just a pair of shoes

I can't believe it has taken me

over a week

to post this entry . . . .

I am still around! 

But the world has been way too much with me. . . 

to all the readers who pass by this page

either purposefully

or by happen-stance,

I promise:

I'll be back to regular blogging,

and regular visits to your blogs

very very soon . . . .

( harpers )

About a week ago,
I was part of an organized discussion,
where the leader proposed we all contemplate the topic
of shoes.

Quite frankly, I didn't think the conversation would last all that long.
But we all quickly came to realize that one should
never underestimate
the meaning of
a shoe

This conversation was part a training session
for group leaders
in a spiritual context,
so nearly everyone considered the sacred places
where we take them off --

( islam.about )

This seemed far too obvious to me; my mind
went to symbolic shoes,
magical shoes,
not to mention
my own shoes, too.
These are the shoes I am wearing right now:

( zappos )

They are also the shoes I was wearing on the day,
when I contemplated shoes.  As I sat there thinking about them,
I could suddenly feel them --
feel my feet inside of them,
and the ways the shoes held my feet:
comfortably, inconsequentially --
minimal support but enough
to get by.

'Tis true:
 shoes do
say a lot about me and about you.
In fact, we talked for quite some time
about the Meaning of Shoes.



I don't have a lot of shoes,
but the shoes I do have I buy for walking;
I have very few shoes
for decoration only --
I take shoes seriously, and I don't give them up
easily.
Because I wear my shoes well,
and by the time they are unredeemable,
they are so full of stories that I cannot part with them.
I have more old shoes than I have
photo albums, not to mention
more old shoes than I have
new shoes.

I am no Imelda Marcos
.

. . . and yeah, I have big feet.

As I sat there thinking
about shoes,
beyond my own shoes,
a collage of symbolic shoes
crossed my mind --
shoes that have trod the pages of popular,
and unpopular
culture for centures, and I was amused
and amazed by the stories
they told,
far more than the average library.

For me, when someone leaves my life
for whatever reason they might
leave,
the hardest thing they could leave behind would be
a pair of shoes --
I would have to look at them
every day,
maybe
twice a day,
until I got up the nerve
to pick them up
and get rid of them.

In their emptiness,

shoes imply stories,

some finished,

some in progress,

some yet to start.

So as I contemplated this humble

entry on shoes,

I started looking for pictures of

interesting shoes ~ ~

Well, here are a few,

only a few

Read on, and let their emptiness
fill your mind with images of where
they may have been:

( bible-archeology )

( lizciokajlo )

( costumes.org )

( prior two photos from arttatler )

( indiashoes )

( americanduchess )

( newworldorderreport )

( fashionfabulous )

(lulusvintage)

( catsmidwestmayhem )

(above two pictures from jerzygirl45 )



. . . . . and . . .

Shoes are magic,
never forget it,
shoes can take you
anywhere
you want to be.

And Again . . . Happy Birthday, John Lennon

Just imagine,

if people would just

listen

and believe

Makropoulos Sings?

Well, 

I've been calling myself a diva,

and I've wanted to try to make

a video of my own singing.

So here it is:

Please note:

this was done in one track,

on GarageBand,

and is far from professional level.
Also please note:
in this particular lifetime that I'm occupying,
I am not a professional singer,
but rather,
an academic who loves to sing,
and strums with mediocrity
on her old guitar.

But the point of the song
is a good one to make:

I sincerely hope that no one gets upset for copyright purposes!

Please contact me through my Facebook page
(Makro Makropoulos),
if you feel I've infringed upon you in any way,
and I will remove this immediately.

Some Times, I Have to Stop Being So Serious: ("Not Only, But. . . " featuring John Lennon)

Makropoulos does

have a sense of humour,

though it is a strange one.

Here's an homage

to one of my favorite

fellow Librans:

(it's been a terrifically long,

tiring week for me,

and this is the best

I can do

on a Friday evening--)

Noah: a channelling

I wake up in the morning,

numbed by winter's chill,

listening to the news

of shootings, revolutions, starvings, floods,

etc,  etc.,

and I think:

Are we there yet?

Is it Armageddon

yet?

How far do we have to go

before it's sheer hell

on earth?

We don't really have to destroy it,

we just have to destroy

each other --

and in the last
desperate gasp
of humankind as it extinguishes
itself
we'll see it:

the end of time

as we know it

because TIME,

as we know it,

is time.

Outside of our perception of time,

there is no time.

(My cats have no conception of time;

they siddle up to the table

when I sit down to eat, 

and not because they know

it's "dinner time."

I eat at all times,

and they

are always not too far

away.  They're dictated by pack,
not temporal,

instincts)

So once we destroy

each other,

our conception of time

will be gone

(though earth will go on, and regenerate.)

And the humans who will live on

are the ones who don't give a damn;

they're the ones who pay attention not

to the rat race created by humans, not

to Wall Street, or the New York Times

or not even Aljazeera

;

the humans who will live on

are the ones who don't give a damn;

they only pay attention

to the earth,

and they see the signs

and build a boat

(or a flying machine,

or a solar paneled house)

or whatever the earth seems to be telling them

that they need to build.

This is all we really have to do

to survive

as a race and as a planet;

just stop

being such stupid bastards

and killing 

each other so much.

( 5magazine )

`

Let's imagine this:

for a second:

Jesus will come again . . . 

in 2012 if we --

                  all humanity --

could make peace before then.

Because if we all make peace,

and

if we find a way to live

with one another,

Jesus will not have to 

make a journey,

S(H)e will 

be here.

~ ~

( APOD 11/27/2011 )

~ ~

Let's imagine this,

for a second:

what if 

there really is to be

a spectacular planetary alignment

on 

12/21/2012,

and that alignment produces,

(imagine,

for a minute)

no explosion,

but instead, 

a mere glasslike,

placid

timelessness

,

and in that glasslike

placed

timelessness,

we were challenged

to look at ourselves

in a mirror

for an eternity.

(After about 2 weeks of looking in that kind of mirror, believe me, you would start seeing your

flaws,

and, well into eternity,

they would be all that you would see.)

And imagine this:

the image we must face,

is only us, individually, no one

else is anywhere to be seen, just

you                      

and

you                        

and

you                          

and

you                           

and

                         I

each held before the mirror

of eternity,

                                      for a eternity.

The thing is:
now we have the choice to decide
what we will see
in that moment

of facing the mirror

of individual and communal extinction:

we can either have an individual & communal

image of hatred and loathing

for eternity

                     or

we can have an individual and communal

image of caring and forgiving

 for eternity

or we could have an eternal image

of something in between.

Imagine

that.

 ( experience project )

 We,

we happy humans

are the species

who were given the job

to go further

                        and further and further

and with each step forward, we --

both as individual 

and as a group --

get more perfect.

Like Tiammat and her youth,

each generation

perfects the features

of its generator.

Imagine that:

it's just the nature

of the human

beast:

Each generation is meant to be

better than the last.

and if they're not,

it's stasis,

even

self destruction.

Like an eternal winter.

Imagine that.

~ ~ ~

I woke up this morning

numbed                                     

by winter's chill, listening

to the news

of shootings, explosions, jihad,

illness, and homelessness,

and I wonder:

are we there yet?

Is it Armageddon

yet?

Who You Gonna Serve?

. . . and a prayer:

Merry Christmas

On this day, we celebrate

his birth --

He whom so many call

the Savior of the World

While making cookies

tonight, I listened

to all the same old songs,

sung by aging rock n' roll artists

again, and I thought about

the mystery they celebrate:

If you can get past

the flashing lights

and the department stores,

it is a baby they celebrate:

an innocent child,

and this holiday nearly

fetishizes

the purity and truth

and innocence

of a newborn child.

Our favorite songs

speak of glory and majesty arriving

with a tiny child

But the problem with babies,

and Jesus was no exception,

is

that they grow up.

Jesus continued to answer

questions

with the blatant, even brutal honesty

of a child.

Through the stories we tell of him,

the grown-up Jesus

  has become the embodiment

of being strong enough

to stand up for what 

is good and true.

And His Life is theembodiment of how

the world will squash that,

over & over again.

Those who say the truth,

do it at the risk

of their own lives.

( sonofthesouth )

Most humans live a life of lies

and anyone who challenges

them to be more honest

is more of a threat

than a savior.

In the world today,

you're best to kill the honest one

than you are

to follow him

or her.

 ( scienceblogs )

And so it was with Jesus:

the man who challenged us

to be true to ourselves

and to our neighbors.

The man who challenged us

to love

and forgive

all --

if we met Jesus on the street

could we tolerate

the honesty we'd confront

in the penetrating mirror

of his gaze?

Or would we kill him

again?

Over and over

again

would we kill him?

~~~

indeed, we do

( telegraph.co )

~~~

On this day, we celebrate

his birth --

He whom so many call

the Savior of the World

 

And yet

we keep killing Him

again and again

in the vicious circle

of human history.

(sciencenotes)

 Each year the celebration

of His birth comes around

and brings with it

the challenge

t truly live by His words

And we always abide by that challenge

for a week or two,

then return

materialistic lives,

poised to annihilate

or discredit

any Jesus

who dares to challenge us

( africawithin )

( smashinglists )

I've asked this before;

I'll ask it again --

because our time

is growing short:

why can't we truly 

listen and live

by the words of Jesus?

This Christmas,

why can't we

do it differently,

and truly put on his robe

and walk

His 

walk?

John Lennon 9 October 1940 - 8 December 1980

link to Howard Cosell announcing John Lennon's death.

There's No Place Like Nowhere - Rhode Island Monthly - June 2010 - Rhode Island

John Lennon lovers, read on:

There's No Place Like Nowhere - Rhode Island Monthly - June 2010 - Rhode Island