Mayan Goddesses, Ruins, Cozumel

Ancient Sea coast, mayan mystery

The Mayans associated human events with the phases of the moon. The principal God of the Moon was Itzamna, his wife, the goddess Ixchel: moon, healing, childbirth, fertility.

San Gervasio was dedicated to the Mayan goddess Ixchel, deity of fertility. A graceful arch protects an altar on an ancient road leading into the ceremonial center. Among the Maya of the Yucatan this was the name of the snake goddess of water, moon, childbirth and weaving who took the sun as her lover and spent her energies in taking special care of those who visited her sacred island - Cozumel.

Prairie Town, Buddy Bolden, Coming Through Slaughter, Funky Butt

An old friend from Canada who I have not heard from in a long time found us and sent an email:

Hey Ray, waddya say? Long time no talk. Still Miami? Going home for x-mas? Managed to reconnect with Shoob and have seen him when I have been back in the peg. Still writing? I'm still working as a First AD. Just finished a low budget feature....probably won't work until next year. How are things?
Regards,
Dave

I wrote back:

Hey Dave,

Greetings from Pensacola and Gulf of Mexico.Yes, long time but I still think of you my old friend! I saw Constant Gardener (with my wife Melissa, yes my wife!) and noticed your name! Great work! Wanted to invite you to the wedding in Miami early last year but I didn't know where you were - a small wedding in the only Ukrainian orthodox church in South Florida!

And No, I'm no longer in Miami. I was offered a department head's position at the University of West Florida in Pensacola (http://www.uwf.edu/) , small coastal beach town on the Gulf of Mexico with a very interesting Bohemian slow southern paced vibe.

Last Monday I went to see some New Orleans Gulf Coast jazz Monday with my wife. They want me to do the website:

The cornettist played "Wont' you Come Home Bill Bayley" and "When the Saints Go Marching Inand "Funky Butt"(old Buddy Bolden Tune). I told the director that I had read Ondaatje's "Coming Through Slaughter" about Bolden - he hadn't read it and I don't know that much about jazz except that Bolden went crazy coming through Slaughter, Louisiana.

I asked my wife to dance there. No one was dancing. She was a little self conscious in the hot number she was wearing! She said no! I didn't want to drag her onto the floor!

Blue Moon of Kentucky Keep on Shinin' - that's the name of the beer I had "Blue Moon". They serve here it with an orange slice!

My parents are actually down here and we want them to stay for Christmas. They are watching my baby, the princess of Pensacola. http://pensacolaprincess.blogspot.com/ My mom and her have become a cheek to cheek pair, a veritable new fighting force!

This weekend's American Thanksgiving so I get a couple days off to eat turkey, fish with my dad off the pier, walk with everyone and the baby and just kick back with a few Bud light's while we cast outlines! No more "Blowfish" - that's the inedible fish I caught last week that my wife told me only sushi chef's know how to cook and remove the toxins! Shout out the the shoob!

I'm not overly writing, mostly computers now. Ironically, a play I wrote ages ago is getting a little attention. Thom Gossom Jr. (of West Wing, Boston Legal) was interested in playing the main character for a smaller Pensacola production. His wife is one of the Dean's here! I'm not at all crossing my fingers, he called me from LA - it seems I've heard this before. I'm attaching the play . If it every did get it produced. . . nostalgic shout out to NYC! Shout out to the Hood.

Pensacola's friendlier than Miami! A small coastal beach town rather than Miami Vice. North Florida, the Gulf of Mexico as opposed to Miami Land. Definitely warmer than Winnipeg or New York!

We are going on a cruise here from Mobilenext week week. I'm encouraging my parents to go to Costa Maya

Well, take care. Shout out to the peg!!!

I'm going to put on Randy Bachman and Neil Young's "Prairie Town - Portage and Main 40 degrees below" in tribute to us, Dave, the travellin prairie boys! You haven't lived until you've explained the name "Uzwyshyn" in the deep south. "U-what" - let alone "U - krainian". I just listened to Taj Mahal's "Johnny, you're too bad!"

Mucho Gusto, Dave!

Ray

I want to read what Dad reads...

I like to read the end of the book to see if it is any good!!!!

where is my pacifier?

Our baby is developing motor skills and today (November 10, 2006), we let the baby try to put the pacifier into her mouth by herself. Maya almost succeeded andexhausted herself in the process falling asleep soon after. The book on baby motor awareness reads: The Early Months:Birth through 8 monthsPhysical, spatial, and temporal awareness - yes our baby has the first two, I'm not sure about her awareness of time except she isn't very aware of when daddy needs to be sleepingfor work. *Uses complex reflexes; searches for something to suck - well, that's the pacifier; holds on when falling - yes, our Maya loves to hold us when she gets a little off balance; turns head to avoid obstruction of breathing - she always does this on the bed; avoids brightness, strong smells, and pain - well, she cries if something hurts her but we try not to let her get hurt at all.*Puts mouth or object in mouth - she even tries to put sweety pie (cute cow toy) and the rattling cow into her mouth; begins reaching toward interesting objects - yes.*Grasps, releases, re-grasps, and releases objects - the pacifier today, hurray!.*Lifts head; holds head up; sits up without support, almost; rolls over, almost; transfers and manipulates objects with hands, not yet; crawls, not yet.*Comforts self by sucking thumb or finding pacifier, well she sticks her whole hand in.*Follows a slowly moving object with eyes, including daddy and mommy.*Reaches and grasps toys, especially all her cute cows andhorses.*Looks for dropped toy, yes.*Identifies objects from various viewpoints. Finds a toy hidden under a blanket when placed there while watching, not yet!!!.

Maya Sophia Synchronicities

Maya Sophia's name has many roots. First and foremost she is named for "Maya," the Greco-Roman goddess of the earth. Maya is described in The Book of Goddesses:When we look into the night sky, we can recognize the seven stars which make up the constellation called the Pleiades. The ancient Greeks thought that these stars were the seven daughters of Atlas and that the goddess Maia was the youngest of them. When Atlas took part in a revolt led by the giants against the gods of Olympus, he was made to bear the world on his shoulders as punishment. Maia and her sisters mourned their father's humiliation so much that the gods turned them into doves to spare them any more pain. Then they flew to the highest heaven and became brightly shining stars - the seven stars we call the Pleiades.

Maia is mainly remembered today as the goddess of spring and rebirth, like the month of May that bears her name. "Maia" means "the maker," and every spring she makes the lush green grass and the fragrant flowers grow again. She is also praised as "the grandmother of magic" because her son the god Hermes, was the first to discover that mysterious art. Soon after Maia gave birth to Hermes, she knew her son was a genius. While still a crawling baby, he created the first lyre by stretching strings across a tortoise shell, and the first panpipe from marsh reeds. People still celebrate Maia every year on the first of May, which is called May Day in honor of the goddess. Men and women rejoice over the rebirth of spring by dancing circles around the maypole and by wearing vibrant green - the color of the earth itself. Maya Deren was a pioneer of avant-garde and experimental cinema from the middle of the twentieth century.

Maya is also named for the Sanskrit notion of "Maya" one of the great philosophic concepts of Indian Hinduism embodied in female form. In Hindu thought, the male energy is essentially passive, while the female is the force of action. Maya is one of those active powers: the constant movement of the universe, the sanscrit veil of illusionl. There is no life -- no existence, even -- without Maya, but she is so powerful that we cannot see the essence of things and mistake her movement for reality. For this reason, Maya is often called "the veil of illusion," the dance of multiplicity that distracts us so that we cannot see all matter as essentially identical. Maya is not a negative force, but can be a mesh through which we perceive the ultimate reality of existence -- if we are not distracted by her magnificent creativeness and complexity. The Greco-Roman earth goddess Maia and the Sanskrit Maya are, in fact, connected and have a common Indo-European earth goddess Maya underlying them. Barbara Walker describes the Greco-Roman goddess Maia in her Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets:"Grandmother of Magic," mother [by Zeus] of the Greeks' Enlightened One, Hermes, the western version of Maya, "Magic," mother of the Hindus' Enlightened One, Buddha. She personified the powers of transformation and material "appearances," the same powers attributed to Maya-Kali, who made the universe by her magic. Greek writers called Maia one of the Pleiades, but also understood that she was the Great Goddess of the Maytime festivals, of the renewal and rebirth of the dead. She made her son Hermes the Conductor of Souls in the underworld, just as the Hindu Maya made her masculine counterpart Ya-Ma into a Conductor of Souls and Lord of Death.

Maya's name also connects her to the great civilizations of the Mayan people of Central America. Amazingly, Walker traces all three Mayas (Greco-Roman, Hindu, and Mesoamerican) to a common source in her entry on the Hindu Maya:"Magic," title of the Virgin Kali as the creatress of earthly appearances, i.e., all things made of matter and perceptible to the senses. As in India, Mayan divine images were painted blue and Mayan women pierced the left nostril for insertion of a jewel. Another version of the Creatress seems to have been the Mother Goddess Mayauel of the Mexican Agave, called "Woman with Four Hundred Breasts," with a strong resemblance to the world-nurturing Many-Breasted Artemis and other eastern forms of the deity who mothered all the world's creatures.

Sophia (Gr. Wisdom)

Sophia (pronounced sew-fee'ah) in Greek means wisdom,. The Judeo-Christian God's female soul, source of his true power is Sophia. As Goddess of wisdom and fate , her faces are many: Black Goddess, Divine Feminine, Mother of God The Gnostic Christians, Sophia was the Mother of Creation; her consort and assistant was Jehovah. Her sacred shrine, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, is one of the seven wonders of the world. Her symbol, the dove, represents spirit; she is crowned by stars, a Middle Eastern icon, to indicate her absolute divinity.
Sophia is found throughout the wisdom books of the Bible. There are references to Her in the book of Proverbs,and the Wisdom of Solomon. She is usually associated with wise King Solomon. 1 Kings 4:29-31 tells us that God gave wisdom to Solomon, and that he became wiser than all the kings of the East and all the wise people of Egypt. Wisdom 8:2, 16, 18 tells us that Solomon was seen as married to Sophia.
The Song of Songs - known as Song of Solomon or Canticle of Canticles - speaks of Solomon's marriage to Holy Sophia.

Wisdom(Sophia) is the ability, developed through experience, insight and reflection, to discern truth and exercise good judgment.. Wisdom is often considered to be a trait that can be developed by experience, but not taught. When applied to practical matters, the term wisdom is synonymous with prudence. Some see wisdom as a quality that even a child, otherwise immature, may possess independent of experience or complete knowledge.

Beginning with the ancient Greeks, European culture associates wisdom with virtue. For example, many philosophers talk about the virtue of wisdom in relation to courage and moderation, wisdom (Prudence) stands with justice, fortitude and moderation as one of the four cardinal virtues. They are outlined in the Hebrew book of Wisdom 8:7. These virtues are praised under other names in many passages of Scripture. Plato's dialogues mention the virtue of wisdom, as knowledge about the Good and the courage to act accordingly. The Good would be about the right relations between all that exists. The Good, as a Platonic Form, would involve the perfect ideas of good government, love, friendship, community, and a right relation to the Divine. Perhaps the search or love of wisdom is more important than any proven claim. Some religions hold that wisdom may be given as a gift from God.
In the Christian Bible, for example, the magi (or "wise men") sent by God to give the newly born Jesus three types of gifts. Wisdom is also represented by the sense of justice by the lawful and wise king Solomon.The seventh verse of the first chapter of the Jewish book of Proverbs in the Old Testament states "Fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom" (Proverbs 1:7). The beginning of fear of God is hating evil, the ways of evil, arrogance, pride and a duplicitous mouth (Proverbs).
Confucius stated that wisdom can be learned by three methods: Reflection (the noblest), imitation (the easiest) and experience (the bitterest).
Buddha taught that a wise person is endowed with good bodily conduct, good verbal conduct & good mental conduct (AN3:2) and a wise person does actions that are unpleasant to do but give good results and doesn’t do actions that are pleasant to do but give bad results (AN4:115). This is called karma.

Modeling for Mommy in the Car

My Canadian Pajamas

Here I am, with my Canadian Pajamas... Don't I look beautiful in red and white? My Father's goddaughter Elizabeth send me the pajamas, and I just love them. The weather here in Pensacola is staring to change, and in the nights that it gets cool my mommy puts my Canadian pajamas on. Hopefully, I'll get to see Canada soon, and meet all my Canadian Family.

Maya Sophia, Dreaming, the Beach

Ocean waves, radiance mild
The moon a web of silence weaves
on the gulf shore there a child
dreams of simple palm tree leaves.

Here's a close up of Maya enjoying the warm gulf breeze. We took her out to the Gulf of Mexico's ocean shores.

While we watched the sunset and listened to approaching waves, Maya indulged her favorite beach activity - dreaming! Perhaps it was the approaching waves but the water and warm sand turned her prophetess.


Moondew stars her infant hair
Moonlight smooths her young brow
All around her summer Gulf air:
Whispers fair the waves are, fair, art thou!


After the sun set ,Melissa and I took a walk with Maya Sophia in a stroller down the pier - you can see it jutting behind Melissa in this picture.



A lot of people seemed to be catching fish: Late night families, children, fathers and mothers, young lovers in each other arms. We saw a girl with her boyfriend almost catch a crab, another flounder on the pier jumped the wooden planks: Spanish Mackeral, Flounder, claims of sharks!



A 'pypka' for Maya Sophia,
our yellowknapsack where I had carried the blankets,
Maya's pink bag where Melissa had put bottle and formula.



Maya just born from the ocean and waiting for some lucky people to pick her - beach towels included! Will Melissa come soon running out of the sea to pick up her baby?




The approaching sea, jutting pier, distant moon, a father smiling, his daughter contemplates options holding onto a pacifier with resolution and a seriousness of purpose.




Thallassa, thallassa, the sea, a pier, Gulf moon, ocean.

Four Strong Winds

Last night, after work I watched part of a Neil Young documentary with Maya Sophia - she mostly slept through it. Melissa had already gone to bed. I was also tired but did stop to listen to the encore Young's version of "Four Strong Winds", originally by Ian and Sylvia. It reminded me of Canada - I have gone from the prairies to New York to London to Miami to now Pensacola, now with Melissa and Maya Sophia. The song reminds me of my prairie. Young mentioned Falcon Lake! This is a purely Canadian song and it reminded me of theprairies. Here's a couple audio versions #2 and the lyrics:



Four strong winds that blow slowly
Seven seas that run high
All these things that don't change come what may
Now our good times are all gone
And I'm bound for moving on
I'll look for you if I'm ever back this way

Guess I'll go out to Alberta
Weather's good there in the Fall
Got some friends that I can go to workin' for

Still I wish you'd change your mind
If I asked you one more time
But we've been thru that a hundred times or more


Here's also a couple melodramatic versions of Gottingen that I listened to with Maya Sophia Saturday morning: Gottingen 2 and the same artists version of a Jacques Brel song: Ne Me Quitte Pas. These remind me of when I lived in Montreal and Canada's CBC French Radio! I hope Maya Sophia will one day sing for us!

The Crucible, Languages, Witch Hunts and Babies

We watched a film version of Arthur Miller's "Crucible" last night. The film is about the Salem witch trials and was written by Miller during the McCarthy era during the Communist witch hunts of the 50's. While we watched we fed Maya Sophia. Maya is currently not very interested in 'watching' a screen but she did sit quietly while we fed her. She also seemed to notice when the witches make shrieking and hysterical noises - er face was one of analysis and concentration! Maya has not yet 'entered' language except for her crying. It always seems so amazing to me how babies know no language and eventually learn from what their parents speak. I am hoping that Melissa will speak Spanish to Maya. I am saving the Ukrainian or French for when my parents visit from Canada though I have taught Melissa a Ukrainian word "pypka". Babies first explore the world through listening, touch and their eyes.

My Artistic Souls, Calabash Girls, Births from the Sea

Who is this pretty young blue woman sewing near the sea? Who does she looking for, for whom does her gaze become a little serious? Is it my mommy or another from far across the ocean and where is her heart? The girl often looks seriously at daddy from the bottom of our straight staircase of our home. I love to sneak glimpses of her when daddy carries me up to sleep before its time to go to bed - she tells me her secrets! The picture at the right is our Calabash Girls and is in our living room above the comfy couch. I love to stare over myself into the colors before mommy feeds me. I never am bored, always awed by the colors while mommy feeds holds a gentle bottle, after mommy holds my gentle bottle, after daddy feeds me. Rich sky Blues, deep deep sun Yellow, deep dress Red flowing life colrs and Browns that make paths. I love to gaze at you walking girls when I am almost falling asleep or sad - you always calm me. Can I also be a painter, paint beautiful colors dance like the French ballerina girls from Paris lessons in our hallway? Daddy once said his mommy showed him, yellow for wheat, blue for skies, deep rich yellow for wheat, blue for the Skies.

Six Weeks Old... 40 smiling days of life....

These days I smile for all the world to see,
I'm bright eyed Maya Sophia a little baby free
Full of hope and trust and life's delight
I'm almost never out of my mommy Melissa's heart or her sight

I sit on my green couch dreaming of Winnie the pooh holding a flower
Cute as a button and in hot pink for at least two or three hours
What is in the world outside my house and where's there to go,
I have never been down south to the tropics or up to the land of snow

I love to lie in my comfy sleeper and sleep with hands high,
While Mommy tries to sleep and Daddy tries not to sigh,
I'm just like the smallest cute eyed rapper, the youngest MC
My names cool Maya Sophia and I'm young, growing and free

Here's me relaxing alone in my very wide crib,
maybe you can notice I'm not wearing my favorite pink bib!
though bibless a baby blanket, my favorite I wear,
and even though I'm a little bald, please don't think you can stare!

Here's me smiling for my mommy while garden's butterflies run free
And the birds all call quickly, Maya Sophia twee, twee
My mother's smiling kind Melissa and My father is hard working Ray
and with a smile like mine please come and play!

Birds Poems, Baby Bird Heart

There are all kinds of birds around our place. Our home is unofficially in the middle of the west florida nature preserve and our neighbors have bird feeders that attracts all kinds of little twittering birds. The squirrels also seem to like the feeder! Daddy brought me home a book from work called "Birds of Florida" and mommy and I look at the birds and try to guess which kind they are from the book. Here's a poem from the book. Can you guess the author?

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight
the waterMirrors a still sky;

Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty Swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished ,All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool Delight men's eyes
when I awake some day

Mommy Before Maya

Hi, Here's my very pretty mommy at our apartment before she had me when we were still living in Miami. She's posing by my dad Ray's pool at Camino Real in Miami - I wish we had more time to use it. Notice the beautiful white latin skirt and my mother's beautiful smile. Hopefully, one day I will inherit the smile. My mom is never overly satisfied of the pictures taken of her but she does like this pretty one!