Hugs and Kisses

Jacob Needleman

The struggle to exist, to not disappear in this moment, is the advancing root of the struggle to exist throughout the whole passage of time. We need to help each other in this struggle. You by asking, I by struggling to respond. This is the law of love, which rules the universe. By Jacob Needleman

Your Life as a poem

Your life as a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye


I came across link to day and just had to share it.

When I come home

Here is today's entry from our Art and Words book that is now published.
I hope you enjoy it as much as we did its creation.

Last weekend I attended the SCBWII illustrators retreat. It was my first of what I hope to be many such retreats.  Coming I knew no one, but leaving I felt I made a number of friends. Coming I was insecure about my abilities, but leaving I left armed with new inspiring ideas that I can't wait to try on. So I have spent the past few days absorbing the plethora of information. Not only from the teachers, but also from my fellow students. My first order of business has been to return to this blog. My second order of business is to update add many new links, and start sharing my new work. I don't know if I will ever become a published author/illustrator but I do know that I will write and draw for the rest of my life. These activities feed my soul and consequently, make me a better person.

A woman's orchestra

A woman's orchestra

Babies do not have to come
from your womb
in order to be sung to

Pi day

The old math teacher in me, couldn't resist.

A song for the South China Sea

Art by Sandra Moreano and Words by Courtney Hanes

We now sing
of a love that binds
an altered course
sinking the hate
on an anchor of pain
through mist
until they meet again

The greatest love story

The greatest love story
is like
fresh purple grapes
on a February day
dripping with taste
  sometimes in hast
(that's how you learn).

Sleeping while the moon is full

Sleeping while the moon is full

the man at the counter says I look like his niece Alexandra

who doesn’t take no for an answer either

and looks at him with the same crinkled, confused face. 

she thinks it is impossibly foolish to 

attempt sleeping while the moon is full

and says we are not meant to lie down    easily when the night sky is so bright

because 

that is when we should hit the road and drive all night

I smile

he smells like coffee and cinnamon rolls

his eyes are fierce with regret and mistakes,

and I wonder if he realizes what his own face looks like

I glamorize

I glamorize the Alaskan Frontier, 

but wonder if I’d ever have the guts 

to kill and prepare the animals  I eat every single day 

A nod to Shel Silverstein

It is

It is a heart-warming experience

to borrow a book from a man 

who loves his mother

and listen to a sweet six year old 

read about a tree that lives

to give

and gives to live. 

It leaves one feeling 

lucky for the shepherd

who served his time,

found a boat,

and sailed back to build a home

with wood 

from a tree he carved himself. 

We are the tree that 

gives to live,

and lives to give. 

So be it, so be it. 

Stuck under the normal curve

Some are better prepared

some are better prepared

to take

the news that rattles and

spooks without warning

with no time to duck, cover, or

hold on for dear life.

some are better prepared

to let

it wash over their bodies and

face. clean. like a fresh start.

or a new flower, growing alongside

a field of beat down weeds.

some are better prepared

to release

the nastiness and stench of a thing

that they did not ask for, 

and are forever questioning.

some are better prepared

to close their eyes to betrayal

that knocked on the door and let itself in

with a secret key. secrets love company.

some are better prepared

indeed.

Poem by Courtney Hanes are by Sandra Moreano

Stephen Levine

Stephen Levine past away in January and I am moved to honor him in someway. His book "Who Dies" was one of the most helpful books I have ever read. If you are ever at a loss as how to deal with grief or your own impending death, this is a great read. His wife Ondrea is the co-author. Although she has been in the limelight, I am sure she has played a huge role. Not only in the writing but also in his life. 

A Calf on Hollow Road

I know he is a new calf
too weak to walk alone
who only wants a teat
to suck
and
to be nurtured and loved,
but it's growing cold
and I've got places to go
and I'm afraid that
if I stay to love him,
he'll die anyway
and
I'll be left alone.

Dali doodles

Five quick doodles of Dali for my Y is yellow class. 

Contemplation

The combination of observation along with love--not with resistance, judgment, analysis, or labeling--just observation with love and reverence, is probably the best definition of contemplation.                      Richard Rhor

The Caregiver's Tao Te Ching

When we become more at ease with all the intensity that flows through our being, we find that we can remain present with what's happening. In this way we build proof that we can endure and even welcome all that life presents, one moment at a time.

                            "The Caregiver's Tao Te Ching by William and Nancy Martin.

To be happy

Words Escape Me

Words

Words escape me
because
the super moon
has swallowed
them
whole

Measuring the Invisible

I've had this comic in the making for years now. This idea that we can not measure our subjective experiences brought me to a spiritual awakening. I always believed that we lived in a material world that operated on principles of science. More recently I have come to believe that human life also operates on the invisible things that defy measurement.

Time

Time lapses with light,
which retires and
brings new days
it will not remember the dirty heat,
or the chains which some bear,
     for it is too in love with living
     to feel anything but divine strength,
so
drink it up because that
is the essence in which we travel,
in which we are traveled.

Words By Courtney Hanes and Art by Sandra Moreano

The Kiss

Your slime and moisture

will mix

in a 

science of ancient beauty

wrapped up in stars,

an Egyptian Milky Way

of crevasses and 

arms. 

Words by Courtney Hanes and Art by Sandra Moreano

As a Girl

As a girl

she picked daisies

happily lost in magical

landscapes of green 

streaked with birds 

and their worms

     but 

when she 

became a woman 

she moved to the city 

sprinkled with

skyscrapers and 

mocha dreams

and traded in 

her horse for 

an old 

model Porsche 

that

sped her away

     leaving behind 

more than 

dusty corridors 

and 

hay

Words by Courtney Hanes   Art by Sandra Moreano

Berkeley

I like you
for what you
reveal
and what you
conceal.

Words by Courtney
Art by Sandra Moreano

Inheriting a Marriage

I inherited their marriage,

though (I’m certain) that was not

                     their intention.

She whispered to me often,

    “Do not go gentle into that altered night.

    Like fins in an algae covered net

    you too

             will be trapped.”

Decades later
with different jewels
he forgot the jaded rules
and rubbed his

palms

(already smooth)

along the hardened pew.

She laughed at him and screamed,

"That's not my name!

The mirror belongs to no one!

The winter is full of frozen water, not ice!"

They became

compassionate strangers
with four working hands
but their

voices no longer matched

the ones they heard before.

They stood like wood

rotten from the inside.

They swam like fish upstream.

              They pretended to be   the people

                     that others wanted them to be.

The Soul's Garden

Art by Sandra Moreano                                            Poetry by Courtney Hanes.

The soul's garden reveals when it is full of grief or love,

unable to hide in the shadows, 

open like a mystic's eye 

that even when closed knows how to see. 

Time always lapses with light, 

which retires and brings a new day.

It will not remember the dirty heat, 

or the chains which some bear. 

It is too in love with living 

to feel anything but divine strength. 

Drink it up 

because that is the essence in which we travel,

in which we are traveled.