Wallace Stevens — "What is Divinity"

Brett Weston, "Tidal Pool," 1960

What is divinity if it can come

Only in silent shadows and in dreams?

Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,

In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else

In any balm or beauty of the earth,

Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?

Divinity must live within herself:

Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;

Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued

Elations when the forest blooms; gusty

Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;

All pleasures and all pains, remembering

The bough of summer and the winter branch,

These are the measures destined for her soul.

Pablo Neruda — "I Will Return"

Some other time, man or woman, traveler,

later, when I am not alive,

look here, look for me

between stone and ocean,

in the light storming

through the foam.

Look here, look for me,

for here I will return, without saying a thing, pure,

here I will return to be the churning

of the water, of

its unbroken heart,

here, I will be discovered and lost:

here, I will, perhaps, be stone and silence.

                                         _____________________

Pablo Neruda. Isla Negra. Trans. by Maria Jacetti, Dennis Maloney, and Clark Zlotchew. Buffalo, NY: White Pine Press, 2001.

Kensha:nel

Piam kan hak/ t'oSta'yokale t'oLesemo t'oshkem t'ona'taxtotsopi

Pesnoho kan hak/ echelelna't'oke sa'yot'oke lh'kat'oke t'at'et'ekaikelt'oke

A;lel kan hak kecheak tax kekayeak t'oke t'at'etalxwal

Xayatspanikan. Xayatspanikan. Xayatspanikan. Xayatspanikan.

Looking across Ts'ókhonthe tchá' towards Khoye (Echo Cliff) with Sta'yokale in the background. Photograph by John Peabody Harrington, March 17, 1932.

                                              Creator

We see You in Sta'yokale, Morro Rock, the Ocean, the Sun, and the Moon.

We hear You through Kingfisher, Eagle, Coyote and Our Songs.

We ask You to protect us and guide us in our work.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.  (spoken in the four directions)

At Mission San Antonio last week after the California Mission Riders rode in...

...Salinan elder Susan Latta prayed "Kensha:nel" at Mass that evening.

Thursday evening's Mass also featured John Warren and the New World Baroque Orchestra performing the compositions of Fray Juan Bautista Sancho, who served at Mission San Antonio de Padua from 1804 until his death in 1830.

Here is Chanticleer performing the Gloria from Sancho's "Misa in Sol."

Writer and California Mission Rider Leslie Dunton-Downer interviewed Susan and fellow Salinan elders Shirley Macagni and Suzanne Pierce Taylor (not shown).

Filmmaker and Mission Rider Gwyneth Horder-Payton; Timothy Bottoms from nearby Lásom (Rancho Salsipuedes).As others of us listened intently.

What struck me most was how this beautiful prayer "Kensha:nel" — which has such a natural affinity with the spirit of St. Francis' own "Canticle of the Creatures" — was being prayed at the mission not by a friar, but by a Salinan woman.

Must be a good black oak acorn year...

These days the acorn woodpeckers are squabbling more vociferously than usual. Wa-ka, wa-ka, wa-ka. One woodpecker chases another from limb to limb, and then when the second is caught, the two pinwheel down through the canopy, locked together until they hit the madrone and oak duff. As soon as they hit, one bounces up first, and then the second begins the chase all over again.

Forest Grove, Oregon, January 2, 2010. Photo by Greg GillsonAnd so I turned to David Lukas' just-published Bay Area Birds: From Sonoma County to Monterey Bay where I read...

"Acorn Woodpeckers spend their entire lives living in social groups with unique, complex, breeding strategies. Each group contains multiple breeding males (up to seven) and one or more breeding females (up to three), along with numerous nonbreeding helpers (up to ten)..."

Granary tree. Photo by Michael Medina."Early in the nesting season, there is a lot of squabbling as breeding males disrupt each other's copulation attempts, and as females eat each other's first-laid eggs in the nesting cavity they share..."

"There can be two peaks in the breeding season with the primary nesting effort extending from April to mid-July, and a second nesting effort from August to late September if there is an abundant supply of acorns."

                                                         ______________________

David Lukas. Bay Area Birds: From Sonoma County to Monterey Bay. Big Oak Flat, California: Lukas Guides, 2012.

Big Sur International Short Film Series: Gala Finale

The crowd began to gather.

Britt Govea of (((folkYeah!))) — who's also a Henry Miller Memorial Library board member — was spinning classic film tracks.

While the Library conveyed its own magic.

Then the night itself began.

Among this year's short film finalists..."Las Palmas" — a kind of vignette of how northerners might travel when they find themselves in sunnier lands where alcohol is less taxed.

Coincidentally or not, the HMML's own Hippie Sven followed in his own short film feature.

To provide some balance, Sven's alter ego, HMML director Magnus Torén, was also in attendance.

While "Tuba Atlantic" earned second place in the jury's selection, on Sunday it also received the Audience Award.

"Luminaris" received the jury's first place award.

The short films were great. So many events at the Henry Miller Memorial Library are wonderful. But it's the people who gather for them who make them real happenings.

(And by the way, if you missed the Gala Finale to the Big Sur International Short Film Series at HMML, you can catch it at the Independent in Sand City on Thursday, September 6.)