Grateful Dead
Chris Watson
a whisper in the leaves
open spaces
extension intimacy
simple perspectives
locations in isolation
"Gerda Lerner, a pioneer in the field of women's history and founding member of the National Organization for Women died Thursday in Madison, Wisconsin at the age of 92.
Gerda was born in Austria to a privileged Jewish family in 1920, and spent six weeks in a Nazi prison as a teenager. She later wrote that the experience taught her how society manipulates people, a lesson she saw reinforced by academics who suggested history was only about men.
She and her family fled the Nazi's and came to the U.S.in 1939. She earned her Ph.D. in history in 1966 at Columbia University and eventually established the first graduate program in women's studies at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY. Later she moved to Madison where she founded a doctoral program in women's history at the University of Wisconsin."
Now with 101 women in the 113th Congress (includes 3 nonvoting members), one can only wonder how many women (and men) did this one very intelligent and determined woman inspire in her lifetime.
See how everything lead up.....
Well, it's...
10:16:01
A Perfect
Second on
This Night.
Sadly elegant. The Dead, the unborn, becoming...
Dr. Spasmodious & the prophetic mop maid. Worthy and perhaps inspired by Bob Dylan.
This land is too sad and we knew it too. Still we danced with the dead, the dead also peeking from around the corner.
But don't make too many people complain, marye? Where's the line, I'm wondering?
Enjoy the garden and don't make too many people complain...
This was written by Robert Hunter to be read over the air at a Grateful Dead NYE concert broadcast from Kaiser Auditorium in 1986. The last two lines vary to rhyme with the year.
The Boxes of Dr. Spasmodious
Dr. Spasmodious sat at his desk,
the end of the year drawn nigh,
haunted, harried, full of gloom,
watching the seconds die.
The maid behind him sloshed her mop
in a bucket of silvery suds;
unborn children watched through a crack
in the floor of the attic above.
We were together, you and I,
with other children yet to be born,
between the ages, if not in life,
one to the other, eternally sworn.
You, frail and fair as a lily,
held my hand by light of the moon,
pale beams brightly spilling
on boxes all over the room -
boxes heavy with dust of the dead,
time and decay - all but one:
tied with a shining bit of thread
fine as a baby's hair and red.
"Tell me your prophecy, Maid of the Mop,"
said the Doctor downstairs below,
"What's simple to you is subtle to me.
What sort of year will this coming year be?"
She shook a spark from her long red hair
which flew like a star to his tree
"Spring will be damp and Summer dry
and Autumn come presently . . ."
So saying, she bound her flowing hair
with a ribbon of scarlet twine,
returned to mopping the floor away
until nothing remained but shine.
Down we came with cautious tread
you, I, and all of the others -
bearing the box tied with a thread
fine as a baby's hair and red.
The maid once more unloosed her hair,
gray now as clouds when laden with rain.
You she chose, took by the hand,
allowed, out of all, to remain.
The rest she kissed both sides of the cheek
as the chimes of the New Year dinned,
one by one sent each through the door
to dissolve in the rain and wind.
Dr. Spasmodious watched from his chair
on the point of a tear but refrained.
He smiled instead, held out his arms
to you who were spared from the rain.
"Welcome my child to life again,
to the kingdom of hope and pain.
Ring in the New, Two Thousand and Five
May grace prevail and we survive!"
Other endings have included:
Two Thousand and Six! Ring in the year!
Deliver us peace and freedom from fear."
Let two thousand and seven arrive;
may grace prevail and we survive!"
From http://www.whitegum.com/~acsa/introjs.htm?/~acsa/songfile/BOXESDRS.HTM
I will do a Medicine Buddha puja for you so that you might heal in physical and mental aspects. Please know that this is not the end of the world. Out of the ashes of the old many good things can come and usually do. In the short term are challenges and raw emotions that are difficult to confront. Please know that this suffering is the expiation of your negative karma IF you calmly accept that nothing can happen to you which you don't already deserve.
The cards you have to play right now are ever so hard and the urge to lash out is so easy to give into. Don't give in. Stay strong and stick with a plan for the future. Sometimes it is necessary to rely on the kindness of strangers. These strangers may have very important points for you to glean.
I can't speak to your particular situation, but I can sympathize that it had been a really crappy year that isn't over yet. I hope the Medicine Buddhas and their retinues allow you the space to vitally heal and bring you to a better place than before. Never give up, three kids depend on you...
Where do they all belong?
I found my 2005
Official Grateful Dead
Calendar.
I hung it on the month
of June. It is awesome.
The Executive Editor was
Mickey Hart and it was by
Grateful Dead Productions
The border is -as wonderful
as it's contents. And those...
arms and...
He would get my vote.
With just so much more too!
Grateful Good, cheers, xo.