On The Pulse of Morning

 By Maya Angelou

A Rock, A River, A Tree

Hosts to species long since departed,

Marked the mastodon.

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens

Of their sojourn here

On our planet floor,

Any broad alarm of their hastening doom

Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,

Come, you may stand upon my

Back and face your distant destiny,

But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than

The angels, have crouched too long in

The bruising darkness,

Have lain too long

Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words

Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out to us today, you may stand upon me,

But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,

A River sings a beautiful song,

It says come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,

Delicate and strangely made proud,

Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit

Have left collars of waste upon

My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,

If you will study war no more. 

Come,Clad in peace and I will sing the songs

The Creator gave to me when 

I and theTree and the rock were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your

Brow and when you yet knew you still

Knew nothing.

The River sang and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to

The singing River and the wise Rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the JewThe African,

 the Native American, the Sioux,

The Catholic, the Muslim, 

the French, the Greek

The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,

The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,

The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.

 They all hear

The speaking of the Tree.

They hear the first and last of every Tree

Speak to humankind today. 

Come to me, here beside the River.Plant yourself beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed

On traveller, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, youPawnee, Apache, Seneca, you

Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then

Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of

Other seekers--desperate for gain,Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo, the Scot ...

You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought

Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare

Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am that Tree planted by the River,

Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree

I am yours--your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need

For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,

Cannot be unlived, but if faced

With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon

This day breaking for you.

Give birth again

To the dream.

Women, children, men,

Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most

Private need. 

Sculpt it into

The image of your most public self.

Lift up your hearts

Each new hour holds new chances

For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever

To fear, yoked eternally

To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,

Offering you space to place new steps of change.

Here, on the pulse of this fine day

You may have the courage

To look up and out and upon me,

 theRock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day

You may have the grace to look up and out

And into your sister's eyes, and into

Your brother's face, your country

And say simply

Very simply

With hope

Good morning.

Dogs and Gods Part 2

•       I'm walking along Pumicestone Passage, photographing Gods handy work on a warm winters morning when I came across a lady and her dog. She is tossing a stick into the warm waters as a Pelican floats past towards a destination south. I catch a shot of the moment in time as the stick is tossed once again into todays calm waters, for the willing dog , to retrieve. The German Shepherd turns in a flash and chases eagerly to bring the treasure back to his master. Then i hear the call ! Good boy Zeus ! A thought crosses my mind how well Gods names go with dogs. I continued my walk along the sands looking upwards into the heavens. Dogs and Gods part 2 flashed through my mind as the suns rays pushed its way through the clouds.

 Zeus

 Pelican, Zeus and Friend

 Walking the Dog

Walking the sands with the Dogs and Children

At Dawn with a Friend

Friends Dogs and the Dawn

• Anubis is the ancient Egyptian god of mummification and of the dead. He took the form of a black dog or jackal usually in a lying down or crouching position, ears pricked and a long hanging tail. He wore a collar of magical connotations. He was also pictured as a human with a canine head. He helped judge souls after their death and guided lost souls into the afterlife. The ancient Egyptians did not worship animals. The depiction of a god as an animal was a device to visually convey the identity, qualities and attributes of the god. Cynopolis, which means “City of the Dog” in Greek, was the cult center of the God Anubis in Upper Egypt. They were twin cities known as Cynopolis superior and Cynopolis inferior. There was an Anubis shrine discovered inside the grave of Tutankhamun. 

Anubis Shrine - Wikipedia

The Anubis Shrine was part of the grave goods of Tutankhamun ( 18th Dynasty, New Kingdom). The tomb was discovered almost intact on 4 November 1922 in the Valley of the Kings in west Thebes by Howard Carter. Today the object, with the find number 261, is an exhibit at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, with the inventory number JE 61444.

  Heavenly Dogs

Canis Major -- is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name means “the greater dog” in Latin.
It represents the bigger dog following Orion, the hunter in Greek mythology. The dog is often depicted pursuing a hare, represented by the constellation Lepus.
Canis Minor -- is a small constellation in the northern sky. Its name means “the smaller dog” or “lesser dog” in Latin. The constellation represents one of the dogs following Orion, the hunter in Greek mythology. Both constellations were first catalogued by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century.

Sunny Day Rainbow Beach

• Year of The Dog -- 2018 is the Year of the Dog in the Chinese zodiac. It is made up of twelve signs and is based on the yearly Chinese lunar calendar which is determined by the movement of the moon. The Tiangou or Heavenly Dog has been said to resemble a black dog or meteor, which is thought to eat the sun or moon during an eclipse.

In Chinese Mythology, the Tiangou ("Heavenly Dog") is a flying dog responsible for eating the sun during a solar eclipse pic.twitter.com/wwIXezTgUg

— 41 Strange (@41Strange) May 1, 2018

• The modern western zodiac starts with the fire sign of Aries and finishes with the water sign of Pisces and are designated by the monthly positions of the sun and constellations. The twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac are all animals. The dragon is the only mythological animal, while the rest are creatures seen in nature. The signs are cycled through and repeated every twelve years, and the dog is the eleventh sign. The Year of the Dog begins on February 16th, 2018 and ends February 4th, 2019. 
   

Rufus Thomas and Walking the Dog 

• Name your dog after a GOD -- Apollo, Pluto, Thor ,Venus, Cupid.  Check more names here Names for Dogs

• Dog names  from Mythology and folklore 

• Kerberos -- In ancient Greek mythology, Kerberos is a huge, three-headed hound who guards the entrance to Hades, where he prevents ghosts from sneaking out and rejoining the world of the living.  Hercules was sent to fetch Kerberos as one of his twelve labours, a task which he accomplished with the aid of the goddess Persephone. A passage from Ovids Metamorphoses, “the hell-hound Cerberus, fast on a chain…. His three throats filled the air with triple barking, barks of frenzied rage, and spattered the green meadows with white spume.”