Phyllis Edgerly Ring's Blog, page 54
June 24, 2013
What the heart can never understand
At the end of a talk, the Dalai Lama was asked: “Why didn’t you fight back against the Chinese?”
He looked down, swung his feet just a bit, then looked back up and said with a gentle smile, “Well, war is obsolete, you know “
Then, after a few moments, his face grave, he said, “Of course the mind can rationalize fighting back … but the heart, the heart would never understand.
“Then you would be divided in yourself, the heart and the mind, and the war would be inside you.”
Artwork courtesy Saffron Moser.
June 22, 2013
A few forever questions
You don’t want a million answers as much as you want a few forever questions.
The questions are diamonds you hold in the light.
Study a lifetime and you see different colors from the same jewel.
The same questions, asked again, bring you just the answers you need just the minute you need them.
~ Richard Bach
Artwork courtesy of D. Kirkup Jewelry Designs, http://dkirkupjewelrydesigns.com/
June 21, 2013
Cuckoo Moon ~ for Carpe Diem Midsummer Kigo #226, Hototogisu (little or English cuckoo)
Reblogged from A 19 Planets Art Blog 2010/2013:
the sound of time
stands still against the moon
little cuckoo bird
Digital Drawing and Painting
6.75 x 9.75 Inches @ 300 pp
4.5 x 6.5 Inches Postcard to 4 x 6 Inches
Zen Brush App
iPad 2
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6
My response to prompt #226, Hototogisu (little or English cuckoo) for the Carpe Diem June 2013 prompts, which are centered around traditional "
A find I simply have to share today. Many thanks, 19 Planets. Straight to the Core.
June 20, 2013
The sweet surprises in going the distance
Like much life experience, a book’s publication will show you — and quickly — what you didn’t know that you didn’t know. About life, and others. About your work. And, about yourself.
My novel Snow Fence Road, finding its way into the world at this time of the summer solstice, came into being at this time more than 20 years ago. It began with a dream of the incident that shatters one character’s life. I can mark that juncture as a turning point in my own life, but no matter how good a listener I tried to be when capturing and gathering together the pieces of the story, the themes, largely emotional ones, only came full-circle in awareness once the work was complete. And that, in part, is a gift from those who make room in their life to read it.
Bless kind Angelique at her Why I Can’t Stop Reading blog. She’s invited me to be her first guest post today as I reflect on this.
Come visit and read the rest at:
June 18, 2013
Becoming our Call
Oh, goodness, how things do collide and intersect for me out there in the reading world.
These two gravitate together, right now:
The soul has a no-return policy. Once we cross a certain point in our expansion, we can’t go back. As we honor our calling, we grant it more space inside of us. Light begets light—at a certain point, there is no way to escape the inner beacon. Our calling begins to soak every aspect of our lives, whatever the cost or inconvenience. We cannot live without our call because our call has become us. Path decisions then come straight from the heart of true-path, and we move only when our soul motor tells us to. Turn on your karmic engine … ~ Jeff Brown, Soulshaping
Consider, moreover, how frequently doth man become forgetful of his own self, whilst God remaineth, through His all-encompassing knowledge, aware of His creature, and continueth to shed upon him the manifest radiance of His glory. It is evident, therefore, that, in such circumstances, He is closer to him than his own self. He will, indeed, so remain for ever, for, whereas the one true God knoweth all things, perceiveth all things, and comprehendeth all things, mortal man is prone to err, and is ignorant of the mysteries that lie enfolded within him …. ~ Bahá’u’lláh
June 17, 2013
Remembering why
As I read and listen this morning, the span between the trustworthy and the treacherous seems chasm-wide in the world of human doing. Seems very preoccupied with and distracted by what, in the end, is imitation of the past. And I remember:
~ Nothing that exists remains in a state of repose. Everything is either growing or declining.
~ Kind forces are drawing us away from preoccupation with “fighting evil” toward creative, collaborative, and limitless building of the good.
~ We are here to mirror to each other the attributes of the Creator.
~ Every attribute and faculty we possess, known and unknown, comes into balance as we strive to align the acts of giving and receiving.
~ An eternal life begins when we begin to acquire what lasts forever.
~ The gift of this age, bestowed on all humanity, is the right each one of us has to investigate reality independently.
~ The natural outcome of that expresses itself in willing, joyful acts of service — the personal and collective pathway for building the good.
How am I honoring and expressing that potential on my path?
How will it free my heart from the weight of a world’s unreal illusions this week?
Authors Ron Tomanio, Diane Iverson and Phyllis Ring explore these themes in the soon-to-be-released With Thine Own Eyes: Why Imitate the Past When We Can Investigate Reality? coming this summer from George Ronald Publisher.
June 16, 2013
Bloom on, Dad
Six years after my father’s death, a memory of him blooms as faithfully each June as the flowers erupting all around.
Days after his death, I was lamenting the achingly empty rooms of his house when something pulled my attention to his back garden.
The brilliance waiting there nearly bowled me over — I remember literally gasping to get my breath back. Every bush, shrub, and bulb he’d ever planted seemed to be in bloom at once, ecstatic testimony to the indomitable nature of life itself.
That indefatigable blooming brought to mind the last bit of gardening we’d done together the year before. Dad had a little strip of land on which he planted impatiens each year. That June, I’d spied two trays of them on his patio and realized that, since he could barely walk any longer, there was no way he could plant them.
We were quite a team that day, “helped” by his ever-eager miniature schnauzer, Patsy, namesake of the saint on whose day she was born. Dad churned up the soil with a long-handled trowel while I followed, nestling the little plants into place. It had just rained so the job was messy, the mosquitoes thick, and Patsy a determined quality-control inspector (i.e. right in my face) as I hunkered over those beds. 
I knew the task was one of the very last things we’d do together.
Year by year, I discover the many intangibles my father helped bring to bloom. The day of my UMass graduation, he pulled the car to the side of the road on a rise that overlooks Amherst (he was inclined to try and execute things with a flourish), turned around to where I sat in back, and announced: “You graduated. And you did well. But most important is that you kept going. You didn’t give up. In time, you’ll value that more than anything else.”
This June’s new bloom is the book I’m still surprised by, and his words couldn’t have more meaning. Our children were grade-schoolers when my parents sent congratulatory flowers with the message, “Volumes of love – we knew you could” when I’d finished what I then considered its polished draft, and an agent seemed enthused.
The story began with a dream that I’m just realizing was like a shift of wind in a boat’s sails, reorienting my life to bring it closer to what I’m here for. I love the story so much I couldn’t possibly let its “residents” remain homeless in a drawer, no matter how many readers do or don’t visit the home they’ve found in the world.
I also had to learn a LOT about patience, and process, along the way. My dad was absolutely right about the value of perseverance, which does seem more visible in the light of time.
Thinking about plants and growth, I’m reminded of an instance in which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá counseled someone who’d experienced the loss of a loved one that while the pain of physical separation remains for those left behind, for the one who dies, it’s as though a wise and kind gardener has transplanted a struggling plant to a wider, more welcoming place where it can reach a whole new level of growth.
Many things in life, as well as death, bring that home to us each day. Bloom on, Dad.
And thanks for that reminder, more useful than my degree ever was. 
June 14, 2013
Pages of history, humor, and healing
I recently rediscovered a little treasure from family history that’s supremely timely as I spend time in my novel’s post-war scenes.
Four small pages of stationery with my mother’s initials at the top are filled with her distinctive British handwriting on all eight sides. A prolific writer, she gathered these snapshot recollections from years when my parents and then pre-schooler sister lived in post-war France and Germany. God bless her. We think about doing such things so often. Now I’m a real beneficiary because she actually did.
“I decided then that you’d probably grow up to be a tactful, diplomatic person,” she describes of the time when, on her very first airplane flight (from London to Bordeaux, France), my sister, then 4, made polite conversation with the two travelers seated across from her and my mother. My mother describes them as “dressed in the full regalia of those who live in Arab countries.”
Among many vocations, my sister was eventually a staff member for three Congressmen and a U.S. Senator, which afforded numberless opportunities to practice both tact and diplomacy. Our mother had a knack for being prophetic that way.
She recalls “Tu et You,” my parents’ nickname for the rustic French farmhouse where they were billeted as a young couple. “Toilet was directly off — almost still within — the kitchen,” she writes. “The septic tank, it turns out, was directly under the toilet,” as she had occasion to discover when said toilet malfunctioned and the horse-drawn “Vidange Rapide” (“quick drain”) cart came to the rescue. The operator, she records, consumed a sandwich during the repair, all while periodically jiggling the leaky hose he was wielding. His verdict: “Too much tissue.” Apparently none was the preferred quantity.
Each weekday, from the time my sister turned 5, two military police would arrive at the house shortly before dawn to escort her to school via military staff car, a ride of an hour each way. I cannot imagine what this meant for my mother’s peace of mind. It explains a lot about why my sister’s probably one of the most unflappable travelers I know.
On some of those schooldays, my mother and a very-pregnant neighbor, also a military spouse, went to the nearby market town to do laundry. My mother handled the French-speaking, at which she was quite adept, and the neighbor provided the transportation. My mother was tasked with planning their route, which she did very carefully, as the neighbor’s Studebaker had no reverse gear.
On one of those days, Henri the gardener decided to “repair” the coal stove and inadvertently dislodged the stove pipe, which collapsed and blanketed everything in sight, including Henri, in soot. My mother notes that he did not stick around to help clean it up.
On New Year’s Eve at the luxurious Grand Hotel in Bordeaux, the elegant doors to the rooms for “hommes” (men) and “femmes” (women) opened into the same restroom. “And the very fancy chicken entrée still had most of its insides,” my mother notes. As she so often did, she came home afterward and sat on my sister’s bed and shared the evening’s details, including descriptions of the most fashionably dressed women.
Next stop in their tour of duty was Frankfurt, Germany, where most military families had maids, in part because so many postwar Germans needed the work. Ria, the first, asserted her influence with furniture: “Every weekend, your father would rearrange the gigantic German furniture, including piano, and every Monday, Ria would put it all back. ‘Nein, nein — das ist besser’.”
Harriette favored “snail and Crisco sandwiches,” and Olga, who had been a Russian prisoner of war (and suffered who knows what atrocities) hadn’t seen a flush toilet before and thought it a fine device for cleaning vegetables, my mother was horrified to discover one day.
My father, who tended to be the family storyteller, regaled us with stories like these for years and no matter how many times we heard them, they sent tears of mirth rolling down our cheeks.
My mother’s dry summaries, rendered with British wit, certainly did too. Yet there’s something that speaks volumes between their terse lines. My father, more often than not, came home to hear about these experiences, while my mother, with a battlefront whose local dialect kept changing, actually lived them.
Humor was obviously a very big part of how she managed that. And while she may have had to dig deep, some days, to find that humor, the effort itself is still a kind of healing balm, even all these years later.
Adapted from Life at First Sight: Finding the Divine in the Details.
June 13, 2013
Calling all reading travelers – and traveling readers
My biggest thanks to all who are keeping me such kind company as Snow Fence Road comes into the world this week.
If you plan to read the book, and will be traveling over the next weeks or months, please let me know. I’ve got an idea that combines these two favorites of mine and aims to keep book promo fun.
If you’d like to add the book to your summer reading, SNOW FENCE ROAD will be out June 15 officially, but is available for pre-order at Black Lyon Publishing in print or ebook format:
http://www.blacklyonpublishing.com/Snow%20Fence%20Road.html 
June 12, 2013
Forever gifts
As I visit with my sister Tracey, today brings the first birthday she’s celebrated since the two loved ones pictured with her in this photo died last summer.
The following came when she explored an exercise called “Alchemy”, in which you prepare (no editing) a short spontaneous piece reflecting voice as it relates to a game, avocation, or strong “fascinating/passionate” experience.
Last June, her husband Bob recorded a music CD, including piano compositions of his own, with the help of musician friends. So many of us are so thankful now that he did.
The day of the recording, a nearby military installation made noise of its own. Tracey’s “BC” reference refers to their life before the clinical trial in which he participated as someone with heart disease. It was a challenge this well-loved doctor had lived with since his early 20s. I believe that “Biscottie”, as in life, needs neither introduction nor explanation.
Tracey’s alchemy of outer and inner senses:
“With the help of one magical disc and an old sweater, I become a powerful time-traveler. I can close my eyes and ‘beam’ back to BC – before clinical trial. Just a flick of the CD buttons and a whiff of the sweater transport me to June last year, when Fort Indiantown Gap’s cannon fire shook the house, while my husband and his production crew prepare to record.
‘Damned inconvenient day to make a recording!’ I shout, sure that the pre-July 4 BOOMS will ruin things. I am in the adjacent kitchen making Tuscan bread, salt-free as it was when ancient Tuscans protested the prohibitive tax on salt. My Union Jack apron covers leggings and the T-shirt reading, ‘Of COURSE they’re fake; the real ones tried to KILL me.’ The sunsual smell of rising bread mingles with his own unique scent, Pear’s soap and clean cotton and polished leather.
He gives the piano an opening riff, and then segues into ‘Christmas Time Is Here,’ since this CD being recorded will substitute for a holiday greeting. I pad quietly across the dining room carpet, my bare feet showing off with orange toenails, and sit on the steps into the sunken living room. Brindly Biscottie, known to her friends as BiBi, climbs into my lap, her velvety paws nestled on my knee. I pull her pointy ears.
The music changes to a haunting number he wrote for me, ‘Mary T,’ then moves joyously into ‘I Hear A Rhapsody,’ then closes with ‘Lucky To Be Me’.
Then it ends.
Like Cinderella at midnight, my fantasy also ends: I sit alone on the step, no music, no Biscottie, not even any heady rising bread. Only the fading scent on his old sweater remains.
He knew. He made me promise to complete the CD project – he chose the photos (his arm around my coral shirt matching Biscottie’s collar, the photographer capturing her attention with a duck call), wrote the quirky liner notes (‘Mary T. was written after consultation with Leif Ericson and/or a local cabbie’) and selected the music. But mostly he knew that music, his first gift to me and now his Forever Gift, would give me these much-needed super powers, maybe bring back my wisecracking self.
I push ‘play’ again.”
~ Tracey Edgerly Meloni
