I have been sorry that I didn’t create a collage for the Weekly Photo Challenge: Look Up ever since that July 2016 week came and went. I’ve decided that it’s never too late so am going to do it now!
(You can hover the cursor over the photos to see where they were taken. Click anywhere on the gallery to enlarge them.)
I couldn’t resist answering the WordPress Daily Prompt that just showed up in my email inbox. The directions were to write a post on the one-word prompt: Stylish.
Stylish I am not. At least 90% percent of the time, you will find me wearing jeans. I don’t even own a dress any more and I only have two or three skirts. I don’t know the exact number because I rarely wear them. And I almost never buy new clothes. My big purchase this year was two pairs of new jeans!
I don’t believe in saying never, but I’d say the chances of me ever becoming stylish is pretty close to never. And I’m okay with that. 🙂
It no longer is Sunday, but I want to participate in this week’s Song Lyric Sunday so I’m going to! This week we were asked to write about a band we heard at a recent concert. The last concert I attended was on March 3, 2014. At that time I went to hear BB King at the Moore Theater in Seattle. He was 88 years-old at the time.
The opening band was Ayron Jones and the Way. The young people in the crowd went wild with joy as he played. Al and the friends that we went with loved his music too, but it just wasn’t for me. A few minutes ago, I listened to one of his songs on YouTube: Baptized in Muddy Waters. I know the music is good, and I love his voice; it just isn’t a style of music I enjoy listening to.
After Ayron Jones finished, BB King’s band played numerous songs. At one point, BB King walked on stage and sat down. He seemed very old and weak. He played his guitar a little and sang a couple of lines of The Thrill is Gone, but for the most part, he just talked to us. I sensed that I was sitting at the feet of a great Master and felt extremely honored to have that privilege. He died on May 14, 2015.
I could say much more about BB King but I’ve decided to let his music speak for him. I chose a video from a concert that he did along with Eric Clapton. I don’t know what year that concert occurred, but BB King’s hair was gray and how he looks on the video reminds me of the man that I experienced that night in 2014.
The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away
The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away
You know you done me wrong
And you’ll be sorry someday
The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away from me
The thrill is gone
TheIt’s gone away from me
Though I’ll still live on
But so lonely I’ll be
The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away for good
The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away for good
Someday I’ll be over it all
Like I know a good man should
I’m free baby
Free from your spell
I’m free, free baby
Free from your spell
Now that it’s all over
All I can do is wish you well
From January to March 2016, I offered a weekly Challenge for Growth Prompt. Participants published a post that related to the weekly topic and I posted a summary of those contributions. You will find that list below.
I give thanks to everyone who contributed to the challenges, whether it was by publishing a post, by reading the posts written by others or by thinking about the challenge topics as they lived their life that week.
Everyone is still welcome to write for Challenge for Growth Prompts. If you do, I will add you to the list of contributors. You will find the full prompt list below the contributors list. The directions for participating in a prompt can be found in each of the prompt descriptions. Continue reading “Challenge for Growth Prompts: January to March 2016”→
I often refer to a sense of being home when I am describing various aspects of my life journey, especially my spiritual journey. There are many places and experiences that feel like home to me. For example, I feel at home when I am in my house in Seattle; I feel at home when I’m with my children; I feel at home when I am at Seabeck Conference Center on the Olympic Peninsula; I feel at home when I am with Amma and I feel at home when I am in altered states of consciousness that take me to spiritual bliss or deep peace. So these were the types of experiences I thought of when I first discovered that the theme of Song Lyric Sunday this week is Home. Continue reading “Song Lyric Sunday: Home”→
I was a bit surprised when I discovered that the theme for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday was sex. I thought that would be a tough one for me to participate in as I didn’t think I knew any songs about sex, but that belief quickly turned out to be wrong.
Yesterday, I posted two songs about hair, my own (Sixty-eight Years of Hair) and a reblog of my son’s (Nearly Forty-two Years of Hair.) My friend Kathie from ChosenPerspectives used a video clip from Hair in her comment to my post. The songs from that musical are an important part of my history and I love them. I had no doubt I could find a song fitting for this week’s challenge in that play.
Hair: the American Tribal Love-Rock is a musical about the 1960’s hippie counterculture and sexual revolution. It was controversial for it’s depiction of drug use, irreverence for the American flag, profane language, racially integrated cast and ending nude scene. It opened off-Broadway in 1967 and on-Broadway in 1969. That version ran for 1750 performances. There have been many other productions of the Hair musical in the U.S. and Europe since then.
I attended the Atlanta International Pop Festival in 1970 and the cast from Hair performed there. I also thoroughly enjoyed watching a production of Hair with a friend in Seattle 8-10 years ago. I had forgotten about the nude scene at the end so that was quite a surprise!
The songs I have chosen for this Song Lyric Sunday are Black Boys and White Boys.
The theme for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday is anger. The tune that came to my mind was Nancy Sinatra’s song These Boots Are Made for Walkin’. It was written by Lee Hazelwood and was released on February 22, 1966.
I enjoyed hearing a song from my past but watching the video was even more fun. The song came out when I was 17, six or seven months before I moved to Seattle… to go to college. It is highly unlikely I would have seen the video back then so I appreciate the opportunity to see it now.
You keep saying you got something for me
Something you call love but confess
You’ve been a’messin’ where you shouldn’t ‘ve been a’messin’
And now someone else is getting all your best
Well, these boots are made for walking, and that’s just what they’ll do
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you
You keep lyin’ when you oughta be truthin’
You keep losing when you oughta not bet
You keep samin’ when you oughta be a’changin’
What’s right is right but you ain’t been right yet
These boots are made for walking, and that’s just what they’ll do
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you
You keep playing where you shouldn’t be playing
And you keep thinking that you’ll never get burnt (HAH)
Well, I’ve just found me a brand new box of matches (YEAH)
And what he knows you ain’t had time to learn
These boots are made for walking, and that’s just what they’ll do
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you
Last week, I was introduced to the amazing child singer, Sooryagayathri, from Kerala, India. I shared information about her, as well as three of her songs, in a previous post.
I decided to use another one of her songs for my contribution to this week’s Song Lyric Sunday event. (The directions for the event were to “share a song you’ve heard recently for the first time and fell in love with.”) The song, Bhagyada Lakshmi Baramma is a tribute to Lakshmi, the Hindu Goddess of Wealth, Fortune and Prosperity, both material and spiritual. It was written in Kannada, a South Indian language, by Saint Purandara Dasa.
Oh, Goddess of fortune. Laksmi devi ! Do come slowly with your anklets making the jingling sound. Come to us like butter emerging out of buttermilk when it is churned. Come and shower on us a rain of gold and fufilll our aspirations. Come with the brightness of countless number of rays of the sun. Come and bless us; Oh, Devi, who has taken incarnation as Sita. Oh, lotus eyed Devi who is the pride of Mahavishnu. Come and appear before us wearing the shining golden bracelets on your wrists and the auspicious vermilion mark on your forehead! Oh, consort of Purandaravitthala, welcome to you who shine auspiciously in the hearts of great sages. Oh, Queen of Alagiri Ranga, come to our worship on Friday when streams of ghee and sugar will overflow!
Sooryagayathri was nine years old when the video below was recorded. The man who is with her is her teacher, Kuldeep Pai.
I hope you enjoy her pure, mesmerizing voice. If you do, you can find more of her recordings on YouTube.
As I noted briefly in the last post, I have decided to end the Challenges for Growth series. I would like to thank everyone who participated during the last twelve weeks whether it was by writing a post or by keeping the challenge in mind throughout the week. I give extra thanks to the four bloggers who participated the most: Sreejit at The Seeker’s Dungeon and Where Love Meets War; Nichole at Nik’s Place; Annette at Annette’ Place and Cheryl-Lynn at Traces of the Soul.
The twelve prompts will remain available. You are welcome to take the challenges at any time. If you write a post, link to the challenge page and I will add your post to the appropriate monthly summary.
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”-William Shakespeare
Living, Learning and Letting Go 