Cee’s Odd Ball Challenge (COB) is all about those great photos that you take which really don’t seem to fit into a common category. We’ve all taken them and like them, because we just can’t hit delete and get rid of them.
There is never a theme to this challenge, so what is an odd ball is all up for you to discover and photograph.
Looks like Howdy Doody took an uppercut to the chin! Knocked his Block off! Plus some strange sewing machines.
Today’s meeting with the Director of Stephen Residence went well. Better than expected. New Year 2017. Blank Slate. Fresh Start.
So glad I had the opportunity to speak directly one on one with the Director of QCP. I’ve known him a long time and I do trust him. I feel he values my opinion and will address my concerns regarding the clothing issues.
Gradually I’m starting to throw away my cynicism, doubts, becoming jaded and distrustful of other human beings. At one point I nearly lost faith in all humanity. We are all connected and in many ways that we don’t even realize or think about we are all connected. Not everyone is trying to throw you under the bus.
Of course like everyone I’ve had bad experiences and some horrible interactions with others and that includes my own family members but the actions of a few does not mean everyone you meet in your life will do the same thing to you. We are never really totally self-reliant. Most of us do not grow our own food or make our own clothes. So-called self-reliant Freedoms we take for granted during the peak of our youth and strength will be taken from you as old age, infirmities and disabilities settle in and become the new normal.
After my stroke at age 49 my life changed dramatically. I went through what I believe are the 7 stages of grief. For the longest I was alternately depressed and angry because I could not longer do the things I used to do like drive. My eyesight was affected by the stroke and I lost a good deal of vision in my left eye. So I cannot drive. I have difficulty reading books, signs, documents, etc…
Eventually over the last 8 years I’ve had to throw away my pride and accept help. Due to arthritis my back, legs, ankles, knees and joints no longer work the way they once did. God in his mercy has sent many rescuers to my aid but I had to drop my bad attitude, have faith and accept help. As the banks and financial institutions say, Past performance is not indicative of future results. I cannot allow my past including the abuse I suffered from men, racism, discrimination, bigotry and even some of my paternal cousins shunning me and Stephen affect my current or future interactions with people.
Back in 2012 I had several traumatic experiences. I split up with a guy whom I really cared for and had fallen in Love with but because his parents had died he had to return to the Eastern European country of his birth. It hurt. During this time period I also had a falling out with certain paternal cousins who I had cared for and supported when they fell on hard times. Yes they turned their backs on me. That really hurt because we were all raised up together. I cried. I felt abandoned. After all your family is supposed to Love you but we all know in reality that is not always the truth.
Finally I had a very strange experience while posted in a special Civil War photo exhibit. As many of you may have read in my previous blogs I had an ancestor William Henry Halstead who served as a Union Soldier. Well don’t ask me how but my Great, Great Grandfather made contact with me and I found myself in the midst of one of the battles he was in. I heard cannon fire, felt bullets whizzing by me. I heard the cries of the wounded. Their screams. I felt my Great, Great Grandfather William Henry Halstead fear and anxiety. The whole vision was unsettling.
I needed answers so I prayed to Jesus to send someone who would help me. Jesus sent me a Japanese Buddhist Lady who today has become one of my strongest friends. Guess Jesus has both a sense of humor and the knowledge/wisdom to send the right person despite that person being a different race/religion.
I can be a very difficult person yet she put up with me. Listen to my troubles. We went together to her Temple Shinnyo-en New York which I later joined. Now I’ve had my ups and downs but on Jan. 15th my Japanese girlfriend and I are going to the Main Temple located in White Plains. We will be together as Sisters. American and Japan. Buddhist and Christian.
As my mother Mable Palmer used to tell me, “Deborah you never know who you may have to call on.”
Just want to point out that when Stephen cannot do something and I ask him if he needs help he says Yes right away. I need to be more like my brother in some ways.
Trees are keepers of Eons. They hold the earth’s genetic memory like caves, rocks, boulders and stones. They have seen births, deaths, wars, Lovers, sinners, mourners, celebrants, friends and fiends. Trees are silent yet not so silent witnesses to the passage of time and the secrets of mankind and animals. Along with the rocks, stones, boulders, caves, all flora and fauna are the original ancient libraries.
Akashic records. I await my ascent to astral plains.
Once Asleep in other lands I will awaken to new life.
Out of dead stumps come new life.
Tree Trunk Stump Growths
Dead yet Living Tree Trunk Stump
Living Dead tree stump
Tree Trunk Stump Growths
The last recorder of human life. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Covered in shroud. Laid in a pine box.
Trees ~~ Naked and glaring in the winter. Full and Luscious come summer.
Trees — Speak to the eternity of the Ages. Our connection to the Universe and the Cosmos.
Trees bordering lakes, rivers, beaches, oceans and seas.
Trees | Multi-Branched Limbs gather up broken souls with tender root tendrils.
Trees lift up their branches in Praise to Almighty God.
Isaiah 55:12
New King James Version (NKJV)
12 “For you shall go out with joy, And be led out with peace; The mountains and the hills Shall break forth into singing before you, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Finding dense Psymbionic Crystal Castles. Hot wood-chips sip Bass Nectar. Beating out ground breaking pinewood tunes. Rescuing me from my Galactic Funk. Yet still wondering Why We kill the ones we Love. Safe Space and Sanctuary are needed on fluctuating earth planes. Don’t Shatter my Peace. Betrothed couples planning married wedded bliss. Later Yield Forever Sleeping Babes in the Woods. In the forest a Whisper is Louder than a scream.
Every forest land creature came for the Woodland Blessed Sacred Earth Mass. Ceremony, rites and ritual calms troubled souls. Mossy glen altars I can smell the firecrackers in the night air. Populace gathered. Nostrils flaring the High Priestess decides and declares. Scribes Davenie and Dagmar sat poised with mind-generating Quills hovering above tablet-con scrolls.
False Prophet Trembling at the thought that his myth might collapse.
Panthers, Cougars and Mountain Lions calmly grooming themselves by her side. Straight ahead protective eye stares. Solve the riddle of the Sphinx and you shall receive eternal life. Beware the imps and gremlins of the Forest who sell you bursting fresh temptation baskets of produce leading to sin. A Twisted Fairly Tale that springs upon unsuspecting travelers on uncharted territories in mystical clearings. Wickedness never walks alone.
Maternity stroll down Memory Lane.
Ceding ground to no one. Seeding farmland of hungry empty souls. Will these dry bones live? Only time will tell. If one believes the Sainted Oracle. Excuse me Don Cheadle but the Green Man is on the line. Shall I ask him to hold?
Taiga Boreal
My repast. My future. My all consuming desire. O’ Beloved Tree let thy branches and thy roots be my grave markers! I’m Just an Indigo Girl on her way home. Both Banyon and Bodhi point the way.
In the warm summer rain I plant my feet into the soft moist earth and extend my arms, hand and fingers to the sky mimicking my arboreal ancestors. As I touch the Moon/Sun I touch the earth. Wrap me in your branches. Surround me in your foliage. Reclaim my soul unto our mutual Creator.
“Trees” Joyce Kilmer poem “I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree”
My cousins and I scattered my Aunt Helen’s ashes by this tree located in Marcus Garvey Park located in Harlem. When my Aunt Helen was growing up in Harlem during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s this park was known as Mt Morris Park.
On January 1, 1900 The Rev. Dr. A. L. DeMond welcomed the new year and the new century with a speech which he delivered at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church (later to become pastored by Dr. Martin Luther King) in Montgomery, Alabama. Were it not for the Emancipation Proclamation Association publishing his speech pamphlet form, we might never have learned of Rev. DeMond or of his speech titled “The Negro Element in American Life, An Oration.”
Those members of the Dexter Avenue Baptist congregation in attendance on New Year’s Day in 1900 were treated to an oration which honored past and contemporary African Americans who championed freedom for slaves and civil rights for freedmen, as well as those African Americans who served in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures, who advanced the education of African Americans, and who were great lawyers, doctors, military officers, writers…
Transverse L train tracks. His momentum stopped by 3rd rail and oncoming train.
Leftover burnt parts carefully wrapped in a shroud encased in pine box. Neatly packaged and wrapped in time for the holidays. A gift his mother could not accept.
Dance of the Dead.
Fears are paper tigers. (Amelia Earhart)
Sometimes you should be afraid. Fear can protect you from doing something possibly fatal to your existence!!
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Banquet of the Starved by James Ensor (Belgian, Ostend 1860–1949 Ostend)
Espiritu en Fuego/A Fiery Spirit 