Photo Gnobility

The end of every year (as well as the beginning of each new year) finds me in a more contemplative frame of mind. 2010 is no different. I have, recently, been reading essays from The Best Buddhist Writing of 2009. The first essay, Jack Kornfield’s “The Wise Heart” discusses how Buddhist psychological thought can counteract western psychology’s seemingly Pavlovian focus on the dark side of human nature. Man, reading this essay was timed to perfection. It would be easy for me (heck, any of us who have lived through 2010) to focus on all that went wrong and the bumps - major and otherwise - in the last year.

Kornfield, however, also briefly discusses the concept of nobility. No, not any royal family or blue blood lineage, but the concept from the Greek derivation –gno- meaning “wisdom” or “inner illumination.” If one has the willingness to practice the ability to tap into one’s inner light and wisdom, then true freedom is possible, no matter the external forces that will inevitably swirl.

For me, that practice has taken a creative form. There is no doubt that my 2010 was marked by a shift toward my own creativity. It’s been there all along. I hope for more of the same in 2011.

So I leave you with a series of pictoral collages from my 2010. Some photos may be familiar to those that regularly read the blog; I expect many will be new. All are a reflection of my gnobility. May each inspire you in the coming new year.

These photos are in no particular order, and they range from the beginning of the year through just a few days ago.

Of course, glaringly absent are my final shawl this year, as well as my most recent painting (but I'll certainly post that in the new year).

Finally, while this blog is certainly not focused solely on my pet, my year would be incomplete if I did not mention George Bailey. He is my furry, sleepy co-pilot. He always presents me with his truth. In a world full of  manipulative and/or surface interactions, he is definitely my breath of fresh air.

Happy 2011!

O, Columbus



Upper left-hand corner from Diego Gutiérrez, cartographer,

and Hieronymus Cock, engraver, Americae sive qvartae orbis

partis nova et exactissima descriptio / avtore Diego Gvtiero

Philippi Regis Hisp. etc. Cosmographo ; Hiero. Cock excvde 1562;

Hieronymus Cock excude cum gratia et priuilegio 1562. Antwerp,

1562. 1 map; 83 x 86 cm., on sheet 100 x 102 cm.

Library of Congress Geography and Map Division.



There can be few historical figures that capture the American imagination quite as much as Christopher Columbus. The United States has, this past Monday, finished celebrating his discovery of America with a national holiday. Every second Monday in October, Americans attend parades and celebrations; many government workers have the day off. It is intriguing that an explorer of limited money and questionable navigation skills (although, to be fair, he was in uncharted waters), who never set foot in the United States, gets a national holiday for discovering it.

Of course, the folklore starts early – grade school, to be exact. Every grade school student knows the importance of the year 1492. Every student knows about those infamous three boats. Some might even remember Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand (although the fact that they were Spanish patrons does tend to get lost in the historical sauce). Not many remember Amerigo Vespucci. None get to read Columbus’ journals or letters. That would be un-American.

College is the first opportunity many students have of gaining a little depth and perspective on Columbus. In history courses?  Hopefully. However, it might very well come from a place one least expects – in the English composition or rhetoric classroom. Rhetoric and composition textbooks regularly use excerpts of Columbus’ ship logs (or, more accurately, the scrivener Frey Bartolomé de la Casas’ version of events) as a prime example of the “informal” voice, as well as a deft rhetorical tool. Of the latter there can be no denial; the former, well, one is not so sure.

Good fiction, I argue, is one of the best places to get a sense of any person, and Columbus is no exception. One of the most provocative pieces is the Salman Rushdie short story “Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella of Spain Consummate Their Relationship (Santa Fé, AD 1492).” Contained in East, West, it is a mystical, yet harshly modern tour de force, in which the “search for money and patronage … is not so different from the quest for love.” No grade-school history book I’ve ever read put forth that hypothesis. 

En garde, Señor Quixote.