Happy Birthday, Ellington.

Duke Ellington was born on this date in 1899.

If it sounds good, it IS good ...

Wonder.

Maybe there is another who sees life not as a flickering candle but as a torch that can illuminate an undiscovered world. There will always be those who feel more comfortable not venturing from the warmth of the hearth, but there are those who prefer to look out the window and wonder what is beyond the horizon.

Some people never find it
Some only pretend
But I just want to live
Happily ever after, now and then.
- Jimmy Buffett

Imagination.

Airy, Oak Apples, 1915


The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.
- William Blake

Dog.

Over the years I've yearned for wisdom.
What have I learned?
Not much; even the dog leads when we go for a walk.
- Jim Harrison

Jimmy Buffett, "Death Of An Unpopular Poet"



Poetry rules!
- Buffett

Barn.

Morning.


Afternoon.

Head in the clouds.

Thank, Kurt.

David Gray, "Foundling"

Wanted.

O'Keeffe, Only One, 1969


It happens that the thing that I have done, the things that I’ve been doing have been in touch with my time so that people have liked it. But I could have been much better and nobody noticed it. Much better I'll say as a painter. Some people seem to be luckier than others. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’ve taken hold of anything that came along that I wanted. On this knife I might fall off on either side, but I’ll walk it again. So what. What if you do fall off? I’d rather be doing something that I really wanted to do.
- Georgia O'Keeffe

Well.

Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mozart, Divertimento for strings in D major, K.136

Beauty.

Cezanne, Bend In The Forest Road, 1906


Cassandra Wilson, "Solomon Sang"

When our time is ended
How will we have spent it
Did we see the beauty in each day

Breeze.

Brigman, The Breeze, 1918


Exhilaration is the Breeze
That lifts us from the Ground
And leaves us in another place
Whose statement is not found --

Returns us not, but after time
We soberly descend
A little newer for the term
Upon Enchanted Ground --

- Emily Dickinson

Robert Plant, "Win My Train Fare Home"

Somewhere ...

Ray LaMontagne, "Shelter"

Mind.

Many of us are slaves to our minds. Our own mind is our worst enemy. We try to focus, and our mind wanders off. We try to keep stress at bay, but anxiety keeps us awake at night. We try to be good to the people we love, but then we forget them and put ourselves first. And when we want to change our life, we dive into spiritual practice and expect quick results, only to lose focus after the honeymoon has worn off. We return to our state of bewilderment. We're left feeling helpless and discouraged. It seems we all agree that training the body through exercise, diet, and relaxation is a good idea, but why don't we think about training our minds?
- Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Rest.

I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Trees.

van Gogh, Girl In The Woods, 1882


For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

- Hermann Hesse

Sings.

There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.
- Wendell Berry

Isaiah 32

17 The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.
18 My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.

Sam Bush, "Spirit Is The Journey"

A great version of the Johnny Clegg song ...



Ploughed the moon reached an island
Balanced on the edge of the sky
But something always stayed the same
Deep down inside
No matter where I've been the places don't count
Summer in a mountain town
No matter where I've been the places don't count
And I feel let down

'Cause nobody told me

Spirit is the journey
Body is the bus
I am the driver
From dust to dust
Spirit is a story
Body is a book
I am the writer
Together we flow

We hold on, and when the story ends
We hold on, until it begins again
We hold on, we hold on...

I never knew I had one
Till I saw yours shine
Spilling from your laughter
Sparkling in your eyes
Sharing my confusion, sharing my surprise
At finding part of me in you, alive

'Cause nobody told me

Spirit is the journey
Body is the bus
I am the driver
From dust to dust
Trying to be near you
Searching for a way
Listening to your life song
Before it fades away

We hold on, and when the story ends
We hold on, we hold on.

Spirit is the journey
Body is the bus
I am the driver from dust to dust
Now I'm falling, falling away
I hear you calling, calling my name
Spirit move on, move on
Pass my eyes on, on to the next one
I will be long gone, long gone

Across the distance, this divide
I will be with you forever
Till you reach the other side
So hold on, sing this life song
Sing, "Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on!"

Wonder.

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you -- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.

One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.

- Edward Abbey

Being.

Of Mere Being

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze distance.

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

- Wallace Stevens

Sing.

You Sing, And Your Voice Peels

You sing, and your voice peels the husk
of the day's grain, your song with the sun and sky,
the pine trees speak with their green tongue:
all the birds of the winter whistle.

The sea fills its cellar with footfalls,
with bells, chains, whimpers,
the tools and the metals jangle,
wheels of the caravan creak.

But I hear only your voice, your voice
soars with the zing and precision of an arrow,
it drops with the gravity of rain,

your voice scatters the highest swords
and returns with its cargo of violets:
it accompanies me through the sky.

- Pablo Neruda

Emmylou Harris, My Songbird

Songbird in a golden cage
She'd prefer the blue
How I crave the liquor of her song

Incense.

... perfume.

Aerosmith, Taste of India

Happy Birthday, Audubon.

Audubon, Blue Jay, 1859


In my deepest troubles, I frequently would wrench myself from the persons around me and retire to some secluded part of our noble forests.
- Audubon

Always.

van Gogh, Wheatfield Under Cloudy Sky, 1890


You Will Remember

You will remember that leaping stream
where sweet aromas rose and trembled,
and sometimes a bird, wearing water
and slowness, its winter feathers.

You will remember those gifts from the earth:
indelible scents, gold clay,
weeds in the thicket and crazy roots,
magical thorns like swords.

You'll remember the bouquet you picked,
shadows and silent water,
bouquet like a foam-covered stone.

That time was like never, and like always.
So we go there, where nothing is waiting;
we find everything waiting there.

- Pablo Neruda

Ray Wylie Hubbard, "Rabbit"

I seriously doubt if that's what it means.

Manure.

They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us,


but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life ...


...the seeds are covered with better soil,


... and with a higher grade of manure.

- Emerson

Jimmy Buffett, "Chanson Pour Les Petits Enfants "

Pour mes deux petits enfants, Drew and Zuzu ...



Now young Mr. Moon flew away in the night
With his best friend Magnus right by his side
They soared through the Milky Way counting the stars
Once around Venus, twice around Mars

Then they spied an island rise out of the sea
They fell back to Earth just as free as you please
The children all gathered the church bells did ring
Suddenly everyone started to sing

Chorus
Chanson pour les petits enfants
Chason pour toute le monde
Chanson pour les petits enfants
Chanson pour toute le monde

Queen of the island she welcomed them in
Asked them questions of where they have been
She offered them chocolate she offered them tea
They all took their seats in the top of a tree

And racoons brought wine and the mice they brought cheese
Beautiful birds floated by on the breeze
From out of the oceans the dolphins began
Humming a tune that soon covered the land

Chorus

So young Princess Lia brought coral and pearls
Gifts to the travelers from some other world
The Bushdoctor mixed up a magical spell
Swore them to secrecy, never to tell

So young Mr. Moon flew away in the night
With his best friend Magnus right by his side
The sun was rising, they'd be home by noon
Humming the words to this magical tune

Chorus

Song for the children
Song for the world

Within.

What is it that sends forth new life from within? What's in there that will never die? What part of any person can take the fire and the plow and come back stronger than before?

Read the rest here.

Thanks, Kelly.

Head in the clouds.

The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.
- J.R.R. Tolkien

Esperanza.

Inadequacy.

Let’s think of the steeple and gargoyle. The steeple is this beautiful thing reaching up into the sky admitting, as it were, its own inadequacy—attempting something utterly impossible—to climb up to heaven through a steeple. The gargoyle is this little man grinning and laughing at the absurb behavior of men on earth, and these two things both built into this building to the glory of God. He’s laughing at the inadequacy of man, the pretensions of man, the absolute preposteous gap—disparity—between his aspirations and his performance, which is the eternal comedy of human life. It will be so till the end fo time, you see?
- Malcolm Muggeridge

From the BBC documentary, Chartres Cathedral: A Sacred Geometry.
Turn down volume slightly before playing.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Resurrection.

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.
- Martin Luther

Bach, Easter Oratorio, Adagio

Risen.

Tiffany, Christ's Resurrection, 1911


Matthew 28

1 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

11 While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. 12 When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, 13 telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” 15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Handel, The Resurrection, "Overture"

John Fahey, "Steamboat Gwine 'Round de Bend"

Sure.

In the Corners of Fields

Something is calling to me
from the corners of fields,
where the leftover fence wire
suns its loose coils, and stones
thrown out of the furrow
sleep in warm litters;
where the gray faces
of old No Hunting signs
mutter into the wind,
and dry horse tanks
spout fountains of sunflowers;
where a moth
flutters in from the pasture,
harried by sparrows,
and alights on a post,
so sure of its life
that it peacefully opens its wings.

- Ted Kooser

Within.

Since my pictures are large, colorful, and unframed, and since museum walls are usually immense and formidable, there is the danger that the pictures relate themselves as decorative areas to the walls. This would be a distortion of their meaning, since the pictures are intimate and intense, and are the opposite of what is decorative; and have been painted in a scale of normal living rather than an institutional scale. I have on occasion successfully dealt with this problem by tending to crowd the show rather than making it spare. By saturating the room with the feeling of the work, the walls are defeated and the poignancy of each single work...become[s] more visible.

I also hang the largest pictures so that they must be first encountered at close quarters, so that the first experience is to be within the picture. This may well give the key to the observer of the ideal relationship between himself and the rest of the pictures. I also hang the pictures low rather than high, and particularly in the case of the largest ones, often as close to the floor as is feasible, for that is the way they are painted. And last, it may be worthwhile trying to hang something beyond the partial wall because some of the pictures do very well in a confined space.
- Mark Rothko

Rothko, No. 10, 1950

Burial.

Holbein, The Younger, The Body of Dead Christ, 1522

Luke 23

50-51There was a man named Joseph, who was from Arimathea in Judea. Joseph was a good and honest man, and he was eager for God's kingdom to come. He was also a member of the council, but he did not agree with what they had decided.

52Joseph went to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body. 53He took the body down from the cross and wrapped it in fine cloth. Then he put it in a tomb that had been cut out of solid rock and had never been used. 54It was Friday, and the Sabbath was about to begin. 55The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and watched how Jesus' body was placed in the tomb. 56Then they went to prepare some sweet-smelling spices for his burial. But on the Sabbath they rested, as the Law of Moses commands.

Palestrina, Lamentations for Holy Saturday

Darkness.

Carracci, Christ Wearing the Crown of Thorns, Supported by Angels, 1585


Luke 23

1 Then the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. 2 And they began to accuse him, saying, “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Messiah, a king.”

3 So Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

“You have said so,” Jesus replied.

4 Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, “I find no basis for a charge against this man.”

5 But they insisted, “He stirs up the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here.”

6 On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean. 7 When he learned that Jesus was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time.

8 When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform a sign of some sort. 9 He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. 11 Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate. 12 That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies.

13 Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers and the people, 14 and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was inciting the people to rebellion. I have examined him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against him. 15 Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us; as you can see, he has done nothing to deserve death. 16 Therefore, I will punish him and then release him.” [17]

18 But the whole crowd shouted, “Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us!” 19 (Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder.)

20 Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again. 21 But they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

22 For the third time he spoke to them: “Why? What crime has this man committed? I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty. Therefore I will have him punished and then release him.”

23 But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed. 24 So Pilate decided to grant their demand. 25 He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, the one they asked for, and surrendered Jesus to their will.

26 As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27 A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then

“‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!”
and to the hills, “Cover us!”’

31 For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”

36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

38 There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
47 The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.” 48 When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. 49 But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

Palestrina, Stabat Mater

Alive.

Annibale Carracci, Head of a Woman, 1600


Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist - a master - can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is ... and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be ... and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart ... no matter what the merciless hours have done to her.
— Robert A. Heinlein

Happy Birthday, Menuhin.

Yehudo Menuhin was born on this date in 1916.

Here he is performing Beethoven's Romanza for Violin, No. 2.

Comfort ...

Define.

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.
- Frost

Transformation.

I am not what has happened to me, I am what I choose to become.
- Jung

Sir Ken on passion, energy, and being ...

Covenant.

Leonardo, The Last Supper, 1498


Mark 14

12 On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”
13 So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. 14 Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.”

16 The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.

17 When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. 18 While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.”

19 They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, “Surely you don’t mean me?”

20 “It is one of the Twelve,” he replied, “one who dips bread into the bowl with me. 21 The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”

22 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.”

23 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.

24 “This is my blood of the[c] covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. 25 “Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

26 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Be.

It is one thing to be forgiven; it is another thing to become more and more and more and more the person God made you to be.
- Rob Bell

Thanks, Ragamuffin Ramblings.

Rain.

van Gogh, Rain at Auvers, 1890


Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet.
- Roger Miller

Tinariwen.

I'm runnin' the needle through this lately ...



A lesser band could build a following on the strength of that colorful past alone. But Tinariwen, now featuring eight members, happens to make extraordinary music. The songs are modal vamps, with gruff call-and-response vocals, congas, handclaps, and layered guitar riffs, which build to trancelike fugues. For years, the band's recordings circulated through the Sahara samizdat-style, on cassette tapes, but Westerners began to take notice in 2001, after a performance at Le Festival au Désert, an annual concert in Essakane, Mali.

Read the rest here.

Ratdog, "She Belongs To Me"

Pulls.

And you came on strong like some running wave
And your beauty left me broke and hungry
Left me begging to the birds for a bone or an offering
Left me saying nothin', nothin' like I always say

And that full bellied moon she's a shinin' on me
She pulls on this heart like she pulls on the sea

Gregory Alan Isakov, "That Moon Song"

Gone.

The party's over at Lands End, a 1902 mansion that may have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's description of Daisy Buchanan's lavish home in The Great Gatsby. Demolition of the 20,000-square-foot Colonial Revival structure, located in Sands Point, N.Y., on Long Island's North Shore, is under way, according to locals.

Read the rest here.

More knowledge and perseverance.

Full.

Chatham, Moonrise Over The Absarokas, 1977


To The Rising Full Moon

Wilt thou suddenly enshroud thee,

Who this moment wert so nigh?
Heavy rising masses cloud thee,

Thou art hidden from mine eye.

Yet my sadness thou well knowest,

Gleaming sweetly as a star!
That I'm loved, 'tis thou that showest,

Though my loved one may be far.

Upward mount then! clearer, milder,

Robed in splendour far more bright!
Though my heart with grief throbs wilder,

Fraught with rapture is the night!

- Goethe

Obsessed.

Bourdain, burgers, beef, bread, booze, blogs ...

Silent.

Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, and yet a little way beyond the outworks of our divinings, perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, everything in us withdraws, a stillness comes, and the new, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it and is silent.
- Rainer Maria Rilke

Esperanza.

Impermanence.

To contemplate impermanence on its own is not enough: You have to work with it in your life. Let’s try an experiment. Pick up a coin. Imagine that it represents the object at which you are grasping. Hold it tightly clutched in your fist and extend your arm, with the palm of your hand facing the ground. Now if you let go or relax your grip, you will lose what you are clinging to. That’s why you hold on.

But there’s another possibility: You can let go and yet keep hold of it. With your arm still outstretched, turn your hand over so that it faces the sky. Release your hand and the coin still rests on your open palm. You let go. And the coin is still yours, even with all this space around it.

So there is a way in which we can accept impermanence and still relish life, at one and the same time, without grasping.

Thanks, Glimpse of the Day.

Sings.

Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.
- Emerson

Head in the clouds.

Thanks, Jess.

Rooted.

Kent, Glen, 1927


When we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the Source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible but not relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft and true witnesses without being manipulative.
- Brennan Manning

Deschutes.

Mozart, "Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in A," K622

Allegro



Adagio



Rondò: Allegro

Happy Birthday, Blixen.

Baronness Karen von Blixen, who, under the pen name Isak Dineson, wrote Out of Africa, was born on this date in 1885.


People who dream when they sleep at night know of a special kind of happiness which the world of the day holds not, a placid ecstasy, and ease of heart, that are like honey on the tongue. They also know that the real glory of dreams lies in their atmosphere of unlimited freedom. It is not the freedom of the dictator, who enforces his own will on the world, but the freedom of the artist, who has no will, who is free of will. The pleasure of the true dreamer does not lie in the substance of the dream, but in this: that there things happen without any interference from his side, and altogether outside his control. Great landscapes create themselves, long splendid views, rich and delicate colours, roads, houses, which he has never seen or heard of ...
- Isak Dinesen

He prayeth well, who loveth well both man and bird and beast.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere"

Head in the clouds.

Over Stone Quarry Road.

Quiets.

There is no music like a little river's. It takes the mind out-of-doors and it quiets a man down like saying his prayers.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

Within.

Drew has caught the journal bug.


The only journey is the journey within.
- Rainer Maria Rilke

Inconceivable.

Rizos, Goldeneyes, 2010


If I know only one thing, it's that everything that I see
Of the world outside is so inconceivable, often I barely can speak

Fleet Foxes, "Helplessness Blues"