Towering memories and magic

"Sandia snow, the Thumb and Crest," 5 x 7 #watercolor card

There are places in your life that tower in your memories, especially in this season of memories.
They form from places you've lived and loved, or experienced life changes, in instants or over time, sometimes without us even knowing it at the time.
The Sandia Mountains tower in my consciousness, from over the years  growing up, and returning often to New Mexico. They have a magic hold on me. My Dad painted them often, and I've attempted many times. My photo file is full of images. 
They just speak to me, especially in winter. While I have few memories of the holidays with these on the eastern horizon, they're still there, captivating. They are weather changers, always changing themselves in the light, always a dividing line in weather systems. 
Towering more 5,000 feet above Albuquerque, the Sandias tower in my memory. They change me.

Over my desk, my Dad's 20 x 30 drawing and watercolor of the Sandias

December Deliberations

"Southwest Memories," 5 by 7 watercolor card

The Southwest is deliberate--dry air, far horizons, immense skies, high altitudes, intense light...thus the landscapes are sharp-edged, the colors saturated. No wonder the country gets inside of you and lingers. 
As the year ends, while some memories of people and places and events fade into the humidity of cluttered life and time, more are as deliberate and vivid as New Mexico.
The silhouette of the Sandias at sunset, just south of Santa Fe, from a recent visit with friends Zina and Lori, captures that experienced landscape and memories.
"Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul." --Thomas Merton

(Done earlier this year--Day 29 of 31 December paintings.)

The Russian bear awakens from hibernation

The bear has awakened from hibernation and is hungry.

Grizz is my totem, ursa horriblis, the dominant carnivore in the northern hemisphere. I think it is no accident that the bear is the symbol of Russia.

Recent actions by Russia, in the Ukraine, and now in Syria, and who knows where else, make us Americans uncomfortable. We may be the world's only "superpower," but we don't like, and fear, competition. 

I grew up in the Cold War, afraid of Russian ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) coming over the north pole. We even had evacuation plans, extra food ready to load,  and took part in exercises from Albuquerque...figuring we had 45 minutes before being hit to reach the Sandia Mountains. In high school speech class, my memorized oration was about "detente" and the fear of nuclear war. We feared the bear.

We feared the bear

I'm wondering why more people from Russia have clicked on this blog in the past few days than those from other countries, including America. 

Bears are confident, territorial, proud, and survivors. A mere eagle is not a  match, really more of a scavenger. What have we been able to do in the face of Russian "aggression" in Ukraine and Syria? Nothing, and that has nothing to do with politics. Short of war, sending American soldiers to die, we're powerless.

Any country that can lose 10 million people in a war, and still be a world power, has to be reckoned with, or at least respected. The crack "Red Army" defeated Hitler, and fell into decay. No longer. Grizz's claws are long. You can't outrun it. 

Americans forgot that when we "won" the Cold War. But the bear has only been hibernating.