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"

Kindles.

Absence weakens mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out candles and kindles fires.
- François de la Rochefoucauld

Jerry Jeff Walker, "Trying To Hold The Wind Up With A Sail"

Happy Birthday, Leonardo.

Leonaardo, Vitruvian Man, 1487


Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.
- Leonardo da Vinci

Trusted.

Aye.

Investigate.

Schiele, Four Trees, 1917


I must see new things and investigate them. I want to taste dark water and see crackling trees and wild winds.
- Egon Schiele

Feast.

St. John.


Whole Roast Suckling Pig
Feeds 14-16 guests. One week’s notice needed to guarantee availability. Each pig costs £360.00 and orders for pigs are not processed until we have received an advanced payment for that amount, which will then be deducted from the final bill. Please note that we cannot offer a refund for the advanced payment towards the final bill and we do not offer the Suckling Pig on Sundays.

Menu.

More here.

Thank you, Veerle.

Perfection.

Rizos, Flight, 2010


Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery



Thanks, Randolfo.

Jerry Jeff Walker, "Down In Belize"

... happy men want just what they got.

Experience.

O'Keeffe, Red Barn In A Wheatfield, 1928


I feel that a real living form is the natural result of the individual’s effort to create the living thing out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown — where it has experienced something — felt something — it has not understood — and from that experience comes the desire to make the unknown — known … I in some way feel that everyone is born with it … but that with most of humanity it becomes blasted… one way or another.