I dwell in Possibility-
A fairer House than Prose-
More numerous of Windows-
Superior-for Doors-

Of Chambers as the Cedars-
Impregnable of Eye-
And for an Everlasting Roof-
The Gambrels of the Sky-

Of Visitors-the fairest-
For Occupation-This-
The spreading wide my narrow Hands-
To gather Paradise-

-Emily Dickinson

have always felt that people look on me as an outcast-that the simple request for a cup of coffee elicits a slight tightening around the eyes.

I have always felt like an outsider; and I am sure that the suspicion that I perceive is the suspicion that I provoke by my great longing to belong.

I would like to live a life free of constant self-examination-a life which may be ruled by the processes of guilt, remorse, hope, and anxiety, but one in which those processes themselves are not foremost in the mind.

I would like to belong to a world dedicated to creating, preserving, achieving, or simply getting by. But the world of the outsider, in which I have chosen to live, and in which I have trained myself to live, is based on none of those things. I t is based on observation.

The habit of constant acute awareness can be seen in animals with no recourse, with no option to fight, with no margin for error. It is the habit of one completely dependent on the vagaries and good will of his environment. It is the habit of the young child. Historically, it is the habit of the Jew.

As children of immigrant Jews, we are spurred in our need to observe by the memory of old humiliations, of old indignities. We are spurred by the learned and enforced pleasures of isolation and reflection.

Trained to live by our wit, to live on margin-trained not to assimilate, we have found useless the virtues of compromise with our environment. And so our lives are a fierce attempt to find an aspect of the world that is not open to interpretation.

True to our past, we live and work with an inherited, observed, and accepted vision of personal futility, and the beauty of the world

David Mamet

Relentless Creativity

When the evolutionary process was initiated, something came from nothing. The authentic self is that same creative principle, awakening to itself in human consciousness. And for that dynamic impulse, there is always only the unmanifest promise of the next moment. The authentic self is never concerned with the present moment, however significant it may appear to be, because the present moment has already happened. Its eternal passion is change itself, because it is only interested in the future, always one step ahead, ever reaching for what's on the edge of the possible.

The passion of the authentic self will never experience satisfaction. It simply cannot, because it is a function of consciousness, an evolutionary impulse that is compelled to create the future, perpetually. Its mature is relentless creativity, and it is on;y ever interested in pulling the future into the present, ceaselessly striving to usher into existence that which has not yet emerged. And when that potential does begin to enter into actuality, that part of your self experiences no relief whatsoever, because its attention is already on the next possibility, the next moment and the next, because that is its function, forever. The authentic self exists in a state of constant creative tension that is never released, always suspended between what is and what could be.

Andrew Cohen

by annabelle chvostek. i share it with all blessings for a new year. may we open it with care as the old one leaves us forever behind, wrapped this winter's night in its white winding sheet. god bless us one and all.

hurricanes will come
earthquakes break the walls
oceans rise
empires fall

enter world light unshown
follow heart, follow home
here we are light unshown
one round heart, one round home

spin the speed of light
tetrahedron blue
one last paradise
you can make for you

enter world light unshown
follow heart, follow home
here we are light unshown
one round heart, one round home

faster that a ship
further than a bomb
see the glowing grid
send love throughout the throng

enter world light unshown
follow heart, follow home
here we are light unshown
one round heart, one round home.

APOCALYPSE LULLABY from the album,"Firecracker", by the WAILIN' JENNYS...........................3 very remarkable canadian singer/songwriter/angelic beings.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! tom

as i was driving home, snow falling, bay on my right shoulder, clouds above engaged in their own slow traffic. my hands on the wheel, my breath making ghosts in the cold truck, the dog by my side, all water, or mostly, all teeming with life, dripping with it. at home in my kitchen, haley and i both want a drink. in my glass ,i think, i begin to see, i am holding god, this thing we call water. i ask for clarity as i drain the glass, cold from the earth, this marvelous shape shifter, this almost nothing at all, and everything i have ever loved. this forest born brew is both the body and the blood. we are drinking god. we feast upon the divine.

-Tom O'Donovan
late December 2006

today a 'friend' asked me 'why'
when i showed her drawings for the new rooftop gardens.
i was left without much in the way of response.
i just looked around the gallery and said,
'why any of this?'
...why make art.
why dance or sing or write songs or poems?
why.
i confess, sometimes, after the rain has fallen for days and days, and the news of the world breaks my heart again,
i wonder myself.
why beauty calls.........so loud, so stridently clear, so relentlessly
to me, to you, to anyone, to what end
or what beginning

--Tom O'Donovan
Spring 2006

Image:
"Tara"
Claire McArdle
calacatta marble