Buffy Sainte~Marie's "Piney Wood Hills"

I'm a rambler and a rover and a wanderer it seems
I've travelled all over chasing after my dreams
But a dream should come true and a heart should be filled
And a life should be lived in the Piney Wood Hills

I'll return to the woodlands, I'll return to the snow
I'll return to the hills, and the valley below
I'll return as a poor man or a king if God wills
But I'm on my way home to the Piney Wood Hills

I was raised on a song there
I done right, I done wrong there
And it's true I belong there
And it's true it's my home

From ocean to ocean I've rambled and roamed
And soon I'll return to my Piney Wood home
Maybe someday I'll find someone who will
Love as I love my Piney Wood Hills

~ Today is My Birthday ~

 

Today is my birthday. My sister posted me this video which captures my sentiments today. I've been sung a new song, sent a poem, greeted with red wine and chocolates, called by old friends. Now I'm gonna retire with my overdue library book, The Yellow House, and think on painting. The author is marvelous at describing the details of method applied by Van Gogh and Gauguin, and I haven't found a review on the book yet that mentions this as the main joy of the read. Truly it is, the only disappointment being I've sent myself running to other books on my shelf that include colour images of the numerous works that appear only in black & white among the chapters of this novel, despite Martin Gayford's lucid descriptions. Again, nothing tells it like the real painting; but a great writer can at least entice you to yearn to taste the fruit itself.

Mantra for the Coming New Year

World, we can do much better than this, having pure hearts, strong bodies, able minds. We need to use our own talents wisely, ethically, and the universe will provide. To be self-sufficient and also to serve, but to do so with self-respect and dignity. This is how you discover the best way to feed yourself and keep a roof over your head, and to have enough, rather than allow yourself to be a have or a have not, for that is not the way the world should be divided. From the true self comes the healthy whole. It takes guts to be true ~ Ranza

By The Light of The Full Moon

Well, here we go then. It's winter, the fir is in the wood stove, the fur is on my unshaved legs. 

The night before last I went for a walk under the almost full moon, and was entranced beneath the silver grey spotlight that lit up the dirt road at the top of our drive...serene, sparkling slate silence. The house we rent sits in a dell-like clearing at the bottom of a steep driveway. Standing at the top of the drive, one can look across this dell at a dozen-filled row of poplar trees reaching up their stiff tendril branches. In the evening light these branches were like white ash veins knotted through long skinny fingers clawing toward a charcoal glinted sky, gently tickling the rolling bellies of the tumbling night clouds.And I thought what past master would have managed to capture this scene on canvas? Van Gogh perhaps. I can often see the painting, I know whose style or talent might portray it, but rarely can I convey it, except to use too many adjectives in a struggle for verbal description so you too can see what I saw.

I love to paint, but don't very often finish anything. Even so, paintings burn in me all the time.  Maybe I'll start to paint this nature around me. Until now, it's been whatever comes into my head...faces, patterns, still lifes. But here on Gabriola, this is where I will start to make my tracks, like the deer who wink at me and encourage me not to care how I go about anything. And my life is yours too of course.