The Judgement Blog

The font of this post emerges from my readings of the book "Constantine's Sword, The Church and the Jews, A History." by James Carroll. 

As such, Christians and Jews, I judge them as I do myself, who being both Christian by selection and Jew by blood, claim entitlement to do so.

To a higher standard towards those Chosen, as opposed to the lesser standard I use to judge the heathen. These pagans sin unwittingly as by their un-born again nature they miss the mark by the spiritually blind and deaf being of nature itself. 

But as the religious Jew lives and breathes by adherence to the Law, and lives by its Talmudic interpretations, yet confused, yet transgressing that same, to him, to myself, I judge condemned to helpless need of a Messiah.

As the Christian Churches claims salvation through this same Messiah, yet still occurred millennia of pograms up until occurred the Nazi Holocaust besmirches the gospel books themselves. The Jews killed Jesus, are Gentiles not inculcated of this "fact" in the bones and veins of Western Civilization? 

As this book contends, a thick rope of connection does exist between the way the Gospels are read and interpreted and have been, and still are, and the Final Solution. Yet, I, as a Roman Catholic, my soul breathes on the words in the Jewish Scriptures, the Psalms, Samuel, the stories of Jacob and Ruth. 

Dear Reader, in the tone of my writing, do you sense compassion? Can I manufacture this compassion, No!

My family's unhidden Jew, Papa, refused more of the Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane painting to hang over his bed in his room. Loud the cries of anguish as his Catholic daughter lunged to force back the painting of a depiction of anguish itself. 

It is my judgement against both the selves of my Jew blood and Christian Catholic election ---that harsh and unyeilding judgement---the defect of my character, the handmaiden of the pride sin I fear unforgivable. 

But, I am not the Judge. 

My portrayal of myself as judge upon people, upon those I have loved and admired, the enactment in practice of this lie as me a legititmate judge has wreaked devastation upon fields of rich personal relations. 

But also, the practice of the Ninth Step in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous has repaired and restored most of these stricken relations to health.

Horse Healer Sensations

Since its domestication 3000 years ago, the storied history of horse and man together exemplify special bonding---the loyalty of horse to man---the love of man for horse.

FLAMENCO TAN NOBLE

The cinematic prestige of movies like ''Seabiscuit,'' ''National Velvet'', ''War Horse'' and ''The Black Stallion'' treat of this deep esteem for the noble equine characteristic.

A less heralded yet equally deserving acclaim champions the horse as healing benefactor to mentally retarded people.

Patient at Empoderamiento Con Caballos

Marthy Ch, a nurse for The Ministry of Public Health of Ecuador, also works with therapeutic horses and those patients whom she calls her ''babies'' at Empoderamiento con Caballos, (Empowerment with Horses)--- an organization directed by clinical psychologist Christini Ring and located in the Cotacachi area of Imbabura Province in Ecuador.

''Horses generate a deep motivation,'' Ch says, ''they perceive who we really are.''

This equine sensitivity awakens healing of awareness in the patients.

''Being in the presence of horses takes us more to the present moment, we calm down, we concentrate more and more,'' said Ch. ''A transformation happens...personally I love this because I feel it in my soul.''

Marthy Ch with horse and patient

''It seems there is something special and mystical in connection with horses,'' said Ch. ''People of all ages are attracted to horses because of their majestic beauty, grace, stature and strength.''

What aspects thrive in those horses best suited for therapy to the intellectually disabled? Obvious but important to highlight---horses do not judge nor label and categorize as less in value compared to normal people---their mentally retarded riders, walkers and groomers.

Ch explains horses have unique personalities, physical capacities and individual limitations, just as do the people whom they help treat. The best of all, she says, is horses never lie and always give immediate and honest response.

Horse groomer at work

''Positive experiences with human-horse interactions have shown profound healing for those with emotional and mental challenges,'' said Ch. ''As a result, children with autism often begin to say new words or express themselves more frequently.''

Empoderamiento con Caballos hosts a celebration on August 3, which will include a horse kissing booth, carrot tossing, horse poop bingo and more, other fun games. The fiesta is from 12 pm to 3 pm at Finca Pluma Blanca, Cotacachi-Quiroga. More info is at telephone number 098 3591 568. All are invited and entrance is free. All proceeds go to the equine therapy program.

Time to Prepare for the Last Act?

Take notice about it. It's akin to when a dead blue jay bird is discovered in the front yard of his house by a five year old boy---nobody needs to teach that five year old what his instincts do. The temporal nature of life exemplified in the bird's corpse is sobering. The boy realizes he too will die.

Almost none of us talk about it---the subject of death. We hide it under a blanket named the cares and concerns of daily living. Undertaker cosmeticians meanwhile dress the deceased to appear as if in deep sleep. It is all of it understandable; yet so momentous the passage from life to death, is it not worthwhile to suggest it be afforded thoughtful and considerate preparation?

Wills put in order. Funeral arrangements made. If death is imminent, farewells extended to family and friends.

But is there a responsibility to prepare to die for the sake of oneself? Is there duty to contemplate the matter, to weigh the pounds and measure the feet of what is the last act of living? Is there value to ask oneself--- how does a person die well? Is there worth to evaluate an enigmatic question? How do I die with peace of mind even if in physical agony?

Decades ago, a friend had hurled himself out a four story window. He had approached near to successful suicide. An attending surgeon, at his hospital bed after the operation, reportedly said to him that after we doctors did everything medically possible to save you, you hovered between life and death for two hours.

This fellow experienced a lesson he tells me he will never forget. Yes, without emergency medical aid he'd have died, undoubtedly, but it was spiritual healing that saved his life.

Is living then as to cultivate the spirit of life--- as opposed to the spirit of death--- a beneficial method to prepare for death?

I say yes. Whether or not individual, personal consciousness exists after death is not so much the question at hand here. The question being asked is how can we die well if we have not lived well?

My friend who attempted suicide still lives. He learns. I can see the changes myself in this now much older man. He is learning to live to add rather than detract from life. He is learning to respond rather than react. He is learning how to distinguish, so to speak, between clever disguise and authentic apparition. His character development is more important to him than material accomplishment, yet he does accept the call to make the most of his talent. In fact, he believes he will live after he does die. Scientific absurdity. But to him, this personal belief is the most succinct ingredient in his recipe book on how best to prepare to meet death.

About Before the Internet Age: Gratitude for Cell Phones and Ditch the Hitch-hiking.

My internet connection crashed yesterday afternoon, and I felt molested to the upmost degree about that. My partner and I were in the middle of what is to us doing important work---building a website to market art resources and supplies at Art Easels for the Artist. By the way I ask readers to do us a favor and check out our website and leave a comment---this will encourage the traffic that leads to higher ranking in the search engines.  
 

My partner Osnelly and I at Mall del Rio in Cuenca, Ecuador

Anyway, it´s late morning now and my web connection is still down, but a trusted and experienced internet systems engineer at damonbreeden@gmail.com  is going to come over at 3 pm to re-establish the connection. I am fully confident he will succeed.

Obviously my tranquility is associated with a reliable and fast moving internet connection. I am tied to the net. It is a part of me and I am a part of it. But I am old enough to well remember the days when no internet existed, and I have a story about what that was like. My six brothers and sisters and I were children, in the family station wagon, and dad was driving and mom was with dad in the front seat. We were traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles and were about to ascend the mountains surrounding the approach to greater Los Angeles. That´s when our vehicle broke down due to mechanical mishap. Dad exited, stuck out his thumb, and started asking for a ride. He started hitch-hiking. He needed a tow to a gas station and he complained---for over an hour no one was stopping while it was plain to see he was a family man. This was circa 1964, well before the invention of cell phones. These problems and similar problems no longer exist because we have mobile phones.

Who would argue this advancement is not to our advantage?

 

The Osborne 1 computer (1981)

But I have a point to make that´s an offshoot angle or perspective about this. I myself did not grow up with the internet, computers and cellphones around in daily life. As a result their technology is always going to be somewhat foreign to me regardless of how many courses or studies of computers I may take. It´s like language. If someone´s native tongue is English he or she will never quite be able to speak an acquired, second language learned in adulthood with the same fluency as English.

The second language never gets ingrained like the mother tongue did. So it is with computer fluency for those who grew up before computers were part and parcel of daily life. They will never be as comfortable with the technology as are their sons and daughters, not to mention their grandchildren.

Something about it is a fascination to me. The internet has changed people´s capabilities---young people adapting to the world the way it is and becoming capable of guiding earth into a future which we would never have had absent the expansion of computer and internet expertise.
I live in what some term a third world country---Ecuador. But yesterday I noticed an Ecuadorian boy about five years old playing a digital game on his hand phone. He was moving his fingers around that keypad with ease---born of skill developed at a tender age. Be that as it may about Ecuador, it makes little difference. That boy will be painting the internet of the future with colors native to Ecuador.

What type of single guy are you?

This is a guest post written by Paul Yhip. Paul owns a landscaping construction and design business in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also writes songs and short stories at Pablito´s Corner.
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I went to dinner with my wife Anna the other day, along with our best friends Tom and Judy. We tend to be open with each other and talk and debate on a lot of different subjects. Judy opened the conversation and said ¨ I dated a few guys before I met Tom.¨

Interrupting, Tom said ¨A few? That´s like saying Hitler only killed a few people!¨  Anna and I looked at each other with forced smiles, and Judy, glaring at her husband of fourteen years said ¨What do you mean Tom? I was a slut!?¨

¨No, no let me correct myself,¨ replied Tom, his expression turning apologetic, ¨I meant not so much the quantity but the quality. I suppose every man you met was a different type of guy.¨

Anna and I looked at them as if we were spectators at a performance.

¨Of course I had guys who were sweet and gentlemanly,¨ said Judy, ¨and others were the all hands type.¨

Image courtesy of radnatt at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Looking at both of them, I said ¨Like everyone men come in different forms and with dating it´s no exception.¨

I´m not a psychology major but that didn´t keep me from sharing my thoughts. The conversation got all of us involved. After dinner we went our separate ways, and when later at home with Anna--- we continued to further discuss the subject.

I have come up with three types of men, presented below in terms of achieving their goals, especially when it comes to women.

The Bold: He is the type who takes what he sees. He´s a skilled talker and appears interesting. He sells the impossible but makes it seem believable. Women become convinced he is the hero for whom they have been waiting.

The Mastermind: He is cool and thinks calculated thoughts, slowly guiding women into his world because they feel so at ease with him. Women are turned on more by what he displays of his insides rather than physical appearance. He massages the mind and soul of the woman so eloquently that she feels he is the one.

The Cobra: His meekness is his strength. He appears so non-threatening. As if he is a little boy, women begin to adore his cute qualities. He knows he is gaining ground when the woman begins to show interest. As time goes on she finds he has another side which strikes with deadly accuracy for the capture. For some reason this is the one time the woman enjoys her defeat.

Like with everything there are exceptions and mixtures. Men can have aspects of all three types. One guy can start out being bold, then later become more like the mastermind. Another can start out like the little boy later becoming more akin to the bold.

How complex we are as humans.  

        

 

A Question about Halloween Answered.

At Zona Refrescante restaurant in Cuenca, Ecuador, every afternoon on Thursday, Ecuadorians meet with native English speakers to practice speaking English. It´s fun, and it´s a way for people from both cultures to inquire about strange customs they don´t understand.
 

This bright middle school age student had a question for me this past Thursday about Halloween. I pause to interject. This girl of about 14 years never lived in any English speaking country. She learned what she knows not only because eight hours of English per week is a requirement at her school, but also because as she explained, English is her favorite subject! She speaks it well and has decently good pronunciation, and she impressed me.  
But all that above about her is beside the point.

This girl, an obviously curious expression on her face, was asking me to explain Halloween. I tried but felt flabbergasted. I didn´t have an answer satisfactory to me.

Halloween as it´s known in North America doesn´t exist in Ecuador. The custom most akin to Halloween in Ecuador is called the day of the dead, I´d say, but this tradition is so different from Halloween that in fact the connection is most imprecise. Ecuadorians visit the remains of lost loved ones at their tombs in graveyards on the day of the dead. They place flowers and cards with messages on the tombstones, and eat food and drink a special drink called colada morada. It´s a time to pray for the dead and a time to communicate with the dead.

 

 

This to me is its, granted, unsteady similarity to Halloween. But take a look at one of the most popular Halloween costumes---the costume of a skeleton. Somehow in some way Halloween has something to do with death. And death is scary. Look at the costumes kids wear on Halloween--- ghosts, goblins, monsters, witches, pirates and devils---all scary, all evocative of frightening manifestations that would scare you to death if not make believe. So what IS the point of Halloween? Is it just to have fun going around to houses in the neighborhood carrying a bag to collect candy?  Get real--- that´s the biggest part of the point. But I think Halloween has a deeper meaning, which I wouldn´t be thinking about if it hadn´t been for that Ecuadorian girl´s question.  

   

In my mind the Halloween costume represents the dark side of human nature. It´s the side we ordinarily hide but that we bring out into the open in pantomime on Halloween. We proclaim there is this evil side to us that is like a monster or a demon. We say yes on Halloween, yes we are part bad and yes this part of us exists.

The beauty about Halloween as every kid in North America will attest is the collection of big bags of candy. Maybe this is symbolic as well. Is this a representation that evil spirits can be bought off?  After all, the ghosts and goblins leave the house once their bags get filled with candy.

  

White Flag Defeat and the Power of Surrender

To surrender? What does that mean?  It means you know you´ve been defeated and you accept it. You´ve been knocked out. You don´t have it in you to fight anymore and you give up. You fly a white flag.

Addicts in recovery have surrendered. The heroin addict who cannot stop injecting heroin realizes he has been defeated when he surrenders to the reality of his addiction. He needs the drug. He will suffer almost unbearable pangs of withdrawal unless he gets it into his blood stream. By a surrender to this fact of the matter, the addict makes possible a shift to the entirety of his position in the world.   

 

 

This thread of talk refers to what is personal and private. Heroin addiction never stopped some notable musicians from performing their music. Alcoholics have been famous figures in the literary world. The talent and energy that drives this success is immaterial to addiction. Addiction is monstrous, yes. It is almost all-powerful, yes. But it does not necessarily prevent people from achieving success. People are made of durable material and even those of us with broken wings can fly far.

But what addiction does do is render people, no matter how talented or famous, enslaved to their addictions.

I have an example of the power of surrender I want to share from my personal life, although it´s not about addiction.

The Japanese surrender at Tokyo Bay, September, 1945

It´s about a condition that developed over a ten year period when I worked graveyard shifts as a security guard. My body acclimated itself to being awake at night. It became accustomed to sleeping during the day. Ten years after having stopped working in security, still, I get tired and sleep during the day. I perk up ready to greet the world during the dark hours of the night. My sleep and wake hours were completely turned upside down by the decade of years I worked security at night.

I fought the condition with ferocity for a long time. I did everything I could to reverse it so I could sleep at night. Nothing worked--- except the effective sleeping medication called trazadone, not available where I now live---Ecuador. My nights turned into anger fueled and frustrating episodes of insomnia punctuated by bouts of intense binge eating.      

I surrendered to the reality of my insomnia about a month ago. I accepted that I have a condition I can´t change. I elected to go with the flow. I gave up worrying about when to sleep and instructed myself to sleep when I´m sleepy and tired---ordinarily about five o´clock in the morning. I go about my pursuits calmly and without rancor or agitation at night. The capitulation to my insomnia erased the emotions which had been driving me to binge eat at night.

A connection exists between the troubles I had with insomnia and the troubles of addiction. Nothing about either of these two maladjustments can or could be remedied unless first a surrender occurs---the hoisting of a white flag indicating the profound realization change needs to enter into the picture.

 

A Man without a Country

Alan by no means appears the strapping type who would cross continents and traverse oceans in an eight year drive to meet the peoples of the world. He approaches instead the diminutive. We sit across from one another in couch chairs one afternoon last week talking under the bamboo roof of the guest commons at Hostal Rosario del Villa in Cuenca. He laughs easily and looks about 42 years old, wears a worn baseball cap and appears altogether nondescript, perhaps even somewhat undernourished.


Istanbul, Turkey

Alan’s assured cadence and deep voice tell a different story. Those reflect a personal need molded onto a framework of intense curiosity which for almost a decade has stopped at nothing to find universal commonality no matter country or culture.


Cusco, Peru

So is Alan a traveler? “I can’t really characterize myself as anything,” he says. “I can just say that I travel because that’s part of my life.”

A part of his life that’s more consequence than choice he says.
Alan had been working with computer software and hardware in the Silicon Valley high tech era, and started part time, taking personal growth courses and studies. It generated full scale change but not until Alan rammed into a dead end wall years later.


Koh Phangan, Thailand

He has always enjoyed helping people, he explains, helping people discover their hidden aspects, helping people to resolve differences, helping people to better understand their motivations.

Time after time people encouraged him. You’re so good at doing counseling, they said, you ought to practice full time. So he got out of the high tech field and without a psychology degree that is in fact what Alan did for about the next six years.

“I thought about (getting a degree) for many years” he says, “and every time I went to go something stopped me. The main thing is they weren’t actually seeing people, they were seeing statistics in general and I wanted to see people in specifics.”  

He says he did it until he got really good at it. He could figure out their focus of attention, see the things inside themselves that they wanted to change. But Alan says almost everyone wanted to change superficially, for instance, how to change to make more money or how to develop a more likeable personality.

“Is that all people really want?” thought Alan. “They were satisfied with what to me was just a beginning. It was just bread crumbs. And people were delighted with it. And I wasn’t. I needed a path, I needed to go somewhere.”

He felt frustrated doing life coaching because to use Ecuador as a metaphor, people wanted to hear about the country but only one percent ever traveled to it. No one wanted to actually go. People didn’t want a change that turns things inside out or the change that pulls the root of the self out for brave examination.

It was like people “watching the travel channel but then turning off the TV," says Alan.

Buenos Aries, Argentina

This was the dead end experience that birthed the consequence of Alan’s travels across the globe. He visited Asia, South America, the Middle East and Europe. He lived in Buenos Aries, Santiago, Spain, Istanbul and Cusco, Peru. He went to India. He began searching for a commonality among people that unites despite habits of language and culture or country and belief. He “ticked” to find what made other people tick under the clothing of their heritage and cultural upbringing.

This tick is what Alan describes as “intent.” It’s a third aspect that forms a triangle of being along with the nature and nurture aspects, our genetic and environmental aspects. No two intents can be exactly alike Alan is saying, not a one can match exactly that of another. Alan argues these intents are the stuff that make us tick.

While traveling for these many years, Alan has lost contact with his country of origin and to the extent his English has been expunged of American slang. He speaks a neutral English which German or French people can understand.  

Santiago, Spain

“I’m an American in the official sense," he says, "but I don’t see the world through the eyes of an American.”

I don’t know how Alan’s awakening took place. I don’t know if it was like the rise of a morning sun over the horizon, or whether it came as a thunder clap that dismembered the lone tree on an empty tract of land. But according to Alan it was a discovery that contradicted his almost canonical belief that inside everyone exists something which unites them to others of the same species.

…”that came as a big blow to me” he says, “…we were really not…. everybody has something that makes them tick but that’s the only thing they have in common.”

When the interview progresses to this point I’m beginning to wonder if in truth the design of an individual’s being is so unique it cannot ever unite in fundamental fashion with the being of another.

Alan’s finding overturned and undermined the very purpose of his world travels and led him to go on to write a book published last February, available on Amazon in print and digital forms entitled, “The Story between Us, Living and Relating from Being.”

Alan required anonymity to tell his story, and as the author of his book, he’s known simply as Alan S. 

 

 

 

 

 

Family History and Legend of Courtesy Lost

He said he would do it--- and he did. He plunged his short sword into Emperor Calígula. He rid the Mediterranean world of a tyrant. He executed the assassination and shed the blood of a beast till death. Cassius Chaerea. His name appears in my book two thousand years after the event. And there is no one around entirely like me to honor the one who was entirely the man Cassius Chaerea.


Caligula

My family originated in America from Louisiana territory, vast French property sold by Napoleon for $3 million to the just formed USA.  In the few years before Pearl Harbor, the whole lot moved to California. They moved across an entire continent. Fathers and mothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles and great-grandparents. Families with surnames DeCuir, Bell and Porche transplanted themselves anew. They left New Orleans’ parishes for cities named Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Francisco.They succeeded. Aunts and mothers raised families and taught in schools and sold stock. Fathers played music, built houses and sold insurance. 
So my blood is inherited south---French, English, Scottish, black African---Indian and Jewish. I call it gumbo and praline. That’s cornbread and grits when Grandma talks French to Aunt Sue in the kitchen.   

Alexis and Cornelia Porche on their wedding day.

Papa my Jewish maternal great grandfather had been a cotton broker and raised two families. He’d laugh uproariously while tossing dish candy out the window to his daughter’s grandchildren darting about in the yard below. I’d count Papa’s change and buy his white owl cigars.

Papa

That world in which I used to live---when most people went to church on Sunday or didn't necessarily lock their front doors---it's vanished.
In those days fifty years ago the sun lit bright the parks and lakes of California. White clouds in blue sky were swept by wind over landscapes of brown and green. A young woman walked alone unafraid at night on Market Street in down town San Francisco.
It's not as bright these days and I take a look from a particular angle.  

Catholic University of America students at Mass
 

See, in the old days my family prayed at Catholic church. We kneeled and prayed the rosary in our home with other Catholic families in the neighborhood. Protestants let us do our thing without comment. They didn’t deprecate Catholics. Protestant and Catholic people became friends and didn’t fight about religión.
But during Jesus movement days twenty years later, together with evangelicals, I looked inside a cathedral packed with Catholics singing with arms upraised and my Protestant companions scoffed at the sight. Why?
I believe it’s an example of disregard which dwindling courtesy enables. I know it's an impossible stretch, but maybe the start of this loss of courtesy in some mysterious way began the day Emperor Caligula announced he was a god---that somehow being the hidden seed to today's school shootings and rampant drug abuse---that evil spirit keeping people afraid out of fear.
 

 

 

 

Her Visuals Herald Artistic Portrayals

She finds art awake in moments when expression itself captures the eye of her camera. A model's unsolicited gesture, the landing of a flight of pigeons in an old world plaza, distilled...rendering signature portrayal of beauty each unique in its depiction.

So it is with "Marianna Photography," founded in 2011 by a thirty something Polish woman who earned two Master's Degrees in Software Engineering, one from Blekinge Tekniska in Sweden; the other from Politechnika Wroclawska in Poland. Marianna went on to work a year in international business but felt a deeply rooted part of herself missing.

I ask about her greatest inspiration.  The answer speaks volumes.  Her choice to exchange a highly remunerative career for a niche in photographic art was influenced by Alan Watts, the philosopher and writer, who lived in the circa 1960s Waldo Point houseboat community in Sausalito, CA.   She supplies a link. It's by Watts and entitled "What would you do if money wasn't an object."

"What he is saying is absolutely true," she says. "They teach you all your life to run after money, but this won't give you satisfaction. You need to follow your passion to become successful."

Even when a photographic rookie, she had sufficient talent to shoot a picture included in the Finalist Category "Relations", part of Sweden's 2011 Metro Photo Competition.
"I think I just have a unique skill set," she says. "Technical skills are easy for me but at the same time I am creative and think unconventionally." And Marianna wanted a deeper level, something more than knowledge of modes of business.

She had always had an interest in photography. She bought an SLR camera about five years ago and discovered a passion she didn't realize she possessed. "It just clicked in," she says. " I have been going around everywhere with the camera and looking for amazing views, better angles, better composition, different settings and light..."

She didn't gain a certificate or diploma...no degree in the field of photography. She claims she didn't take a single course. Instead, she maintains she studied the field on her  own.  She researched the internet and read books of her choosing. She molded her study to fit her own spirit of inquiry. "I believe that studying [in school] can limit your creativity,' she says. As well, friendships with other photographers, and the trade talk which ensued, helped her with lessons she valued more than any in the curricula  of institutional study.

Marianna exudes charm and self confidence. We banter during the Skype session about inconsequential matters. She's entertaining to interview, and although a beauty in her own right, although she has European flair and continental style, she's plainly down to earth. This approachable aspect musters ingredients of social skill which aid to sharpen the makings of her art.

"For me in photography the most important aspect is in the expression, the feeling," she says. "Usually those pictures are made in the moment when they [the models] don't expect to be captured...sometimes I am distracting them...like making a joke to get them to smile."

As well traveled as Marianna is, having visited sixteen European countries from Spain to Bosnia to Ukraine, she fastened on Ecuador in South America as type and perhaps haven of second home. She lived six months in Ecuador's capital city of Quito, speaks Spanish, English and Polish, and raved about the topography of this small yet diverse country.

She currently lives in the mountains of Ecuador near Cotopaxi, where I wager a good portion of her most spectacular landscape photographs have been taken.

Marianna's photographs hurdle into viewers' sensitivities. Indeed, by force of content they must spur many a private exclamation that goes something like this...How can anyone's camera portray anything so beautifully!?!

Marianna reports not only with visuals but with writing that sometimes bring distant parts of the world close to where the reader. Her photo-reportage on Ukraine is immersive, an amalgamation of history, current conflict and compelling photographic tale. For my part, with my measure of interest in current affairs and international relations, her story on the tumult in Ukraine intrigues. I had no idea of the depth of what it has been like over there.

So yes, Marianna teaches. She teaches lessons about how to photograph, about hidden tricks of the trade. It adds usability to her website. Photographers can learn for example that, as she writes, "...there is no bad light in photography. You just need to be a little creative." She offers tips on how to use shadow or position of the model. She explains what she does to make her photos stand out in particular ways.

Anna Maria Marianna

As an artist, photographer and teacher, it's apparent to me that Marianna is offering all that she has to give not for the love of money but for the dream of finding and doing what she loves with passion.


Photos by Anna Maria Marianna

The low tide of Chivalry

What transpires in the human search for the Holy Grail of the soul? I believe a journey ensues to follow the path of Chivalry. Chivalry respects women. It protects women from harassment. It never accosts women. It doesn’t hit women despite felt provocation. Chivalry defends women from men who abuse them.

I read social media complaints about the way men treat women. I’ve noticed black eyes on wives and heard the rants of despotic husbands in next door apartments. I’ve called the police. I’ve intervened to protect women from maltreatment. I hope a decent portion of other men have done so as well.

Still, I fulminate against the feeling in some women that being a man equals being a jerk. The vast majority of my men friends over the years have treated women with decent respect. I have to ask. How could women love so many men if most men are jerks? Most men must not be jerks. I surmise that a large enough minority of jerk men spoils the atmosphere between the genders. But they didn’t come from my circles. In my younger years in respect to women I was more interested in getting laid than anything else. I’ve hurt the feelings of a few women in my past by jumping from one bed to another. In my older years I’ve simmered down considerably, as age will bring about. But no matter how elderly I get, I am a man enamored of beautiful women. I thank attractive women out in public who welcome my smiles and appreciative glances.

So what does the Holy Grail have to do with Chivalry? The cup from which Christ and the apostles drank at the Last Supper represents in its originality the Holy Grail. It represents the way to eternal life and timeless beauty. It represents a beauty which doesn’t exist on earth, yet perfection and beauty that men long for in the depths of their being. I suspect I glimpsed a precognition of the Holy Grail when once I beheld a sky so redolent of nature’s beauty that I stood for long moments transfixed. It’s beauty representing every virtue. It’s solemnity representing every desire within to be good. And it deeply hurts because we realize we can never fully attain these virtues. We can only try and sometimes succeed but far too often fail.

In the Middle Ages, people celebrated in song and poetry the idealisms of Chivalry. The ideals imbued society. They were meant to order behavior and instill willingness for right conduct. These ideals for nobility, honor, justice and love may have had some influence, but moral behavior in reality was very seldom practiced. “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century” by Barbara Tuchman reveals extraordinarily barbaric details about the age when Chivalry reigned as high ideal.

In our own time, Chivalry loses influence the more time passes. My 90 year old aunt told me that in the 1950s she would walk unafraid at night on Market Street in downtown San Francisco. Let me explain. A central value of Chivalry is to act with courtesy towards all high or low. I wonder. How much of the downward spiral---the school shootings---the general fear women have of men---the abuse of the elderly---how much of these trends started with the devaluation of courtesy?

I offer a tip. Don’t only give a homeless man or woman a dollar. Linger and chat. Don’t reply to an insult with insult. Be courteous because courtesy will build the foundation of a long lost sense of Chivalry.

Progress is the most important project.

If we're making progress, the stage of progress doesn’t matter. When we start to make progress, that’s what matters. What matters is continuing to progress, because if we don’t do that, we tread water. We merely stay afloat; but if all we can honestly manage is to stay afloat, that’s better than drowning.

An indicator of progress consists of expanding willingness and ability to feel the uncomfortable. Nobody likes to feel nervous, edgy or afraid. But when we do, in principle, it's better to feel those because they’re authentic feelings. I want to face life. I want to progress. Do you want to learn to better tolerate feelings you'd rather not have ? Do you want to better absorb and feel who you are in the moment; then learn what lessons your feelings teach you about yourself ? I do.

Tools for making progress in a garden

It’s uplifting when an aspect that troubles you in relation to others fades. That’s progress. The aspect may not have entirely disappeared. You may find yourself now caring less about what people think of you. You catch yourself more often. You notice when you’re playing politics and not being authentic. You realize with greater perceptivity when you accede and let someone dictate the operation of your affairs. By opening yourself to how mistaken behavior or habits generate anxious feelings, you can chart a plan of action to change the behavior. The key is to feel the feelings so you grasp what you’re dealing with. And then take action.

Flowers of progress in a garden.

Progress in a particular regard is especially valuable. It promotes calm. It holds the hand of faith and walks with surety of foot. It grows awareness that we are not alone but part of a whole. It’s the birthing of intuition that whispers or cajoles. It’s energy tending to support the humble and humble the proud. The closer to this spiritual source, the more progress is made on manifesting its peace to those around us.

I’m not an expert on spirituality. I don’t have an M.A. in psychology or social science. I do know about the hole. The hole is a deep, empty loneliness that seeks to eradicate its tribulations by smothering feelings. The hole may choose different ways. Each wipes away authentic but hurting feelings. Each way replaces discomfort with temporary gratification.

Instead of nourishing human growth, these ways feed the urge to compulsively eat or drink. We feed a craving for narcotics or sex. We feed an addiction to gamble. The diseases expand but don’t fill the hole. The loneliness hides inside unacknowledged. Consequences like mortgage defaults, broken relationships, morbid obesity and imprisonment follow in the train of these abuses.

The answer is spiritual. The remedy to the cry of agony inside the hole of one’s being is to embark on a spiritual journey. With authentic desire and rigorous honesty, one can have impediments to growth in life removed. From whatever stage, one can progress towards contentment.

Baseball a kind of play on life.

If you like baseball, you know the score. Baseball players stand alert and astutely prepared in every inning of the game. No player knows what’s going to happen. Every player can expect only the unexpected. Players on defense tense their muscles and focus their minds to react properly to the trajectory of the ball in play. The batter trains his eyes to smash a hit. The infield and outfield players poise themselves to deny it. In baseball, as in the game of life, competition breeds tension between those desiring to win. People in real life tauten for the unexpected too because life guarantees unexpected turns of event.

If you know about baseball, you're aware a baseball coach trains his team to win. He practices his team. His ball players gain proficiency and expertise with repeated practice. The spirit of the team escalates the more it realizes improvement due to practice. The practice instills confidence. When the ball game starts, the players act instinctively to do what the twist of the situation requires. The main benefit of repeated practice.  In the game of life, training and practice serve us well to improve too. We learn how to work a trade by working the trade. We learn how to behave by practicing behaviors and comparing results. We learn how to think by practicing logic. The repetitions of practice in baseball as in life eventually spawn wins and recognition.

If you know about the game of baseball, you know an umpire calls the plays by a set of rules. They apply to every player. They order the game. They set boundaries within which the game is played. If a batted ball goes over the foul line it’s out of play. If a player catches a fly ball the batter is out. If a batter swings and misses a pitch outside the strike zone, it’s a strike and not a ball. Four balls put a batter on first base.  In life the rules of law fix the boundaries of the game. Burglarize a house and you’re out of bounds. Assault somebody and you’ve broken the rules. Without laws and penalties in life, as in baseball, the game couldn’t be played. It would have no regulations within which to play. Some baseball rules reflect life in great actuality. In life if a man steals but doesn’t get caught, he’s safe.  In baseball, let’s say a runner is on first base. If he sprints for second and arrives without getting tagged, he’s safe too, he’s still in the game and that’s called a steal.

If you enjoy baseball, you know that even for those of us who like the game the most, it can be mundane. Players do at times exhibit extraordinarily adept catches, for instance, but that’s rare. Baseball fans focus on the intricacies of the game to maintain interest. They count the balls and strikes. Life gets boring too. Car accidents don’t happen every day. We could easily bore ourselves by not staying current with matters that maintain our interest in life.