Are you a flower or are you a moss?   Flowers grow from seeds and bulbs.  Flower people can trace their ancestry back generations and have often grown up in well protected beds.  Moss grows from spores.  It has no seeds or bulbs.  It can grow anywhere. It is durable.  Walking in a cold February day, in the midst of a little ice storm, here was this gorgeous greenery.  Moss can grow on trees, soil, rocks. You can find it at the bottom of a mountain, and on the rocks and stone at the top.  In the language of flowers, moss means charity and maternal love. So when it is time to give your child a bouquet or a boutonniere, have the florist add some moss to it.  You could do very well, by raising your children to be moss, and not flowers.

© words and pictures by Daniel DeMarle 2017

What exactly are they selling by the hour?  Love this sign on East Avenue.  I often stop here for full service gas, but just for the gas.

2-17-17

© words and pictures by Dan DeMarle 2017.

It is amazing how weather can change art. In this case adding a hat (beret) and shoulder armor and boot to the male figure.

In the outdoor sculpture park at the Memorial Art Gallery.

2/14/17

© words and pictures by Dan DeMarle 2017

“Governments are deemed to succeed or fail by how well they make money go round, regardless of whether it serves any useful purpose. They regard it as a sacred duty to encourage the country’s most revolting spectacle: the annual feeding frenzy in which shoppers queue all night, then stampede into the shops, elbow, trample and sometimes fight to be the first to carry off some designer junk which will go into landfill before the sales next year. The madder the orgy, the greater the triumph of economic management.”
― George Monbiot

While this is true, I  prefer to shop at places where, at least, I am supporting local artists and owners. That way I can, at a minimum, pat myself on my back and feel somewhat cleaner, and not quite as much as a mindless whore to the economy.

12/23/16

© words and pictures by Dan DeMarle 2016

Look carefully because these are hiding everywhere.

© words and pictures by Dan DeMarle 2017

After I grew and moved out of the house, and indeed started my own family, I would talk regularly with my parents on the phone, or go visit them.  Often my mother would ask me if I remembered so and so. I almost never did. Maybe they were parents of one of the my other siblings friends, or from a connection with my parents that I was not part of.  Then my mother would proceed to tell me that they had died.  They were at that age in life when lots of friends and acquaintances were dying. She would tell me, often about how she and my father went to the funeral or to the wake or calling hours.  In doing so, my mother reinforced in me many lessons about the power of connections, also about the importance of showing up at funerals.  These now deceased individuals had played a small or large part in my parents’ life or lives together, and now they were gone, but their family still survived. Being able to be there to say a few kind words, or just simply being seen there helps the mourners know that their loved one was important and valued.  Being able to tell a story about them, that their children or grandchildren might not know is like giving a gift.  So as much as I can, I attempt to attend calling hours, often as much to honor the survivors as to honor the deceased individual. It’s what my parents taught me.

© words by Dan DeMarle 2017

Names that mean something different in death.

© words and pictures by Dan DeMarle 2017

What has been missed is the fact that Trump has already been successful at building multiple walls. He has built walls that have separated fathers from sons, mothers from daughters, brothers from sisters, neighbor from neighbor, cities from suburbs, and States from States. He has caused small divisions to become deep divisions. He has made insignificant issues seem significant. He is attempting to build walls between the US and our allies.He is using lies to create fear, and attempting to constantly distract us with the latest outrage. Like a skilled magician or a skilled boxer he distracts us with his small hands from  the real and important issues.   However, as has been said “A county divided can not stand.” If you want to resist, stop unfriending people, stop not talking to people, and start listening. There is always some truth on either side of an argument. It may be wrapped up in layers of miscommunication and covered in false ideas and wrong assumptions but there is some truth. The only people who have the power to destroy Democracy and our country is Us, you and me, and everyone we know. The sad truth is that Trump has not build any walls, We have built them for him.  That means that WE have the power, not the little man who thinks he sits on a throne, in the people’s house. We can continue building those walls, or we can being taking them down, together.

© words by Dan DeMarle 2017

What was the most beautiful thing you saw today?

2/1/17

© words and pictures by Dan DeMarle 2017