28 February 2017
27 February 2017
Schubert, Piano Quintet in A Major, D. 667, "The Trout"
Jacqueline du Pré, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, Itzhak Perlman, and Pinchas Zukerman perform ...
Happy birthday, Longfellow.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on this day in 1807.
The ANGLER'S SONG
From the river's plashy bank,
Where the sedge grows green and rank,
And the twisted woodbine springs,
Upward speeds the morning lark
To its silver cloud - and hark!
On his way the woodman sings.
On the dim and misty lakes
Gloriously the morning breaks,
And the eagle's on his cloud: -
Whilst the wind, with sighing, wooes
To its arms the chaste cold ooze,
And the rustling reeds pipe loud.
Where the embracing ivy holds
Close the hoar elm in its folds,
In the meadow's fenny land,
And the winding river sweeps
Through its shallows and still deeps, -
Silent with my rod I stand.
But when sultry suns are high
Underneath the oak I lie
As it shades the water's edge,
And I mark my line, away
In the wheeling eddy, play,
Tangling with the river sedge.
When the eye of evening looks
On green woods and winding brooks,
And the wind sighs o'er the lea, -
Woods and streams, - I leave you then,
While the shadow in the glen
Lengthens by the greenwood tree.
Where the sedge grows green and rank,
And the twisted woodbine springs,
Upward speeds the morning lark
To its silver cloud - and hark!
On his way the woodman sings.
On the dim and misty lakes
Gloriously the morning breaks,
And the eagle's on his cloud: -
Whilst the wind, with sighing, wooes
To its arms the chaste cold ooze,
And the rustling reeds pipe loud.
Where the embracing ivy holds
Close the hoar elm in its folds,
In the meadow's fenny land,
And the winding river sweeps
Through its shallows and still deeps, -
Silent with my rod I stand.
But when sultry suns are high
Underneath the oak I lie
As it shades the water's edge,
And I mark my line, away
In the wheeling eddy, play,
Tangling with the river sedge.
When the eye of evening looks
On green woods and winding brooks,
And the wind sighs o'er the lea, -
Woods and streams, - I leave you then,
While the shadow in the glen
Lengthens by the greenwood tree.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Exploring.
Language shows clearly ...
... that memory is not an instrument for exploring the past ...
... but its theater.
Purpose.
HUGO: Monsieur Labisse gave me a book the other night. He's always doing that, sending books
to a good home. That's what he
calls it.
He's got real ... purpose.
ISABELLE: What do you mean?
HUGO: Everything has a purpose, even machines. Clocks tell the time and trains take
you places. They do what they're
meant to do. Like Monsieur
Labisse.
Maybe that's why
broken machines make me so sad.
They can't do what they're meant to do. Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose, it's like you're broken.
ISABELLE: Like Papa Georges.
HUGO: Maybe we can fix him.
ISABELLE: Is
that your purpose, fixing things?
HUGO: I don't
know. It's what my father
did.
ISABELLE: I
wonder what my purpose is.
HUGO: I don't
know.
ISABELLE
Maybe if I had known my parents ... I would know.
HUGO
Come with me.
Right after my father died, I would come up here a lot. I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines
never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured if the entire world was
one big machine ... I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason.
From the movie adaptation of Brian Selznick's novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret
From the movie adaptation of Brian Selznick's novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret
26 February 2017
Eats.
EVERYBODY EATS WHEN THEY COME to MY HOUSE
Have a banana, Hannah,
Try the salami, Tommy,
Give with the gravy, Davy,
Everybody eats when they come to my house!
Try a tomato, Plato,
Here's cacciatore, Dory,
Taste the baloney, Tony,
Everybody eats when they come to my house!
Here's cacciatore, Dory,
Taste the baloney, Tony,
Everybody eats when they come to my house!
I fix your favorite dishes,
Hopin' this good food fills ya!
Work my hands to the bone in the kitchen alone,
You better eat if it kills ya!
Hopin' this good food fills ya!
Work my hands to the bone in the kitchen alone,
You better eat if it kills ya!
Pass me a pancake, Mandrake,
Have an hors-d'oeuvre-y, Irvy,
Look in the fendel, Mendel,
Everybody eats when they come to my house!
Have an hors-d'oeuvre-y, Irvy,
Look in the fendel, Mendel,
Everybody eats when they come to my house!
Hannah! Davy! Tommy! Dora! Mandrake!
Everybody eats when they come to my house!
Everybody eats when they come to my house!
Pasta e fagiol-a, Tallulah!
Oh, do have a bagel, Fagel,
Now, don't be so bashful, Nashville,
Everybody eats when they come to my house!
Oh, do have a bagel, Fagel,
Now, don't be so bashful, Nashville,
Everybody eats when they come to my house!
Hey, this is a party, Marty,
Here, you get the cherry, Jerry,
Now, look, don't be so picky, Micky,
'Cause everybody eats when they come to my house!
Here, you get the cherry, Jerry,
Now, look, don't be so picky, Micky,
'Cause everybody eats when they come to my house!
All of my friends are welcome,
Don't make me coax you, Mosch-u,
Eat the tables, the chairs, the napkins, who cares?
You gotta eat if it chokes you!
Don't make me coax you, Mosch-u,
Eat the tables, the chairs, the napkins, who cares?
You gotta eat if it chokes you!
Oh, do have a knish, Nishia,
Pass me the latke, Macky,
Chile con carne for Barney,
Everybody eats when they come to my house!
Jeanne Burns
Pass me the latke, Macky,
Chile con carne for Barney,
Everybody eats when they come to my house!
Jeanne Burns
Between.
Carlson, Stillness in Moonlight, 2012
The DAVENPORT LUNAR ECLIPSE
The DAVENPORT LUNAR ECLIPSE
Overlooking the Mississippi
I never thought I'd get this old.
It was mostly my confusion about time
and the moon, and seeing the lovely way
homely old men treat their homely old women
in Nebraska and Iowa, the lunch time
touch over green Jell-O with pineapple
and fried "fish rectangles" for $2.95.
When I passed Des Moines the radio said
there were long lines to see the entire cow
sculpted out of butter. The earth is right smack
between the sun and the moon, the black waitress
told me at the Salty Pelican on the waterfront,
home from wild Houston to nurse her sick dad.
My good eye is burning up from fatigue
as it squints up above the Mississippi
where the moon is losing its edge to black.
It likely doesn't know what's happening to it,
I thought, pressed down to my meal and wine
by a fresh load of incomprehension.
My grandma lived in Davenport in the 1890s
just after Wounded Knee, a signal event,
the beginning of America's Sickness unto Death.
I'd like to nurse my father back to health
he's been dead thirty years, I said
to the waitress who agreed. That's why she
came home, she said, you only got one.
Now I find myself at fifty-one in Davenport
and drop the issue right into the Mississippi
where it is free to swim with the moon's reflection.
At the bar there are two girls of incomprehensible beauty
for the time being, as Swedish as my Grandma,
speaking in bad grammar as they listen to a band
of middle-aged Swede saxophonists braying
"Bye-Bye Blackbird" over and over, with a clumsy
but specific charm. The girls fail to notice me -
perhaps I should give them the thousand dollars
in my wallet but I've forgotten just how.
I feel pleasantly old and stupid, deciding
not to worry about who I am but how I spend
my days, until I tear in the weak places
like a thin, worn sheet. Back in my room
I can't hear the river passing like time,
or the moon emerging from the shadow of earth,
but I can see the water that never repeats itself.
It's very difficult to look at the World
and into your heart at the same time.
In between, a life has passed.
I never thought I'd get this old.
It was mostly my confusion about time
and the moon, and seeing the lovely way
homely old men treat their homely old women
in Nebraska and Iowa, the lunch time
touch over green Jell-O with pineapple
and fried "fish rectangles" for $2.95.
When I passed Des Moines the radio said
there were long lines to see the entire cow
sculpted out of butter. The earth is right smack
between the sun and the moon, the black waitress
told me at the Salty Pelican on the waterfront,
home from wild Houston to nurse her sick dad.
My good eye is burning up from fatigue
as it squints up above the Mississippi
where the moon is losing its edge to black.
It likely doesn't know what's happening to it,
I thought, pressed down to my meal and wine
by a fresh load of incomprehension.
My grandma lived in Davenport in the 1890s
just after Wounded Knee, a signal event,
the beginning of America's Sickness unto Death.
I'd like to nurse my father back to health
he's been dead thirty years, I said
to the waitress who agreed. That's why she
came home, she said, you only got one.
Now I find myself at fifty-one in Davenport
and drop the issue right into the Mississippi
where it is free to swim with the moon's reflection.
At the bar there are two girls of incomprehensible beauty
for the time being, as Swedish as my Grandma,
speaking in bad grammar as they listen to a band
of middle-aged Swede saxophonists braying
"Bye-Bye Blackbird" over and over, with a clumsy
but specific charm. The girls fail to notice me -
perhaps I should give them the thousand dollars
in my wallet but I've forgotten just how.
I feel pleasantly old and stupid, deciding
not to worry about who I am but how I spend
my days, until I tear in the weak places
like a thin, worn sheet. Back in my room
I can't hear the river passing like time,
or the moon emerging from the shadow of earth,
but I can see the water that never repeats itself.
It's very difficult to look at the World
and into your heart at the same time.
In between, a life has passed.
Jim Harrison
Fly.
Blake, Teach These Souls to Fly, 1796
Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this
vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.
Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death.
William Blake
Thinking.
Metaphor and Metacognition: The Mind When Pushed to Invention
Alise Shafer is the founder and director of Evergreen Community School in Santa Monica, California. Her work with children over the last 30 years sheds light on not only how children think, but also explores the ways in which the thinking of children generates, illuminates, and inspires dialogue and creativity in adults. Recognizing children as vital contributors to culture, Alise shares how children's unfettered perceptions have the power to jump-start the adult mind with refreshing and novel points of view.
Alise Shafer is the founder and director of Evergreen Community School in Santa Monica, California. Her work with children over the last 30 years sheds light on not only how children think, but also explores the ways in which the thinking of children generates, illuminates, and inspires dialogue and creativity in adults. Recognizing children as vital contributors to culture, Alise shares how children's unfettered perceptions have the power to jump-start the adult mind with refreshing and novel points of view.
How Thinking Works
Dr. Derek Cabrera is an internationally recognized expert in metacognition (thinking about thinking), epistemology (the study of knowledge), human and organizational learning, and education. He completed his PhD and post doctoral studies at Cornell University and served as faculty at Cornell and researcher at the Santa Fe Institute. He leads the Cabrera Research Lab, is the author of five books, numerous journal articles, and a US patent. Derek discovered DSRP Theory and in this talk he explains its benefits and the imperative for making it part of every students' life.
25 February 2017
Thinking.
By thinking about what a thing or event is, you will find
things like it or related to it that you never considered or simply did not
know existed.
Thanks to Kurt at Cultural Offering.
Debussy, Prelude No. 8, "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair"
David Oistrakh performs, with Frida Bauer accompanying ...
Cultivated.
Carlson, Fading Twilight, 2016
CONNECT
If George Carlson had been keeping field notes in his shirt
pocket — hand scrawled in pencil, referencing variations in color, tone, value,
light and pattern — his method when hiking solo into the “channeled scablands”
of the Pacific Northwest — the morning in question, which unfolded from the
doorway of his red Swedish-style farmhouse in Idaho, might have been described
like this:
5:30 am: Carlson, by habit, has risen like a
crepuscular animal. Suffusing the indoor human space behind him is another
Invention by J.S. Bach. Ahead, as he steps outside, an advancing sun, still
dim, seeping forward into a sky holding a muted moon. The twilight fills rapidly
with live dulcet birdsong, amping up slowly to mezzo-forte; whitetail deer,
closer and pensive, have just emerged from the backwoods; farther out, an elk
mother and her yearling extend the sightline into middle ground; the wapiti,
holding cautious in profile, are well aware, as Carlson is, of mountain lion
and bear presence, the cryptic big cats and bruins never far away, though for
now, unseen.
The Bach piano piece flows through Carlson, spilling out
toward a distant horizon as he interprets what he absorbs. Fading night has not
yet yielded to morning; the artist’s cultivated space is edged by real tooth
and claw wildness; tranquility is charged with expectation.
Carlson is listening to the composer and translating sonic
notes into his own repertoire, visual ideas gelling in his head. He is too
humble to draw a direct parallel between himself and Bach, though if an
outsider delves deeper, pressing Carlson, one soon discovers that the same kind
of structure Bach mastered in classical music informs Carlson’s approach to
composition.
At age 68, nine years ago, Carlson returned to his original
love — painting — four-and-a-half decades after he had become sidetracked by
sculpture and acclaimed for it, believing his diversionary foray into three
dimensions wouldn’t last as long as it did.
CONNECT
Stare.
Schiele, Small Tree in Late Autumn, 1911
Every day the body works in the fields of the world
Mending a stone wall
Or swinging a sickle through the tall grass -
The grass of civics, the grass of money -
And every night the body curls around itself
And listens for the soft bells of sleep.
But the heart is restless and rises
From the body in the middle of the night,
Leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
With its thick, pictureless walls
To sit by herself at the kitchen table
And heat some milk in a pan.
And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
And goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
And opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
And roams from room to room in the dark,
Darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.
And the soul is up on the roof
In her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
Singing a song about the wildness of the sea
Until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
The way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,
Resuming their daily colloquy,
Talking to each other or themselves
Even through the heat of the long afternoons.
Which is why the body - the house of voices -
Sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
To stare into the distance,
To listen to all its names being called
Before bending again to its labor.
Every day the body works in the fields of the world
Mending a stone wall
Or swinging a sickle through the tall grass -
The grass of civics, the grass of money -
And every night the body curls around itself
And listens for the soft bells of sleep.
But the heart is restless and rises
From the body in the middle of the night,
Leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
With its thick, pictureless walls
To sit by herself at the kitchen table
And heat some milk in a pan.
And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
And goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
And opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
And roams from room to room in the dark,
Darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.
And the soul is up on the roof
In her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
Singing a song about the wildness of the sea
Until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
The way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,
Resuming their daily colloquy,
Talking to each other or themselves
Even through the heat of the long afternoons.
Which is why the body - the house of voices -
Sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
To stare into the distance,
To listen to all its names being called
Before bending again to its labor.
Billy Collins
Happy birthday, Renoir.
Renoir, Strong Wind, 1872
They tell you that a tree is only a combination of chemical
elements. I prefer to believe that God created it, and that it is inhabited by
a nymph.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
24 February 2017
Vivid.
What happened was this: I got an image in my head that never
got out. We see a great many things and can remember a great many things, but
that is different. We get very few of the true images in our heads of the kind
I am talking about, the kind which become more and more vivid for us as if the
passage of the years did not obscure their reality but, year by year, drew off
another veil to expose a meaning which we had only dimly surmised at first.
Robert Penn Warren
Benefits.
A one-ounce shot delivers all the benefits of a
three-ounce shot. A couple of the latter turn one into a spit-dribbler.
Spit-dribblers frighten children and make everyone else nervous.
Jim Harrison
Change.
An excellent book ...
CONNECT
Adam Gazzaley shares the result of his lab's research into how new technologies, such as video games, might be used to enhance the functioning of the brain. He shows how within ten years, doctors may be prescribing video games and other technologies to treat such conditions as Parkinson's Disease, Schizophrenia, or Addiction.
Most of us will freely admit that we are obsessed with our devices. We pride ourselves on our ability to multitask—read work email, reply to a text, check Facebook, watch a video clip. Talk on the phone, send a text, drive a car. Enjoy family dinner with a glowing smartphone next to our plates. We can do it all, 24/7! Never mind the errors in the email, the near-miss on the road, and the unheard conversation at the table. In The Distracted Mind, Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen—a neuroscientist and a psychologist—explain why our brains aren’t built for multitasking, and suggest better ways to live in a high-tech world without giving up our modern technology.
The authors explain that our brains are limited in their ability to pay attention. We don’t really multitask but rather switch rapidly between tasks. Distractions and interruptions, often technology-related—referred to by the authors as “interference”—collide with our goal-setting abilities. We want to finish this paper/spreadsheet/sentence, but our phone signals an incoming message and we drop everything. Even without an alert, we decide that we “must” check in on social media immediately.
Gazzaley and Rosen offer practical strategies, backed by science, to fight distraction. We can change our brains with meditation, video games, and physical exercise; we can change our behavior by planning our accessibility and recognizing our anxiety about being out of touch even briefly. They don’t suggest that we give up our devices, but that we use them in a more balanced way.
Gazzaley and Rosen offer practical strategies, backed by science, to fight distraction. We can change our brains with meditation, video games, and physical exercise; we can change our behavior by planning our accessibility and recognizing our anxiety about being out of touch even briefly. They don’t suggest that we give up our devices, but that we use them in a more balanced way.
CONNECT
Adam Gazzaley shares the result of his lab's research into how new technologies, such as video games, might be used to enhance the functioning of the brain. He shows how within ten years, doctors may be prescribing video games and other technologies to treat such conditions as Parkinson's Disease, Schizophrenia, or Addiction.
Happy birthday, Homer.
Homer, Dad's Coming!, 1873
Winslow Homer was born on this day in 1836.
What they call talent is nothing but the capacity for doing
continuous work in the right way.
Winslow Homer
Thank you, Mom!
23 February 2017
New.
Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dreaming.
Dreaming, we are the mad
who swear by the blood of trees
and speak with the tongues of streams
through props of steel and sawdust,
a colony of souls
ravaged by visions, bound
to some wild, secret cove
not yet possessed, a place
still innocent of us.
Lisel Mueller, from "The Lonesome Dream"
Happy birthday, Handel.
Denner, Handel, 1727
George Frideric Handel was born on this day in 1685.
Sonata in A, Op.1, No. 4, performed by Frans Brüggen ...
22 February 2017
Nice.
Schilder, Nightfall, 1917
G@d d@#n it, there are nice things in the world -- and I mean nice things. We're all such morons to get so sidetracked.
J.D. Salinger
Thanks, hopeleslie.
G@d d@#n it, there are nice things in the world -- and I mean nice things. We're all such morons to get so sidetracked.
J.D. Salinger
Thanks, hopeleslie.
Desireless.
Heyn, Little Horse, 1899
Discipline enabled Heaven to be filled with light;
discipline enabled the angels to be immaculate and holy.
The world is the mountain,
and each action, the shout that echoes back.
To regard the self as easy to subdue is a mistake.
When the wind of poverty is in anyone,
she floats in peace on the waters of this world.
As long as desires are fresh, faith is not;
for it is these desires that lock that gate.
The intellectual quest,
though fine as pearl or coral,
is not the spiritual search.
O tongue, you are an endless treasure.
O tongue, you are also an endless disease.
If any one lacks tinder,
let him set his rubbish ablaze with my fire.
Although your desire tastes sweet,
doesn’t the Beloved desire you
to be desireless?
For Intelligence belongs to that other world,
and when it prevails, this material world is overthrown.
Anyone in whom the troublemaking self has died,
sun and cloud obey.
If you wish to shine like day,
burn up the night of self-existence.
Dissolve in the Being who is everything.
The heart and eyes must bleed a lot
before self-complacency falls away.
Can the water of a polluted stream
clear out the dung?
Can human knowledge sweep away
the ignorance of the sensual self?
How does a sword fashion its own hilt?
Go, entrust the cure of this wound to a surgeon,
I’m the devoted slave
of anyone who doesn’t claim
to have attained dining with God
at every way station.
Rumi
Let’s ask God to help us to self-control:
for one who lacks it, lacks His Grace.
for one who lacks it, lacks His Grace.
The undisciplined person doesn’t wrong himself alone—
but sets fire to the whole world.
but sets fire to the whole world.
Discipline enabled Heaven to be filled with light;
discipline enabled the angels to be immaculate and holy.
The peacock’s plumage is his enemy.
The world is the mountain,
and each action, the shout that echoes back.
This discipline and rough treatment are a furnace
to extract the silver from the dross
to extract the silver from the dross
The spiritual path wrecks the body
and afterwards restores it to health.
and afterwards restores it to health.
Anger and lust make a man squint;
When self-interest appears, virtue hides:
When self-interest appears, virtue hides:
Fortunate is he who does not carry envy as a companion.
If ten lamps are present in one place,
each differs in form from another;
yet you can’t distinguish whose radiance is whose
when you focus on the light.
each differs in form from another;
yet you can’t distinguish whose radiance is whose
when you focus on the light.
In the field of spirit there is no division;
no individuals exist.
no individuals exist.
The idol of your self is the mother of all idols.
To regard the self as easy to subdue is a mistake.
If you wish mercy, show mercy to the weak.
The stoppered jar, though in rough water,
floated because of its empty heart.
floated because of its empty heart.
When the wind of poverty is in anyone,
she floats in peace on the waters of this world.
As long as desires are fresh, faith is not;
for it is these desires that lock that gate.
The tongue of mutual understanding is quite special:
to be one of heart is better than to have a common tongue.
to be one of heart is better than to have a common tongue.
If you dig a pit for others to fall into,
you will fall into it yourself.
you will fall into it yourself.
Many of the faults you see in others, dear reader,
are your own nature reflected in them.
are your own nature reflected in them.
With will, fire becomes sweet water.
The lion who breaks the enemy’s ranks
is a minor hero
compared to the lion who overcomes himself.
is a minor hero
compared to the lion who overcomes himself.
O son, only those whose spiritual eye has been opened
know how compulsive we are.
know how compulsive we are.
Whoever gives reverence receives reverence.
The intellectual quest,
though fine as pearl or coral,
is not the spiritual search.
The intelligent desire self-control;
children want candy.
children want candy.
Since in order to speak, one must first listen,
learn to speak by listening.
learn to speak by listening.
When, with just a taste, envy and deceit arise,
and ignorance and forgetfulness are born,
know you have tasted the unlawful.
and ignorance and forgetfulness are born,
know you have tasted the unlawful.
Know that a word suddenly shot from the tongue
is like an arrow shot from the bow.
is like an arrow shot from the bow.
O tongue, you are an endless treasure.
O tongue, you are also an endless disease.
I am burning.
If any one lacks tinder,
let him set his rubbish ablaze with my fire.
Although your desire tastes sweet,
doesn’t the Beloved desire you
to be desireless?
The world’s flattery and hypocrisy is a sweet morsel:
eat less of it, for it is full of fire.
eat less of it, for it is full of fire.
Forgetfulness of God, beloved,
is the support of this world;
spiritual intelligence its ruin.
is the support of this world;
spiritual intelligence its ruin.
For Intelligence belongs to that other world,
and when it prevails, this material world is overthrown.
Were there no men of vision,
all who are blind would be dead.
all who are blind would be dead.
All these griefs within our hearts
arise from the smoke and dust
of our existence and vain desires.
arise from the smoke and dust
of our existence and vain desires.
Whoever lives sweetly dies painfully:
whoever serves his body doesn’t nourish his soul.
whoever serves his body doesn’t nourish his soul.
Your thinking is like a camel driver,
and you are the camel:
it drives you in every direction under its bitter control.
and you are the camel:
it drives you in every direction under its bitter control.
If you are wholly perplexed and in straits,
have patience, for patience is the key to joy.
have patience, for patience is the key to joy.
Fast from thoughts, fast:
thoughts are like the lion and the wild ass;
men’s hearts are the thickets they haunt.
thoughts are like the lion and the wild ass;
men’s hearts are the thickets they haunt.
If you are irritated by every rub,
how will your mirror be polished?
how will your mirror be polished?
Anyone in whom the troublemaking self has died,
sun and cloud obey.
If you wish to shine like day,
burn up the night of self-existence.
Dissolve in the Being who is everything.
There is no worse sickness for the soul,
O you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection.
The heart and eyes must bleed a lot
before self-complacency falls away.
Can the water of a polluted stream
clear out the dung?
Can human knowledge sweep away
the ignorance of the sensual self?
How does a sword fashion its own hilt?
Go, entrust the cure of this wound to a surgeon,
Many are the unbelievers who long for submission,
but their stumbling block
is reputation and pride and continual desires.
but their stumbling block
is reputation and pride and continual desires.
I’m the devoted slave
of anyone who doesn’t claim
to have attained dining with God
at every way station.
Rumi
Trust.
Build your house on granite. By granite I mean your nature
that you are torturing to death, the love in your child's body, your wife's
dream of love, your own dream of life when you were sixteen. Exchange your
illusions for a bit of truth. Throw out your politicians and diplomats! Take
your destiny into your own hands and build your life on rock. Forget about your
neighbor and look inside yourself! Your neighbor, too, will be grateful. Tell
you're fellow workers all over the world that you're no longer willing to work
for death but only for life. Instead of flocking to executions and shouting
hurrah, hurrah, make a law for the protection of human life and its blessings.
Such a law will be part of the granite foundation your house rests on. Protect
your small children's love against the assaults of lascivious, frustrated men
and women. Stop the mouth of the malignant old maid; expose her publicly or
send her to a reform school instead of young people who are longing for love.
Don't try to outdo your exploiter in exploitation if you have a chance to
become a boss. Throw away your swallowtails and top hat, and stop applying for
a license to embrace your woman. Join forces with your kind in all countries;
they are like you, for better or worse. Let your child grow up as God intended.
Don't try to improve on nature. Learn to understand it and protect it. Go to the
library instead of the prizefight, go to foreign countries rather than to Coney
Island. And first and foremost, think straight, trust the quiet inner voice
inside you that tells you what to do. You hold your life in your hands, don't
entrust it to anyone else, least of all to your chosen leaders. BE YOURSELF!
Any number of great men have told you that.
Wilhelm Reich
Choices.
It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
Aldus Dumbledore
Doing.
Chardin, Young Student Drawing, 1739
Art resides in the quality of doing; process is not
magic.
Charles Eames
Men at Work, "Down by the Sea"
Listen to your heart
Screamin' at the sky
Can't you feel it tremble?
Don't you wonder why?
Screamin' at the sky
Can't you feel it tremble?
Don't you wonder why?
Rescue.
“Percy Manning was very interested in collecting
disappearing ways of life and customs, and objects that were going out of use,”
said curator of the display, Michael Heaney, a former staff member of the
Bodleian Libraries. “The display features prints, drawings, photographs,
sketches, plans, brass rubbings and documentary material on the people and
places of the county ranging from the halls of academia to rural communities. He pursued this kind of ‘rescue
archaeology’ before it became popular and his collections provide unique
insights into social history and everyday life. Manning collected items from
more than 400 localities in the county; I doubt there's a community in
Oxfordshire not represented in his collections.”
CONNECT
CONNECT
21 February 2017
Rising.
The LADDER of ST. AUGUSTINE
Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can
frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each
deed of shame!
All common things, each day's events,
That with the hour begin
and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we
may ascend.
The low desire, the base design,
That makes another's
virtues less;
The revel of the ruddy wine,
And all occasions of excess;
The longing for ignoble things;
The strife for triumph
more than truth;
The hardening of the heart, that brings
Irreverence for the
dreams of youth;
All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,
That have their root in
thoughts of ill;
Whatever hinders or impedes
The action of the nobler
will; —
All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we
would gain
In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminent
domain.
We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to
scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of
our time.
The mighty pyramids of stone
That wedge-like cleave
the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights
of stairs.
The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to
the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels
rise.
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by
sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in
the night.
Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and
downcast eyes,
We may discern — unseen before —
A path to higher
destinies,
Nor deem the irrevocable Past
As wholly wasted, wholly
vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Unlimited.
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.
Karen Blixen, from Out Of Africa
Karen Blixen, from Out Of Africa
Happy birthday, Auden.
W.H. Auden was born on this day in 1907.
MUSEE de BEAUX ARTS
About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
W.H. Auden
20 February 2017
Ignore.
Decent people should ignore politics; if only they could be confident that politics would ignore them.
William F. Buckley Jr.
Silence.
Wallace Stegner
Happy birthday, Adams.
Adams, Aspens, Northern New Mexico, 1958
Ansel Adams was born on this day in 1902.
Wilderness, or wildness, is a mystique. A religion, an intense philosophy, a
dream of ideal society—these are also mystiques. As the fisherman depends upon the river, lakes and seas, and
the farmer upon the land for his existence, so does mankind depend upon the
beauty of the world about him for his spiritual and emotional existence.
Ansel Adams
American Experience: Ansel Adams
One.
FOR the CHILDREN
The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
The steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.
In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valley, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.
To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
Gary Snyder