I decided to take this teaching with technology class this semester, obviously fitting for the times. But, I believe I need to learn new platforms; new to me, not to the world.
So, a bit stressed today trying to figure out what I was going to do for this first project. Then I messaged a friend of mine and she suggested to create a stop motion video – and I think it may work.
Assembling some miniatures, and the correct scale of the miniatures, (important: you don’t want gigantic dog and a small person, or gigantic person and tiny, tiny dog). Small words and letters, and an iPhone mini tripod or arm and see what I can do.
I was inspired by and have been inspired by Vashti Harrison’s illustrations and animation. Am I doing animation? I don’t quite think so, but it is creating.
We shall see. I have really no idea what I am doing.
In the meantime, I want to share a couple Mary Oliver poems and a podcast she was on. She hardly ever did interviews, a rare event. Krista Tippett from On Being got her to an interview. I will post the edit and non-edited versions. I prefer the non-edited but you choose.
It is worth the listen.
Mary Oliver is New England’s own. I have adored Mary Oliver for quite some time. She lived and wrote in Provincetown for 50 years until as said, “It was time for a change” after her partner passed and her health started to cause her trouble.
She won the Pulitzer, many, many awards, and I guess in 2007, she was declared to be the country’s best-selling poet. She has published a legion of books – I could not tell you which to observe. Her most recent is a white, big, beautiful book called Devotions, a collection of poems throughout her lifetime.
She had a very troubled childhood, but instead of that being her focus, although as she admits it comes out here and there, how can it not – she focused on the beauty around her.
She believed poetry saved her and for me my heart slows, my mind wanders but does not ponder; it focuses on the words set beneath me and inspires me to keep writing.
From her book Thirst.
In the Storm
Some black ducks
were shrugged up
on the shore.
It was snowing
hard, from the east
and the sea
was in disorder.
Then some sanderlings,
five inches long
with beaks like wire,
flew in,
snowflakes on their backs,
and settled
in a row
behind the ducks –
whose backs were also
covered with snow –
so close
they were all but touching,
they were all but under
the rood of the duck’s tails,
so the wind, pretty much,
blew over them.
They stayed that way, motionless,
for maybe an hour,
then the sanderlings,
each a handful of feathers,
shifted, and were blown away
out over the water
which was still raging.
But, somehow,
they came back
and again the ducks,
like a feathered hedge,
let them
crouch there, and live.
If someone you didn’t know
told you this,
as I am telling you this,
would you believe it?
Belief isn’t always easy.
But this much I have learned –
if not enough else –
to live with my eyes open.
I know what everyone wants
is a miracle.
This wasn’t a miracle.
Unless, of course, kindness –
as now and again
some rare person has suggested –
is a miracle.
As surely it is.
Praying
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.
Thirst
Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and the love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart. Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.
Another great poem in the book: Heavy. Poignant for the time.
Mary Olive’s Podcast. Her voice, her knowing and unknowing. She passed away January 2019. Take a listen.
Un-edited:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-being-with-krista-tippett/id150892556?i=1000489981361
Edited:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-being-with-krista-tippett/id150892556?i=1000489981360
Much love to you and you and you. Sorry about some of the spacing.
WordPress – if you read this, I find your update extremely cumbersome and the text has flashed and gone away without notice. I hope a new update will follow.