Tag: photos

Sunday Sundries


I don’t think I’ve ever featured this book on here before, though I see it’s in a shot of a group of journals and other books I took in June of 2021, so it’s been around a while. The Magic of Mindset is a journal, by Johanna Wright, to be written in, so if I had filled in any of the pages (I haven’t), it’s likely what I wrote would be too private to share.


That’s still true with the page I’m featuring, where under the title “Expect Resistance,” a girl meeting a dragon says, “Oh, hi.” The text on the accompanying page says, “RESISTANCE is A NORMAL PART OF THE PROCESS. LIST all of the REASONS WHY IT FEELS impossible TO LET GO OF YOUR OLD MINDSET AND MOVE OUT OF the stuck PLACE.

Those little items on the plate are like small talismans (crystal ball held in cupped palms; a wee dachshund carved of wood; a soapstone container, lid off, to show a variety of tiny stones; a small river rock in the shape of a heart; a sunflower incense burner holding a stick of sandalwood incense) that are either from or reference people, all a part of my history, who at one time or another were a force that could either subdue my voice or inspire and encourage it.

Relationships are complicated, and more than once, I’ve allowed them to block the flow of my creative energy. This time, I want to face that dragon and make a choice truer to myself.

This week’s theme may be arriving organically on each new day.

Thursday thoughts

One interesting thing about revisiting these books I haven’t read or read about in a long time is remembering why I once deliberated about whether to write my Masters thesis about the fiction of either Tom Robbins or Larry McMurtry, and in no small part, it had to do with their female characters. Though I relished the language of one author, and the narrative skills of the other, I intended to address how they wrote women characters, and my points were not all valentines toward either writer. That had little to do with enjoying their novels nor any sense of conventional “morality,” and also considered the time and culture in which the novels were written.

I think it’s an important part of reading that nothing should become “truth” to us at the expense of accessing our brain, our senses, our instincts, our better feelings. It’s wise to question even those books we’re told are indisputable truth. As a writer myself, with a deep love and understanding of stories and storytellers, I believe there’s no.such.thing.

I don’t have the energy to tackle a discussion of the means used to indoctrinate and control humans. I’ll always believe that the more we read, from the contrary and challenging and unsettling to the comforting and amusing and entertaining–all of it–the better off we are.

Oddest of all to me is the way book banning movements so often begin with people/readers believing the lie that “no one is banning books.”

How do we make love stay?


Let’s begin with this photo of my Dan Fogelberg 1983 Greatest Hits album that was lost in the Harvey flood. I’m pretty sure I have all his work that was drowned on the CD collection I bought, but it’ll never be the same as lying in a candlelit room and listening to the albums, staring at his photo on the cover, and traveling through all the journeys he took me to all the places in my imagination.

Though it was an album of greatest hits, it also had a couple of new songs on it, and one of those was “Make Love Stay.” I wondered from the first moment I heard it if it was inspired by Tom Robbins’s novel Still Life With Woodpecker. Of all his novels, this is one of two that I’ve read so many times they have a permanent residence in my brain. Because of this book, for years, I kept a sealed pack of Camel cigarettes in one desk drawer after another in every home, school, and business office I was in.

From the novel, this excerpt:


“Who knows how to make love stay?”

1. Tell love you are going to Junior’s Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if loves stays, it can have half. It will stay.

2. Tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.

3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.”

Though I can in no way approach the kind of writing Tom Robbins creates, I know with every fiber of my being that the heart of one character I created would sing when he read this–and he’d read it over and over.

I think that passage probably had that same effect on Dan Fogelberg. In his own words:

Fogelberg later described “Make Love Stay” in the liner notes to a retrospective album as a “sinuous piece written around a chapter of Tom Robbins’ Still Life with Woodpecker”and as “a musical question that, unfortunately, eludes me still.”

Tiny Tuesday!

Today, Debby and I had a couple of errands to take care of, but we got a late start. My brain had spent all the time I should have been sleeping last night rerunning old conflicts and disappointments, among other things–until 5 AM. That left me dragging all day, having had only around four hours of sleep.

By the time she and I pulled back into Houndstooth Hall, we were caught in a torrential thunderstorm. We sat in the driveway, talking and listening to music. Finally, the rain abated enough that I could use my umbrella to keep from getting drenched while I opened gates, backed the car into the carport, and we could both hurry inside our homes.

From the Tiny Pleasures book (above right), this page reminded me that the smell of rain was indeed nice, though the dogs were more than ready for their hemp chewies that keep them calm during thunder. I had to change into dry clothes–my third outfit of the day–and dry my hair. The whole thing, from errands to dodging rain, made me late to compose my Black History Month post to Instagram, though I think I actually did my Blue Sky book-cover post sometime in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep.

This evening, I was thinking more about author Tom Robbins. It will take me a while to get through Another Roadside Attraction. Since Robbins and his books have turned into this week’s theme, I decided to let my mind wander and see where it took me. One place was the memory of a 1987 movie called Made In Heaven. The principals were Timothy Hutton and Kelly McGillis, as star-crossed lovers who had to find themselves and each other during lives on earth and in heaven.

This was not the cover of my original VHS copy, which was dreamier and more romantic. When I got rid of my VHS tapes, I bought this DVD. It still has the shrink-wrap on it. The reason I thought of the movie was because it’s filled with cameo appearances: Debra Winger, who was married to Hutton at the time, made an uncredited appearance as a character named Emmett. Others who popped up in the movie included Neil Young, Tom Petty, Ric Ocasek, Ellen Barkin–and one character called The Toymaker was played by none other than writer Tom Robbins. I remember how that delighted me the first time I saw the film.
ETA: I finally had time to watch the movie on Saturday. Except my little DVD player that works with my laptop had stopped working. Tom tested to make sure it worked in the big TV player, but in order not to cheat him of his TV viewing, I asked for and he picked up a new player. I cried through a lot of the movie, which is fine. I’ve been trying to cry since last summer with little success. I figured I needed it.

When I googled “Tom Robbins” and “Made In Heaven,” besides the movie, my search pulled up a quote from his novel Skinny Legs And All. I took this photo back when Eva was our foster fail because one of her endless nicknames was “Skinny Legs.”

The quote: Some marriages are made in heaven, Ellen Cherry thought. Mine was made in Hong Kong. By the same people who make those little rubber pork chops they sell in the pet department at K Mart.

I’m sure that quote always made me laugh, because our dog Pete LOVED those squeaky plastic pork chop dog toys. Maybe I even have a photo of him with one somewhere.

Tom Robbins’s prose always delivers on many levels.

It’s too late to rewatch Made In Heaven tonight. I’m hoping when I shut down the computer and crawl into bed, I get a full night’s sleep. I need it so much.

Mindful Monday


I got this beautiful image from Mindworks.org. I’m including the link because it’s always good to revisit guidance for improving mindfulness. Some of the words in the image are real challenges for me.

Last night, I was reading my Tom Robbins novel before bed and so much enjoying the euphoria of seeing someone put words together in all the right ways. I checked one of my social media accounts briefly before turning off the lights, commented on a post by someone (who I know only by being a fan of many decades), and my dreams wove crazy stories out of those two reading experiences. They included a song that I’ll now need to play to hear if my brain picked that particular song or its lyrics for my dream soundtrack for a reason.

Anyway, it all made me wake up in a good mood (plus there were two nice dogs snoozing next to me) but then…this…which I probably shouldn’t even post, but it speaks to some of my mindfulness challenges.

Oh, if only ones who told me some of my anxiety triggers would NEVER happen… At least the false idols will be taking good care of themselves.

I’ll be over here gutting deleting that chapter that’s given me so much trouble and trying not to think of real world nightmares for a while. Maybe I can put the words together in all the right ways.

Hearts and energies


Since it’s the last day of my symbols theme week, and I used yesterday for Photo Friday and a non-Valentine’s Day theme, today I’m sharing a collection of hearts. Forget the commercialized Valentine’s Day that makes a lot of people feel lonely. We all love someone or are loved by someone, whether it’s the love of friendship, the love of romance, the love of family, the love of animals, the love of colleagues, the love of neighbors, the love of nature (despite how nature can sometimes be hard on us, it also nourishes us body mind and soul).

Behind the cut, I’m adding twenty slides from an account I follow on social media, Gina at The Shabby Creek Cottage. I got Gina’s consent to publish this conversation she initiated with ChatGP (AI… something I never thought I’d be sharing, but here we are) concerning a topic I think about a lot: energy in the larger sense, my own personal energy, and how to best conserve, expend, and protect my energy.

I don’t know about you, but my energy has felt either flat, depleted, or attacked lately. So much feels overwhelming and out of my control. I’m questioning the integrity of some of my relationships, the value of my work, and the purpose of my life and time. If there are choices I can make to reclaim my energy and find some peace of mind, I want to know about them. Since this site is a space I visit every day of my life, it’s a good place to save reminders of this conversation when I need them. Maybe something in Gina’s dialogue will resonate with you, too. Take your time reading through these. Let yourself breathe and think and process.

Continue reading “Hearts and energies”

Hamsa hand symbolism


This incense burner, a “Hamsa” hand (smaller than most adult human hands), is rarely far from me. As you can see, each finger has a place for an incense stick, and on the surface, in the middle of the eye, is a place for cone incense. The incense I most often use is the traditional Nag Champa, but that company also produces other scents, including sandalwood and patchouli.

Info compiled from the Internet about the Hamsa hand:

The Hamsa hand is an open right hand with five digits. Especially popular in the Middle East and North Africa, its exact origin is unknown. Its use predates Islam and Judaism in the Middle East.

The earliest known appearance of the Hamsa was in ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq area). Here, it could be seen in amulets worn by some female goddesses. It’s theorized it spread to Egypt as a two-finger amulet representing Osiris and Isis. It then began spreading to various religions in several different forms, including Buddhism and Hinduism.

Depending on who you ask, the Hamsa may mean different things, but its symbology means specific things to Hindus and Buddhists. For them, it symbolizes the interplay of the chakras (from a Sanskrit term meaning wheels or focal points of the body that are used as part of meditation, yoga, and other practices); the energy flow in the body; the five senses; and the mudras (mudra is a Sanskrit term meaning “gesture”) that affect them.

All of these can be combined to change the flow of energy in the body and heal psychological and physical ailments. In Buddhism, the Hamsa symbolizes the chakras to a lesser extent, but the mudras are nonetheless important. Often times, the Hamsa is used to ward off what’s known as “the evil eye,” the sum of destructive energies that come from negative emotions in the world.

Good company


I wish I could credit the photographer of this photo. So many symbols: the bare tree; a large bird (perhaps a crow?), with maybe a few smaller birds scattered among the limbs; and a solitary woman on a swing. It makes me think of this Emily Dickinson poem.

This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me —
The simple News that Nature told
With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see —
For love of Her — Sweet — countrymen
Judge tenderly — of Me

Over the past few days, I’ve had the enjoyment of reading the draft of someone’s manuscript. It’s spec fiction–i.e., outside my genre–but good writing is good writing. A good story is a good story. It was refreshing to be able to ask the writer, with honesty and enthusiasm, “May I read it?” I rarely do this, but we have a bond of trust and a history.

Writing is so solitary, and writers get so little of the validation that can help fuel us. I don’t think he needs validation from me, but I know what it feels like to receive it. And what it’s like to wish for it.

In my decades of reading and loving Emily Dickinson’s poetry, I never dreamed I’d end up with my own version of her life. She’s good company.

ETA, one day later:
The poem below showed up Thursday morning in one of my social media feeds. The poet is one whose poetry prompt book I’ve featured on here before.

The Beatles sang it early in the soundtrack of my life: “There will be an answer. Let it be. Let it be.”

Today I finished another of Fasano’s poetry prompts. Black text is Fasano’s; green font indicates where I filled in his blanks with my own words.

The Saddest Truth

I stand at the door of admission
and am afraid to speak.
But I will confess.
I go in.
I touch the pain, the agony
I touch the unremitting sustenance
in the honesty.
This is the feast of sorrow:
the memories and manipulations on the table.
What can I do but eat?
Freedom, I know you are waiting
in the sunlight.
But first I must suffer in the shadows.
First I must admit my complicity.

©Becky Cochrane, 2025

I put all this here not as a message to anyone who either couldn’t or wouldn’t understand it anyway. It’s a reminder to myself, because so often I require the same lesson over and over.

Tiny Tuesday!

I don’t think anyone could miss how my personal favorite symbol is one that represents Aries (March 21 to April 19), the Ram! While I happily embrace being the first sign of the zodiac and its more admirable attributes, I never deny that I also have some of my sign’s less-stellar qualities. In typical Ram fashion, I see even Ram’s flaws as things that give me a necessary fire.


It wasn’t intentional that three of the characters in the Neverending Saga would end up as Rams. Their birthdays are stretched out over several years and months, with one male having an almost cusp-like Pisces influence, the same for a male with a Taurus influence, and one woman who is closer to the middle of the Aries calendar. Aries can get along well with other Aries–then again, they don’t have those amazing horns for nothing. Butting heads is inevitable among these three, and that’s part of the fun unless you happen to be another character (Pisces) who has close relationships with all of them. Of course, dramatic Pisces would find life boring without them. (As least that’s how the Rams see it!)