debunked & busted

There is no shortage of lament over neighborhoods of the past and establishments gone for good.  wonder | wander | women noticed there’s not much retrospective about what we - as planners and designers and city enthusiasts - used to think and believe. Nothing ages so badly as our intellectual history. 

Whether it is Trump hunting and pecking selectively throughout America's brief newly minted history - to declare whatever strikes his curdled mind. Or the Philippines' Marcos clan desperately trying to whitewash their parents' conjugal dictatorship. Selective historical amnesia strikes far too many of us. 

not to be confused with history of human thought

It is embarrassing when the ideas that guided us are revealed to be wrong or worse yet become outdated or do not age along with our time. We don’t need to be too critical of our half-formed or none too evolved thoughts from the past. But it’s instructive to connect the dots and see how our beliefs may have translated to the reality around us. 

Hiroshige's sketchbooks

Recently wonder | wander | women saw the British Museum's exhibition of Utagawa Hiroshige, and were so impressed by his virtuosity and artistic sense that one post was not enough to talk about this wandering artist.

Evening Cool at Ryōgoku, 1847-8

Hiroshige: artist of the open road

Utagawa Hiroshige was, with his contemporary Hokusai, one of Japan's greatest artists. He came from a noble but impoverished samurai family in the last decades of the Tokugawa period, one of the most violent and dangerous times in Japanese history.

mothers, mothered, mothering

Mother's Day the world over is such a big deal. Everyone is born to a mother, whatever the circumstance or outcome - happy or not. Without a mother there is no life - plain and simple. 

Because it's such a big deal - there are bound to be strong opinions about it. Mother is a verb as well as a noun - honored by whatever mothers, the capacity to mother, or its equivalent. 

may we be

May 1, May Day, Spring, Beltane - all are here as nature celebrates our connection above and below. A time of opening arms thrown wide as we dance - wild and full of earth's abundance. 

Sunshine and rain pour down from the sky and kiss the ground. Fertilizing the seeds planted in our garden of ideas and intentions. 

Earth Prayer: Benediction © Kay Kemp 2020

We move from Aries season which brings in the brought fire of awakened life force - to Taurus, which brings it into manifestation.