A couple of weeks ago I was ready to give up. Maybe you've been there... all my grand designs suddenly seemed like grand failures. I had depleted my reserves. I knew I could not handle another disappointment. And I knew a plateau of stability was off in the distance, out of view, and maybe, not even there at all.

Tonight, I have recovered from that place... I have learned (once again) suffering and doubt are unavoidable.... therefore why not simply embrace the pain of life... the challenges... absorb them and accept them, and realize without the difficulties we face, we could not reach complete our mission to leave a lasting positive effect.... for our periods of turmoil are necessary to stay humble, and without humility all our grand designs are but our own eulogies.

Life, I have accepted is equally woeful and rhapsodic... as humans we are blessed with the ability to love... But, with love comes the inexorable lugubrious day we must endue unbearable loss. If we purposely and thoughtfully allow our soul's light to always illuminate the space and time around us, that balance between grief and joy always tips a bit toward the joy. My life is both painful and celabatory... but it is a little more good than it is bad.

Do the thing that keeps our shared spirit smiling, and that which gives you the greatest bliss. Begin now, for only a few Summers remain,

dumb-ass!

I mean, duh!

[I'm speaking to myself, lol]

:::



This weekend I walked into a friend's music store, here in Viroqua... one of the first renaissance businesses in Viroqua. Sadly, it seemed, he was closing this beloved space for good... moving onto other things.

I had an idea.

My Public Market needs more anchor stores, and the music store needs some sort of transition.... My proposal: Let's move the music store into the public market, co-owned by me, downsize... and eventually find a new manager to staff it.

I told myself I would only do it (if he even went for it at all) IF it was undervalued, i could afford it, and the negotiations went effortlessly. 45 minutes later I was a partner in Greenman Music... now set up in the Viroqua Public Market, our new anchor for the market hall space!

:::

I assisted my hospital in purchasing a new state-of-the-art ultrasound for the Emergency Department. I will begin training the ER docs probably in November.

:::



We are working on a t-shirt line.

Organic cotton fabric from a friend with a plant in India... she empowers prostitutes and orphans via who work in the plant. Beautiful terse spiritual, universal phrases on the front, and dumbass! or Duh! on the back. Our intent is to be funny and wise.

:::



I think we're about a month from launching an organic ice cream parlor in the Market. Looks like it will have coffee roasting (we already the home of Kickapoo Coffee Roasters), Sibby's soft-serve ice cream/custard with local topping hand-stirred in the mix, fresh made waffle cones. ice cream made on site eventually. Confectionary, Organic Tea, coffee and fresh juices... birthday parties. Maybe pizza.

:::



Open mic jams start next week. my buddy Steve and I jammed tonight as a test run. The speakers he has are incredible. I can't recall my voice ever sounding better. I was somehow able to belt out "Night Moves" by Segar. We are going to hard wire the market stage for sound, recording, and media projection so the performers can play films, etc behind them, or use the screen to see cords/lyrics--- band karaoke!

We are launching "A Taste of the Coulee Region" festival at the market on Oct 14. We have a bout 20 local eateries and food producers signed up do far.



:::



Viroqua - Our documentary film is with me everywhere, lol, I mean, I am filming everything, cause it all seems so relevant. It's been a lot of fun. We're up to about 150 hours of high definition footage. Editing started tonight.

I am working on a screenplay of an epic trilogy, involving the documentary, God, and our souls.

:::

Angie, my former partner, is having contractions.

:::

I've found a way to affordably sell my photography. I've very excited about this... I can ship high quality prints up to 30x20-inch on matte board for about $65, 16x20 just $45, metal framed 30x20 $160 with free shipping. Anyone interested (I use paypay) simply email me at sales@macastat.com.

:::

New song I'm working on (still rough), [lyrics I could not have conjured without MAC]...





how do we allow love

to cause us such despair

we r fucking blessed

natural world so rare

most animals can't feel

the bliss of love after all

I mean croc eats it kid

- they have no love there

mother-babe becomes

hungry & instant soup

the sacred is simply soup

but true for some humans too.

Man,

that's a life devoid of love




CHORUS:

call it a revolt!

sung by tones in ur voice

come let's lay in bed

& go crazy by choice (mystic voice)



the words

they pass thru ur head.

that galactic melody

her long fingers strumming

all those lyrics all a running



into each corner of the room

you watch the contrast meltin'

yah in to her and you

make for super wall-paper glue!



Yah, call it a revolt!

sung by tones in ur voice

come let's lay in bed

& chant in mystic voice



see those trolls headless with frozen hair?

an other odd mythologies

endless birth of song extraordinaire

unavoidable products of biology



Yah, call it a revolt!

sung by tones in ur voice

come let's lay in bed

& chant in mystic voice

-copyrite 2006 tony macasaet



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PHOTOGRAPHY form this week

Accepting Sorrow

 

Face into Sun

 

Eve

 

 

House

 

 

Sledgehammer

looking for family treasures

 

 Examine for loot

 

Red, White & Blue

 

Girls Kissing at Wedding

 

 

Cold Iron

 

 

Sibby's Ladder

In the old grainery

 Updates from Narnia, perturbed

---

fidelity in all that you evoke

passion for principle during adversity

mindful intent guiding each action

love above all else

-t.macasaet

 

Purple Tower

 

Focus on the Fruit

 

-Saturday, we hosted the first "Tastes of the Coulee" food mini-festival at our public market in Viroqua.  It was a smashing success and arguably the best single day we've had in the two and a half years the market has been open.  A full house of area eateries and fantastic crowd of locals and visitors.

 

 

Organic & local.... Hot Pork & Fresh Garlic

 

 

macrobiotic Macrobars (made near Viroqua!).  I live on these.

 

  

 

I made Bananas Foster in a wok.  We poured the gooey mess over Sibby's Organic Ice Cream (scooped and dished out by Sibby, of course).  The final step, an open flame of brandy was a hit, but nothing like the combination of flaming sugar and the best ice cream on the planet.

 

Bananas Foster

(Voodoo dust, cane, flesh of fruit, oils.... fire)

 

 

Suspicious

 

 

 

Cinderella

Music all day and into the night... with world-class jazz right in the market by Bill Neal, Tom Guillion and frickin' Hanah Jon Taylor!

Hanah Jon Taylor

 

Project Fourth Stream

Saturday late night was at my pad, the future Viroqua Guest House... it was ole revelry and minor excess... there was this second....  I saw of matrix of creative energy that has been surrounding me lately... I saw it self-aware.  It was indescribable and intense.

Our music store, Greenman Music, is already jamming, and we aren't even officially open yet.

We are closer and closer to launching our organic ice cream parlor in the market, baring some unforeseen hurdle.

I sold my first photograph from the gallery in the market (not including you LeLo, lol).

A friend and myself search for Ginseng a couple of times.  It was another adventure.  I just know, the "little (old) man" is there, calling.... that he wants out of the dirt!  of course, we filmed the experience for the documentary.

Speaking of which, filming on Viroqua is going well.  Nearly each moment we document a particular thread of life.. another synchonistic one emerges in other seemingly unrelated segments.  personally i take this as an almost inevitable sign the film will be outstanding... so long as we tell the story of these ethereal fibers.

I'm also working on this epic trilogy about God, love, death, passion, art, motherhood, birth, struggle, history, science, medicine, massacre, apocalypse, barbarians, 2012, and a new age of humanity.

Also writing a screenplay about that intense Xanga romance when I just began blogging (....a few of you from way back will recall)... coauthored by... who else?

   :::

It was told to me... "You must do the thing you think your cannot"    {-Eleanor Roosevelt}

I did.

   :::

A close friend is ailing and my friend will not even acknowledge the pain, and I don't know what to do.

   :::

 

Detroit

 

Greenman Music

 

Pleased with the Goods

 

Zenscape

 

Girl Farmer

 

Fungi City

 

 

Skull life

 

Delicate last

 

Wild Tobacco Pair

 

Round & Jagged

 

 

layers of autumn

 

Red Rain

 

mm

 

fascination with planes

 

Pork Shoulder

 

 

Eyes on the Magicman

 

Walk where told to Stand

 

'56 Chevy

(My Dad's favorite car)

 

 

Alice in Wonderland

 

 

 

Sometimes EMTY

 

Rosemary & Pepper

 

why your crawlin'?

 

the hunt

 

 

Mother & daughter

 

layer

 

lazy time

 

Window Seat 

I asked this a while back, but it's a question that always has an answer..

What is the thing

you think you cannot do (that you know you must do)?

by God, be Blessed

tony

  My Sister is moving back to Viroqua...

this is a magnificent, unexpected event

Now the turmoil of moving.

 

 

face adversity

 

Partially Exposed

:::

 

photographs best viewed in full size (click the image)

 

Envy of Family

 

This embattled bible from the mid 19th century belongs to one of my best friends.  Is was passed on to her after her Uncle Milt passed away.  The day she opened it for the first time, was the 23rd of March... the same day, in 1847, it turns out, her great-great-great grandmother carefully penned a notation into these cherished scriptures.

Another evolving story in the fabric of energy that is the documentary about this most unusual town,

Viroqua the Movie

 

 

 
Peek into pages past

 

 

A Leaf Pressed into page 1073 about 160 years ago

 

 

:::

 

we have a name and a draft logo for the ice cream parlor

zOone

"ozone"

the organic zone

ice cream parlor, teahaus, juciebar, flatbread bakery,

and organic domain

in an old world public market

http://www.sibbysozone.com/

 

:::

First Entry in Guestroom Journal

:::

We were inspired by a $12.50 lamp I placed in my poorly lit kitchen... we then tore my sad cookspace apart.  Ripped off the cabinet doors, emptied the counter-tops... and wow... a new kitchen, for $12.50

 

Sun Former Flower Shadow

Seedwell Blue

 

be blessed

tony