Confessions in town square today at high noon. Sweat will pour like blood: much too freely. Her knuckles will be white, her jaw clenched.

She will say, "I've got a lot of steel in my heart. There are places there where nothing goes in, and nothing comes out. I just thought you should know that LIGHT only lives in every other heartbeat of mine. So while my out-breath bestows love, my in-breath is a desperate gasping for air. Odd, how the emptiness inside me can rise as LIGHT. This all began right after a guy tried to kill me. 'I do not want to die', I thought at the time. So I asked myself 'What do I know of dying?' And I answered myself, 'They say in dying there comes a LIGHT' I breathed out, 'Let there be LIGHT'."

"Since then, alchemy, dark into light, has been my game", she will say.

"Thought you should know this about me. Always struggling to get air, I can never forget what is walled away behind the steel in my heart."

She will say all this when she confesses that she too, almost killed someone. And she will marvel at the LIGHT, which is not of her, but through her.

~~~Light

Hi BeBop,smiles... ( He ast me sumpin', otay? sheesh!) I assume you are asking about plants you can eat. Depends on how much sun you have and when. If you have good sun you can get LOTS of cherry tomatoes. And good sun will give you turnip greens for the summer, and collards for the winter. I plant both, and when I get tired of eating greens I blanch and freeze them so I always have greens and cornbread. Too, radishes are an easy to grow strong plant. Unearthing them is a lot like finding Easter eggs for happy.

I tried growing squash and snow peas but they wanted more room than I could give them. I, like you, have a small balcony and am currently growing mostly ornamentals: purple heart, a bluebird althea, some plant that I found growing from a crack in the pavement, lantana, aloe vera, mother of millions, ivy, chives, and a night blooming cirius. Next spring , I am going to add a BIG barrel of sugar cane. Might try some sweet potato vine, too, just so it will be there if I need it.

Below my balcony I have a small plot where I grow my greens. Right now it is filled with spearmint, orange and chocolate mint, and "Senor" Oregano. Some people are afraid of invasive THRIVERS like mint. smiles... NOT ME! I like 'em MEAN and GREEN! Next year I will add basil, an annual that seeds itself, 'cuz it is SO good on chicken. (yes, I am gonna keep eating chicken! tra la!)

Ah so. I want to note that the practice of cramming many plants into a small place WORKS. The Japanese know this. All you have to do is water and fertilize appropriately. I do the Miracle Gro thing.

Some wonder why I bother growing edible plants. I grow them for many reasons. One is to be witness to the miracle. It's a lot like watching children grow. WHERE DOES "STUFF" COME FROM? THE FIFTH DIMENSION? lol Every new leaf elicits the breath of prayer, and big smiles... miracles are TRIPPY!

Oh! I almost forgot these sites:
http://www.sugarcanemills.com/Varieties.htm
http://www.chewingcane.com/

And this site is a photo of a plant my sweet Chas gave to me. It is called the "Night Blooming Cirius". Chas told me it was CHARISMATIC,and he was RIGHT! This plant is a LIGHT FANTASTIC kinda plant, lol. It will amaze you. If you ever find one, snatch it UP. Mine is a starter from one leaf Chas sent me. The leaf is from a 30 year old plant that lives with him. Mine will probably bloom for the first time next August. These plants bloom only once a year, and their scent is touted as HEAVENLY. http://fastcat.org/gallery/digicam/housegarden/26

~~~Light Opera, still smilin'

postscript: Does this site let us post LIVE links? tanks, 'n happy new day

Great post over on "Touchy Subjects" blog by Mokie Joe. The subject is the "What the networks don't want you to know". Mokie points out that a mere handful of corporations control our media. I just want to add a couple o' thoughts about the handful of corporations that own everything else on the planet. They see human beings as expendable. Always have and always will.

Note: there IS NO FAILSAFE "plan" to "take care" of you or me. Not in ANY crisis, here or in ANY country. Big Money does NOT care about us. Notice the PBS documentaries concerning pandemic avian flu on the tele. They are advising us that commerce will be DEAD in the water. Global economic collapse, has been spotted on the horizon, they say. I say, "Agribusiness, 'You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille, With eight hungry kids and NO crop in the field'..."

Someone once said that cities are the place of bodies, and that the country is the place of spirit. But, I am not recommending that ALL flee to a cave in the Great Smokies that they have everlasting life. Rather, I have a vision that it is time for us EACH to take nature's hand and let her guide us to her bounty, time to work WITH her on a local level.

Grow some bean sprouts on your counter top. Plant sugar cane, wild berry vines, and root crops in your back yard. Grow herbs, tomato plants, squash on your roof top, save SEED! Find out if there are springs local to you. Get a local farmer's market food co-op up and running. Now. Homemade bread tastes good, NOW! It's fragrance is full of LIGHT! And the hands that make it, are full of love.

smiles..."There is no fear in love" ~~~Light Opera

"May you always know the truth, and see the lights surrounding you." ~~~bob dylan http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/forever.html

I find myself the least interesting thing to write about. Weird. Maybe I will start slowly . Here is a teaser: I was born in Houston, Texas, married my true love, and moved to Austin, Texas, then to Fairbanks, Alaska, to Mitkof Island, Alaska, then to East Texas two hours east of Dallas. Two daughters, two grandsons. Worked as an apprentice in an art museum for about ten minutes, waitressed for about ten minutes, landscaped for a while, threw a little college in the mix, wrote for a smalltown newspaper for a while, canned salmon on the Tanana River, helped a couple of calves & a couple of foals get born, ate a couple of grizzly bears, got divorced, met a psychopath, got sick, had brain surgery, saw the light, and smiled because I could. S'it. And they all lived happily ever after. ( More on demand, lol) ~~~ Light Opera ( s'all light opera )