Home Sweet Home

Shadow Shot Sunday
September 18, 2011

To see more Shadow Shots and to find out how you can participate, please visit Hey Harriet's Photography.

These first couple of days and nights in our new casita here in New Mexico have been fun. Shopping the second hand and thrift stores and finally succumbing to a trip to Wally World has anxiety, drama and fun built in to the process. Once finally home, relaxing and sitting around on the patio, listening to the radio and enjoying the late summer breeze, we realized that we have achieved something in our lives.

The view from our patio, overlooking the courtyard.

I love the way the sun creates the individual shadows at each doorway, and the beautiful shape of the tree surrounding us. (I'll need to identify what kind of tree this is). The achievement of being old enough and having configured our finances to afford what is a luxury to us and our lifestyle, like this little casita 1400 miles away from our home in Wisconsin, isn't what I'm talking about. It's the 40 years Mrs. Spadoman and i have been married. We celebrate in three weeks.

Enjoy your shadowy weekend.

Peace

Visitors From Abroad

Haiku My Heart

September 16, 2011

Friday is the day many of us gather at my friend Rebecca's blogsite and share haiku. You can see and read more submissions by clicking on this link to the recuerda mi corazon blog.

Landing space platform

Imagine silver space ships

Tiny green figures

Of course this rock formation found alongside the road from Santa Fe to Espanola, NM wasn't for alien landing craft, but what if it was? I woke this morning with a "What if" mentality, (and a bit of whimsical spirit).

This place is called Camel Rock. If you use your imagination, you can see in my photos the figure of a camel. The stock photo below from Google images shows the idea far better than my attempts. (Oh to have the skill of the Molokai with my cell phone).

I just couldn't help but wonder how it would feel to be high atop the camel's "head". Then realized there is no easy way up or down. Those ancients that landed here with their space craft probably left after having a look around.

I'm in Arizona, traveling with Mrs. Spadoman back to New Mexico.

Peace to all

By the Time I Get to Phoenix

The title of this post may be a tad bit misleading. The lyrics from Glen Campbell's song by the same name don't share the reasons I'm saying this line tonight. In the song, he tells a tale about leaving his women. For me the opposite is true. Read on, you'll see what I'm talkin' about.

It has been an interesting couple of weeks for me. I left Wisconsin on August 31st. My destination was Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico. I have been traveling around New Mexico since I’ve been here, making it to Taos for a weeks worth of motorcycle riding as well as around the area to places like Hatch, for the 40th Annual Chile Festival, Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Las Cruces, (to buy a new pair of Ray Ban sunglasses since I stepped on my old ones).

Tomorrow, early morning, I leave here for Arizona, Phoenix to be exact. I will reunite with my best friend, soul mate, wife, mother of my children and lover who I affectionately refer to as Mrs. Spadoman. Her Sun Country Airlines flight is due to arrive at 4:15 PM.

As excited as I am about what has taken place down here so far, that is, selling my RV camper and renting a permanent casita, opening a local bank account, relaxing in the natural hot springs, riding my motorcycle, meeting new friends and eating way too much green chile, I am too excited about seeing the Missus for me to sleep!

I am all packed for the journey, the Ranger is full of gas, (petrol), and I’ve got my route planned and have driven it over and over in my head. 

Soon, I’m sure I’ll get back to doing some creative writing in hopes of chronicling various parts of my tumultuous life and entertaining the faithful wonderful souls that frequent this blog. Until then, I want to acknowledge the fact that I appreciate greatly those that stop by here to check in on my doings.

Chile rellenos smothered in chile verde

We’ll spend the night in Phoenix, (There will be a restaurant report when we decide which place we’re going to eat dinner, Lolo’s Chicken and Waffles or Bill Johnson’s Big Apple Restaurant), then head back to our new place in New Mexico and more relaxing time in the natural hot springs. (As well as more New Mexican Green Chile!)

Huevos Rancheros, again smothered in green

When I left, the weather in Wisconsin was still a bit steamy with daytime highs in the 90’s. Temperatures down here were well into the high 90’s and closing in 100. On Facebook, friends in the heartland have been giving reports of cold weather, people covering plants and garden vegetables for fear of heavy frost, and heavy winter clothing being dug out from the storage totes. The winds of change have started to turn with a vengeance up North.

I don’t fear the Winter’s cold and snow, but I do know it lasts a longer time than I want it to. And seeing as I am retired, we made the decision to have a place to escape to here in the Southwest.

Thanks to every one of my blog friends for being around and allowing me to share my daily happenings. I also very much appreciate the encouragement. 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll toss and turn for a couple of hours before I get up and start driving like a Knight going to save the damsel in distress. Maybe I’ll read those menus one more time and make an executive decision about a place to eat in Phoenix, because by the time I get there and greet my Little Honey, we'll both be powerful hungry.

Peace to all

Let's Change the Subject, Shall We?

Triumphs in Taos Motorcycle Rally 2011

Group photo in front of the Kachina Motel on Sunday, the last day of the rally

A great time was had by all. We ate, we drank, we talked, we laughed and we rode our motorcycles in the sunshine, the warmth, the rain and the cold. I even rode mine in the mud.

A little mud, worn like a badge of honor

I even wore my muddy shoes and pants to dinner

There were periods of rain. No one's spirits were dampened. Daily rides through the mountains around Taos, NM took place. I'm not sure how many people came for the rally with their Triumph motorcycles, but the group photo will attest to a good sized group and a wide variety of bikes.

Someone, that loves us dearly, even brought a cherry pie to the BBQ, bought at a local Farmer's Market

Saturday night, the hotel where we stayed, the Kachina Inn, put on a BBQ. All the riders gathered, and sticking with tradition, a couple of hard-core Triumph riders wore kilts.

This may seem like a lot of craziness to some, but it is akin to the art shows, horse shows, dog shows, quilt shows and other activities that trip your triggers. Attending a motorcycle rally trips mine.

Just thought I'd give you a taste of what I've been doing here in New Mexico. I feel like my controversial post yesterday might have kept readers away. Then again, so will this one, as I'm sure you're sick and tired hearing about my motorcycle adventures.

Don't worry, life is a cycle, and this phase shall pass in its own time.

I'm back in Truth Or Consequences now. Excited about meeting Mrs. Spadoman Thursday in Phoenix so we can spend some time together at our new place in New Mexico.

Peace to all

Read This!

I know, September 11th is over. We did our honoring ceremonies, paid numerous tributes to the dead, their friends and families and bowed our heads appropriately at every Major League Baseball game and National Football League game. While surfing the channels on TV last night in the motel here in Socorro, New Mexico, I even heard one announcer mention that it was after midnight, (I was watching the Cubs/Mets broadcast from New York City), "....and now it is September 12th."

I mentioned the tragedy of September 11, 2001 on my Shadow Shot Sunday blog post yesterday. I mentioned it. Just as I mention D-Day, June 6, 1944 and the bombing of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, (It was December 8th in Japan). I'm pretty sure I mention the day John Lennon was killed, December 8, 1980. Then, I went on and posted my Shadow Shot Sunday photos and explained them. Business as usual.

I checked my e-mail, and forwarded to me was this very striking piece written by Emmanuel Ortiz, a Chicano/Puerto Rican/Irish-American activist and spoken-word poet that now lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This expression, entitled "A Moment of Silence", made me stand up and notice.

I noticed what kind of world we live in. How we treat our fellow man. That we allow the atrocities, bombings, killing, injustices and judgement of others for reasons of superiority, as in Super Power superiority. It made me ashamed that I have placed my activism aside lately.

The feeling I have now is that the people that come visit my blog, largely an art crowd these days as I have subscribed to weekly meme projects, don't mention the political scene and world situation except to mention national disasters like storms, earthquakes, tornadoes, tidal waves and hurricanes. Many are from Australia, England, India, Philippines, Canada and the good ole USA. The politics and status of the world is not openly discussed.

When I started blogging way back in  2005, I jumped on the politics band wagon. I'd 'sing to the choir' and force my opinions down the throats of my blog friends. Since they were all doing the same, we all read each others unprofessional editorials and patted each others backs for agreeing with each other. I got away from this over time, yet remained a concerned citizen as far as matters of state were concerned.

That brings me to the heart of the matter for today's post. The piece written by the above mentioned poet and spoken-word activist, Emmanuel Ortiz.  Everyone has an opinion, I share mine with Mr. Ortiz and apologize for allowing myself to forget some of the events he mentions in "A Moment of Silence".

A Moment of Silence

Emmanuel Ortiz

Before I begin this poem, I’d like to ask you to join me in a moment of silence in honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001.

I would also like to ask you to offer up a moment of silence for all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes, for the victims in Afghanistan, Iraq, in the U.S., and throughout the world.

And if I could just add one more thing…

A full day of silence… for the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands of U.S.-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation.

Six months of silence… for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children, who have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result

of a 12-year U.S. embargo against the country.

…And now, the drums of war beat again.

Before I begin this poem, two months of silence… for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa, where “homeland security” made them aliens in their own country

Nine months of silence… for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where death rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin, and the survivors went on as if alive.

A year of silence… for the millions of dead in Viet Nam —a people, not a war—for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives bones buried in it, their babies born of it.

Two months of silence… for the decades of dead in Colombia, whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have piled up and slipped off our tongues.

Before I begin this poem,
Seven days of silence… for El Salvador
A day of silence… for Nicaragua
Five days of silence… for the Guatemaltecos
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.
45 seconds of silence… for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas…
1,933 miles of silence… for every desperate body
That burns in the desert sun
Drowned in swollen rivers at the pearly gates to the Empire’s underbelly,
A gaping wound sutured shut by razor wire and corrugated steel.

25 years of silence… for the millions of Africans who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the sky.
For those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees
In the south… the north… the east… the west…
There will be no dna testing or dental records to identify their remains.

100 years of silence… for the hundreds of millions of indigenous people
From this half of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of our consciousness…

From somewhere within the pillars of power
You open your mouths to invoke a moment of our silence
And we are all left speechless,
Our tongues snatched from our mouths,
Our eyes stapled shut.

A moment of silence,
And the poets are laid to rest,
The drums disintegrate into dust.

Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence…
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won’t be.
Not like it always has been.

…Because this is not a 9-1-1 poem
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem…
This is a 1492 poem.
This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.

And if this is a 9/11 poem, then
This is a September 11th 1973 poem for Chile.
This is a September 12th 1977 poem for Steven Biko in South Africa.
This is a September 13th 1971 poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York.
This is a September 14th 1992 poem for the people of Somalia.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground amidst the ashes of amnesia.

This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told,
The 110 stories that history uprooted from its textbooks
The 110 stories that that cnn, bbc, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.

This is not a peace poem,
Not a poem for forgiveness.
This is a justice poem,
A poem for never forgetting.
This is a poem to remind us
That all that glitters
Might just be broken glass.

And still you want a moment of silence for the dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves,
The lost languages,
The uprooted trees and histories,
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children…

Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.
So if you want a moment of silence

Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines, the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights
Delete the e-mails and instant messages
Derail the trains, ground the planes.
If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window
of Taco Bell
And pay the workers for wages lost.
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses
and the Playboys.

If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July,
During Dayton’s 13 hour sale,
The next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful brown people have gathered.

You want a moment of silence
Then take it
Now,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
Take it all.
But don’t cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.

And we,
Tonight,
We will keep right on singing
For our dead.

Emmanuel Ortiz is a third-generation Chicano/Puerto Rican/Irish-American community organizer and spoken word poet. He is the author of a chapbook of poems, The Word Is a Machete (self-published, 2003), and coeditor of Under What Bandera?: Anti-War Ofrendas from Minnesota y Califas (Calaca Press, 2004). He is a founding member of Palabristas: Latin@ Word Slingers, a collective of Latin@ poets in Minnesota. Emmanuel has lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Oakland, California; and the Arizona/Mexico border. He currently lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the “buckle of the Bible Belt,” with his two dogs, Nogi and Cuca. In his spare time, he enjoys guacamole, soccer, and naps.

My Grandson once wrote on a piece of paper at the kitchen table these words. I offer them to you today:

Peace please, Thank you 

A Shadow of Itself

Shadow Shot Sunday
September 11, 2011

Before getting into the Shadow Shots, I want to mention and remember that today marks a special anniversary in the history of the United States. Ten years ago on September 11, 2001, The World Trade Center in New York City was attacked and hit by hijacked aircraft. Many people lost their lives.

The government here thought it wise to rebuild the twin towers of the World trade Center. A friend of mine is an iron worker in New York City and has been working on this mammoth project. He sent me these arial photographs of the scene.

Above are two fantastic photos of the 911 Memorial & WTC site. These two photos are very new. The Memorial will open for the victims families today. Tower 1 (Freedom Tower) is up about 80 stories, going to 102 & Tower 4 is up about 35 stories, going to 65. Towers 2&3 are just coming out of the hole.

Today, I remember the victims, the families of victims and the myriad of effects this tragic event had on the lives of so many around the globe. My mantra for Peace still resounds to all.

Now, on the the Shadowy Business at hand.

I’ve photographed this place before. Amidst all the shadow shots at my blog and the literally hundreds that show up every weekend, I certainly don’t expect you to remember this particular place.

As you may know, I am away from Wisconsin and in New Mexico. I used the same road as I did last Winter and came across the same building. This time, I was traveling North on New Mexico Highway 1, in the small town of San Antonio, and instead of early morning Winter sun, it was mid day late Summer sun.

I took the close up you see above of the northern interior wall. As you can see in the older photographs of the entire structure, the shadows played out very different from one season to the other. Here is the post on Round Circle from last February for you to use to compare. 

Right now, I’m attending a motorcycle rally put on by Triumph motorcycle aficionados in Taos, NM. The weather is cooler than normal, wetter than normal and not conducive to taking leisurely rides through the twisty mountain roads. I’m glad I packed up the laptop and could share this shadow shot with you.

I believe if we stayed in one spot where we saw a shadow that was created, we could shoot there all year, in different seasons and different times of day and come up with literally millions of possibilities. Today’s post is an example of that.

A big Thank You to Hey Harriet Photography for creating this weekly blogging experience. People from all around the globe participate and post their shadowy shots and stories. Check out Hey Harriet Photography to see many fine examples of shadows in pictures and find out how you can participate.

Peace

Red Bells Ringing

Haiku My Heart
Stardate September 9, 2011

Haiku My Heart is a wonderful place where people from around the globe post stunning photographs and write amazing Haiku. It was the brainchild of my friend, Rebecca, who pens the recuerda mi corazon blog. Have a look to see more and find out how you can participate HERE.

Pretty red flowers

Bells ringing out the beauty

Hiding in silence

While riding in the mountains surrounding Taos, New Mexico, we stopped to take a rest from the grueling ordeal of riding off-road up steep rock strewn terrain. Taos is around 7000 feet above sea level. It would be a good bet to say we were riding up at 9000 feet when I looked around and saw these tiny flowers. While lying prone on the ground, I used the macro lens technique, (Thanks Paula), on my camera that allowed a close encounter with these tiny red beauties.

We stopped for a breather and captured our trusty steeds sitting along Forest Road 114

I don’t know what kind of wildflowers these are. This particular flower was small, less than an inch, and the entire plant sits on the forest floor. This specimen was barely 6-7 inches tall. Maybe someone can help me with an identification. I thought they looked like tiny red bells. I know I didn’t hear any ringing, yet I spotted them amidst an immense forest. I thought of their silence and yet they were so bold as to allow me to notice them. The color was so deep and rich.

Yours truly at a scenic overlook on New Mexico State Highway 518

Keeping with the total Spirit of Haiku My Heart, I will tell you that the riding has been fabulous so far. Getting off the highway and onto the forest service roads and trails in the Carson National Forest has been quite an experience. Yet my body and mind are telling me that my days of being capable of pulling off these maneuvers safely, and keeping myself out of possible dangerous situations, might be coming to an end. Maybe it’s the altitude making me think this way, but these thoughts come from my heart.

The bottom line is this. I am desperately missing my wife and family, but having a wonderful time with new motorcycle loving friends in a beautiful place amidst little red bells that are silently ringing in my ears.

May Peace be in your hearts