Mystery Blooms

I am trying to find out the names of these blooms which I did not plant. As with many things here it has grown independently.

Both variations open around 6-7am and closes by 3pm or when the sun is bearing the hardest.

At first we thought they may be 2 variations of Asters, but every description I've read thus far does not describe them growing in tall spindly stems, but in bushes.

I appreciate any help I can get. I do not want to cut them back unless they are a weed. Even as a weedthey are lovely to look at in the Secret Garden...

All rights ReservedJHM©09

All rights ReservedJHM©09

All rights ReservedJHM©09

EnJOYing my Garden

I got really beautiful shots in the garden to share.

All rights ReservedJHM©09

EnJOY!

Declaration of Me~On My Side of the Fence

I am a pretty groovy woman if I say so myself.

And I am not gonna do the "appropriate" thing as it is expected or conditioned for a woman to do when she acknowledges her assets by down playing, externalizing what she can do by saying "it just happened or someone is far better at doing XYZ as I" because we all know the world including the culture of women who will, in some corners, punish one with either a benign "tsk, tsk, tsk" to an outright character assassination to remind you of your place if you have the audacity of affirming yourself.

It can make some folks nervous, having audacity, as one has to have some sense of feeling & knowing being powerful to be what they are especially if they possess a uterus. And when one has not reached that point may feel uncomfortable when another does, or had it/lost it/retrieved it/lost it again even for a minute may feel they have to "tsk, tsk", I say that's ok.

However, if any reader feels they have to even in their thoughts, I say of you, save yourself the trouble of "tsking" as I've heard it before & will probably hear it again. However it will not be today or tomorrow or the day after. I cannot do much for your thoughts as that is your free-ness, just don't send it to me.

Alright?

I know on good authority that the sun will still come up everyday without fail. Even if you cannot see it for a moment behind the cloud that will deflect its glow, its going to come out...

Now, despite a whole lotta shakin goin' on previously in my life, I have managed,nay actively have embraced living, indeed having a whole lot of love to share, move a few mountain, supported many a soul, laughed, made contributions to others, made a few ripples, alter some perception inclusive of an active healthy appreciation of who I am.

As Kahlil Gibran once said:
"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven"?

Without a question I am flawed, however it is the cayenne pepper, the oomph that keeps me from sainthood which I do not desire or aspire to anyway. And as many a person who has known me my almost 59 years know (and still care) I have made decisions as a after thought were not the best. But no one can deny me of the fact that I at least chose to do something. And while sometimes, well, many times I feel on my very ample derriere', I got up. Sometimes I had to sit there and catch my breath or my bearings, I got up. And was able to at time sashay, saunter, strut or at times very carefully so move ahead.

In fact, just in the last few days I've enjoy an amazing amount of liberation. Knowledge is so powerful. Not only the knowledge that can be intellectual, but the kind that reaches into the very marrow of your bones. It is mighty nice, to put it nicely. Actually it is at least metaphorically speaking one of those "I wanna go to the mountaintop and scream it to the world" but shan't not because this baby is for me.

And it is a groovy kind of love.

I am good with it....

Somewhere and I know now where it happen, when I turn over the keys to my life, but now I have repossess my vehicle and in the driver's seat. And now ready to rock & roll right on over all the packaging that once was my ally and now has slowed me down.

I am a visual artist/poet, mother of 3, grandmother of 8, embarking on returning not only back to New Orleans my home, but also ready to re spark my career, my world and my identity.My sabbitical is over, I will no longer be in a self imposed exile.

I will indeed have even bigger, joy to the world totally realistic that it won't always be joyous all the time as this is not how cycles go. But that even as Anthony Robbins said recently on Good Morning America "We are in the winter right now", I have to add "spring is coming an with it rebirth, regrowth, re-sparking!


"Hard times and funky living can season the soul, true enough, but joy is the yeast that makes it rise".~Ruby Moon

Now how cool is that!

Feed your Mind-Coping

I heard this on Good Morning America 3 weeks ago and thought I could not find the link. Anthony Robbins made extremely excellent comments here and I would like to share with you...

He said it better then I so check it out at:
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=7506072

2-Cent from New Orleans;A New Kind of Tourism?

Good for these young'un!

2-Cent from New Orleans

By Jordan Flaherty Reviewed by Alan Wolfe

“Other generations marched, and we march too,” says Brandan “B-Mike” Odums. “But in this age we have a whole new range of weapons...I think Martin Luther King, Jr. would want to be on YouTube, to have his speeches distributed that way. Malcolm X would love to make mixtapes.”

The video is compelling. It depicts young people in the Lower Ninth Ward holding up signs that read: “looter,” “we’re still here,” “America did this.” Amid empty lots and damaged houses, poet Nik Richard delivers this message: “Hurricane Katrina was the biggest national disaster to hit American soil, and nearly two years later, this area is still devastated. But you know what? We made sure we preserved it strictly for your tourism. For about $75, you can take one of these many tour buses.”

The next shot: tourists drive by and people with cameras gawk. Richard looks directly at the camera and says, “It looks like there’s more money to be paid in devastation than regeneration. If y’all keep paying your money to see it, should we rebuild it?”

The short film New Orleans For Sale, which has garnered several awards, was made by 2-Cent Entertainment, a group of young Black media makers in New Orleans that creates activist videos. The group, which has about 10 members, made New Orleans for Sale to convey the frustration felt by many New Orleanians as the city has become a national spectacle and a backdrop for countless national politicians, while the aid the city needs to rebuild still hasn’t arrived.

In 2008, the film won several awards including an NAACP image award in a competition, called Film Your Issue, which featured a high-powered jury with the likes of news anchor Tom Brokaw and media executives from MTV Network...

To read the full article log on to:http://www.colorlines.com/article.php?ID=532

Happy trails...~S'More

Happy trails...

I was thinking about my friend in South Africa as I was on my walk today in a natural preserve near my home thinking "oh she would enjoy this" and that brought me joy. So Gail since I could not bring Mohammed to the mountain I am bring the mountain to Mohammed, er, trees :=), this is for you!

Joy to the World~5-20-09

Go for a walk & appreciate the beautiful gardens around me...

Enjoy & like my friend for what she is able to give.

Joy to the World

Rediscover Who You Are
Read full article at:

http://www.oprah.com/article/spirit/knowyourself/ss_lybl_letgo_201

I so love this exerpt. So now I have to see my own Joy List...

Create a "What I Enjoy" List

As simple as this may sound, it is very important for you to make one. This list should include everything that brings you pleasure and passion in life.

If you aren't sure what brings you joy right now, think back to what used to bring you joy?

This may require some exploration, but what did you do when you were a little kid that brought a smile on your face? Did you used to go horseback riding? Walk outside in a garden?

Whatever it may be, write it down.

This list doesn't mean that you have to do them every day. It's just to make you aware that there are things in the world that do make you feel alive. If you are able to do something you enjoy at least once a week, do it and help yourself feel alive in that moment.

You have to behave the way you want to feel before you feel the way you are behaving! It's about opening yourself up to a new experience, or something that you stopped doing.

Try to rediscover what it feels like to look or feel differently from the "not enoughness" you have been putting into your head for a long time now.

When you start doing this you will launch yourself back into aliveness!

Now some of myJoys to the World List:

1.Travel
2. My Moon Garden
3. The Color Purple; Seven Pounds; The Curious Life & Times of Benjamin Button /Divine Secrets of The Ya Ya Sisterhood movies
4.j.California Cooper/Tina McElroy Ansa/ Alice Walker books
5. Good perfumes and perfumed candles
6. Laughter
7. Home decorating
8.Creating art;writing;dance
9.Beautiful jewelry
10. Reading
11. Spending time with people I care about.
12 Shopping at antique stores, thrifts & yard sales.
13. Collecting recipes.
14. Clear nights seeing the stars & the Moon
15 Early mornings
16. Good conversations
17 Smoked oysters on crackers with cream cheese and wine.
18. Cream white Calla lillies, French tulips ;hydragneas', spider zinnias, fushias, irises & impatients
19. Slupees & crunchy Cheetoes
20. Mexican food.
21. Change.

Thank You, Sam!

Just Today09©

It was virtually nothing except bare walls when I moved in.

And now I have trees to sit under...
With sweet smelling jasmine,impatients, morning glories, irises and honey birds…
Any time now my golden shower is going to break out...
As an absolutely magnificent mural raining…
I am back in my peaceful centre and all is well with the world.
And even be able to conjure up the energy to dance at the edge of dawn in my garden…
If it was only just today
All rights reservedJHM 3-31-09©

In Moon's Garden & the Cul de Sac

In Moon's Garden

I'm Not...

Please read entire essay at: http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/05/i-am-not-feminist.html



"I am not a feminist. I can declare this boldly without fear and with a certainty of will. I believe unequivocally in women's rights and the equality of all beings but have found after various years of interaction, that feminism has no room for women that look like me or have similar experiences to me.

I cannot knowingly participate in a movement that claims to be open and yet daily either appropriates or minimizes my struggle for the gains of others.
I am a heterosexual, black, disabled mother. I am many things to many people and my life though simple in its nature, is worth something to me and the people that I love. Daily I live with the legacy that was bequeathed to me from my mothers womb and I cannot in good conscience spit upon my inheritance by owning a label that seeks to privilege others.

The name of this blog is Womanist Musings for a reason. Womanism not only speaks to who I am as a person but to who I aspire to be each and everyday. It is not housed in academia or based in privileging whiteness or class advantage. It lives and breathes because women of color continue to struggle for even the most basic form of recognition that is the birth right of a privileged few on our little blue planet.

I have seen the discussions between radical women of color/womanist and feminists referred to as a war. At first the term war seemed inappropriate until I thought about the length and breathe of this conversation. Indeed it is a war, a war of attrition to be accurate. Though we are told that we have come so far because a black woman is now first lady, even that honour is appropriated as whiteness seeks to claim Michelle Obama by comparing her to women like Jackie O and alternately defiling her at will by calling her angry when she displays any form of agency"...

Chris Gardner;"Start Where You Are" Book

Start Where You Are: Life Lessons On Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be,”

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/moving_america_news/9358/1

“Number one life lessons that I have learned, lessons that I got from other people that inspired me, such as find your button. What is the one thing that turns you on to the point that the sun can't up soon enough because you want to go and do your thing?

Number two: Plan B sucks. There is no plan B. When you're doing something you're truly passionate about, there is no plan B.

Number three - well, some folks will talk about - you've got to have something to fall back on. We all have something to fall back on already. It's called a butt, okay? When you have fallen back on your butt, one of the things you have to ask yourself sometimes is 'How did I get here?' This is the part of the book that a lot of folks might not feel comfortable with. The truth of the matter is, sometimes we have to say, "I drove here," meaning I have some responsibility in the circumstances and conditions that are now my life.” - "The Glenn Beck Show” (2009)~Chris Gardner


“Look, you know what I do know? All this could be real crazy. But I do believe, with all my heart, that some of the things that I had to go through were God's way of getting me ready for what He wants me to do." - Fortune (2006)~Chris Gardener

“Passion is everything. In fact, you've got to be borderline fanatical about what you do. Be bold enough to find the one thing that you are passionate about. It might not be what you were trained to do. But be bold enough to do the one thing. Nobody needs to dig it but you.” ~Chris Gardener

And in case I Don't See you: Goodnight, Good Morning,Good Afternoon...

And its been a very good morning my not knowing why getting up, I was smiling .

Something struck a chord with me today as I enjoyed watching CBS Sunday Morning as part of my early Sunday ritual. Unless it was because I am sitting jamming while listening to B.B King documentary live in Montreux & munching on endamane this morning. Or it could have been my waking up at 2am and saw a beautiful full moon smiling behind the pine trees in the southern hills framed by my window.

I got up & grabbed my camera and stood out in the stillness and took pictures. Had I waited even 15 minutes I would have not caught it as when I went back to bed the moon was no longer smiling at me outside my window And then it could have been the sun is shining when I reawaken... Late last night I had a great conversation with my mentor from many years ago who guided me in the early years of my career. I am forever thankful for her guidance and did well when I listened to her. And as with most people, (ignorance is not predicated by youth) I did not listen & paid the price. She watched from a distance my career as I stood, stumbled, fell, got back up, sputtered, hid, felt sorry for myself, got back up, had a temper tantrum, cheered up, sold myself & my art short, got back up, trusted others far more then my own judgment, was played upon & preyed upon, got back up (again) and continue to create. One should be so fortunate to have had such a mentor. I also had a conversation with a woman who is about where I was 10 years ago. It was an unlikely relationship, strange bedfellows so to speak. She came around about a time when I was having a purging of it appears the last vestiges of whatever had been not holding me back but a quiet restraint from being all the Ms. Moon I had wanted to be.

In that month I found out something uncharacteristic of me which was finding myself angry no, envious of others whose careers took off about the same time mine had and who are still doing well where as I seem to never be able to despite lots of successes, to pull myself economically for very long mainly for all the afore mentioned reasons.

And I was envious...

Not jealous, people sometime confuse the two.

I did not want what they had or appear to have. I wanted what I wanted. I was simply angry & did not want to admit to myself why I could not seem to get it or hold on to it until I came to grip that I've done what many have done and that is thrown the proverbial monkey's wrench in the wheel.

And before anyone goes New Age/the Secret/the Promise or whatever new philosophy du jour on me tell your own story. I got this one covered...

Life has many circles some intertwining some not and we all do not reach the same place at the same time and some not at all. But all the movement does work in concert with one another and what we do is what we do.

This woman was a pebble in the slipper for me and serves as a great reminder of what I have indeed accomplished and how tremendously far I've come. One thing I did know for sure was that I am no where near where she is in her life. But I am thankful for the pebble in the slipper as it activated a huge spilling out of emotions I had held onto for a very long time. Decades long and when it spilled out it was a sight to behold. And calling it spilling was likening a spill to the waters of Lake Ponchatrain & the Mississippi “spilling” when the levees broke during Katrina.

And I survived it just like many, many did in Katrina. I can tell it from the way I move, to how I see things to even the way I dress.

She will be fine and so will I, just simply at different places & I have no desire to be there. It’s done & over. Our circles simply bumped up against each other, intertwined for a moment and floated away with me now knowing why she brought out so much anger in me. At no point is this about me feeling superior to her or removed from her struggle. To the contrary, I get her struggle. It is just not mine any more. So we will do lunch next week and laugh over what we liked about one another before I get about moving my circle to a different location where I need to be.
All rights reservedJHM-11-09©

Etiquette Giveaway

Please go to this blog and enter

www.parishotelboutique.blogspot.com

An intriguing commentary on manners & etiquette you would like to see make a large comeback.