Onyx and faceted citrine necklace and petrified coral pendant.

Bluebird Mine turquoise and tangerine pearl necklace, chrysocolla and

cuprite pendant.

THE QUILL IS PREPARING FOR A SHOW

VERAO ALTO, ENVERDECENDO

Kobi--אלוהים שלח אותך אלי, אהובי היקר. אוהבך לנצח Atah yoffe, ahuvi. You are beautiful, my love.

Plantei uma roseira que feneceu,

Colhi um lirio que murchou.

Entao plantei uma pedra que virou montanha

onde moro entre musgo e samambaia.

Nao anseieo por flores

Sao minhas nuances mil de verde.

HIGH SUMMER GREENING

I planted a rose and it withered

I gathered a lily and it dried up.

Then I planted a pebble that grew into a mountain

Where I live amid moss and ferns.

I have no need for flowers.

I own a thousand shades of green.

MEANING IS USE

I have no idea of how Wittgenstein felt about bananas. I know that he designed the doorknobs for his sister's house, but that is neither here nor there. Tough I wish I could discuss logic, qualia, private language, and the like with authority, the fact is that I am slightly more knowledgeable about bananas. I know, for example, that the Japanese poet Matsuo Kinsaku, who made an art of living simply, wrote the following haiku,

"A banana plant in the autumn gale -

I listen to the dripping of rain

Into a basin at night."

Matsuo, who is known to us as Basho--banana tree, in Japanese--renamed himself after he renounced samurai status and became a teacher. His disciples built him a hut and planted a banana tree in its garden. Matsuo is said tiomhave developed an affinity for the seemingly fragile yet utterly resilient plant. What to do with this bit of trivia is a problem that taxes my imagination. I am better at finding frugal ways to use overripe bananas, as I did today. Here is the recipe,

BANANA MUFFINS

Preheat oven to 400F
Butter and flour two one-dozen muffin tins

Ingredients

Three overripe bananas, mashed

One and half cups of flour

One cup sugar

One tablespoon baking powder

One teaspoon Vietnamese cinnamon

Half a teaspoon salt

Three tablespoons canola oil

One teaspoon vanilla

Two large eggs

One and a half cups milk

Two cups unsalted cashew nuts

Stir dry ingredients until well mixed. Reserve. Beat liquid ingredients. Stir in flour mix. Mix in cashew nuts. Place batter in buttered and floured muffin tins. Bake for twenty minutes.
Makes two dozen muffins.

HOW TO RECYCLE THREE OLD BANANAS

VERDES MARES

Vintage Italian frangia coral interspersed with faceted peridot. SS 925 findings.

NO SMALL POTATOES

Idaho plume agate, onys and gold Biwa pearl pendant complements this onyx, faceted citrine and faceted citrine necklace. 925 SS findings.

Fox Mine turquoise, onyx, vintage frangia coral, vintage coral pendant.
Bronzite and vintage frangia coral.

Bronzite, mookaite and citrine.



Bronzite, mookaite, and jasper pendant with gold keishi pearls and onyx.

The mix

POSSIBILITIES

It is not easy to be frivolous in today's economy. It is almost impossible for evolving greenies to think of the implications of rampant consumerism. As a part time jewelry designer, I have struggled with the matter of adding non essentials to a world already clogged with the flotsam of acquisitive societies. Then, I agonized over the materials I use to make jewelry. For example, how were the gemstones mined, were workers exploited in order to produce the gemstones I buy? Is it ethical to use pre-ban ivory and vintage coral? I worried about the political prisoners who process Chinese gemstones and the Myanmar jade miners who allegedly live in squalor and whose wages are paid in opium. I reached such a pitch of moral indignation that a friend commented, only half facetiously, that I would soon have to limit myself to digging up rocks from my yard and smelting my own metal in order to make sure that no one but I suffered in the process.

My friend was right. Moral indignation is all very well, but I cannot allow it to paralyse me. Jewelry does not exist to solve global problems. Rather, it exists to satisfy the ancient urge for adornment. This seemingly frivolous urge will not go away if I take myself too seriously. People will buy jewelry whether I make or not. Ergical people will try to find out whether the product they buy was made under conditions that caused damage to people and to the ecology. In this, as in most situations, what I need to do is take the middle ground. I will not buy Burma jade, but will I have to take in trust that Canadian jade miners are reasonably well treated. I will not buy so-called crystal --read glass--beads from China unless I know that the workers who made them were issued the shields and respirators that protect their eyes and lungs. I can do much of the basic silversmithing needed to produce findings--the doodads required to put a piece of jewelry together, i.e. , head pins, jump rings and the like. It is highly unlikely that a Balinese silversmith will loose his job as a consequence. Naturally, as a First World worker I demand higher payment than the downtrodden masses of the Third World. My clients take that into consideration.

That is not surprising. Americans usually pay well for skilled work when required to do so. I charge twenty eight dollars an hour to to repair work--my contention is that I can turn out a new piece of jewelry worth 300 dollars within the same time frame. Plus, that was the going rate five years ago. So far none of my clients has complained. True, their number is minuscule since I do not advertise or do any of the fancy marketing required to "grow a business." I work at home except for doing a small number of shows in the metropolitan DC area. I make my own schedule. I have the luxury of being able to respect my work, frivolous or not. That is what I call happiness.

"She's like the swallow that flies so high,

She's like the river that never runs dry,

She's like the sun that shines on the lee shore..."

Newfoundland folk song

SHE'S LIKE THE SWALLOW
Tiger swallowtail butterfly in the garden, this morning, along with pearl crescent, skippers and cabbage whites. The latter proved too quick for my digital Olympus. I shall have to set up the Nikon on a tripod if I want to catch them at lunch.