November 24, 2013

November 24, 2013

   Click on any photo to bring the pictures up in full screen.

   Two weeks ago I was in NYC with my daughter and her husband Rudy for six days where I managed to spend two days in the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 82nd. and Fifth Avenue. There are several sculptures that have a particular spiritual significence for me, The Madona and Child by Claus deWerve - 

c. 1439, one of the great reliefs in my opinion which  The Virgin and Child is by Mino daFiesole - c. 1466, and the Bodhisattva Guan Yin from the late 10th. century. These are definate stops where I spend a good amount of time with each sculpture not just to refresh my memory but to stop and receive a sense of renewal from the prayers imbedded in these works as they are from monastaries where they were venerated for many hundreds of years before somehow winding up in this museum. They inspired countless numbers of people over the years and I sense their presence still palpable in these Sacred objects. Essentially I see them not as art objects but as symbols that have the power to evoke a closer relationship with God whose Creative desires have been placed in the hands of those who create for the rest of us something of Real Substance, a tangable connection to God's Very Self. 

    If you go to the Metropolitan Museum website the three sculptures can be seen there in a rather straightforward view. If you would like to see my photos send me an email and I will delighted to send some along as I have had the privilege to make images closer to my sense of their spiritual value as I interpret it. Here is the museum address:

         http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/42725

   This will take you to the Guan Yin and following the tabs the others can be found. The Museum site is a valuable resource that offers a chance to see online to see the entire collections that are available to the public. Well worth a visit.

   Here are four photos from my visit to the Museum:

    

The Light of Creativity shines through everything.

There's an opening in everything,

that's how the Light gets out.

      I saw electronics on almost everyone in the Museum which for some  seemed to be more the experience they were having than the art works. Above I believe I see an Iphone, a Digital camera and a touchpad of some sort. I sat in the American Wing and instead of taking pictures of the sculptures there I started shooting  people who were using every device made currently to record images. I will show a few after I process them in future weeks. The world is getting more bizzare every few months lately it seems.

   A remarkable Crucifix from a special exhibition on loan to the Met. Here is their blurb:

Hildesheim Cathedral has one of the most complete surviving ensembles of church furnishings and treasures in Europe, with many masterpieces made between 1000 and 1250. As a result, it was designated a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site in 1985. A major renovation of the cathedral provides an opportunity for this extraordinary exhibition of medieval church treasures. Consisting of about fifty works, the exhibition focuses primarily on Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim (960–1022), one of the greatest patrons of the arts in the Middle Ages

A gleeful Mary!

Part of a Madona and Child in the Medieval Collection.

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   I visited my brother and his partner who live just off Bleeker Street in Grenwich Village in Manhattan and as I left around 6PM after it already became dark in this season of short days I was surprised to see the changes to the Street over the years. The Street has become gentrified and now has many high end botiques where Italian bakeries and bread stores used to be when I lived in The Village many years ago. Bleeker street was a busy place then and now I saw very few people on a Friday night which gave the place a rather lonely feeling. However your intrepid visual reporter saw opportunity for images. Here are a few:

I saw something surreal about the girl in red in the doorway,

a memory of something from childhood when young girls 

were dressed in skirts and matching hats. 

Fire Sale

One photograph of the store window as it was, this is not a composite.

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        - The Conversation –

­God took the Spirit aside and said,

"I want you to fly to earth and capture a soul."

The Spirit asked, "Which one ?"

God replied, in a whisper, "wwssshhhwg."

Is it you –

   or is it him or her the Spirit seeks  ?

A good trusted authority told me what God whispered –

   "Everyone. Everyone ……"

                                      Bill Lagerstrom,  July, 2012

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A little humor:

Until next week,

   Peace,  Bill Lagerstrom

                                 

November 15, 2013

Novenber 15, 2013

   Click on any photo to view the images full screen.

   Last week I was in New York City visiting my daughter Bridget and her husband Rudy and their dog Rocky who is a breed known as a 'Morkie," a cross between a Maltese and a Yorkshire terrier. An agressively loving dog who demands and gets as much petting and belly rubbing as he can out of everyone in the room. So here I enter, an alpha grandpa who has no intention of giving up my status as king of the pack while looking at a determined twenty pound living mass of "I am here to be adored and pandered to in every way as royalty needs to be so honored." Well we struck a bargin that made the relationship more two sided than the pooch would have wanted. Let's just say that Rocky got his belly rubbed and I got my space for a few minutes here and there.

    The dog is in truth lovable and almost as good looking as I am. I did enjoy his company and the war of "You will pet me continually!" became a pact of peace where "I will give you a treat, a pet, and you will take a nap or bother someone else." This dog is also a vegetarian, eats carrots, the favorite treat!"

Mr. Rocky Medina of Forest Hills, Borough of Queens, New York City

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    Bridget and myself for the early part of the week played the role of tourist even though between us we have around seventy five years of living in New York City. On Tuesday we went to the Central Park Zoo after a walk up Fifth Avenue dodging the tourists and the always in a rush New Yorkers. At the Zoo I found the most relaxed and serene New Yorker, one of the seals taking a nap and digesting lunch. 

Equinimity in action - so to speak

Fifth Avenue and Fifty Third Street  subway station -

Taken during a non rush hour moment

The hand on the upper right is saying,

"Stop smiling!" 

A rare looking person on the streets of NYC

At the Zoo with expressions ranging from bored to happy.

She listened to her mother when told to go play in traffic.

Fall trees are forever in the forground of buildings,

yet they will always manage to live by their own clock

even in a twenty four hour city.

A sign outside a voting place in one of the most diverse cities in the world.

English, Spanish, Japanese, Korean and Philippine.

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   Mostly photos today and more of New York City next week along with a few more comments and poetry.

   The NYC Subways tried to be more consumer friendly over the years without a lot of practical success. Announcements are made every so often as to when the next train at any station will arrive, usually a few stops away - maybe. This week's cartoon is a reflection of this friendly attitude on the part of the MTA towards riders.

   Peace until next week,

                     Bill Lagerstrom

November 1, 2013

November 1, 2013

   All photos can be viewed full screen by clicking on any Picture.

    The new holiday that was said to replace Christmas as the favorite among those under thirty is Halloween. I decided that instead of dressing up as a zombie, or as a research bureaucrat in non public service I would instead decorate my favorite cemetery for the occasion. I walk here three to four times a week as it is around a half mile from where we live, which gives me some sort of an edge on knowledge of the afterlife that runs rampant every October 30th. My continuing education program - there are a few teachers buried there which gives us a chance to converse regularly.

   Here is my halloween photographic effort:

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    I track the seas off midcoast Maine to see when a storm brings waves of a respectable height to make the sixty mile trip really worthwhile. Lee and I are in Acadia frequently as witnessed by the photos on this site since its conception, so the drive is not a big deal. The National Weather Service showed waves of fifteen plus feet so off I went to Schoodic Point which is a peninsula just North of Acadia and is a part of the National Park that is well exposed to the ocean thereby offering good wave watching for the intrepid. Schoodic adds around thirty miles to the trip and it is a really delightful part of the coast showing what Maine looked like before far too many houses were built on the seaward side of the State. 

   Here are a few of the photos taken yesterday.
    

    Waves fifteen feet, wind 35-40 miles in speed, heavy rain and spray and a Laughing Gull weighing around a pound and a half has no real problems with the ongoing search of food. In the center a Herring Gull drops down to see if something is edible. 

A point on the Schoodic peninsula

       Unbothered by the storm seven to eight Eider Ducks and a gull are the dark specks in the photo's center. The adaptation of birds and mammels to live in the ocean is a wonder to me as to how such a light, fragile creature can survive in these conditions. Yet, there are hundreds of millions of seabirds making a living in the open ocean all around the world. 

Taken yesterday, a woods scene in a windy overcast storm sky.

The last yellow colors of Fall, Schoodic Point.

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Some humor:  What we may have come to in the information age ...

    No Blog next week as I will be traveling.

                    Peace,  Bill Lagerstrom