MAM Day II

Happy Purim!

Purim is the holiday when you are supposed to be joyful. Also you are supposed to get so drunk that you can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys…And you are supposed to tell the story of queen Esther.

Have you had enough to drink so you can’t tell?

Which is the good guy, which is the bad? This is from a shadow puppet show I made of the Purim story.

BaaBaa and I are all dressed up and ready to celebrate

Enjoy! And tune in tomorrow.

MAM Day I (Flight)

My dear sponsors welcome to day one of the 2026 March Arts Marathon. We’re getting off to a flying start! (The prompt for today was “Flight”).

For those of you who were sponsors in previous years but haven’t made a donation for this year and would like to please let me know and I’ll send you a link. If you do not want to receive these posts let me know that too and I will take your email off my list. Thanks,

BaaBaa is flying over Sodom Pond on a great blue heron and dreaming of basking in the sun in Culebra

For those who haven’t been introduced… BaaBaa is my loyal companion. They always were a big fan of Snoopy the Red Baron so I thought I’d give them this role in my post.

Here is how I put this image together (it’s a little crude because I don’t have fancy editing tools so I just make do with what I’ve got):

Flight helmet and goggles make BaaBaa feel like a real pilot

Whenever I want to meditate on my most peaceful memory I imagine myself in Culebra. How I wish I were there now!

This is a colored pencil drawing I made of a great blue heron

So there you have it. Enjoy…until tomorrow.

MAM Day Thirty One – Au Revoir!

Oh dear is this really the end?

I’ll miss you all so much my dearest sponsors. You who have stuck with me through thick and thin, who have encouraged me, cheered me on, been my stalwart audience. And you who have donated to CVRAN. I am so grateful to you. I couldn’t have done it without you. And of course so is CVRAN. This year MAM had fifty artists and writers or more participating, and around 1200 donors. We raised over $82,000 for CVRAN. Amazing! I can’t thank you all enough. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!

I also wanted to give you the link to the final Marathon Gallery where you can see the work of some of the artists you didn’t sponsor:

March Arts Marathon 2025 Final Gallery

And now a few parting images and words

I love carousels. Thank you Joni Mitchell, for your words so true.

Well here it is, April Fools Day.
Sweet dreams to you, my dears, until we meet again.

MAM Day Thirty – Montpelier Details

A few photos of odd things that caught my eye in Montpelier

Time to wind down now

MAM Day Twenty Nine – March and April, Lions and Lambs

“March Comes in Like a Lion and Out Like a Lamb”

They’re not kidding – at least about the lion part.

From my front steps this morning after the snowstorm last night.

Looks like we’ve still got some snow shoveling to do.

So March comes in like a lion.

NYP Library lion, Prague cemetery stone, Lisbon Jerónimos Monastery

Fountain in NYPL, Zenkoji Temple in Japan, Lion guarding a coffin in Jerónimos Monastery, Lisbon

Still more snow and muddy roads – a spring thaw.

But April is coming…

BaaBaa really wanted to be in this post, and after all they are a lamb.

Speaking of which…

Out like a lamb (Thank you Erica Zimmerman for letting me visit your lambs.)

Ah now that’s more like it! Crocuses are blooming and Daffodils will be up soon.

Coltsfoot in Adamant, flowers in churchyard garden in Tavira Portugal, Oxeye Daisies in Lagos, Portugal

Plum trees and Magnolias blooming in New York gardens. They’re way ahead of us.

Wildflowers – Bloodroot, Dutchman’s Breeches, Trout Lily will come up after the snow finally melts for good.

Before you know it we’ll be gathering bouquets of tulips.

Now that’s something to dream about…

So dream sweet dreams.

MAM Day Twenty Eight – A Different Perspective

Sometimes I feel like I just need to find a way to get a different perspective.

Hope I don’t fall off!

Don’t worry…I’ll hold on until tomorrow.

See you then.

MAM Day Twenty Six – Refuge

From a MAM prompt. Wouldn’t we all like to have places of refuge and be able to provide them for others.

Here are some places I go to for refuge. Some where I physically go and some where I go in my mind’s eye.

The Adamant Quarry. Just down the road from me.

Shangri La by the stream in Adamant Village

A stream by one of the East Montpelier trails

A cairn by the stream at a campsite near the town of Lincoln, Vermont

Farther afield on the beach in Culebra in my mind’s eye

And sometimes when I meditate I go to one of my favorite childhood places -in my mom’s easy chair cuddling with her. That’s a Shirley Temple doll my grandpa, her father, gave me.

My mother always joked: “If I could unzip my womb I’d let you back in“

Now that’s a thought to curl up and go to sleep with.

MAM Day Twenty Five- “Hands”

I goofed yesterday. I was up so late finishing my post it was past midnight and I called the post Day Twenty Five instead of Twenty Four. So now it’s time for the real Twenty Five to please stand up.

The prompt for March 24th was “Patchwork quilt” and “many hands make good work”. So I’m using Hands as the theme for my post today.

The Japanese word “ma” means the space between two hands clapping. Similar to the Buddhist “kaon” (paradoxical saying) “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

Rodin sculpture of hands, 1940’s Life Buoy soap advertisement, hands of an old Italian craftsman, my Aunt and Uncle holding hands on their death bed.

Since this is the Anniversary of the DeafBlind advocacy organization I helped found, here are some photos of the hands of DeafBlind people showing the importance of the sense of touch through hands to communicate and to explore the world around them.