I AM YET STILL ALIVE

How interesting!  I'm blogging for no reason lol I just want to purge myself of the troubling thoughts of late, and at 74 my thoughts are usually of mortality.  When it happens, I hope to be sound asleep, unaware of the bleak Bringer of Death paying me a visit.  Grim is the Reaper!  I hope to be dreaming.  Dear God, let the dream be a wondrous one full of loving family and friends, alive and dead, with the dead ones coming to help me cross over.  That's what I've always heard can happen, so I pray it happens to me.  Many times in life I've been passed over for things I wanted, or thought I did, in favor of something less beguiling.  All I need do is change a few things in the past and my whole life would be different, SO different, as to actually be wonderful!  I can only imagine it and woefully wish I'd made better choices in my hurried youth.  How ridiculous of me to promise God I'd never be what I ended up becoming!  Stupid, really.  Still, I was very lonely much of the time, and when someone paid me attention I took it as a sign of belonging, of meaningful pauses in conversations which told me it was my turn to talk.  I was worthwhile.  So I didn't rest, I just let life take me - and it became a carnival ride through the woods I loved to hide in.  I had my imagination and it was always ON.  What wonders of mind await those who invite the dark side!  I certainly invited it all and chose what I wanted.  Now I pay the price, always too high, always too painful, but mine nonetheless, and yes, I earned it.  So who's to blame...?  It all belongs to me and I accept the pain.  I live with it.  It lives within me.  That is life - for me, for now.  

NO ROOM FOR THE NEEDY ?

                         BAD FORM

Now that I'm unable to ride the bus anymore, I guess this situation isn't as annoying, not to me anyway.  Yet for the hundreds of other disabled and elderly folks who need a seat immediately, this is an ongoing

~PROBLEM~

Been Awhile

I may have stopped blogging, but I haven't stopped caring about the cosmos, and everything in it.  If we get through this pandemic without too much damage, I hope it will teach some folks a lesson about being kinder and more patient with Earth and our fellow earthlings. 

If our star, SOL, explodes in a nova, we'll have gone extinct long before, because of the heat.  Right out of this galaxy.  Would any life forms even know humans once existed?  All our accomplishments, our monuments, our hopes and dreams, the incredible people who've gone before - will it be remembered in some faraway place in this vast universe?   

We left our mark, just in case.  Our signature is everywhere on Earth, and now on Mars as well.  Ad astra!         

Miracle of a Star

             💥  Carina Nebula  💥

Each day is a wonder, a miracle of universal life - it's everywhere.  I know there's life in the outer regions of space because it would be ludicrous to think it only happened here on Earth.   We know the immediate cosmos we live in was subject to the same bombardment of asteroids and meteors that this planet has endured - which brought life here - so to me, it is  endlessly everywhere.  Someday, we'll know for sure.  For now, we reach for our star, SOL, for warmth and light.  Without it, we would disappear.

We live each day as if we'll not be given another, and try not to waste a second of this precious gift.  When we sleep we breathe, our brain gives us pictures in dreams, and we wake to another day not promised.  At least, we hope to.  When I close my eyes I'm already dreaming, and I always expect to see another sunrise - the break of day that is ushered in by SOL.  Shining and sparkling before me, this star guides us in the light and is still there in the dark, though we don't see it - but it's always there.  Our Star.

Just as Luna, our moon, is always there whether visible or not, so is our Sun, always there, as we circle it and get our life from it.  All earthlings reach up to it, in gratitude.  So it always was - but will not always be, as stars have life so they have their deaths, and in those deaths are new stars born.  Without death there would be no new life.  It's a cycle.  💥  

No Moon Means No Life On Earth

Without our incredible satellite, LUNA, this planet would never have been able to kick-start life nor hold onto it.  Our single moon is able to bring water into tide pools - and when Earth was young it was in these shallow, wet areas that the first single-cellular life got its start.  If the water hadn't been able to ebb and flow, the most simple of organic life - bacteria - couldn't have survived.  
We owe it all to Luna.    

CRUEL INDIFFERENCE

You're going to feel anger, disbelief and the urge to find these people and curse them out.  Loudly.  WATCH it, then I'll tell you what you're really seeing.  It happened in the City of Brotherly Love, Philly:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2144351/shocking-moment-a-man-is-robbed-while-he-has-a-seizure-at-busy-supermarket-but-not-all-is-what-it-seems/

What you just saw was a social experiment in how people react to certain situations.  You'll notice the man prepared for his "seizure" then fell down - looked so real.  Sadly, people either ignored him or gathered to stare.  Then the worst thing, a "thief" comes by to rob the stricken epileptic and took his wallet.  Notice how he was able to walk out of Walmart with no one doing a thing.  This social experiment was set up to gauge peoples' instinct to help, to feel compassion for another human.  I wish it had been different, but I don't believe this is how all humans act toward each other.  In my heart, I know good people are all over the world, ready to offer help and support to anyone who needs it.  Where were those people on this day?  WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?  

Off to Mars !

So I'll never make it to Mars, so what.  Seems my NAME will lol.  Thanks to NASA Voyager on Twitter, they're accepting the names of interested people who want their names aboard the famous Atlas rocket launching July 2020 to the Jezero Crater on the red planet.  The names will be engraved on a chip, probably thousands, and we land in February 2021.  It may not be me, but it's as close as I'll get, I'll take it! 

Beth and Joe

Who can stay still when drinking in the sensuality of blues rock singer BETH HART as she pairs with cosmic guitarist JOE BONAMASSA?!?  I need say no more, just listen, and WATCH.

"I'd rather be a blind girl, than to see you walk away..."  Oh babee!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEHwO_UEp7A 

Thank you Cory Booker !

My former mayor and friend, Sen Cory Booker who guided my city as best anyone could, is standing up by staying mute in the Kavanaugh mess.  The silence is meant to display disgust and ire.  How does someone like Kavanaugh even make judgeship is no mystery in the right-ist climate this country has been leaning toward for some time now.  Scary stuff. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=cLgEnlz7djo

MORE GRIEF TO EXPEL

Thoughts upon the Man I Loved as we Lay side by side,
on his bed, in his home,
and he drifted into sleep.

I felt a long breath escape from his lips.
There it was.
The man who died in my arms.
The man who held my heart and future.
The man I can't release.
The Dead Man.
MATTHEW

Like a friend who missed their cue,
I came in late at home with you -
Let me take you back with me
we'll feast upon our symphony.
You went too far and lost your way
then I committed one delay -
and in that hour you sealed my fate,
now sorrow waits at every gate.
And I forgot how sleep occurs
And I forgot the use of words
And I forgot that joy is gifted
I can't see my spirit lifted.
Constant tears have taken hold
of what was once a love untold,
Everywhere I see a shade
which hastens to make me afraid.
Ghosts have taken residence
inside my soul - I feel too tense,
loosen please this chain of fear
and come back home my dear.

I WILL DIE TO FIND YOU

                     I WILL DIE TO FIND YOU  ~ MY LOVE ~  

Through a million exploding stars I will make a warrior’s charge

In the midst of fire and pain I will make of it a barge

To sail swift over ten thousand waves on the powerful Universal Sea

I will tear at the fabric of time and the empty space that has become me

To find you once again.      

 

I offer now one arm, one leg, to those low bids which took yours.

A misery I happily become for you, and fall on iron floors

Sweet sacrifice, what need have I to ever walk, to touch,

Save run into your waiting arms, and kiss and kiss you such.

I will find you again. 

 

Take my promise oh Giver of All, glad is my soul should I have to fall – just guide my path to his waiting heart, universe oh grand surprise you’re tearing me apart!

I will find him again.  

 

If I cannot live without this one, beloved of the heart

How can I die without knowing why such penance did start?

For now without single smile, of all joy quite bereft

There’s naught I want in fickle life, my time has nothing left.

 

Oh I would die to find you again!

I Would Have Stayed

He died in my arms.  I thought he was sleeping.  I left him to rest. 
I never saw my dear one again. 
Oh dear God I would've stayed....

Down To The Last of the Wine

Repost of June 2006   

(Written in 1972 while in an abbey on retreat.  I had "found" a bottle of sacrificial wine, and being young and bored, took to my little cell and reflected thusly:)
000~~~~~000~~~~~000~~~~~000~
I lie here dying in a hundred small ways
from voices crying out my name down endless hallways;
and the clock keeps ticking, eating up the time,
and I'm down to the last of the wine.
My eyes are amazed at the movement my hand makes
while reaching out to the disappearing handshakes,
and the room keeps spinning, slowly in my mind,
and I'm down to the last of the wine.
I sleep on my back, all through the night
and dream of dying, lost in the sunlight
floating on cloudy mists, feather-fine,
I'm still drunk on the last of the wine.
As familiar shadows of the morning start to harden,
I rise up singing to the angel in the garden.
Some sweet and silent angel of another place and time
who sees that I've had enough wine.
csr

No Casket For Me Please

Repost of June 2006
Lay me down in a bed of grass
when my body dies, that it may pass
deep into the essence of
this glorious earth I do so love.

But until that time:
My heart gives rise to the high places,
how transcendent is God in these spaces!
Where trickster breezes weave through my hair
and the miracles of life are everywhere.

Then soon:
As a falling leaf, my cheek it doth kiss
this life I know I'll sorely miss;
so when you note my long, last nod,
just place me in the soft, green sod.
By Cathy S. Rapicano - June 4, 2006

Cosmic Math

How Do I Tell You

After the Fun....

NO MORE PARTYING WITH THOSE CRAZY ORCAS!    EVER AGAIN...uhhhg                  

 

Facebooker Friends....

Slideshow design personalized with Smilebox

All On Earth and Beyond

                  SHORT AND SWEET           

A Memory of Paradise

Post of 5 yrs ago found in "Drafts" yikes!
I've been sick.
So so incredibly ill - but I'm finally able to sit up and type. There's so much to tell you, my long-neglected Constant Reader!
Back a few weeks ago, 2 of my wonderfully insane sisters and I went to the Dominican Republic for a week. Keep in mind I've never flown before (except when 3, and I don't remember it) nor have I been out of the country (except Canada when 14 and I definitely don't remember that lol) so this was a first in many ways. The rest of our sibs agreed that we'd kill each other 5 minutes into the trip. Suffice to say we survived, and even flourished. Ah miracles!What surprised me was the lack of any sign of Haiti's earthquake. Yes, a natural occurrence but people were still in dire need, and I saw NO one, NO organizations, absolutely NO mention of what was happening only a few hundred miles from us. People just wouldn't discuss the "H" word.

I understand when it concerns the tourist industry but even the tourists themselves wouldn't discuss it, as if by mentioning the human suffering across the border would somehow bring it "our" way. It was so entirely SURREAL.So let me tell you something else: This was my first time trying to swim since neuropathy knocked out my left leg. What a fantastic, non-spacial feeling! I couldn't measure the weight of my legs, nor any pain, nor fear, nor consciousness of where my foot was (since I can't feel it) nor ANYTHING I usually deal with. This was nirvana. This was a dream.

Sand-walking is a really laughable pleasure, knowing if you fall it'll be a soft landing. You might remember my visit to Asbury Park in my old "Thelma and Louise" post where I became accustomed to using my cane in the sand - but I didn't dare go into the ocean then - just the shoreline lapping at my toes. THIS time however, with the Caribe Sea calling out like a siren scream, and with the generous help of one of my sisters, I was able to back-float on the ocean with no feeling below the waist, and man I just can't find the words here...first time in over 15 years I had no "heavy" pain. It's impossible to describe unless you have it: some areas are intensely alive, others completely dead. Makes for an odd-looking sight when walking LOL. But in the water with no gravity, I was in another world. I wanna go baaaack!!!We bought really inexpensive postcards, then at the door to get stamps were told they were $3 each - ripoff - so we mailed them when we got back LOL kinda took the thrill out of it but what the heck. Gotta get postcards.
Everything was priced for "those ugly rich Americans" and most of the people we encountered were English-speaking - alot of Canadians. Some Germans. Mostly Anglos. In fact we didn't have to exchange our dollars for pesos, they welcomed the old greenbacks. And the hired help couldn't have been more pleasant. Sometimes I wondered what they were "really" feeling but most seemed very sincere and happy, singing, talking, engaging, it just felt very deluxe and friendly. Not one single Dominican was rude, in fact only a few Americans were out of order so to speak. The scenery just didn't lend itself to acting like a jerk. It was too spiritual.Going through security and customs was a ton of fun - these guys put me in a wheelchair and with my sibs in tow, wheeled me directly to the front of each line we encountered. I could see people staring but what the hey, I didn't ask for such pampering! Happy to get it though.My sisters have decided they're taking me everywhere so they can get through those lines. I concur.When I say the ocean was turquoise I mean like-you've-never-experienced-it kind of turquoise. This color has no name. And it changed at different times of the day - so did the sky. Lavender sunrises, golden sunsets, white sand and very few people. We went deluxe in everything, why not I mean how often do you go away with your loved ones? In our case, never. It was a memory-making week that I'll treasure always, while planning our next adventure before I get too old to appreciate it!!