creatures around me wherever I am. (I also can note their present state of being, i.e. observe limps, etc.) (this even applies on a highway)
4. Fact: I hate housekeeping
5. Habit: I tend to repeat a point in conversation 3 times in three different ways
6. Fact: I wanted to be a biologist when I was young, but decided to be an artist so I would have something to write about when I was old.
7. Habit: I frown when I am thinking about something (I am trying to break this bad habit in order to prevent getting wrinkles which really want to show up)
8. Habit: I sometimes daydream and they can become very elaborate stories built upon over time. (A wonderful meeting diversion)

I am not going to send this out to other bloggers, sorry I am breaking the chain meme (bad, bad girl) I am pathetic enough to not really know 8 other bloggers (pitiful I know). So if you read it and you feel inclined, go with it.

Near Abiquiu

They danced effortlessly, borne by the shared rhythm. And my companions and I looked poor and outside life as we squatted on the ground, able only to watch them. The doom of our race, I thought, is to watch things. We travel around or we stay at home, but wherever we are, we are only looking at life, not living it. Looking at it and telling about it, not being it. We have even learned to make a virtue of this substitution of modes...

-Mabel Dodge Luhan -Edge of Taos Desert

Mission of St. Francis

Skull at D.H. Lawrence's ranch

I am sitting on a bed at Mabel Dodge's house. I should be conversing with the spirits of Willa Cather, D.H. Lawrence, Alfred Stieglitz, Carl Jung, and of course Georgia O'Keeffe. In this small adobe room I can see the giant wood rafters, and slide my feet over polished wood floors covered in native rugs. The walls have a funny way of holding the light and casting shadows. It is as if the light doesn't bounce off of the walls but gets sucked into them. These floors have seen so many ghosts and inspired so many artists and intellectuals. I love it here, despite myself (the one that refuses to like what so many others have liked). It is not the overdone glitz for the tourists that I admire, but the subtle creep of the light over flat surfaces, the giant brightness of the flowers against the big blue sky, and other visual feasts I can try to photograph but must save in my mind. You can see everything around you as you drive. The plains of sagebrush green on blue green marching like an abstract painting towards a blue gray sky. Photos cannot hold it, they do not see it in my eyes. So I hope those spirits rub some of their magic into me as I sleep here. What dreams will I have? I know I am waxing romantic, but it is hard to not do so in this place. So tonight I send this out to all of you, fellow creatives. So that the conversations once begun in such places does not die out in isolation. Maybe we can all carry it, sit for a late drink face to face by the adobe fireplace under the star filled sky. I can hear the wind whipping as it does through the cottonwoods, rustling them for tomorrow.
-The Corby

I am in the desert, a stone's throw from Mexico. It was in the low 100 degree range today. It is so dry that you don't sweat, it just evaporates right off of your skin. The sun blazes with a sharp intensity that burns out the colors around you. Everything seems bleached. The plants are agave, prickly pear, mesquite trees, cholla catus, and octaillo. The hummingbirds are plentiful and all different kinds appear to glow in the bright sun. Broad-billed, Anna's, Lucifer, Black-Chinned, Magnificent, Blue-throated, and Broad-tailed. They buzz as they fly past you. Their wings making distinct sounds for each species. It is an area suffering from a long drought. The rivers are threatening to dry up and leave the booming population thirsty. So they import more people and pave the desert floor. Hope you are all well, I may not be back for a bit. (no access to the internet for a few days)
-Corby

Georgia's Mountain

When I am gone
scatter me there
on my mountain of
blue perdernal
flat it stands
make no fuss
I will become wind
fingers through sagebrush
ambling up over old fence posts
bleached cedar in the sun
My rooms empty
my eyes now see all things
the cups are washed and placed away

-by Corby in tribute to a trip to the O'Keeffe house

For Stieglitz (After Equivalents)

Day 2 was much better. Art, Art and more Art. I walked until I was having difficulty lifting up my feet. So many galleries and they all began to blur together. Surface is prominent, collaged textures, simple rather introspective right on the edge of meaningless work. Cult of the idiosyncratic self is what I would say as a brief overview.

Day 1 of the trip was dreadful. The airlines decided to just start canceling flights and this created chaos, as you can imagine. Add to this a massive weather front that hit the Eastern US and you have a whole lot of stuck travelers. It is also interesting when the airlines think you are in Ohio when you are actually in Atlanta at their customer service desk. Hmmm, makes it tricky to catch a plane you are already late for, but has been mercifully delayed. Get on it and then wait for the pilots for 40 minutes. Yes it was fun times. I even managed to break my good long lens a costly problem, when my camera bag strap broke in the airport.

The Corby Hawk has flown

I will be leaving early tomorrow and have much to accomplish before then. My blogging may be a bit sparse in the near future as I will be on the road, following the path of O'Keeffe.

Life and love are life and love, a bunch of violets is a bunch of violets, and to drag in the idea of a point is to ruin everything. Live and let live, love and let love, flower and fade, and follow the natural curve, which flows on, pointless.

-D.H. Lawrence
(in honor of my trip that will be where he also once traveled)

Go and explore some romantic but lovely images of people with animals here

Bunch of Bunnies

Group of 7

I managed to hit myself in the face with a large stick. It fell on me as I was moving them. Fabulous, now I have a bruised face and eye. I am a major klutz.

Otherwise the day was relaxing, a rare thing in my world. I built an upgrade to the rabbit cage and cooked some really delicious Kansas City Barbeque Chicken and potatoes. I made my own sauce and it was supremely yummy. I also had a fire and roasted marshmellows (hence the moving large and apparently threatening sticks)

A pleasant day before the rush of packing. I am going West soon! (with a black eye no doubt (sigh)) So I will have some really cool photos soon. Until then you will have to be content with the supremely cute group of 7 (bunnies that is).

Robin with no tail

I rescued this robin off of the road. He is under veterinary care tonight, but may have to live in captivity until he can regrow some tail feathers.

Laura was leaning against the fireplace, gazing at Paul. And Paul noticed all of a sudden that she was no longer wearing dark glasses. She held them in her hand and gazed at him, her eyes swollen and moist. He realized that for quite a while she hadn't been listening to what he was saying.

He fell silent. The room became filled with a stillness, which made him through some mysterious power move closer to her. She said, "Paul, why didn't we two meet sooner? Before all the others..."

Those words spread out between them like a mist.

-Milan Kundera Immortality

I want to change, to rearrange
What is going on
I need to change, I need to play
Like a five year old

I can't detach from the past and all of the pain
I need to learn, start from scratch begin again

Throw away yesterday
Today is a brand new day
Throw away yesterday
Today is a brand new day

So I'm going to eat one hundred sweets
I don't care if I get fat
And I'm going to speak, I won't censor me
I know I can take nothing back

And I'm going to jump I will unburden
I cannot go too deep
I will not run from bad things I've done
They're things I'll try not to repeat

Throw away yesterday
Today is a brand new day
Throw away yesterday
Today is a brand new day

Welcome to
The church of what's happening now
Head straight through
It costs nothing but change

Sia -The Church of What's Happening Now

What lies underneath?

At a certain institution of learning there were the given formalities of the "crossing", the politically correct term for graduation. The administrators were giving their speeches in order to salute the student's achievements. During the endless speeches you could hear the sound of crickets in the auditorium, I mean this literally. There were crickets calling in the dimmed auditorium. The senior prank was to release them in the school. (Disclaimer: as I am current member of said "establishment" I do not condone the release of crickets in schools or any other animals for that matter....) I wish I had those kids in my class, the ones with that much rebellion and imagination. There is hope for the world.

What makes an eye beautiful? Not the eye itself, although there are intrinsic forms which we acknowledge to be beautiful. It is the regard, the soul; and, in part, what surrounds the eye. Not the "liquid look." A snail has that.

-William Morris Hunt -On Painting and Drawing

One eye

On days like today, after intolerable heat and humidity my brother and I would stand in the open garage and wait. The storm would come after changing the world to that supersaturated color. It would roll in much like today from a black sky. My grandmother would laugh at us and remark about angels bowling in heaven. We would agree and say it must be a particularly good game of bowling if the storm was bad. She would let us go run out of the garage, when the electrical part of the storm passed over. We would run with wild abandon throwing up our arms. The downpour would immediately drench us. Our feet would slap against the still hot blacktop that steamed in the rain. We laughed like maniacs and ran in and out of the garage. My grandmother would sit and smile at us. Our clothes would hang heavy on us full of water. Eventually the storm would pass and the rain would stop. My grandmother always had warm towels on hand. Ever since those days I have loved summer storms. Even when I get soaked in them.

P.S. I have gotten into an important juried show!!
I got my dad in as well. Hence my excitement :-)

just plain cute

Don't worry about saving these songs!
And if one instrument breaks,
it doesn't matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world's harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can't see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

-Rumi -Where Everything is Music

P.S. Happy Fathers day to all fathers. I am lucky to have my own father still, who is currently on vacation fishing. (his favorite thing) I am also lucky enough to have an amazing father who fought cancer and more in his life with a stubborn will. Thanks for that dad, it gets me through all adversity when I need it I can bull through just like you.

Bacon, Number VII

From the Museum of Modern Art, the series Eight Studies for a Portrait by Francis Bacon

I spent a little time with Francis Bacon this morning.
It was a rather good time to go, the gallery was practically empty
aside from a few artists I have seen often but do not really know.
What was interesting to me about Bacon's work is not the over commented on faces, yes we know they are corrupted, disfigured and oddly animal looking. Rather it was the simple suggestion of space that he employed in many paintings. I know I am looking for this in my own work. The figure takes up the foreground and the rest fades. There is no complicated process of space. It is so simple and masterful, it does not take away from the central focus, but leads you right into it. Space often becomes little frames and areas of hue. The hue pushes back the space and in a sense the color itself then creates space, when the values are played with. How utterly simple and I am always tending to try to over complicate in my own work. So a good lesson from Francis today, and I am eager to try it out.
On my way out one of the artists I see but do not know (I am rather shy in person) commented on the show. They are so modern for 1950 don't you think? Hmmm, well I said yes of course. It was interesting how we all are looking for different things and I wanted good ole' Francis to show me space, she wanted to be reminded of the modern. Ahhhhh, today I love painting, love it and I am in my studio ready to correct a painting and give it space. Thanks Francis.

Field Sparrow

There are many birds in decline that you would never suspect.
There is a list here and you can read an article here

We are able to hear a single tone.
But we almost never (that is, without special devices) see a single color
unconnected and unrelated to other colors.
Colors present themselves in continuous flux, constantly related to
changing neighbors and changing conditions.

As a consequence, this proves for the reading of color
what Kandinsky often demanded for the reading of art:
what counts is not the what but the how.

-Interaction of Color- by Josef Albers

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -Evangeline

The tables were wooden with plastic checkered tablecloths. I was around 12 at the time and entering that horribly awkward stage. I remember sitting and listening to the conversations around me. I was always doing that, listening to adult gossip and wondering what my own life story was going to be like. I was rather determined that my life was going to be an interesting life full of sighed upon scandal. It certainly seemed better then the alternative.

This party was in a big barn and the band was playing near hay bales. They were playing old timey music, fiddles and banjos. Lots of people were dancing. The food was excellent, my first taste of smoked salmon (a dish I still relish). I remember dancing for the first time with a partner. This was a new experience, a young woman being asked to dance. They were mostly older and it was all rather innocent. They just made it effortless for me. I loved the way that felt, a man taking the lead and pulling me along to his movements.

To this day, I have a certain feeling of joy when I hear old timey music. It always pulls me into those first moments of really feeling feminine. A certain magic that still echoes, even today as I drove home. I was listening to the now defunct band The Heartbeats and remembering those dances. It made me smile as I sang to it. In my mind I was pulled along with a hand resting just so on my back, and my body gliding across the hay strewn floor.

People have (with the help of conventions) oriented all their solutions
toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear
that we must hold to what is difficult; everything alive holds to it, everything
in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and
spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition.

Rainer Maria Rilke -Letters to a Young Poet

little

I will eat this city
that had rejected me
refused to feed me
would not call me home

I will wear its sparkling sidewalks
tango in old memories
and dance on the back
of grown-up doubts

I will take it ruthless
deny me nothing
I will hold this
my dreams drive freeways


-Corby

So the one rabbit I rescued has added up to 10. Last night Hyzenthlay (yes I have named her) kindled 10 babies, but one died.

In other news, I may miss an opening I am having. It is not a solo show but I wonder if I should really try to be there. hmmmm.... I wonder what the protocol is for that?

There is a huge debate about wind farms. They are much more ecological for energy production, but can harm hundreds of migrating birds because of their locations. I am in the middle of this debate. Which is the greater cost, the individual birds that die from the turbines or the loss of habitat and the effects of warming? I wonder if a compromise is possible.

Doing work late, again.... but here an anthem to enjoy by Rufus Wainwright which I am just really enjoying here

Go and take a virtual walk so that you never have to leave home,

A child that I know (I do not have my own) mentioned to me that she is allergic to walruses. I asked her how she figured out she was allergic to them. Well, she said whenever she is swimming and a walrus comes over to her she really begins to sneeze.

Everyone at work is really putting forth the effort to make me look like an idiot.
-ugh.
In other news, I am sick to death of my own self and just really feeling far to depressed to even want to post this at all. I need my damn painting and all this other crap I am doing does not appease me at all. I am utterly dissatisfied. I have fallen into the abyss, I will fall off the edge of the world, I will fall and fall and fall and fall.
-empty air greets me and my miserable self

fawn

His paintings grew darker every year.
They filled the walls, they filled the room;
eventually they filled his world-
all but the ravishment.
When the voices faded, he would rush to hear
the scratched soul of Mozart
endlessly in gyre.
Back and forth, back and forth,
he paced the paint-smeared floor,
diminishing in size each time he turned,
trapped in his monumental void,
raving against his adversaries.
At last he took a knife in his hand
and slashed an exit for himself
between the frames of his tall scenery.
Through the holes of his tattered universe
the first innocence and the light
came pouring in.

-The Artist by Stanley Kunitz

Whether you realize it or not, you have now dramatically altered your hawk's perception of the world.

-The Falconer's Apprentice William C. Oakes

I speak to them:

"If you are hands,

why don't you

touch?"



And the wings beat

the air, clapping.

They fly



high above elbows

and wrists.

They open windows

and leave

-from Hands Siv Cedering

Why the snow brush didn't work

(yes I still have a snow brush in my car in June, but hey we had 24 inches of snow in early October)

With Fiver beside him, he led the way out of the ditch and down the slope. In less than a minute the little band of rabbits had disappeared into the dim, moonlight night.


-Watership Down by Richard Adams

Rescued rabbit

A rather odd day. The bird banding station was closed, sadly. On the way I had to rescue a white rabbit that was on the side of the road. She looked rather ragged and is skinny (you can feel her backbone). She was hopping in the ditch and I was sliding in the cattail muck. Now she is resting well, had a bath and has eaten some food.
Then I had to move a big old female snapping turtle out of the expressway. They are laying eggs and like the soft dirt on the shoulder of the roads. Sometimes they stray and get run over. Luckily I grabbed two bungee cords and slipped them under her. This set up enabled me to carry her off the road without getting snapped by her strong jaws. (never grab them by the tail, they can reach you with their mouth) (always cross them in the direction they are going or they will just go back)
Then finally the rain came after I had some time to plant. It was a welcomed relief from the driest May EVER in this area (and one of the hottest).

really cool and hypnotic a whale online, let it flow by you. Ok, back to work.

looking up?

There is something I should attend tonight, a big art party but I can't seem to gather up the energy. I am determined to not be sad, there are just too many things I want to do with my life to mope. It is not productive, but I find myself edging around it tonight. I almost applied to this show/art party thing and I am glad I did not. I have been very busy with work. I worked for a good part of the day and the weather has been gorgeous. I have a case of the why bothers? Oh well life is life, who cares anyway. People are going to be on your path or they are not. There is no use is trying to make it otherwise. I know better and the thought of it rather depresses me. Oh well, why bother, life is life. So I will stay home and go to bed early and go do bird research tomorrow early where they can hold them in hand. I am afraid I am rather blah, so go look here for a cool blog.

This will be brief, I worked a 14.5 hour day a non-stop on your feet one from 7:30 AM to 10:00 PM (I think my math is right, I am sooooooo sleepy).
I just wanted to post my weird event. A teenager had the song "Dreams" by the Cranberries on her phone. I thought that was odd because it is an older song and she is young. I mentioned that I had not heard it in a long time. Then I heard it on the radio just on my way home. Odd.
Then I thought hmmm... I should pull out that old CD and upload it to my mp3 player. I switched radio stations and the other station played "Zombie", Weird.

Oh my life is changing everyday
Every possible way
Though my dreams, it’s never quite as it seems
’cause you’re a dream to me
Dream to me
-Cranberries "Dream"

Goodnight good people.